FTP, a beginners guide
So you've designed or purchased a website (or downloaded a free application like WordPress or Joomla!), and now you need to 'get it online.'
To get your website online, you will need to upload your files (i.e. your website) to your hosted web space on our servers. You will accomplish this via FTP (File Transfer Protocol). In a nutshell, FTP is used to transfer files between computers on a network. In this case the computers are your PC and our server, and the network is the Internet.
There are a couple of ways you can transfer files over FTP, but in this article we're going to show you how to do it with the FileZila FTP client.
FileZila
An FTP client is an application you can install on your PC that makes it easy for you to move files from your computer to a web server (or the other way around). A graphical user interface makes this a pretty simple task -- you'll essentially 'drag and drop' files from your computer to the remote server.
There are a lot of FTP clients out there, but in this article we'll recommend using the FileZilla FTP client. It's full-featured, easy-to-use, and completely free to download.
To download FileZilla, visit
http://filezilla-project.org/ and click the "Quick download" link for FileZilla Client.
Once you complete the straight forward download and installation process, open the application.
The interface
In this article, we'll just be covering how to 'Quickconnect' so you can get your files on the server quickly and easily.
You'll see on the very top of the FileZilla Client, there are three fields you'll need to provide in order to 'Quickconnect' to your hosting space on our servers. You will need your "Host," which is your domain name or your IP address (use your IP address if you're domain is not registered yet). You can locate your IP address on the Web Site Ready email you received from us. You will also need to provide your FTP username and password. You can locate your FTP username from the Web Site Ready email as well.
The middle area of the interface is split in half -- the left side shows the files on your PC, the right side will show the files on your hosted web space.
To transfer files from your PC to our hosted web space, you'll want to locate your website files on your PC on the left side of the FTP client, then drag and drop them to the right side of the FTP client. You can also right-click on a file, then select the option to 'upload.'
To download files from your website to your PC, you can right-click the appropriate file or folder, then select the option to 'download.'
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Microsoft FrontPage. If you're a FrontPage user, you can create and edit your pages right on the server itself, eliminating the need to upload/download pages via FTP. Information about this software can be found
here.