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Internet Hosting by Hosterware UK is fast, unlimited and highly affordable at just £12 per year, free web apps incl. as used by 1000's of UK websites.

Make a domain a website on the internet using our web hosting, with a shopping cart, so your customers can buy your products and pay for it securely. Use our 1-click ecommerce web apps like Prestashop or Wordpress in Back Office included free with our web hosting

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Then sign up to and add any leading payment gateway to handle credit or debit cards by Paypal, Googlecheckout, Sagepay, 2checkout, Wordlpay, ePDQ BarclaysMerchant Payment Interface (MPI) no previous coding skills needed.

Make a domain a website

Buy our internet web hosting for your domain, it is by far the best choice for your web design and email too. For the best experience ever! choose Hosterware UK the professional choice, worldwide class.

If your question is - how to make a website? Then use these guides to help you with planning and building your first website, marketing the website to drive more traffic and improving your existing website using the website visitor data.

1. Planning your website

This guide covers the planning stage of building your website including identifying your target audience, choosing a domain name and web hosting, drawing site maps/ wire frames and conducting competitor research.

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Filesize: 710KB

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2. Building your website (HTML & CSS)

This guide will introduce you to the concepts behind building a web site, looking at the different web design software available, using HTML & CSS and writing a basic web page.

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Filesize: 576KB

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3. Marketing your website

This guide will provide you with practical online and offline marketing ideas you can apply to drive traffic to your site covering search engine optimisation, Google,Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, Hotmail etc.. pay per click advertising, affiliate marketing, directories, email marketing, advertising networks, social media, PR and print advertising. Buy our NEW instant online marketing add-on!

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Filesize: 464KB

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4. Improving your website design

This guide will introduce you to the methods, tools and resources available for you to analyse your website and use that data to make it even better, including web analytics, heat maps, user feedback and testing & SEO optimisation.

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Hyper text mark up language

Please choose the question which best matches the information you're looking for:-

• My links are not working. What is wrong?


My links are not working. What is wrong?

First of all, check that the link is correctly spelled, and that the correct case is used - INDEX.HTML is not the same as index.html. Next, check the file paths. A common error is to leave the location relative to another computer's filesystem, eg:- <a href="C:\Documents\MySite\mysite.html">Link</a> This is incorrect as it refers to a file on your PC, not on our servers. File paths should either be absolute, eg:- <a href="http://mysite.com/mysite.html">Link</a> or relative, eg:- <a href="mysite.html">Link</a>, if mysite.html is in the same directory as the page that it's linking from. Finally, check that there are no conflicts with other scripts on the site. Many major CMS's such as Wordpress and Joomla use URL rewriting that will interfere with the correct operation of links.

• I've put up my site but I still see the standard index page. What's up?


I've put up my site but I still see the standard index page. What's up?

When we create a hosting package, we place a simple index.html page into your hosting package. This should be removed prior to a new site being uploaded. All live site files should be placed into the public_html folder, if they are not in this folder then the default page may still be displayed. You may be seeing a cached version of your site - press Ctrl+F5 in your browser to clear the cache.

• I've installed the formmail script, but my form isn't working. Why?


I've installed the formmail script, but my form isn't working. Why?

The Formmail Script is provided via the Back Office - Manage Website & Domains App , full usage instructions can be found after installation. Assuming that you have successfully installed the formmail script via the Back Office - Manage Website & Domains App , then all the files will be present and the file permissions are correct. Therefore the only other reason for a problem would be your form that is calling the script. In your Back Office - Manage Website & Domains App when you installed the script you were given a link for "Usage Instruction" and example HTML code to use, please take a look at that and make sure yours is the same. You are able to make modifications to this to add your own fields, but the basic structure is there to follow. In order for the form to fully display on a web page the page should be saved with a .cgi extension.

• When I try and view my website I get an HTTP Error 403 - Forbidden message.


When I try and view my website I get an HTTP Error 403 - Forbidden message.

A '403 Forbidden' message means that the browser has requested a page that it is not permitted to view. There are a few common causes:- - Missing or incorrectly named index file When you don't specify a file name when accessing a site (eg visiting the domain directly as most do at http://www.domainname.com), the server searches through a list of default filenames and will display the first one it finds.

Common default names are index.php, default.htm, index.htm and index.html - The first page of your website should use one of these names, with all lowercase letters. When we create your web hosting account, we place a simple index.html file on the server so that there is something there before you upload your site. If you delete this file and don't replace it, then you will see the error message above.

To fix this, ensure that the first page in you site is called index.html and that the file is uploaded to the public_html directory.

Incorrect Access Control Settings This error will also be displayed if the directory access settings for your site's root directory are set with access criteria which you do not meet. Usually these settings are contained in a file called ".htaccess". This file is sometimes generated manually, but can also be configured by some web development tools, such as MS FrontPage.

If you are using FrontPage, then you should alter the web permissions using this program, and republish your site. In most other cases, manually removing the .htaccess file usually solves the problem. - Permissions errors A file and the folder that it is in must have global read permissions - recommended settings are:- 711 or 755 for folders 755 for CGI Scripts 711 for HTML and other files 644 for PHP Scripts - Site has been disabled If we have had to disable your site to protect other users then this may show as a 403 error - we will attempt to contact you if this is the case. If none of the above causes apply, please contact Support and we'll be happy to help.

Configuration

• How do I set up 404/500 error pages?


How do I set up 404/500 error pages?

This article covers two ways to set up 404/500 error pages, but there are many additional methods available. 1) Create a .htaccess file within your public_html directory, containing the following two lines: ErrorDocument 404 "/404.html" ErrorDocument 500 "/500.html" These directives send 404 and 500 errors to corresponding .html pages within your webspace. You will need to manually create the .html pages, and configure them to suit your requirements. 2) Within your Back Office - Manage Website & Domains App , select "404/500 Error Page" from the 'CGI Scripts" section and install to a directory of your choosing. This will set up the .htaccess file and .html error pages for you. Errors are instead sent to a cgi script, which in turn redirects users to the corresponding html error page.

• How do I install Locked Area Lite?


How do I install Locked Area Lite?

Before you install Locked Area Lite you need to create a folder that you want to protect - this should be inside your public_html folder. When you carry out the installation, it will be to another folder that will hold the Locked Area Lite program files - this folder will be created by the installer, but must have a different name from the folder that you wish to protect.

For this example installation, the folder where Locked Area Lite is installed to is 'locklite', and the folder to protect is called 'documents' - you should replace yourdomain.com with your domain name, and the folder names with the appropriate values. When you first access the application in the location where you've installed the Locked Area Lite program files to, you will see a setup page. The most important option on this screen is the third option - "Member's Area Directory Path" as this sets the path to the folder to be protected. By default this is "/home/sites/yourdomain.com/public_html" You will need to change this to use the name of the folder you wish to protect "/home/sites/yourdomain.com/public_html/documents".

There other required fields - ensure you note down the values you enter into these fields:- Administrator Name: Administrator Username: Administrator Password: That completes the installation and provides the following urls:- Your member's area: http://www.yourdomain.com/documents You have no users yet so you have no way to login but it's good to check the login window does pop-up at this stage. Your administration panel: http://www.yourdomain.com/locklite/admin.cgi Your online user registration form: http://www.yourdomain.com/locklite/register.cgi Your user account manager: http://www.yourdomain.com/locklite/manage.cgi

Useful Information

• Does HOSTERWARE support SSI (Server Side Includes)?


Does HOSTERWARE support SSI (Server Side Includes)?

Yes we do. SSI (Server Side Includes) are tags that are placed in HTML pages, and evaluated on the server while the pages are being served. They allow our customers to add dynamically generated content to an existing HTML page, without having to generate the entire page via a CGI program, or other dynamic technology. Pages that use Server Side Includes should have filenames which end with the suffix .shtml to be recognised by the server as such.

• What is the server path?


What is the server path?

The path to your website is partially determined by your domain name, but is in the following format:

/home/sites/your-domain-name.com/public_html

If you are using PHP, you can find out this path by entering the following into a php script:

echo getcwd();

• How can I change the file name extension of my index page?


How can I change the file name extension of my index page?

It is possible to name your default index page something other than index.html, index.cgi, index.php, etc., by using a directive in a special configuration file in your webspace. That file is called '.htaccess' (a dot followed by 'htaccess'). The directive needed is

DirectoryIndex foo.html

That will make the default page (i.e., the file name that will be requested if there's no filename in the URL, www.domain.com/) 'foo.html'. The change will affect the directory the .htaccess file is placed in and all sub-directories.

• What is XML?


What is XML?

XML is browser based, and it is not dependant on the type of server that you are running your website on. XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. It was developed as a way to improve on HTML and SGML. XML is not a language in the true sense, but rather a system for defining other languages. XML tags are not predefined in XML. You must define your own tags. XML uses a Document Type Definition (DTD) or an XML Schema to describe the data. If you wish to use XML, you should have some basic understanding of WWW, HTML and the basics of building Web pages Web scripting languages like JavaScript or VBScript. XML is not a replacement for HTML. XML and HTML were designed with different goals: XML was designed to describe data and to focus on what data is. HTML was designed to display data and to focus on how data looks.

HTML is about displaying information, while XML is about describing information. XML does not DO anything. XML is created to structure, store and to send information. The following example is a note, stored as XML: <note> <to>Jonathan</to> <from>Rob</from> <heading>Reminder</heading> <body>Don't forget the meeting today!</body> </note> The note has a header and a message body. It also has sender and receiver information. But still, this XML document does not DO anything. It is just pure information wrapped in XML tags. Someone must write a piece of software to send, receive or display it. XML tags are not predefined. You must "invent" your own tags.

The tags used to mark up HTML documents and the structure of HTML documents are predefined. The author of HTML documents can only use tags that are defined in the HTML standard. XML allows the author to define his own tags and his own document structure. The tags in the example above (like <to> and <from>) are not defined in any XML standard.

These tags are "invented" by the author of the XML document. It is important to understand that XML is not a replacement for HTML. In future Web development it is most likely that XML will be used to describe the data, while HTML will be used to format and display the same data.

• How do I edit php.ini (PHP settings) for my hosting package?


How do I edit php.ini (PHP settings) for my hosting package?

Becuase of the way in which we run PHP, you are able to customise its behaviour with php.ini files. These are plain text files (use Notepad if running Windows, TextEdit in Plain Text mode on Mac), which contain directives such as:- memory_limit = 24M A complete list of php.ini directives can be found here:- http://www.php.net/manual/en/ini.list.php -: you should only set these as per the requirements of your application as other settings may cause your scripts to malfunction or be vulnerable to attack.

You should name this file php.ini, unless otherwise required, it should be located in the root of your hosting package (ie, above public_html). php.ini files can be used for very fine-grained control - a PHP script will pick up the settings in the php.ini file closest to it, so you can enable functions for a single folder rather than the whole site - this is useful when running CMSes on subdomains.

• What is the list of Default Documents in order of priority?


What is the list of Default Documents in order of priority?

The list of default documents (pages which IIS will serve when only the sub directory is specified in the URL) in order of priority are: index.cgi, index.pl, Default.asp, index.asp, index.html, index.html.var, index.shtml, index.php, index.php3, Default.htm, index.htm, iisstart.htm, default.aspx,index.aspx The list for Linux servers is as follows index.cgi, index.pl, index.asp, index.html, index.html.var, index.shtml, index.php, index.php3, index.htm, default.htm, default.asp

• How do I redirect my site?


How do I redirect my site?

To make a 301 redirect for a changed page, you need to add the following into a .htaccess file: redirect 301 /old page name your.domain.com/new page name So for example, if you wanted to redirect www.oldsite.com/smith.html to www.oldsite.com/jones.html, you would put redirect 301 /smith.html www.oldsite.com/jones.html

To prevent google being confused about your site (Is it http://yourdomain.com or http://www.your.domain.com Just add the following to a .htaccess file RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mywebsite.co.uk RewriteRule (.*) http://www.mywebsite.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] This will cause anyone who uses mywebsite.co.uk to be automatically redirected to www.mywebsite.co.uk

• How can I force a particular charset? (Character Encoding)


How can I force a particular charset? (Character Encoding)

You are able to set a default value for the media type charset parameter (the name of a character encoding) to be added to a response if and only if the response's content-type is either text/plain or text/html. To do this, simply create a file named ".htaccess" within your webspace, and add the following line: AddDefaultCharset <charset> A setting of "AddDefaultCharset Off" disables this functionality. Usually, this will mean the exact behavior is dependent on the user's client configuration.