How do you make a website from scratch?

Question

I can't stress the keyword enough; FROM SCRATCH. I want to know how to make a website. Forget any sort of platform like Wix or Webs, forget buying a domain or using some sort of free foreign one. How do you code and host an HTML website, publish it to the WWW, and create your own domain without having to buy or subscribe to using any sort of web hosting service. What are the rules and boundaries? Are there laws you'd have to follow? I'm genuinely curious!

[image source:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/05/13/simple-explanation-internet-things-that-anyone-can-understand/#37a36cf66828]

Answer 1

You cannot create your own domain. Can you create your own phone number? Nope. You will become part of an existing system, so you can't go full-fledged libertarian bonehead on this one.



What you can do is install a webserver on a computer that runs 24/7 (a Raspberry Pi will do) and put your website on that. Then you need to enable port forwarding in your router, so outside requests for http/port 80 are routed to the raspberry (or whatever you're going to be using as server).



As soon as you do that, the website can be viewed by going to your public IP address, that's the one you see here: https://www.whatismyip.com/

If you don't have a static IP, this address will change roughly every 24 hours, which is why people came up with domain names. You can get a free one at http://noip.com (only a subdomain though).

Answer 2

Solution 1: Make a server on your machine. Cost: $0.

Go to http://apachefriends.org, download XAMPP, install it following intructions to the letter.

In the folder c:/xampp/htdocs, create a new folder (ie: mysite). Upload your codes to that folder.

Start apache (control panel visible), Start mysql.

Open your browser and type "localhost/mysite" in the address bar. There you are! Your OWN website, on your OWN server, TOTALLY FREE!! Only one problem: you can only see it on your machine, not on the web!



Solution 2:

Set-up your own server. Costs: $10,000's+++ (in the high end)

Buy a proper server (a PC WON'T DO) (~$2500)

It comes with all the necessary software.

Ask your wire/cable/fibre company to set-up a FAST, dedicated line, connected directly to the web backbone. The cost will vary from a few $1000's to many, many more if you are physically far away from a Web Node.

Register as a domain retailer (lots of admin difficulties and costs)

You are then a full, official host and you can build many websites.

Running costs will depend on the traffic you have, but will be, at the minimum, $1000/month.



Solution 3. Be reasonnable! Cost: $50 / year!

Find a hosting company with a domain/server plan ($10 for a domain, $40 for the server).

Upload your files to that server.

You are up and running...

Answer 3

So - you have a computer and the internet........ why are you so damn helpless?



Try searching 'Web design for Dummies'. That may not be the perfect or absolute title - but - the book exists because I have one at home. Amazon.com or EBay will have it.



Laws? I am a US citizen, but, after having my US copyright images stolen by two London papers and a Polish TV station - I moved images to a UK hosted website. See, although the US recognizes European copyright - the Europeans do not recognize American. So, if you do not want your stuff hijacked and re-used - you really want the internet provider to be in Europe someplace.



You would be best taking a peek at Word Press....... get a feel for what the current person who visits a web site is looking for in nice looks and feel. For $5 to $10 a month you can get a web site up and quicky running. Most sits will let you 'build' 2 or 3 websites hidden in the background....... this would be your 'play pen'.



Doing it from, scratch, the way you describe - is not unlike asking someone how to learn to mine lead, graphite, and mill wood - just so you can say you wrote a story with a pencil you made yourself. If it takes you half a year to build a $.27 pencil - you have certainly NOT accomplished much - or - gotten any of your story written!!



If you determined to do it on your own - get the for Dummies book. Have your internet provider assign you a static IP address. You will need an old computer to host your server on that can run 24/7. That static IP is usually a $25 to $75 set up charge and adds $10 to $15 to your monthly internet bill. (For $5.72 a month I get the static IP + tech support, 100 email addresses, and free web building from a hosting provider....... its actually more cost effective to have it hosted than to do it yourself at home!!!)



Have fun

Answer 4

You need



1. A http server, which is a program that runs on your computer and processes incoming internet requests. It "serves" the web site to the internet. Apache is a good free one.



2. A connection to your ISP that allows for two way traffic on all the ports that are required for a web server. This is important because most consumer high speed internet access blocks the ports that you would use for a web server. Ie: it won't let people access your web site through port 80 or 8080. This can be a tricky/expensive fixed cost (it only pays for itself in bulk) and is why people choose hosting. If you don't use hosting this cost is 100% unavoidable.



3. You need the HTML code for your web site. Which is in TEXT format. The http server will deliver your code to all the users who request it and their browser will turn it into a web page. Every server is different but you have to learn how to set that up.



4. If you don't use a domain name service, you are stuck with a web address that is just numbers. When your ISP gives you the IP address, your users will have to type it in instead of a domain name, eg: http://20.20.20.20 in their browser and still find it. If you want your web site to have an address that is something other than numbers, you need a domain name registration service.



5. There are no special laws to follow.



the cost and inconvenience of 2 and 4 is why hosting is so popular. And there are many companies including google who provide free hosting.

Answer 5

You can create "index.html" as an ascii file on your PC and start filling it with HTML code to create 1 or more web pages that link together. Just look at the starting page with your browser while you create to make sure the pages work.



You can now build an entire 'web' of HTML pages that link together. But only you on that specific machine can access it.



If you want the web site to be available to the internet...



You can then download and install Apache for free. Start it running.



Now you go to another PC with a browser and go to "111.222.333.4444://index.html" and you should see the generic Apache main page on the first computer. (put in the IP address of the first machine in place of 111.222.333.4444).



On the first computer under the 'www' folder created with Apache - copy your .html and other files.



On the second computer you should now be able to see your user-created web pages.



WHY THIS IS A BAD IDEA



This opens the first PC up to the internet with your current & temporary IP address. If you cycle the power on your modem/box from your internet service provider, your IP address will change. Your ISP can also change your IP address at any time. This will cause your web page to change it's IP address.



When you run Apache or Tomcat - this opens the PC up to the internet. Lots of things 'scan' for new IP addresses to try and attack it. Hopefully you have no personal information on that PC.



Your web site only exists while that first PC is turned on and connected to your internet.



Static .html pages tend to be stale & boring after a few minutes. You often need technologies behind the web pages to do more interesting stuff. Things like PHP, Perl, my SQL, etc. all have to be installed by you and managed by you to be used on your web page.





THE BETTER SOLUTION



Paying $25 for a year of web-hosting from say GoDaddy or other hosting sites solves many problems. The hosting site gives you some other computer to use, it runs 24/7 and you get a 'Domain Name'. This is a name that points to your "index.html" that stays constant. Even if the power goes out and a new IP address is given to that computer, the 'Domain Name' points to the new IP address so people can still get to your site.



It also gives you a 'separate' computer for your web pages so malicious scanning wont find any of your personal information. Also - the traffic to the hosted site is pretty generous. If you host a web site on your PC in your home - the traffic goes against these new data caps that many ISP are starting to charge.

Answer 6

You can't make your own domain if you're up to start your own site. You'd have to buy it through the registrar (there are different for each extension). They basically list your domain name as a valid website over internet.



Rest, you can do on your own. Get a powerful PC and net connection. Use any Web-Server like IIS, WAMPs etc to set your own-web server.



But you'll have to look for few things then.

* Capacity (People visiting your site are going to eat your resources - RAM, Net Connection etc. Make sure you got plenty of those as your visitor increases)

* Security (Tons of people are going to try bringing you down)

* Technologies (Whether you're using ASP (IIS) or PHP (WAMPS), any additional tool you want (MySQL) etc)

Answer 7

Clear that last point for you: you have to buy, (why the lexicon don't say "rent" is beyond me) a domain and blank hosting service from somewhere, a Registrar and put the necessary information into the config console of that hosting service. Getting around that by buying a .cc and free-hosting for $0 is technically still the same thing.



The other way of getting around that properly is ultra costly in $grands/hour reserved for multi-national enterprises. Trying to do that sneakily on the cheap and it'll be prison food for you.



Unless you meant something private that happens to run on HTTP protocol, then no one cares how you set that up behind your router.



Then upload your site to the blank hosting service and follow all the programming guidelines to enable it to run smoothly, laws? Yeah but no one but lawyers know them on top of their head.

Answer 8

Lots of rules. You MUST register a domain name. If you host it yourself you will need to subscribe to a static IP address with your isp, and they normally want you to subscribe also to a business broadband service. That cost about 5 times as much as home broadband. Also if it gets busy you would need to subscribe to a very wide bandwidth service, as ALL visitors total downstream would become limited to your upstream, typically one twentieth to one tenth your downstream. You then need to set your domain registrar's DNS A and CNAME records to point to your IP address. you then need to run a server permanently. You would need to write the html, php, javascript and mysql code manually on the server. then set up appropriate ports forwarded to your server IP through the router. If you then want to be able to use your web url from inside your network you would need to also configure the server to run the private dhcp and dns for your network and turn off those service on your router.

Answer 9

Never thought too much about that

Answer 10

Hurrah, that's what I was exploring for! Thanks to author of this question.