View Text Website Hosting Domain Names Building a Website Promoting a Website

Basic Information
     For basic information on using computers and the Internet, see the section on Computer and Internet Resources.  The section on Computer and Internet Resources includes the following topics: Expert Advice, Hardware, Basic Software, Free Software, Internet Access, Internet Privacy Resources, and Offline Browsers.

Website Hosting Services
     There are 3 different types of website hosting:
1. Free webhosting
2. Commercial website hosting
3. Social change movement website hosting.

1. Free Webhosting
     Most ISP's (Internet Service Providers) provide free (noncommercial) pages to their customers.
Free webhosting list  from Web Host Magazine & Buyer's Guide.
Freewebspace.net.
Free webhosting.
Free web sites from cashflow.com.

2. Commercial Website Hosting
    If you're willing to spend some time researching your options, you can save money and/or stretch your webhosting dollar.  Most beginners only need budget hosting.  Once you need more features and/or bandwidth, then it pays to shop around. Beginners can get basic cheap webhosting with a no-frills low-bandwidth website, while larger and more evolved websites may require many more features and/or large amounts of cheap bandwidth.  Prices and features really do vary, so it pays to shop around.  Here are a few features you may want: cheap prices, detailed website stats, access logs/hit logs, "unlimited bandwidth" (be sure to check the "terms of service" to find out exactly how much bandwidth "unlimited bandwidth" really means), high-speed website access (see the bandwidth reference guide for more info), 99% or 100% uptime, and/or cheap bandwidth for high-bandwidth websites.

Budget webhosting for beginners from c/net Internet Services.
Budget webhosting from Webhost directory.
Web Host Magazine and Buyer's Guide.  Includes a free hosting list.

HostReview.com.  Includes a power search function and some tools.
Hostindex.com.  Includes a detailed power search function and additional webhost name search and webhost comparison options.
Hostsearch.  Includes 9 power search functions.
Webhosters.com.  Includes different searches, including the combination search, and various tools.
Hostcompare.  Includes 5 power search functions.
Hosting Repository.  Includes a power search function.
Comparewebhosts.com.  Includes a power search function.

Webhost directory  Includes a budget webhosting list.
Tophosts.com.  Includes top 25 web hosts.
HostPulse.
host Global.

Power search from Host Finder.
Power search from Host Spot.  [Slow website.]

Google.com advanced search.

Concise webhosting guide
Webhosting Guide from webhostsonline.com.  Concise.  Includes a bandwidth reference guide.

Tools
Ping: test the speed of your host from HostReview.com.
Traceroute: view the network path to your host from HostReview.com.
Website speed test from HotPulse.
Tools from Webhosters.com.
Sitespeed Meter from c/net Internet Services

3. Social Change Movement Website Hosting
OneWorld Online (based in England) offers website hosting for organizations whose work is consistent with the promotion of human rights and sustainable development.

APC - the Association for Progressive Communications is a global partnership of computer networks that link activists around the world.
IGC- the Institute for Global Communication is an American nonprofit organization and APC member that offers website hosting services for social change organizations and offers far and away the largest number of left-wing political newsgroups on the Internet.  They host over 300 social change organizations on their extensive website.
ServInt freenet offers free website hosting to registered registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations.
Envirolink offers free website hosting services to non-profit organizations within the environmental and animal rights communities.
Free Speech Internet Television provides free or low cost web hosting with unlimited bandwidth and offers a collection of left-wing video and audio presentations.
GreenNet is a progressive Internet Service Provider in London, England which offers website hosting services.

Domain Name Registration
NetNation Communications.
Network Solutions.
InterNIC.
Register.com.

Building a Website
     You can build your own website without knowing HTML.  If you don't already have software you want to use that can generate web pages, I recommend Microsoft FrontPage 2000.  If you have additional questions or could use some help, I can provide technical assistance for people producing websites with Green values (for $40/hour labor, $20 minimum charge).
     For most people and organizations with Green values, I would suggest using a low-tech approach to building websites using your existing software, Microsoft FrontPage 2000, or a comparable product.  I believe that quickly and inexpensively stating and updating your message is much more important than fancy graphics, which you can always add later.  Also, low-tech websites have smaller files which can be downloaded faster.  There are more expensive, graphics-based website publishing software packages for sale, but if you're just starting out I would recommend using Microsoft FrontPage 2000.

Free Website Search Tools
     Enabling viewers to search your website can be easily done.   I use the Thunderstone Free Search Engine Service.   Here are some additional Site Search Options presented by the Search Tools website (searchtools.com).  Also, here are free website search indexing offers by Pinpoint, whatUseek, FreeFind, and Jayde.com.

Promoting a Website
     You can expect to get most of your website traffic from the major search engines such as Yahoo, Alta Vista, Excite, Infoseek, HotBot, and Lycos.   You can also expect to get some traffic from links from other websites.  E-mailing similar websites and offering reciprocal links is a good way to get more links.   While submitting manually submitting each URL of your website to the major search engines is adequate, here are some website promotion tools and leads to make your work easier and more productive:
          
SubmitWolf PRO is a top-quality program for automating your submissions to the search engines on the Internet.  (Just post to the search engines.  Skip the automated submissions to the link sites unless you want extra junk e-mail.)
Ultimate Promotion offers a surprisingly affordable package deal for promoting your website in addition to listing plenty of additional resources.
Submission Station *FREE* - The first stop in Website submission.  Submit multiple URLs to 24 of the Web's most popular search engines with a single click...for free!

Selfpromotion.com offers a comprehensive website list (including a list of award sites), but could be more automated.  For $10 they offer a program that will automatically submit a list of URLs to 9 major search engines.
Jayde Online and Submit-away.com offer lists of additional website promoting tools.
Matilda Multi-Simple Submit is a free service that allows you to submit each URL to your choice of the main Internet search engines.
The Net-Ads Promotion Guide offers a list of a list of search engines and a list of award sites. 
Yahoo provides info on Internet Marketing and Advertising.
Submit-it.
Register-it.
Postmaster offers opt-in email and well as an expensive website promotion service.

Tune Up Your Web Site Free:

One of the most cumbersome parts of website maintenance is finding and fixing bad or invalid Internet links.  Linkbot offers a powerful but expensive automated link check solution.  Microsoft Frontpage offers a slower but much more affordable automated link check solution. Webmasters can use ClickTrade to get paid for specific links.

Internet Searching and Adding URLs Also see promoting a website and the list of the main search engines from Net-Ads. Create another search page (so you can easily search again from the new page). Direct Hit provides critical technology for many search engines.

Search Alta Vista Anzwers AOL NetFind Excite GoTo HotBot Infoseek LookSmart Lycos Netscape Net Search Northern Light Snap! PlanetSearch Yahoo WebCrawler What-U-Seek

Add URL to Search Engines Add URL to Alta Vista Add URL to Anzwers Add URL to AOL NetFind Add URL to Excite Add URL to GoTo (not free) Add URL to HotBot Add URL to Infoseek Add URL to LookSmart (instructions) Add URL to Lycos Add URL to Northern Light Add URL to Snap! by e-mailing SubmitURL@snap.com. Add URL to PlanetSearch Add URL to Yahoo (instructions) Add URL to WebCrawler Add URL to What-U-Seek

Advanced Search Alta Vista Advanced Search Anzwers Power Search Excite Power Search HotBot: SuperSearch Infoseek Advanced Search Lycos Pro Northern Light Power Search

Netscape Search

Excite      Infoseek

LookSmart      Lycos

Netscape      Alta Vista

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