How easy is it to host your own website?

MunniMuncha

Hi - I am currently paying Yell to host my website which they did for me at a cost of £24 per month and was wondering if I am able to host it myself and how easy is it to do?

Many thanks for any help you can give me - but am not very PC literate so please can you be kind and put it in 'simple' terms.

hm71_2

got to be honest i am a total internet imbecile but have managed to host my website for free on weebly they are very helpful & after much flaffing got my connected email to send to a free gmail account. i used to pay microsoft quite a lot for the same thing- i just contacted the company i bought my domain through & they helped tons as well- would recommend weebly no end.

railbuff

Its not always best going with a free webhost. depending what you wnat hosting, but you can pick decent shared hosting for £2 a month

gb12345

You definitely don't need to be paying £24 a month - there are free and low cost options available from hosting companies.

You will need to do 3 things -

1. Find and setup hosting from the new hosting company
2. Transfer your domain from Yell to the new host, so that it points at the correct nameservers.
3. Upload your web pages to the new host. This is usually done using an FTP program such as filezilla, but can be done through your hosts control panel.

railbuff

these do a shared plan from £29 a year http://niceday-hosting.co.uk/shared.html

Cornucopia

Bear in mind that you are probably paying Yell for a complete web package. They may not let you simply take the site that they have developed for you to another hosting company.

So... that'd be the first thing to establish. Then you'll either need to transfer what you have having got permission/paid Yell for that, or start again with a new web technology.

Depending on what you have on your site and the support you get from Yell, £24 per month isn't that bad for a complete service.

I run a company that does this stuff, and am happy to advise.

BTW the thread title is a little misleading. You do not want to host your own website, you want to transfer between hosting companies.

railbuff

Cornucopia wrote: »

Bear in mind that you are probably paying Yell for a complete web package. They may not let you simply take the site that they have developed for you to another hosting company.

So... that'd be the first thing to establish. Then you'll either need to transfer what you have having got permission/paid Yell for that, or start again with a new web technology.

Depending on what you have on your site and the support you get from Yell, £24 per month isn't that bad for a complete service.

I run a company that does this stuff, and am happy to advise.

not sure what Yell use, but if its cpanel then you can do your own backup and then use this with a new host or if you have ftp access a new host will be able to via ftp migrate your site to them

esuhl

MunniMuncha wrote: »

Hi - I am currently paying Yell to host my website which they did for me at a cost of £24 per month and was wondering if I am able to host it myself and how easy is it to do?

Many thanks for any help you can give me - but am not very PC literate so please can you be kind and put it in 'simple' terms.

It's fairly straightforward if you're vaguely technically-minded, but you'd really need to use a dedicated PC so that your main PC isn't accessible over the Internet.

There's an intro guide here: http://lifehacker.com/124212/geek-to-live--how-to-set-up-a-personal-home-web-server

But, for the extra bandwidth you'd need, the extra machine, the electricity to keep the machine running 24/7 and any effort in maintenance, security configuration and virus removal, etc., I think it's probably a lot easier to let someone else host the site for you. £24/month is a lot, though! 123-reg.co.uk have plans from £2.99/month up to £5.39/month for an unlimited one.

Cornucopia

railbuff wrote: »

not sure what Yell use, but if its cpanel then you can do your own backup and then use this with a new host or if you have ftp access a new host will be able to via ftp migrate your site to them

I don't think it's the OP's own site, in which case the code belongs to Yell, and it is not the OP's to transfer.

I don't think Yell even provide a plain hosting service, and if they did, £24 per month (£288 per year) would be excessive.

railbuff

esuhl wrote: »

123-reg.co.uk have plans from £2.99/month up to £5.39/month for an unlimited one.

yes but nothing is unlimited.

Have you an unlimited HDD on your computer
Have you an unlimited fuel tank on your car.

i dare say the answer will be no

railbuff

Cornucopia wrote: »

I don't think it's the OP's own site, in which case the code belongs to Yell, and it is not the OP's to transfer.

I don't think Yell even provide a plain hosting service, and if they did, £24 per month (£288 per year) would be excessive.

but you could still backup the site and then get it converted to HTML/PHP so you can use part with another host.