Putting Your Site on the Internet
So, how does the Website get from your Computer onto the Internet?
The website pages need to be uploaded to the Internet by use of an ftp program as mentioned on the previous page. Before this can be done, it is necessary to arrange with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) for a server that can host your website. This is a computer that is directly connected to the Internet backbone network, as it is not possible for your own computer to do this.
Free Hosting
There are a number of organisations that will host your family history website for free, such as the evergreen Rootsweb, now sponsored by Ancestry and currently hosting nearly 14,000 such websites worldwide. The domain name provided by Rootsweb however is not very catchy, being of the memorable form http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~your website/. Another type of free host is Ancestors Genealogy, a website who say they care about genealogy and have thus donated web space to the community at large, currently hosting eighteen different websites for other people. Obviously any free host could take it offline at any moment, but it certainly appears to be a good deal for non-commercial family history websites.
Paid Hosting
To get total control over your website and a easy to remember domain name (such as www.yoursite.org.uk) and associated email address, it is necessary to pay for the hosting service. A google search will bring up many suitable companies offering this service and it pays to shop around. The company hosting this website is one.com located in Denmark, which offers reliable servers and additional services to the web space such as a blog, photograph galleries and database facilities.
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