Uploading Files - Hosted Domains
Uploading is the process of transferring files from your local computer to your website.
The instructions on this page are for domain uploads; if you are trying to upload files to
your free personal web space, please visit our
free web space upload page.
If you have a web page or graphics that you want to put on the Internet you may
do so by using a file transfer protocol program.
You can then upload the files to one of the servers where it will be stored and be
able to be accessed on the Internet. Simply follow the step by step instructions
below and you can upload your website or graphics to the Internet.
The instructions below presume you have an FTP program such as WS_FTP or Fetch installed and
ready to use.
Please use the help files and associated documentation with your download progam for its use
and configuration.
Please note: If you are using Microsoft Front Page and want to take
advantage of the site "publishing" features, it will be
necessary for you to call the
Technical Support Center and have them verify your
domain has Front Page Extensions installed. This is not necessary to use the simple
FTP methods of Front Page.
- First you need to be logged in and online.
- Now launch your your FTP program.
- Under Profile Name type: your_domain_name
- Under Host Name type: ftp.your_domain_name.com
- Under UserID type in your login.
- Under Password type your password. Then press enter.
- Under Local System (on the left hand side of the screen) choose a path for the file.
The top portion of the screen refers to the drive where the file(s) are located. (A:, B:, C:, or D:) You
should then see your files in the lower part of the screen on the Local System side.
Double click on the file(s) to upload them into the "root" if your domain directory.
The files will appear under Remote System on the right.
- The final step in the posting of your web page to the Internet is very important.
If it is not so already, ighlight the file that is
to be the first page or main page of your web site and rename this file index.html
(See tips below) and then click O.K.
It may be necessary for you to change the links in your other pages as well to reference your main
page (index.html) as you have changed the name. Then when you have completed the transfer
and the main page file name change, click on the Close button on the bottom of the screen and
then click on Exit.
- Your web page can then be displayed if you type in the URL:
http://www.your_domain_name.com/
- If you are only posting pictures they will display if you type the URL:
http://www.your_domain_name.com/filename.jpg
or
http://www.your_domain_name.com/filename.gif
If for any reason you canot get your page or graphics to display, or you get a
"Forbidden" message, first review the tips below, then
please call
Technical Support.
Good luck and call if you have any questions or problems.
Important Tips
- Be sure that all the pages and all the
graphics for your site are transferred and that all the links within the pages are referencing
the correct files within your directory. For example, if you link to images or pages
that are in the same directory as the loaded page, the link should look something like this:
<IMG src="myimage.gif" width="20" height="20" alt="My Image">
Or
<A href"nextpage.html">Next Page</A>
- Set your transfer mode for Automatic. If the pictures look scrambled or don't come up
correctly, this automatic mode may not be working correctly. Re-upload any page files in ASCII
mode and any images, PDF files, video, Flash objects, Java Applets, or other non-text elements
in BINARY mode.
- Some home pages may be on NT servers. ALthough the "8/3" filenaming convention died
with the passing of Windows 3.11, we still recommend making a habit of naming your files
only 8 characters long and a three-character extension. ie., logo123.jpg (with the exception
of the HTML extension, see below.)
- It is important that you use no special characters or spaces in your file names.
- When you call another page or load an image, the filename called out in your page is case-sensitive.
For example, if you have an image in your page
<IMG src="myimage.gif" width="20" height="20" alt="My Image">
and you name the file
MYimage.gif or MYIMAGE.gif or myimage.GIF
The broken-image icon will display on the page instead of the image. Be sure to use the
same case structure in the page that you use in the filename. The same is true of naming your
linked HTML pages.
- You may name your home page one of several
names, but for simplicity name it index.html, all in lower case. When someone calls your site
without the filename, as in
http://www.your_domain_name.com
the web server's directory indexing configuration will automatically look for index.html first and
return your home page.
As an added note, A web server normally indexes any directory's home page in a specific order.
This is determined by the server's configuration file, and the standard indexing lookup order is
index.html, index.htm, home.html, then other files, although this order can be changed or added to.
If the first is not found, it looks for the next and so on. Your page
will always index correctly if it is named index.html. This is useful if you want to
set up subdirectories:
index.html
mypics/index.html
mypics/vacation/index.html
These can then be linked from your page or called from a browser by the directory name only:
http://www.your_domain_name.com/mypics
http://www.your_domain_name.com/mypics/vacation
If for any reason you are not able to pull up your page or graphics or you get a
"Forbidden" message, first review the tips below, then
please call
Technical Support.
