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Using FTP To Upload Your Site One needs to be relatively proficient in basic computer skills in order to create and manage a website. Finding, creating, renaming, and otherwise working with files and folders on your computer should be second nature for you. These skills will be required to easily manage your site’s files and folders.
Begin by creating a folder on your computer’s drive. You may name it your domain name. This folder will contain all your site’s files. The root of this directory will contain all the files which will be uploaded to the root of your hosting directory. You may choose to put all your files on the root and not have any subdirectories. There is nothing wrong with this unless you believe your site may grow to a hundred pages or more. For larger sites you may find it more logical and organized to create subdirectories for major topics or different products. But in almost no circumstance will you require, nor should you use, subdirectories within those subdirectories. Google may not index files in second level subdirectories and lower until the site gains higher page rank.
You may begin uploading your files at any time. There is no need to completely finish the site before uploading it. In fact, I upload pages as I create them and then check them on the web as I go. As long as your site is not linked to from anywhere, and you don’t submit your site to search engines, most likely no one will see your site. Be sure to look at your new site on other computers. You may be surprised at how other computers will display your site. Your file structure on your web server will be an identical copy of your local file structure. As you create new files or make changes to current ones, you will upload those to your hosting server. As you make changes to files on your computer and upload them, they will over-write and replace the ones on the host. Simple File Management Tips: • Use lower case in all your files names. Do not use these forms: pic.JPG, PIC.jpg or Pic.jpg. You should use pic.jpg. Some web servers are case sensitive. You will save yourself future grief if you get into the habit of using lower cases for naming your files. Some uploading advice: As you make a change, upload the file and look at it in your browser. As you make new pages and link to them, upload them and test them. It is best to upload and test the files of your site as you create them. Sometimes problems do not crop up until they are actually published to the server. It is possible to be very faked out. Your pages could look fine on your local computer but won’t look fine when actually on the Internet. You need to find these problems as you go and not let them pile up. The Actual FTP Process FTP is how you get your web page files from your computer to your host’s server. In order to do this you will normally use a third party program installed on your computer. Although it is possible to FTP with Internet Explorer and within some web editors like Dreamweaver, I highly suggest you use a separate program. I've used AceFTP for about 5 years now and highly suggest it.
NOTE: Free FTP clients usually do not have a “stay connect” feature. Free clients will time out when not used for a minute or two and you will have to reconnect often. Once you have the correct folder open on the host’s server (the right window called “my site”) move to the left window called “my computer”. Browse your hard drive and open the folder where your web site files are saved. Highlight the files you wish to upload. If you want to upload only one file, just left mouse on top of, hold down the left mouse button and simply drag it across to the right window and drop it. To upload more than one file, hold down the control key while clicking and highlighting multiple files and then drag and drop them over to the server. Remember, your index file is always your home page. When someone browses to www.yoursite.com, your host server knows to give that person the index page located in your site’s folder. The index file is your home page. The host may already have an index page in the folder. It probably is used as a “parked” home page. It may be index.htm or index.html. If your home page is named index.htm, it will over-write the host’s index.htm file when you upload your own. If you file is named index.htm and the host’s is named index.html, your file will not over-write that one. You should delete the other index file. You just want ONE INDEX FILE in your host folder. If you need to delete or rename files on in your host folder, right mouse button on the file and click delete or rename.
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