Website hosting?

[james_m246]

Do you have to pay to hosy tour wedsite or can you do it free? (minus the cost for the domain name)

[vehelpfulguy]

hosy tour wedsite ? - might be a good idea to read your text before hitting enter ;-)

Usually yes, you pay for your domain name, AND you pay for someone to host it, usually a yearly cost.

This can be the same company, but does not have to be.

Cost for hosting will vary depending on facilities offered, amount of web site traffic etc.

(there may be companies who host for free, and no doubt someone will let us know if there are)

[stevie21]

The only free ones I'm aware of will put adverts on your site.
http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/default.asp
are highly recommended by someone I know who is in that line of business

[Ralph]

You could host it yourself.
You'll need a web server or to leave your computer on all the time. You'll have to set up your firewall (preferrably a hardware firewall at this level) to allow general access to the computer on specific ports or place the whole computer on the DMZ part of your firewall / router.
Get your DNS entry for your domain name to point at your IP address. If your ISP only gives you a dynamic IP address (nearly all do unless you pay more) you can use something like DynDNS to let your DNS entry always find you.

[james_m246]

Yeah sorry about the typing, I was rushing when I did it, cheers guys for all your help.

[fo3nix]

Web Mania offer some decent cheap hosting that will probably suffice for a personal site. Dreamhost offer a more expensive basic package, but with far more features and available bandwidth and storage. They also include a free domain.