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Basic Web Site Setup

These instructions assume you have the following:

Internet access via PPP, ISDN, cable modem or other broadband connection
a secure FTP program
a Web browser like Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.
you are familiar with HTML and are able to create Web pages

If you have never used HTML to create a Web page before, we strongly recommend that you find a friend or colleague who can give you some hands-on help to guide you through the process of creating and setting up your Web pages. If you unable to find someone to help, please email Prairienet Tech Support at support@prairienet.org and we will try to find you a volunteer mentor.

Constructing and naming your Web pages

Homepage file name - the default homepage file name can be either homepage.html or index.html.
Filenames - standardize on all lower-case filenames without spaces in them. Most Web servers run on systems that ARE case-sensitive. Mixing cases can cause confusing 'file not found' errors and missing graphics. Although Windows allows filenames with spaces in them, if these are used on the Web they will not be universally accessible to all browsers.
Universal Web page accessibility - People who are visually-impaired depend on speech-reading devices and the text-based Web browsers to navigate the Web. Web pages that rely on graphics to convey content are inaccessible to them. We strongly recommend the use of Bobby to assess accessibility.
Link to the Prairienet Homepage - Your homepage must provide a link to the Prairienet homepage at the bottom:
<A HREF="http://www.prairienet.org/">Hosted by the Prairienet Community Network</A>
Check your homepage for keywords - The text of your homepage needs to include all relevant keywords which you would expect people to use to find your pages. Do not rely solely on the keyword and content META tags, some search engines ignore them in favor of text content in the body of the page.
Make sure your HTML is clean - Finally, we recommend that you run your pages through an HTML checker, such as Weblint. Your Web browser may be tolerant of errors that will send another browser into conniptions. Weblint can also help you track down those elusive tiny errors that can cause needlessly frustrating formatting problems.

Upload files to public_html directory

Hostname: ftp.prairienet.org
Username: [your login]
Password: [your password]
Your will be in your home directory.

Switch to the public_html directory to upload files directly to your Web directory.
CAUTION: some HTML publishing programs, notably Frontpage, will erase public_html and replace it with a local directory that will not work. Try to avoid using options that erase all old files on the server.
We recommend the following secure FTP programs: WinSCP for Windows [download] and Fugu for Mac. Both are Open Source and available for free download. MacSFTP is free to try, $24 to buy.
If you haven't used SFTP before, please see instructions for SFTP for Windows Users (WinSCP).
Because we no longer make regular FTP available for security reasons, the built-in publishing via regular FTP in Microsoft Frontpage and older versions of Netscape and Dreamweaver will no longer work. You can still use these programs to create and manage your Web pages, but you will need to use a secure FTP program to upload your files. Most Web-based blogging services have a secure FTP option.

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