Web Hosting 101 (and CMS systems)
Assignment for students in COMS 326:
Your final project must have an off-campus component, either a fully-hosted "mirror" of your radford.edu-hosted project (the contents of your coms326/final folder) or a supplementary off-campus site related to your Radford-hosted site. (For example, a blog or page done with an off-campus content management system.) The goal is get a little experience publishing on the Web outside the "radford.edu" domain.
2. Read the rest of this page: Some of the organizations linked to this page provide free hosting, but will put ads on your pages or limit your design options. Some offer both domain name registration and hosting for an annual fee. Some make Web publishing even easier than posting pages at Radford, but those sites usually restrict what you can do in some way.
Sites that offer you the most control will mention "command line" or "shell" access to their Unix Web servers, and will let you use SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) to upload a whole site of finished pages. Some hosts will use a Web-based FTP similar to the "Files" tab on MyRU, but others may expect you to use an "FTP client" program. FTP clients are built into systems like Dreamweaver and Kompozer, or you can install single-purpose FTP programs like Filezilla. (Most are somewhat similar to the FTP program built into Radford's MyRU "MyFiles" tab. Even if you don't use Filezilla, its help page will give you a good overview.)
YouTube has a bunch of FTP and FileZilla tutorials. This one seems clear and straightforward enough.
3. Most hosts also offer Content Management Systems (CMS) with complete site-themes and templates, combined with "dashboard," "control panel" or "edit this page" access within your browser. Here's another list of popular CMS systems. On the Radford campus, official university pages are managed with a CMS called Day CQ/5, which the university's webpages just refer to as "the Content Management System." (For a good overview, see this 26-page administrator's guide.) Also popular locally is one of the most widely used CMS systems, WordPress, which you can use for free at wordpress.com or download for free from wordpress.org and install on any hosted server. (It has become so popular that most hosting services pre-install it for you.)
WordPress "themes" are built with the PHP scripting language as well as HTML and CSS. Adobe is gradually building tools for editing WordPress themes into Dreamweaver. But there are so many attractive and flexible themes available -- free or for sale -- that many users do not need Dreamweaver or a lot of HTML and CSS experience to build successful sites with WordPress.
Read my WordPress tips page and WordPress notes for an introduction. WordPress is "not just for blogs." Around here, The Tartan, Whim, New River Voice, BlueRidge Muse and TheBurgs all use WordPress. Professional media organizations like IGN are using WordPress.com VIP.
See the WordPress and full-service hosting sections below for more about WordPress.com and other providers of WordPress hosting.
The friendly folks at Lifehacker asked their readers to identify their Favorite Personal Hosts and their Favorite Blogging Sites and came up with five-best lists. Prices for some of the hosting services may have changed, but watch for special sales, especially around the holidays. Unfortunately, class isn't in session on Black Friday, but there may still be Cyber Monday deals -- or even Spring Specials.
Some hosts offer tools that provide a fill-in-the-blanks approach to making pages, from simple HTML templates to all-Flash sites with advanced graphics. For your class projects, don't rely on such "we do it all for you" sites, but try them and learn from them. Be curious! Experiment and ask yourself, "How did they do that?" and "How can I do that on my own pages?"
At the end of your reading assignment and some experimentation (in and out of class), you should know the vocabulary of hosting, and some of the pros, cons and differences between services below. Among other topics, watch for information about issues and services including "MySQL databases," "e-commerce features," "CMS software" and "domain privacy." You should learn most of that language as you go along.
If a hosted CMS isn't technical enough for you, some hosts will sell you plain-vanilla server space, similar to a university Unix account -- leaving it up to you to install your own HTML pages or install and administer your own copy of one of the popular CMS systems.
But you don't need a server to learn: You can practice on your own computer first. Many CMS systems are based on open-source or free software that you can install on your own computer. Then you can experiment with the system's control panels and administrative tools, even if your computer isn't set up to be a server. (Packages like MAMP and WAMP help by installing underlying PHP and MySQL scripting and database programs for you.)
Well-known names like Microsoft, Google (example) and Apple also host Web publishing servers of various kinds, but on this page we're mostly interested in organizations that specialize in hosting. Unfortunately, hosting services come and go. Recent or impending departures include veteran hosts AmericaOnline, GeoCities and Radio.Weblogs.com. Always keep backup copies of information you put on free sites!
Warning: I have not used all of these services, and this page does not constitute any testing-based endorsement. In fact, comparison-testing of some of these sites would make an interesting course project. For example, you could compare monthly and annual costs, including whether they include free domain registration with a hosting contract. You could describe the "site building" tools they provide, explain whether you can edit your pages from the Web or have to edit locally and upload them, describe any library of page-design templates (and how attactive they are), or interactive tools like forms, mailing lists, shopping baskets etc.
Bob's bookmarks and hosting service experiences
My main bookmark list, keyword "hosting": http://delicious.com/bstepno/hosting
Recent (fall 2012) articles: Lifehacker.com has compiled "top 5 hosting" and "top 5 domain registries" lists and put the "top one" to a vote. The site includes discussions of the choices.
Note: After retiring from teaching in 2013, I removed a list of free hosting sites previously posted here. Web hosting and Web security are always evolving, and it's best to rely on up-to-date information.