Get a Free Website! for your Free Methodist Church

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Web hosting on the freemethodistchurch.org server is offered at no charge. Our server has the capacity to host hundreds of websites.



Here's what you get...
Initial web site limits
(more is available upon request):
  • 1 free web site per Free Methodist church, conference office, or national ministry
  • 100 Mb disk storage
  • 5 e-mail accounts

Features:

 
  • Cobalt Linux 2.2 operating system (more stable/less costly than Windows NT)
  • Ensim Pro for RedHat Enterprise
  • Apache® web server (most widely used web hosting platform)
  • Web-based site and user administration
  • Microsoft Front Page extensions (for ease of publishing)
  • POP3 e-mail (for use with standard e-mail clients)
  • WebMail (for access to e-mail without an e-mail client)
  • Majordomo Listserv (for e-mail distribution lists)
  • MySQL database (powerful and inexpensive)
  • PHP scripting (for database interaction)
  • Chili!Soft ASP (web programs)


HOW DO WE
SET UP A SITE?








 

 

 

 

 

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1. Choose the web hosting plan:

A. Independent virtual domain name. This requires paid domain name registration through a  domain name registrar.(See Step 3 for details.) Since we have a dedicated web server, the annual registration fee is the only cost, and will be the responsibility of the respective church organization. After the domain name is registered, it can be hosted on the server, e.g.:

B. Sub-domain on the freemethodistchurch.org domain. No annual fees for the domain name are required for the site. But, the resulting web address is rather long and some people may be confused that it doesn't begin with "www" i.e.,

C. Subweb on the freemethodistchurch.org domain. This is actually a user account on the national denomination site. Front page webs can be hosted, but no site management or additional e-mail accounts are provided. This arrangement is appropriate for a department of the national association that does not need more than one e-mail account and/or does not have a resource that can administer a web site.

2. Select a site administrator
Select how the web hosting plan A, B or C above. Plan A and B requires a site administrator. The site administrator must be confirmed by the church organization. If Plan A is chosen, the site administrator must be the same person, with the same e-mail address listed with Network Solutions. The site administrator will need the following resources:

  • Computer
  • Internet access (dial-up or broadband service)
  • E-mail
  • Web page authoring software like Front Page or Dreamweaver.
  • File Transfer Protocol (FTP) utility if not using Front Page

3. Register a Domain Name (optional)
If you chose Plan A, you will need to register an indepentdent virtual domain name (i.e. www.mychurch.org). This service typically costs approximately $10 per year and is offered through many registrars like www.yahoo.com, www.registerfly.com, www.godaddy.com, www.networksolutions.com, and www.dotster.com. Please note: It is very important that you retain a copy of the user i.d. and password that you establish with any of these registrars. You will need to use it to login and change the name servers to point to our Free Methodist server once you've secured hosting space from us. You will also most likely need this information in the future when it is time to renew the service.

4. Fill out the Site Request form online.
This will ask for information that is needed to setup the hosting account.  IMG staff will contact the respective church organization and the site administrator to authenticate the request. Then we will create the new site, the site administrator's user account and e-mail the user ID and password to the new site administrator.

5. Publish web content.
There are two ways to publish your web pages:  Use Microsoft FrontPage or a File Transfer Program (FTP).  You should pick one method and stick with it.  Do not use both methods or you will have problems updating your web content -- Files that are published through FTP will be stamped with the UserId of the account that published the files;  Files that are published through FrontPage will be stamped with the userid of "nobody."  So you will not be able to update files that were created with the other publishing method.  To publish your website before the domain name servers are updated, add this line to your hosts file in your C:\windows directory:
204.176.140.239   www.yourdomainname.org

6. Create users (Optional). The site administrator can login to the siteadmin control panel and create up to four additional e-mail accounts for others in your church organization. If desired, user accounts can have their e-mail forwarded to their existing e-mail accounts. Or they can read and send e-mail through our web-based mail server http://mail.freemethodistchurch.org.

7. ISP Transfer (Optional - for existing domains).  Once you have published your web site and created the e-mail accounts for your church organization, you are ready for the ISP transfer.  Your domain name administrator will need to point your domain to our domain name servers (DNS):  ns1.freemethodistchurch.org and ns2.freemethodistchurch.org.

8. Create e-mail distribution lists (Optional). The site administrator can login to the admin control panel and setup e-mail distribution lists for his church organization.

9. Promote your new site (Optional).  Research indicates that 85% of Internet users use search engines to find Web sites!  You can submit your site manually to each search engine, but why spend so many hours each month when you can get it done automatically through Dotster's new  HyperSubmit service for just $34.95 per year?  Through this service, your site's URL will be submitted for listing on more than 400 search engines, including all of the major ones. The service will also resubmit your site automatically every month to reduce the chance that you will fall off the listings.  Your site will be submitted to Google (Yahoo), AltaVista, Excite, Lycos, HotBot, NorthernLight and many others.