Hi. I use http://www.freeola.com. They have a great web builder. Its £3.45 a month with unlimited bandwidth and web space. You can get a URL for a few pounds per year. No need to get broadband from them either. Runs on their servers so always up.

If you want to run a server from home you will need a fixed IP unless you go through someone like **LINK** where you can point your dynamic IP address to a static hostname for free.

regards

First thing to do is establish whether you can be assigned a static IP from your ISP. I have one from mine which costs $4 per month (which is peanuts). If they have their Tariff on their website it should tell you there, otherwise a phone call should elicit the information.

Be aware that they may frown on website hosting on private subscriber services so it would be better not to mention it. Be aware also that if you have data limitations with hefty fees for overages, it could get very expensive.

Also if you have adsl, unless you have a fast connection it may not be that practical.Your up (from you) speed will probably be around 1/10 of your down speed – not usually noticeable in normal use because your outgoing data is a tiny fraction of your incoming data. But running a website both the up speed and down speed are crucial.

Edited By Bandersnatch on 05/11/2017 00:18:11

I use 123-Reg, just bought a low-end package, found the website builder was too restrictive (an no undo!) so rebuilt evrything using Joomla. Other suse wordpress and Drupal.

Be aware that almost no-one codes in plain HTML any more, they all use database driven CMS systems.

The problem I have is all my pictures are too big I really need to upload reduced versions.

Depending on what you want to do it might be worth looking at a Blog site provider. There are some, rather clunky, options that are free. You could try one out and when you get fed up just drop it.

Are you intending to produce a model engineering related site?

I built my first site using a free Serif programme, having it hosted by a third-party based down on the south coast. The programme was incredibly limiting and frustrating. With the help of the provider, I migrated to Word Press, which I also used to build and maintain a friend's business website.

The host company is a small firm, offers very reasonable rates, are easy to contact and provide simple, clear support without charging and are reliable.

I did look at hosting it all locally on my own equipment, but the reliability and support from the provider made this less attractive.

James.

You can go basically one of two ways. A free hosting company like Wix, Weebly, Freeola, WordPress.com to name but a few or you buy a hosting package from one of the many hosting companies, 123reg, BigDaddy, 1&1 etc.

I host my website Journeyman's Workshop with 1&1 using a cheap package, I have never had any problems with them and have been up and running without interuption for many years. My site includes both static pages and a WordPress blog all covered in the package. Bandwidth is unlimited you get e-mail addresses and they offer free domain names with some packages. I have a few domains registeed with them and the auto renewal works without a hitch.

Downside of the free hosting is adverts on every page, limited bandwidth and usually limited layouts.
Downside of buying hosting is the monthly fee.

As to actually writing web pages you can go for Serif or similar web editors. Most of the free hosting outfits have their own editors as indeed do most of the hosting companies. If you like code mangling you can be a dinosaur like me and hard code it using something like Notepad++ I upload using Fire FTP from Firefox maintain a copy of every page locally and the WordPress database is backed up weekly.

John

Edit: Typo

Edited By Journeyman on 05/11/2017 10:29:21

Worth looking at the Mike's Workshop site, run by Mike Cox who posts here. It uses Weebly which claims to be free – see the link at the bottom of the home page. Looks pretty good to me.

I've been following this with interest as I'd like to set up a webpage. I have had a couple in the past but they were closed down due to demands for payment or from lack of use.

I don't want to sell anything, just make a page of my modelling activities for anyone who is interested.

Brian

Having the 'benefit' of slow and erratic broadband I am very conscious of the bandwidth-hungry nature of many web sites. It is still possible to build very simple sites using html, php and mysql.

Although I'm no expert I have created a very basic family history* site which I hope will display properly on any device. So many people browse the web on their smartphones and tablets these days.

*The underlying layout would work for any simple site, such as model engineering projects.

Edited By Farmboy on 06/11/2017 10:08:06

I've used GoDaddy for a few hosted servers (sons' gaming interests) and they were a bit of a PITA. It was all terribly exciting and spiffy but the staff seemed to be pretty silly and ineffectual. I suspect most of their customers are teenaged gamers who don't care or know any better.

I've been using freeparking.co.uk for hosting my own website the last 15 years and they are simple and pretty straightforward. Like most hosting providers, they offer a range of free and paid-for products including Weebly etc. I seem to be paying £16 a year currently, which doesn't seem unreasonable, although this simply entails domain forwarding as it stands. At one time I also used 1&1 but for some reason I let that lapse.

I don't bother creating my own website any more. At one time I even used Dreamweaver to create a really flashy one, mainly to understand how to do it properly. Nowadays I simply use Blogger to maintain a blog. It's connected to my domain name by domain forwarding, which is a another standard service most hosts offer. So when you type in my domain name http://www.murraye.com, it forwards you to the Blogger page and masks the messy web address. If you are simply making periodic update postings that show what you are up to, a blog is simple and quick. You can make a post in seconds with minimal buggerage.

You can usually do everything through one provider ie buy a domain name, set up a website (Weebly, Blogger software etc), get it hosted and set up domain forwarding etc.

Murray

Web-sites are like machine tools: you can get anything between a Seig C0 and a factory full of automatics and robots. So, step one, as always in Engineering, is to specify your requirement. Don't expect to run the equivalent of ebay on Weebly! Don't buy a Data Centre and CMS to publish Parish Council News.

Things to think about:

• How many concurrent users do you expect?
• How much bandwidth do you think will be consumed? (Videos are much more expensive than plain text.)
• How much data will the site host?
• Do you expect the website to grow and if so by how much? (Can be expensive!)
• Do you want to run a shop or otherwise take money? (Complicated, fraud protection, etc.)
• Do you just want to serve documents and pictures, or do something more complicated involving a database, form filling, collecting personal detail or active content etc.
• How much does it matter if your website gets hacked?
• How much time and effort do you personally want to put in.

Some examples:

• My ISP provides a simple free web-hosting service. It cannot support more than about 10 concurrent users, is limited to 512Mb of data, and there are no tools or server-side scripting. To use it I have to write HTML and manually publish it; there is no technical support and backup/recovery is my problem. It's useful if you are technically savvy with a small user base interested in simple information. Otherwise, it's very basic and hard work.
• My ISP also provides a range of more heavy duty facilities. These come as packages, adding stuff like more data storage, tools, scripting, bandwidth, security, support and other services. The basic package is suitable for something like a club, at the high-end small businesses are catered for. None of these options are particularly cheap but publishing and maintaining the website is much easier; they do most of the work.
• There are a several 'free' hosting options like Weebly. Typically these come with a tool to simplify building more-or-less sophisticated web-sites, will support a decent number of users, and a reasonable amount of data. Like my ISP, there may be a range of packages on offer. Their business models vary, but hooking customers often features. Sometimes they insert advertising into your content; another method is to start cheap and then increase the cost later. (If you invest a lot of time and money in the content, and have many people using a successful website, it can be very painful to move. This is particularly true if their 'free' publishing software is proprietary. ) Another model relies on the web owner needing to grow. Charges apply when more storage or bandwidth or facilities are wanted. Don't be too put off by these comments; choose the right option in the first place and prices are competitive. Just have a think about how you expect your website to evolve (or not!) and read the small print. Don't be the man who buys a knackered secondhand Seig C0 when he really needs a Hardinge, and only eventually gets there by upgrading via a mini-lathe, Super 7, and BH600.
• If you have a moderate requirement (hundreds of users, Gigabytes of data, Content Management etc.), then usually better to go straight to a straightforward paid service. These are more likely than their free brethren to be unencumbered with complications like advertising and costly expansion deals.  It will be necessary to read small print.
• Hosting at home is generally unattractive unless you already have the necessary skills, time and inclination to do the work.  Quite expensive too.
• If your requirement is high-end the best way forward is to send for the professionals. If you don't already have an IT Department, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and many others offer the necessary consultancy. Be prepared to pay big bucks!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 06/11/2017 11:08:33