Uploading Web Pages

Uploading web pages to the Internet makes them accessible to Internet users.

You normally create the Website in a folder located on your local computer.

Uploading or Publishing a web page/pages simply copies the page from your local computer to the Internet.

Normally you upload a web page/pages using the FTP protocol (file transfer protocol), however most of the HTML editors have their own in built publishing mechanism, some using FTP, others use their own proprietary mechanisms.

FrontPage, for example, uses FrontPage Extensions; however, these must also to be supported by the server, which is not always the case.

Uploading Web Pages -The Process

When we upload (publish ) a Web page we simply copy the file from a folder on our local computer to a folder on a computer on the Internet. Our Website is simply a folder containing files (see website layout). You can upload the pages individually or the entire folder and its contents can be uploaded in one go.

Normally when you first create a website, all of the files in the local folder are uploaded to the Internet server. Subsequent updates are done by uploading individual files/pages to either replace existing ones or to add to the site content.

publishing-website-1

Figure 1: Publishing files on the Internet

FTP ( File Transfer protocol)

This is used to copy files/pages to web servers. There are lots of programs available that do this, some are free others you have to purchase.

Command line clients are available on the windows platform and you can also use commercial FTP client. WSFTP and Cute FTP are probably the most popular. WS_FTP_LE was free for non-commercial use. (replaced by WS_home trial only).

However there is a very good open source FTP client called Filezilla which I recommend you download and use.

Some website packages like site build-it allow you to upload your web pages using a browser like Internet explorer and so you don't need a separate FTP client.

Using FTP to Upload your Web Pages

FTP (File transfer Protocol) is the most common method used to upload web pages to the Internet server.

The process is simply a file copy from your PC to the web server.

There are many FTP programs available both as Freeware, Shareware and standard commercial ones. There are also command line versions and GUI versions (i.e. windows).

Unless you are familiar with using the command prompt then it is best to avoid the command line versions. However it is worth noting that one is included by default with Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000 and XP.

The general procedure regardless of which program is as follows:

Connect to server
Login by entering username and password.
Upload files to server.
Verify that files have been transferred.
Logout.

You will often find that the server names are different when you are using FTP, as when you are using HTTP. The normal convention is that FTP servers have a name starting with FTP and HTTP servers have a name starting with WWW.

For example the FTP site would have a name of ftp.build-your-Website.co.uk and the Website would be called www.build-your-Website.co.uk.

In reality what we are talking about is the same sever and folder just being accessed via a different protocol.

In order to upload a web pages you need to have a host for the Website- see finding a Website hosts for more details.

Also, If you are not sure what a URL is there is a more detailed description of URLs in understanding Urls .

You should also ensure that you web page is ok before uploading see Quick Web Page Checklist.

Here we will look at using the Filezilla FTP client to upload your pages

Related articles and resources:

3 Ways to Add Content to Your Website

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