How to Get Your Own Free Personal Web Page

Ever wondered how to get your HTML files onto the internet for all to see? Here’s a way get your own FREE personal web page.

STEP 1: HTML
The first step in making your own personal web page is learning HTML and creating an HTML document. We have already begun this process at Clague and have created multiple pages linked together. Once you have a finished product that you are ready to publish on the web, then move on to Step 2.

STEP 2: GAINING FREE SERVER SPACE
In order to publish a web page on the internet and allow people to come and browse it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, your files must be stored on a public server, a computer that never turns off and whose only purpose is to allow people to access files from it. This would be difficult and expensive to set up on our own. Fortunately, there are many companies on the internet that provide this service for free. However, many of them make you place advertisements on your pages to compensate. Some examples are:
- FreeServers.com
- GeoCities.com
- AngelFire.com
- and others...
I would suggest using FreeServers.com because I have used it in the past and it is totally free and very reliable. I will explain in the rest of this document how to go about using FreeServers.com. (If you choose to use another host, the directions might differ slightly from these instructions.) To use this service, go to http://www.FreeServers.com/. Once you are there, sign up for their FREE domain and hosting by typing in a URL that you would want for your site, like http://clague.freeservers.com/ and make sure you sign up for the FREE service. Then you’ll have to fill out your personal information. Make sure you have your parents do this with you. When everything is filled out and sent in, you’ll get an email from them confirming your site is all ready to go. Finally, we can publish our site (Step 3).

STEP 3: PUBLISHING OUR SITE
Go to http://www.FreeServers.com/ and login (click on Member Login). Your site is: clague.freeservers.com (or whatever site name you used). Once logged in, click on the BUILD MY SITE link on the left hand side of the page. Then click on Manage Files. This file manager will allow us to upload files. Uploading means we take files from your computer and place them on the public server. The manager will also allow us to delete files, rename them, etc. To upload your HTML files just click on the File button on the top of the manager. A drop down menu appears. Click on the UPLOAD FILE option. The window below now allows us to BROWSE our computer and select the files we wish to upload. When you’ve selected a few files to upload, click the UPLOAD button. This may take a few minutes because the files are transferring. Once you are done uploading your HTML files, make sure you also upload the images that you used in your HTML files (if you used any). Once you are done, all of the files needed for your web site will be visible in the window. Make sure that they are all there. Then you can log out.

Note: Make sure your main page is always called index.html !

STEP 4: VISITING YOUR SITE
Now we can visit our web site! Just go to: http://clague.freeservers.com (or whatever you chose as your site name) and Tada! you have your very own website that anyone can access by typing in this address! You should see your file entitled index.html which is your main page. You’ll notice they place an advertisement banner at the top of every page. This is a little annoying sometimes, but hey it’s free, right?

STEP 5: MAINTAINING YOUR SITE
What about making changes to your site and adding new pages and features? If you want to make changes to your HTML pages, just edit them on your computer to your liking. You may notice when you change them on your computer, they don’t change on the internet. Why? Because you need to also make the changes to the files located on the server. To do this, just log in as explained before, enter the FILE MANAGER, and upload the changed files. The newer copy of the file will replace the older version on the server. To add brand new files, just upload them the same way. Play around with deleting and renaming files, in addition to some of the other options. If you get stuck, you can always click on the HELP button.

Now that you know how to get your files onto the web, the only thing holding you back is your imagination. Come up with ideas for things to put on your web page, investigate other web page’s design and layout, look at other people’s HTML code, and link to your friends sites! Enjoy!