Your Internet Garden

In recent months I have had several occasions to clean up websites with various issues and a few common points have become clear:

There is a mistaken belief among website owners that once a website has been created and is on the Internet it needs no more attention... Nothing could be further from the truth!

Websites should be viewed as gardens, in that:

• They take a fair bit of planning and preparation.
• Look beautiful when their brand-new and,
• Wither and die if not maintained. In the case of websites, they become horribly infected with malware etc.

If you read nothing else, please understand, that all websites must be maintained usually on a weekly basis. This is because, even if none of the content changes, the various components which make the site work frequently have updates. I have seen many wonderful sites run into serious problems just because no one checked them on a weekly basis.

This started out as a short article, but then I went down the rabbit hole, as I thought of the various questions asked of me in the last few weeks. The short take away is this: If you don't know how to do maintenance, for your own peace of mind, get someone who does.

The following text, briefly breaks down the various aspects of the website one needs to be aware of particularly if you are going shopping for a new site. As I said, I went down the rabbit hole, so if you're not technically minded or don't want to be bored to death :-) feel free to skip the following. Just remember to take care of "your Internet garden".

All the best, take care, and feel free to keep on reading...

Patrick Clark

There is confusion about the various services involved which must come together in order for a website to exist and what each of the services are actually responsible for. I.e. the domain name registrar, the hosting company, the actual software which makes up the website, and the web designer. Many companies offer all these services in-house as a single package and while this is very convenient one still needs to understand the various aspects.

If you are in the market for a website, especially if this is your first, please read on, because the choices you make initially can have a major impact later on down the road. 

A suggestion: if you are planning to do a business related website and this is your first endeavour. I strongly recommend that you consider creating a alternate website not related to the business in order to get some initial experience of the process, and work involved. Start with something, perhaps related to a hobby. The experience you gain will be invaluable, later on.

Aspect 1. The website address and the Domain-name  Registrar. People understand that this is the website address they type in to their browser and magically a site appears. But in reality this "website address" is completely separate from the website you were actually looking at. As a matter of fact, there are specialized companies, called Domain-name Registrars which sell website addresses. Once you buy an address, it simply means that no one else can use that exact same one. Also, having a website address, does not mean you automatically have a legal copyright. If you are planning to use the domain name in business, you need to check with a legal representative before buying the domain.

Domain-name  Registrar company controls what happens when someone types in your website address in their browser. This can get fairly technical. You will have a separate account with this company just for maintaining your website address.

Aspect 2. The Website Hosting Company. This is the company that stores the files which make up the website and make it available on the Internet. They do not provide domain names. The domain name must be "linked" to the website. (In technical parlance this is called updating the DNS.) Again, you would have a separate account just for maintaining your website.

It is very important to understand that these two aspects of the website are completely separate and hence the need for two accounts one, with each company.

Aspect 3. The Software That Makes up the Website. Modern websites use different software. This can have a major impact if you decide later on to move your website to another hosting company. For example, as far as I know, a website created on WIX cannot be moved over to a company that uses WordPress software. So it is wise to ask the hosting company before spending a great deal of design time on a website, whether the website can be moved. (Sometimes called migrating.)

Aspect 4. The Web Designer. This is the person responsible for creating the design of the website. They will have to deal with both The Domain Name Registrar and the Website Hosting Company. Be very clear at the onset about what their duties are. Also make sure you have a plan in place should they leave.

This is by no means an all-inclusive list but it does cover the obvious basics. Owning and running a website cannot only be profitable, in either the monetary, or in other ways, it can also be a lot of fun. But it does take commitment and you must embrace change. That is the very essence of the Internet, change and evolution.

Until next time! And who knows on what topic :-)

 

PS: There are several other articles on the blog dealing with various aspects of website creation and upkeep. You can simply click this link to see the most current list of documents, or at any time, use the search box on the site to search for the keyword "website" or just click here to automate the search.