Web Lingual

What Does All This Web Stuff Mean?

Maybe you've been using the Internet for awhile and still get a little confused. Maybe you are totally green but somebody said, "What! you're still not on the web yet?" Let's cover the basics, learn some of the lingual and what it means. Then you might either impress someone, or at least keep from appearing uninformed.

 

Which is Proper: Website or Web Site?

No one seems to know, so either is fine. You also don't have to worry about capitalizing, it's better not to. However, the word Internet should always be capitalized. Look at the bright side, at least it's not another acronym.

 

Domain Name:

This is essentially your starting point. You know it as www.whatever.com. Your domain name is "whatever." You need to find something that no one else has, then register it before someone else does. It is your unique identity. There are mostly two common domain designations; .com and .net. A third common designation of .org is for non profit organizations. We DO NOT recommend .biz, .info, or other such domains in most cases. A few other words of advice are:

1. If possible, try to avoid being too close to someone else (e.g. someone already has "whatever" so you choose "what-ever"). Yes, they will be different, but you may lose traffic if someone forgets the hyphen, plus, the other whatever will not be happy with you.
   
   
2. Upper case letters in your domain name are not recommended, use all lower case.
   
   
3. Consider registering your domain name under both .com and .net if they are both available. You do not have to build web sites for both, but it's a good idea to register both to prevent someone else from capitalizing on your name later.
   
   
4. If there are common misspellings of the domain name you want to use, it is a good idea to register those if they are available. In many cases, someone might be prone to use a plural version of a word where your domain might be singular. If possible, registering all variations is a good idea, and you can redirect all the others to your real web site under your preferred domain name.
   
   
5. DO NOT perform a search to see if the domain name(s) you want is/are available until you are ready to buy immediately. If you try to buy an available domain name later after a search, it will magically cease to be available because someone is always watching.

 

Domain Registration:

There are numerous contractors to provide this service and all of them deal with a single source called InterNIC. Once your registration is approved, you own worldwide rights to your domain name. Lease is actually a better term, you initially start with 1-10 years, then renew it before it expires. You can anticipate a cost of about $10 per year. You can usually register your domain name through the hosting service you choose (see next section below), but it's a good idea to use separate sources for each service.

 

Web Site Hosting:

What is hosting? Simply put, when you have a web site developed, you will need a hosting service to make it available to all Internet users. This is not the same as an Internet Service Provider (ISP), but many ISP's do provide hosting. ISP's provide access to the Internet itself, hosting makes your web site accessible on the Internet. The quality, service, capabilities and even costs of hosting differ greatly. It is not our purpose here to endorse any particular service or provide a spec sheet for choosing one. Every situation is different, but here are some of the things you need to have addressed in making that decision:

1. Servers (special computers) are the means by which users access a hosted web site, your web site. A hosting service needs to be able to handle the traffic that is created. Their servers need to be fast enough. Back-up servers are also a good idea.
   
   
2. Do they allow direct access to make changes and updates? We feel this one is very important.
   
   
3. Do they support all the features you will want to have on your web site?
   
   
4. Many servers no longer require users to include the "www" when entering the web address. You might want to ask about this when selecting a hosting service.
   
   
5. There has been a proliferation of cheap hosting in the market. We do not recommend using cheap hosting. Something has to give to provide this, and very often, one of those things is security. We have seen web sites get defaced and hijacked because of the poor security of hosting companies.
   
   
6. We recommend using a hosting company with a long history and good customer satisfaction that can be verified. Poor customer service is all too common in the hosting business.

It is a advisable to choose a hosting service once the general concept of your web site has been developed. Then the programming of the site can be streamlined. Do comparative shopping. Even if you start out knowing nothing about hosting, shopping around can be of great value and it will reduce the risk of making the wrong decision. It will benefit you a lot more than what we can accomplish on this page.

Most important is that we can evaluate your specific needs and help you make these decisions, or even provide the services for you. Simply contact us and we will provide the assistance you need that applies to your exact situation.

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Web Design Information:

Avoid Land Mines in Web Design
Web Design Is For Humans
Principles of Web Success
Web Lingual Explained
Freebies That Bite
Better Than Free
Search Engine Optimization
Benefits of Having a Web Site

Examples of Web Site Design

 

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