HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
If you don't know where to register a domain name, I recommend picking a
good web hosting company. You can search the Internet for “best web hosting”
or “top 10 web hosting companies” to ind suggestions. Most of the top web
hosting companies also provide domain name registration and management
service as part of a hosting plan package and throw in extras such as email and
database services. It is very convenient to have a single company manage all
three aspects of hosting a website:
Domain name registration
Securing the rights to a name, such as
.
example.com
Domain name service
Locating the hosts in a domain, such as
.
www.example.com
Web hosting service
Providing storage and bandwidth for one or more
.
websites
Essentially, for each website in a domain, the hosting company conigures a
virtual host with access to a directory of iles on one of the company's comput-
ers for the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, image, and other iles that constitute the
site. he hosting company gives authorized users access to this directory using
a web-based ile manager, FTP programs, and integrated development tools.
he web server has access to this directory and is conigured to serve requests
for that website's pages from its resources. Either that directory or one of its
subdirectories is the designated document root of that website. It usually has
the name public_html, htdocs, www, or html.
When a new web host is created, either the document root is empty, or
it may have a default index ile. his ile contains the HTML code that is
returned when the website's default home page is requested. For example, a
request for http://www.example.com/ may return the contents of a ile named
index.html. he index ile that the web hosting company puts in the document
root when it initializes the website is generally a holding, “Under Construc-
tion” page and is intended to be replaced or preempted by the iles you upload
to that directory.
he default index page is actually speciied in the web server's coniguration
as a list of ilenames. If a ile with the irst name on the list is not found in the
directory, the next ilename in the list is searched for. A typical list may look
like this:
index.cgi, index.php, index.jsp, index.asp, index.shtml, index.html,
index.htm, default.html
