hosting your website

Once you have secured your own address, you have a reserved place in the directory (i.e. the enormous network of DNS servers). But you still need a host - i.e. a computer residing at that address. There are a few ways to do this:

• you can use your own computer: this is not very hard, but it does require you to have a permanent connection to the internet (so the directory servers know consistently how to find your computer) as well as the software required to listen for requests (we have lots of information on free, open-source webservers)
• you can use someone else's computers: this is called a hosting service, and many organizations offer this service, including us

Most organizations choose to outsource hosting since the service is almost a fixed-price commodity these days. The fixed-price for your organization will reflect your needs: if you have a lot of content, then you need more space on the host's computer, and if you have a lot of people reading your content, then your host is sending your pages more often, and using up more bandwidth on their network.

We run our service at cost, sharing all the resources between all of our non-profit clients, and the space and bandwidth offered with our basic package is usually more than sufficient for our clients.

What's next:

• Read more about content
• Read more about how we can help
• Proceed to the 10 questions that will help us identify your needs
• Or return to main page

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