So you decided to make your own website: where do you start?

[Neonriser]

Hello! Neonriser here. If you're reading this and you're tired of being on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, or TikTok, you're come to the right place. With recent controversies surrounding major social media sites these days, it never hurts to make a site on your own!

What!? You didn't attend college in Web Design? Don't worry...I attended my first year of college so you don't have to! (I'm in my third semester rn btw)

The first step is to learn how to use HTML and CSS. These are the basics on making a website. If you already know these coding languages, then learning Javascript would be a fine idea.

Next, plan the website you're going to make. What will your website look like? What is the purpose of the website? If you want to make a site about you, that's fine, just don't share your personal information online. That's a big no-no.

If you've planned it all out, it's time to decide which site hosts sites for free. I personally recommend using https://neocities.org/, because it has a built-in page editor. Not only that, but it also has a supportive community in the form of several Discord servers. They're always there for you when you get stuck.

Another place that hosts websites for free is https://www.w3schools.com/spaces/. Yes, it just happened recently that the Internet's greatest provider of website-making knowledge, by common sense, gave its users the ability to make their own websites! This means your sibling, child, or fellow boomer can now be a landlord in the digital realm rather than a serf. It's like Geocities all over again!

Once you signed up for the hosting site of your choice, it's time to do some coding! It might take hours, days, weeks, or even months, but in the end you'll have a website you'd like to share with countless users across the world. But what if your site isn't as good as the other sites, and want to improve on it? Fret not! There are countless sites on the web who have established HTML and CSS tutorials for those just starting out.

If you have any comments, questions or concerns, post them here.

And remember: the revolution has already started. And believe me, it's going to be sweet.

 

[cody1]

I have been working on one on neocities for the past week and its ugly as hell but its way better than the no customization and mass surveillance that you get on major platforms. Planning on turning it into a blog >;P

 

[Neonriser]

I have been working on one on neocities for the past week and its ugly as hell but its way better than the no customization and mass surveillance that you get on major platforms. Planning on turning it into a blog >;P

Sweet! Can I please look at your website if you have a minute?

 

[cody1]

Sweet! Can I please look at your website if you have a minute?

I would totally show you but it's got some information I don't want linked to my agora road account if that makes sense ;P

 

[Neonriser]

I would totally show you but it's got some information I don't want linked to my agora road account if that makes sense ;P

Ok, I understand if you don't want to share, and that's perfectly okay. These days, privacy is valued more than ever.

 

[cryptfrog]

I used to have a cool website a few years ago but then I replaced it with a really lame website which I then deleted out of embarrassment so now I have no website. I want to bring it back but I have found it hard to muster the energy to do so, part of the problem is when I think about "what is the point of this hypothetical website?" I have found it hard to think of an answer that sets it apart from normal social media.
I guess the answer to that is freedom, you can design your own website absolutely however you want and not just how social media sites allow you to, you can set your own rules, and you can associate your site with whoever you like and not associate it with who you don't like. Even if you are only gonna treat your site like it's a tumblr page, by downloading those pics and reuploading them to your site you are saving them from being lost when the tumblr you would have reblogged them gets banned or deleted. The design thing can go beyond just "customisation", too. You can make your website a piece of art in it's own right, and an ideosyncratic and interesting piece of technology.

 

[Cinderpeach]

Here's a site filled with helpful links on making your site:
Daniel's Network: How To Make Your Own Site!
Daniel's Network is also a pretty cool place to find handmade site n' other cool stuff too

 

[Cinderpeach]

I used to have a cool website a few years ago but then I replaced it with a really lame website which I then deleted out of embarrassment so now I have no website. I want to bring it back but I have found it hard to muster the energy to do so, part of the problem is when I think about "what is the point of this hypothetical website?" I have found it hard to think of an answer that sets it apart from normal social media.
I guess the answer to that is freedom, you can design your own website absolutely however you want and not just how social media sites allow you to, you can set your own rules, and you can associate your site with whoever you like and not associate it with who you don't like. Even if you are only gonna treat your site like it's a tumblr page, by downloading those pics and reuploading them to your site you are saving them from being lost when the tumblr you would have reblogged them gets banned or deleted. The design thing can go beyond just "customisation", too. You can make your website a piece of art in it's own right, and an ideosyncratic and interesting piece of technology.

I like having my own site (even tho' I dont update as often as I feel like I should), because it serves a reminder and sanctuary away form the loud bustling vapid parts of the web (mostly soical media), it reminds me that creativity is still live and kickin' on the internet, and it gives me hope that maybe someday that creative will spread to other places of the internet as well!

(but its fine that the creative web is just a cool fun thing that normies just dont understand for now)

 

[RisingThumb]

Landchad.net has some good articles on this sort of thing. Also worth noting that free hosting puts a lot of faith in the hosting provider since they usually don't make much profit off of you. It's more "free as in freedom" to either host on your own hardware(residential IP makes that harder) or to actually pay for a VPS to do hosting for you.

Also please consider using Gemini if all you have to say is stuff that is purely text.

 

[SeketMeto]

For free hosting, there is also Infinity Free which is... well free, with no ads, fast, 5go, free database (sql), free SSL and unlimited bandwidth. They're not very well known, but they've been around for some time already. If you wonder how they do it, basically they have a premium service for "real big clients with big needs", and they offer this free hosting for regular people in a philanthropic spirit.

 

[SomaSpice]

For free hosting, there is also Infinity Free which is... well free, with no ads, fast, 5go, free database (sql), free SSL and unlimited bandwidth. They're not very well known, but they've been around for some time already. If you wonder how they do it, basically they have a premium service for "real big clients with big needs", and they offer this free hosting for regular people in a philanthropic spirit.

Damn, that's really fucking good. Bluehost can eat my ass!

 

[Ronin]

WTF, I check my stuff and renewal price is like double.

 

[elia925-6]

I will try to replicate those websites with skeuomorphic look ala 2000's(Of course without alegrian zombies)

 

[e_mail]

I advise pretty strongly against using free hosting of any kind. It seems ridiculous, but your site will eventually attract an anti-fanbase, or you'll find someone who has a personal problem with you, and free hosts tend to remove sites first and ask questions never. BuyVM's cheapest VPS is 20 USD a year ($1.66 a month), and that should be more than enough for many static sites. If you're not big into tech and the idea of managing a server directly scares you, Hetzner, Flokinet and OVH offer managed webhosting for €1.90, €3 and €4 (I think) a month respectively.,

Landchad.net has some good articles on this sort of thing. Also worth noting that free hosting puts a lot of faith in the hosting provider since they usually don't make much profit off of you. It's more "free as in freedom" to either host on your own hardware(residential IP makes that harder) or to actually pay for a VPS to do hosting for you.

Also please consider using Gemini if all you have to say is stuff that is purely text.

Infinityfree and its cousin, Byethost, proclaim they have infinite bandwidth, but in reality they have a system of 'hits', where things are metered based on the loading of content. Your site might be 5 kilobytes small, but have many hits due to your CSS and JS files. Even brisk CPU use will cause your site to be taken down for 24 hours, and they also lie about your usage statistics to make you panic and force you to buy. I still get emails from them saying I'm near my cap, even though I haven't used them for years.

If you really want free hosting, the best free hosting I've ever used was FreeWHA, but that watermarks your stuff. x10host used to be great, but I've heard they've gone down the shitter recently. Avoid 000host.

 

[SeketMeto]

I advise pretty strongly against using free hosting of any kind. It seems ridiculous, but your site will eventually attract an anti-fanbase, or you'll find someone who has a personal problem with you, and free hosts tend to remove sites first and ask questions never. BuyVM's cheapest VPS is 20 USD a year ($1.66 a month), and that should be more than enough for many static sites. If you're not big into tech and the idea of managing a server directly scares you, Hetzner, Flokinet and OVH offer managed webhosting for €1.90, €3 and €4 (I think) a month respectively.,


Infinityfree and its cousin, Byethost, proclaim they have infinite bandwidth, but in reality they have a system of 'hits', where things are metered based on the loading of content. Your site might be 5 kilobytes small, but have many hits due to your CSS and JS files. Even brisk CPU use will cause your site to be taken down for 24 hours, and they also lie about your usage statistics to make you panic and force you to buy. I still get emails from them saying I'm near my cap, even though I haven't used them for years.

If you really want free hosting, the best free hosting I've ever used was FreeWHA, but that watermarks your stuff. x10host used to be great, but I've heard they've gone down the shitter recently. Avoid 000host.

Infinity Free allows 50000 daily hits (of any size, that being said) before starting to slow you down, but yeah good point, it's not really unlimited.

About free hosting vs paid hosting, what you're saying is also true, but not everybody can afford $20/year, especially for those who want to make several websites (or teenagers with no credit card), so it's good to have free options. On the other hand if spending is ok but the budget is tight, I'd recommend to buy a domain name instead of a hosting. If shit goes down, it's easier to reupload the content somewhere else and just point the domain to the new place. But at the end of the day, if you're worried about what you're posting being linked back to you, free hosting (or hosting paid in crypto with domain name paid the same way) is the best, as you don't have to reveal your identity.

 

[e_mail]

Infinity Free allows 50000 daily hits (of any size, that being said) before starting to slow you down, but yeah good point, it's not really unlimited.

I ran a static site on either it or Byethost with five files, that was html, javascript, css, and two images. At the time, it was registering every view as nearly twenty hits, so hits aren't really an accurate view of how well your site will fare. It may have been an error at the time, but that coupled with the misleading emails I was getting makes me quite distrustful.

The domain name is good advice, though. You used to be able to use Freenom to get a free domain, but I think it only lets you register things through an API now, and you're meant to be a reseller.

 

[cryptfrog]

I kinda wanna get a raspberry pi, leave it turned on all the time and use it as a host for a site. Does that seem reasonable or is it gonna blow up or suck or something?

 

[Radical]

I've built a few small websites over the years, but I never stuck with it. Lack of content was always my problem. It just feels like I don't have anything worth posting. Maybe it's the curse of knowledge: the things I know about don't seem interesting because I can't remember not knowing them. Or I assume everyone else already knows, too.

 

[e_mail]

I kinda wanna get a raspberry pi, leave it turned on all the time and use it as a host for a site. Does that seem reasonable or is it gonna blow up or suck or something?

If it's just a small static site, you can use Cloudflare rules to cache it all and never expose your IP., while having a basically negligible effect n your own data usage, because Cloudflare will practically be the one hosting the site. Make sure to harden the RPi before putting it online, especially against bruteforcing the SSH password. Fail2ban is pretty easy to set up.

The big problem is that your ISP may have hidden clauses against hosting and go out of its own way to shut down your site.

 

[Deleted member 3373]

I have contemplated doing this for a few years now. Since at least 2018. Back then I was starting to miss actually surfing the web. Starting to feel the crushing conformity of the modern internet. I might use it to display some of my artwork as well as using it as a blog. Thing is that I haven't nailed down a visual design yet.