I want to figure out the process of creating an actual website before the need arises. I have attempted to do this before, however, if memory serves correctly, I had technical difficulties with the hosting mechanism (it would never let me go to my account to create or manage the website).

I'm a noob with no money (well, I have a little money, but buying things over the internet is complicated) and no idea what I'm doing (well, I have a small amount of experience in java, but probably nothing that would come in handy for this purpose).
Any ideas?

Well I'll be coding a new SEN in django starting about Sep 10th. Basically there's some free services for hosting, but for something like SEN you'd need to pay monthly for hosting. The server you host your site on is simply a computer, usually very efficient and fast, that runs the code your site is developed in. The code then interacts between the server's OS and the users using the site. The code is called the backend. You don't want to code an entire backend from scratch unless you have a lot of time, which is why I'll be using django. Go ahead and google django if you want to know more about it.

Web pages are rendered with HTML and CSS, and are not apart of the backend code. An ideal website will separate the backend logic from the client webpages, allowing for modification to either system without affecting the other.

Does that help?

w3schools.com <-- Learn website coding
000webhost.com <-- Create a website

A basic knowledge of FTP helps also.
http://www.filetransferplanet.com/ftp-guides-resources/

I believe that 000webhost was the one I tried to use last time. I was able to get a domain and create an account just fine, but it would never let me log in.

EDIT: Anyway, I don't need anything like SEN. The only potential website I intend on making anytime soon is a website for a micronation. A small forum and private messaging system would probably be nice, but the main use would most likely be to post news and possibly polls.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 19 2011, 4:18 am by Jesusfreak.

It did for me. I hate it how they won't accept yahoo email addresses to sign up with though

If I remember correctly, it always stopped me before Step 2. I don't think it gave an error message or anything, it just would never take me to the correct page. I did try using IE instead of Opera, with the same result. Any ideas on what the problem could have been?

Try Chrome or Firefox, and just try to make another account and see if it works

I have been using 000webhost for a long time and it does work pretty well. I also got a few domains from http://co.cc/ , if you don't want to pay for hosting and domain these should be good enough.

If you are wanting to create a Forum,there are Forum softwares for sale, like ipb. Just buy a domain, and upload that onto there. I actually have an ipb license if you're interested.

I need to buy something to create a forum for my website, then?

No, there's free forum software available. I prefer SMF forums(http://simplemachines.org/) a lot though

If you're paying for a forum, you deserve to lose your money.

Just to note, the 'proper' way to make a non-static (that is, site you plan to update more than once) site is through a CMS. Most forum systems, blog services, etc. are built out of an underlying CMS themselves.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 20 2011, 1:49 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

No. You can use SMF or phpBB which are free. As with any forum code you use, though, just make sure that the webhost you get lets you access your own mysql database. I'm not sure how many free hosts let you do that.

There are a few, but they're rarely good quality, and often cap your use in obnoxious ways.

If you're not too picky, you can usually get someone else to host your forums easily enough.

000webhost let's you access your mysql database and it's a good quality (If I understand correctly what it meant.). I have tried a lot of different services, and they seemed to offer the best services for free.

If you don't want to build things from scratch, go to createaforum.com and create a SMF 2.0 forum, it's hosted by someone from the SMF Staff and best of all, the owner updates the forum before it's even released because he's part of the SMF Staff. Unfortunately, there's limited mods available but can still work with it

Alright, so how should I do this domain name thing? From what I remember, I need to snatch up a domain name quickly because the second I check it's availability, some bot will report it to someone else that will immediately buy up the domain and try to sell it at an inflated price.

There are free domains available like co.cc or .tk but if you want the popular .com or .net, go to godaddy.com for 10 bucks a year domain. If you pay for 000webhost premeium service, I believe they give you a free domain

Be careful with that. Sometimes hosts that offer you 'free' domains don't let you keep them if you want to migrate to another host...