Websites can be used for many different purposes; you can make a personal website about yourself where you may want to post family photos that you might want to share with friends and family, or you may want to build a business website so that you can sell your products online and promote your business through the means of the internet. Many people would love to be able to create their own website, but don’t necessarily have the knowledge to do so; although there are many web-based products which claim to let you build your own website, they don’t necessarily let you customize your website as much as you want since your are limited to certain templates- because of this you should always learn how to build your own website from scratch with HTML.

Learning Languages

To build the most basic of websites you need to start off by learning HTML and CSS. HTML is the basic language of all web pages - without it you won’t even be able to create one page. CSS stands for ‘Cascading Style Sheets’ and is the language used to style elements on a web page - you need to know this if you want to make your web pages look good. If you want to extend the features of your website to include something dynamic, such as a shopping cart then you will need to learn a server side web language such as PHP or ASP.

There are many resources on the internet that you can use to learn web languages, including:

• http://www.w3schools.com - This site has tutorials for languages which are widely used on the internet. This resource if perfect to get your from being a novice to having intermediate knowledge of web languages.
• http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/ - This site has many different articles, tutorials and code examples which can help you to learn ASP.NET, and its older sister - classic ASP.
• http://uk3.php.net/tut.php - PHP.net - the home website of the PHP scripting language has put together a simple tutorial to help out beginners.

Once you have learnt the basics of HTML and CSS, you are ready to start building your website.

Choosing the Design Software

When building a website you need to design what piece of software you will be using to do it. When choosing web design software, there are several variables that you should always take into consideration, these are: cost of the software, the complexity of the software and whether you are going to build using your own code or by using a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. Website design software can range from nothing to around £500; if you are going to be building your site using your own code then you have no need for a WYSIWYG editor meaning that all you need is a text application, such as Microsoft Notepad or jEdit - a piece of software specifically built for this kind of scenario. If you are after a piece of software which you would like to do all the coding for you and that lets you see the final outcome without having to do anything complicated then you want a piece of software which is known as a ‘WYSIWYG’ editor; these pieces of software generally cost, and examples include NetObject’s Fusion and Adobe’s Dreamweaver. WYSIWYG editors are generally more complicated to use than normal text editors since they have more built in features to help someone along with the building of their site. Listed below are some of the most commonly used website design programs:

• http://www.microsoft.com/express/vwd/Default.aspx - Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express Edition is a free piece of Microsoft software created to encourage more developers and designers alike to take up ASP.NET coding. It can be used as both a WYSIWYG editor and a plain text editor, and has many features built in.
• http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-gb/vstudio/default.aspx - Microsoft Visual Studio is VWD’s bigger brother and it’s costs vary since there are various different editions of it.
• http://www.jedit.net/ - jEdit is a free plain text editor that was created specifically for web designers. You can use it to script in any language, but it doesn’t come with a WYSIWYG editor.
• http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/ - Adobe Dreamweaver (formally Macromedia Dreamweaver) is probably the best known piece of website design software throughout the world. It comes with both a code editor and a WYSIWYG editor, but is quite costly priced at $399 (approximately £199).

Getting Your Website onto the Internet

Getting your website onto the internet doesn’t have to be the complicated process that many make it out to be. All you need to do is purchase a domain and website hosting and you are all set to go. A domain is the address which you type in to go to a website - the cost of these is relatively low as you can pick a domain up for about £5/year these days; web hosting as well is relatively cheap as in most cases you pick a package up for £22.99/year. After you have purchased both of these you should be given access to an online system known as a ‘control panel’ where you can control all aspects of your website and its hosting.

To upload your website to your web space all you need to do is establish an FTP connection with the FTP server for your site (normally ftp://ftp.yourdomain.com). You will be asked to login with your FTP account - these can normally be created through your control panel. Once a connection has been established you have to copy your website files into the root of your website, this is a folder normally named ‘public_html’ under Linux hosting or ‘httpdocs’ if you are on Windows hosting.

Once the files have been copied, all you need to do is open a fresh browser window, type your domain into the address bar and your website should appear as if by magic!

Promoting Your Website

You’ve got your website completed and on the web now. The next thing to do is to get your website promoted so that you can start receiving visitors. You can submit your website online directories under a category that fits your website and sign up to online advertising services so that your website will be advertised on other websites; you should also make sure that your website is listed in the results of popular search engines such as MSN, Google, and Yahoo - this will ensure that your website receives visitors. You should find the links below helpful when promoting your website:

• http://www.google.com/adwords/ - Google AdWords is Google’s advertiser network which is known as a PPC (pay per click) program where you can create your own adverts for your website which will be then shown on the websites of Google publisher’s.
• http://www.url-free.net/ - This is a prime example of a website directory where you can submit your website to a certain category where it can then be found by others who are browsing the category.

Here is a domain-related tutorial aimed at the complete newbie to buying domains, what scams should you look out for when buying domains and so much more.

Firstly I’ll go through the each subject we will cover in brief, in bullet-points, and then later down I’ll explain about each bullet-point individually.

• What the heck are domain names? – Doesn’t need to be a brain surgeon to know – you’ll find out about domain names, what they are used for, and the actual “ins and outs” of the whole system.

• Choosing a reliable web registrar is vitally important. Find out what registrar’s you should and should not go with.

• Choosing the right domain name is important, for example you won’t want ‘aaa.com’ as the domain name if your Website is related to fish, would you?

• Choosing the right domain name extension is another important thing you need to consider – but why? – find out below!

1.) Well firstly a domain name is a bunch of letters, numbers and hyphens that make up the domain name, for example www.eukhost.com – that is our domain name address that points to our homepage. The extension on our domain name is quite self-explanatory (.com). There are many domain name extensions around the globe – for example, country-code are 2 letter-worded extensions (example, .uk or .us) and there are many global top level domains (gTLD’s) such as .net and .org which can be technically registered by anyone as it’s “global” and not owned by a specific country. For instance, .UK domains are UK-based, thus the UK owns the domain extension. In-fact there are many other domain extensions such as .gov (which obviously can only be registered by governmental agencies) and .edu (for educational institutes). I found a useful Website that shows a listing of all the current TLD’s around the world (http://domainlinked.com/list-of-all-domain-name-extensions-tlds/). If you ever have heard of ICANN or the long-term Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – and as stated on their website: “ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet’s system of unique identifiers” – if you have ever come across a domain registration service – if the domain registration service is an “accredited registrar” then that means it is an ICANN approved registrar.

Have you ever heard about IP (Internet Protocol) addresses? Well every domain name has one. An IP address consists of numbers separated by periods (for example 82.98.762.45) – but all IP’s are a bundle of numbers separated with periods (a bundle of 4 - if that all makes sense). Unfortunately us humans won’t remember such long IP addresses and let’s face it – they don’t really explain in the least fashion what the site will be ‘expected’ to be like.

2.) Choosing a registrar to buy your domains from isn’t as easy as it may seem. Okay, the biggest registrar is Godaddy.com, and their prices are reasonably affordable – but you want to be buying domains from a company that provides responsive support via e-mail (within a few hours preferably) – because at any time there could be a serious problem which you may need to contact your registrar about – and would you be prepared to wait 24 hours for a response? Didn’t think so. You may want to take use of some registrar review sites to see other consumer reviews about the domain registrar you are considering – you never know, their services may be the best, but support as rubbish as a dust-bin! P.S. You may want to see http://www.namepros.com/registerindex.php for registrar reviews

3.) Choosing your desired domain name (and its extension) is fairly important as much as finding the right registrar is. Try and make the domain name relate to your Website – i.e. make the domain name more expectant (for example, eUKhost would presumably get you expecting to see something relating to UK Web hosting). Rather short domains are nice, but unless you are tricking them into mismatch typos or just to type it the domain name in randomly then short domains are pretty worthless. It’s best to have your website’s name as the domain name, though make sure the domain name is readable, easy to remember – and most of all, not too long. Unless its necessary to add numbers in your domain name, I do recommend avoiding it – it doesn’t particularly look nice in domain names.

4.) Now going onto domain extensions. A domain extension (as explained in the preceding sections) is for example .com, .org, .edu, .gov, .co.uk, etc. Now two letter worded domains are ccTLD’s (country code top level domains) and some ccTLD’s can’t be registered unless you are a resident of that specific country. The most well known and used gTLD’s are .com and .net. .COM is usually for commercial sites and .net for Internet related sites. .ORG is usually registered for non-profit charitable organizations, but could be also used for open source software organizations.

You need to know that .edu and .jobs extensions are strictly to those kind of sites alone and you need to comply to those rules.

Lastly, there are .gov domains (.GOV is usually for American government sites and gov.uk is always for UK government sites).

5.) Name servers usually look like ns1.domainname.com and ns2.domainname.com and they point to your domain name. Your Web host assigns you your name servers, and then it’s your job to assign them from your domain registrar’s control panel. Just think of name servers as strings that hold your domain name to your web hosting account!

Well I hope you have learnt something out of my latest article and hope you enjoyed it. This article is based for the beginners needing help and advice on getting started for their first domain name. Remember if you need affordable UK Web hosting contact us now 24/7 on 0808 262 0255.

If you are working towards consolidating your domain portfolio, below are answers to our most frequently transfer questions for “.com, .org, .net and .co.uk” domain names.

1. How long does it take to transfer my .com, .org, .net domain to new registrar?
Ans: Once submitted and confirmed by the administrative contact, it takes approximately 5 to 7 days to complete a transfer.

2. What if the administrative contact email is not active?
Ans: ICANN requires the administrative contact listed on the WHOIS record of the domain name to confirm the transfer; therefore, if the administrative contact address is no longer active, you must first update your current email with the original registrar.

3. Once I have removed the Registrar Lock on my domain, how long do I have to wait to transfer it?
Ans: Registrar Lock takes 12 to 24 hours to show-up as removed; only when this occurs is the domain name transferable.

4. How long do I have to wait to transfer my domain name if it was recently registered?
Ans: For a newly registered domain name you need to wait at least 60 days before transferring. For a domain name recently transferred to a new registrar, you will have to wait at least 30 days to transfer to different registrar.

5. My transfer failed, even though the admin contact confirmed it with new registrar, why?
Ans: Your transfer likely failed for one of two reasons: your current registrar either denied the request or did not release the domain to new registrar in time causing the transfer to time out. Contact your current registrar and inquire why the transfer out failed to occur.

6. Your systems require I submit an AUTHCODE for my .COM,.ORG, .BIZ and .INFO at the time of transfer. What is an AUTHCODE and where do I find it?
Ans: An AUTHCODE is a security feature for .COM,.ORG, .BIZ and .INFO domain extensions which prevent the unlawful transfer of your domain name. AUTHCODE’s are typically alpha-numeric code, and are unique to each domain name. AUTHCODE’s are sometimes called EPP Keys or AUTH KEYS. To get the AUTHCODE for your domain names contact your current registrar.

7. What will I need while transferring .CO.UK to the new registrar?
Ans: While transferring .CO.UK, .UK domains you have to contact your current registrar to change the IPS tag to the new registrar. The IPS-Tag is a single alpha-numeric sequence, in uppercase, sometimes hyphenated.

8. Something has gone wrong with my transfer and I need to contact my current registrar, is this something new registrar can do for me?
Ans: Unfortunately new registrar can not contact your current registrar on your behalf. For security purposes, domain registrars only provide information to the domain’s Administrative Contact.

9. My Transfer failed; do I need to resubmit it all over again?
Ans: Yes, if you have received a notice stating that your transfer has failed and been refunded, you will need to re-submit the transfer as you did originally.

10. When my domain name transfers will my DNS be affected?
Ans: No your DNS settings will remain the same as they were at your previous registrar, however please note if your previous registrar was your hosting company they may cancel your hosting once the domain name is moved from them. In this case you may wish to consider pointing DNS setting to the new hosting provider.

11. Will the one year renewal be automatically applied to my domain name?
Ans: Yes the one year renewal that is included with all Registrar transfers is added by the registry when the domain is transferred to your new registrar.

12. Before transferring my domain name I renewed it at my previous registrar. Now that the domain name has been transferred over, I’ve noticed the expiration date does not reflect the renewal from my previous registrar plus the one year from the transfer. What do I do?
Ans: Contact your pre-transfer registrar and find out if they applied the renewal you paid for to your domain name. The registry automatically adds an additional year during the transfer process, therefore there is no chance your domain did not receive this extension. Consequently, any missing years were most likely not applied by your previous registrar, in which case you owe a refund.

13. Can additional years beyond the standard one be added during the transfer process?
Ans: Unfortunately only one year can be added during the transfer; however you can always renew the domain name for additional years once it has successfully transferred over.

14. How many emails can an Administrative Contact expect to confirm during the transfer process?
Ans: The administrative contact will receive an email from the new registrar to confirm the transfer. The administrative contact may or may not also receive an email from their current registrar.

1. If you are interested in registering a domain name, find a registrar and search for the name in which you are interested and see whether it is available or not. With the rapid growth in web business, many popular domain names have already been taken. Many webmasters then get creative domain names by adding hyphens or numbers to their domain names. If you are also unable to get your preferred name, then you can use such creative methods using hyphens and numbers.

2. During the process of domain name registrations you should decide what top level domain you want to be. The most popular search is for .com and .net domains. But you can also search for .uk, .biz, .org, .info etc.

3. Once you select the domain name you need to decide the duration you want to hold that domain. Many registrars offer these services from one year to ten years. They also offer the opportunity to renew the domain if the contract expires.

4. Cost of this will vary depending upon the tenure you selected for the contract. To get the best deal its important for you to take a reference before you buy a domain name.

5. The most difficult part in domain name registration is choosing the best domain name. It is better to choose a domain which is easy to remember and also it should match your business. It will be best if there is one of the keyword or main word involved in domain name.

6. Including all this you should follow the rules of domain registrations. Copyrighted words or terms are not allowed in domain names; if you do use these then you could face legal problems.
7. Remember to keep your domain name under 67 characters as this is the maximum length allowed for domain names.

Wild card DNS is used in DNS record for domains, where anything.domainname will show the domain name page, it is also said that the wild card character used to search for text, and may represent any character (or any character in a set). A wild-card character is like a wild card in a card game, which may represent any other card in the deck. Wildcard DNS allows us to set up a host to respond to any particular hostname in the domain.

For eg : abc.domainname will show domainname page
To set up Wild Card, please follow the below steps ::
—————————————————————–
Enter the entry in Zone file ::

For eg :

#vi /var/named/domainname.db

; Modified by Web Host Manager
; Zone File for domainname
$TTL 14400
@ 86400 IN SOA ns1.eukhost.com. cpanel.eukhost.com. (
2006062906
86400
7200
3600000
86400
)

domainname. 86400 IN NS ns1.eukhost.com.
domainname. 86400 IN NS ns2.eukhost.com.

domainname. 14400 IN A IP
localhost.domainname. 14400 IN A 127.0.0.1
domainname. 14400 IN MX 0 domainname.

mail 14400 IN CNAME domainname.
www 14400 IN CNAME domainname.
ftp 14400 IN A IP
*.domainname. 14400 IN A IP

Due to clustering, this entry should be present on the all the Servers from where the DNS for the domain is resolving.

After entering this entry restart named on the Server.

Also, the entry has to be made in the virtual host on the server:
——————————————————————————
For eg :

#vi /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf

ServerAlias www.domain.com domain.com *.domain.com
ServerAdmin webmaster@domain.com
DocumentRoot /home/user/public_html
BytesLog domlogs/domain.com-bytes_log
ServerName www.domain.com
User user
Group user
CustomLog /usr/local/apache/domlogs/domain.com combined
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /home/user/public_html/cgi-bin/

After entering this entry, restart Apache server.