Default home page

When you registered your domain name, your service provider created a default home page for you. Until you change it, this is the page your visitors see when they go to your site <yourdomain.com>. The filename of this default home page is index.html, and it is located on your Web server in the var/www/html directory. The text of the default home page is shown below.

- Note: The default home page, index.html, is overwritten (replaced) when you publish your own home page.

# Welcome to <domainname.com>!

Welcome to the home page of <domainname.com>. This site is currently in development.

### If you own this site

You can log in to the Site Administrator interface to set up and manage your Web hosting services, including this Web page. You might want to bookmark the Site Administrator login page, http://<domainname.com>/admin/, for future reference.

After you log in, be sure to read the Quick-start guide in the online Help for instructions that will help you get started.

### If you have a user account on this site

You can log in to the User Administrator interface to manage your user account. You might want to bookmark the User Administrator login page, http://<domainname.com/user/, for future reference.

# About the Web

If you are new to the Web, this section explains some basic concepts. Topics include:

- About Web sites and Web pages

- Creating and publishing Web pages

- Publicizing your Web site

- Using Web site email

- Setting up user accounts for this site

# About Web sites and Web pages

Web sites are servers connected to the Internet. On Web sites, you can publish Web pages in a format called HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). Anyone with a computer connected to the Internet can view Web pages using programs called a browsers, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or AOL/Netscape Navigator. Web sites can also be used to send and receive email.

# Creating and publishing Web pages

The easiest way to create a page is to use a Web authoring-tool, also called an HTML-authoring tool. Some of the more common authoring tools are Netscape's Composer (which is free and contained in Netscape Communicator and Netscape Navigator browsers), Microsoft FrontPage, and Macromedia Dreamweaver. These tools write HTML code for you, and using them is similar to using a word processor such as Microsoft Word.

As an alternative, you can create Web pages by writing the HTML code yourself in a text editor program such as Notepad. Pointers to learning HTML include Writing HTML: A tutorial for creating Web pages, Web Monkey, CNET Web Builder, HTML Goodies, Yale Web Style Guide, and W3C HTML Homepage.

If you own this site, log in to the Site Administrator interface, then go to the Quick-start guide in the online Help for more information about publishing Web pages to your site.

# Publicizing your Web site

Once you have created and published pages to your Web site, you can publicize your site using search engines, Newsgroups, and Web rings.

## Search engines

Probably the most common way to publicize your Web site and generate traffic to it is to submit it to search engines (such as http://www.google.com) and Internet catalogs (such as Yahoo!). To save yourself some time, you might try a service that submits your Web site to multiple search engines and Internet catalogs, such as Submit It!, Add Me!, and Site Solutions.

## Newsgroups

Look for newsgroups where you think people, who would be interested in your Web site, might frequent. Post a message announcing your Web site and its features. Do not do this too often as it is sometimes considered spamming (unsolicited advertising).

## Web rings

If there are other sites that are similar to yours, there might be a Web ring dedicated to your kind of Web site. A Web ring is a way of interlinking related Web sites so that you can visit each site one after the other, eventually (if you keep going) returning to the first Web site. Typically, users can also elect to go backwards through the ring of sites, skip a certain number at a time, visit sites randomly, or see a list of all the sites on the ring. Do an Internet search, for instance through http://www.google.com, for "Web ring" and include a keyword related to your Web site. If you join a Web ring, you will need to add a Web ring graphic and links to your page.

# Using Web site email

If you own this site, and if your service provider enabled email services for you, you can send and receive email messages through your site. For more information about using email, log in to the Site Administrator interface and go to the Quick-start guide in the online Help system.

## Setting up user accounts for this site

If you own this site, you can add mailbox user accounts to it. Individuals with mailbox user accounts can access services such as email through your site and log in to the User Administrator interface to manage their accounts.

To find out how to add user accounts, log in to the Site Administrator interface and go to the Quick-start guide in the online Help system.