Web Hosting

Hey, I just registered a domain through registar.com, and I was wondering how I could host it myself...or get someone else to host if for FREE. I've used geocities before, but when you use them, they provide you with a url like www.geocities.yourname.com. I want people to be able to type in my new domain (www.hugoselenski.com)...and thats it..no geocities or anything else. I have windows 2000 XP professional and IIS. I've experimented with IIS by putting some html files in the wwwroot directory, but the only way to access them is from MY computer. (http://localhost) I need to put them on the web! if you can help, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks

Yeah, I've got the exact same question.

Hosting your own website is not that simple. Try searching google, there are some decent tutorial sites on doing your own web hosting.

Once you own a domain name, you need to assign at least two nameservers (DNS servers) that will be the "authoritative" direction to your site. In other words, from anywhere in Internet if someone requests www.whatever_your_site_is.com, they will get back the IP address of your computer.

If your IP address changes from your ISP, then you need "dynamic DNS", where IP address changes are immediately updated in the DNS servers. zoneedit.com and dns2go.com and others offer this kind of DNS service.

Once the browser requests reaches your IP address, you must allow the traffic through your firewall so it ends up at your web server.

And you must keep all the security patches up to date on your server or you will likely be hacked. Many ISP's don't allow you to host a web server on their service, such as cableTV modem hosting and such. You need enough bi-directional bandwidth to give your users satisfactory response time. You need to monitor your logs and keep an eye on things. You should have backup hardware and power.

Hosting your own Email is a whole new issue

Thanks a lot Doug Turned out that my ISP doesn't allow me to host servers... all that time wasted.. oh well.

Thanks anyways!