Parking a website?

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Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 9:51 am

Possibly dumb question from techno challenged older person, but here goes...

Say I have a website, that I'm not using and noone visits. I have, however, paid good money to have it built, and have plans for it in the future. Are there any servers or hosting services that will just let me keep a copy there, without it being 'open to the public', or is there a way I can download all the content onto my PC?

The site was written in Wordpress, if that's relavent.

419Eater is my life Joined: 11 Dec 2009 Posts: 316

Best is I think if you do a backup to your own computer.

Get an FTP-program (like FileZilla), create a directory for your files on your computer, login via ftp to your web-account, and transfer the directory htdocs and the directory where Wordpress is installed to the empty new one your computer.
Though some web-accounts might not come with ftp-login.

Other possibility is a download-program like OfflineExplorer, which is not freeware, although there exist good freeware programs too.
This download works via HTTP.

keywords for search: complete website download, webpage ripper, read webpages offline.

Difference of this methodes is: With FTP you get a exact copy of your files, with all the wordpress-program files, etc. You need to run a webserver on your computer to see the wordpress-pages in a browser (which is not really an issue). And you can edit it in Wordpress.

Download trough HTTP converts the pages into single html-pages, and you can watch them offline in an browser, without running a webserver. Editing of the pages is with an Html-Editor.

--
edit typo, and to add: for sure not to forget the database. Laughing

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 11:20 am

I second the FTP approach. Just download everything (don't forget a dump of the database, probably MySQL) to your computer.

If you need storage space somewhere else, PM me and I can give you an account on one of my servers, and directions on how to encrypt the data so that nobody besides you can use it.

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 1:41 pm

If you need to keep the domain name, you will need to keep the domain name registered, even if it is not being served anywhere. People do buy expired domain names. If that happens, you may have a very tough time getting the domain name back. For example 419eater is hosted on a server. The domain name is registered. If 419eater wished to shut down for 5 years, the files can be copied from the hosting service and removed from service, but the domain name www.419eater.com must remain in constant registration. Otherwise someone else could buy the name and register it. Then in 5 years you would need a new Domain Name or buy it from who ever has it, if they wish to sell it.

You can't just copy the doman name and keep it safe on a hard drive.

If you don't need a domain name, you could host your own files on your own server at home. A free webserver that is very popular is Apache. The software is free and open source. Without a domain name pointing to the server, the only way to get to the server is by the IP address. You will need to learn a lot before attempting this. Mistakes in setting it up will leave you open to hackers. This is not recommended for newbies.

Offline on your own network, this is an excellent way to create your own content, edit it, tweak it, and prepare it for sending to your final webhost. You can check and run your own webserver for testing at home.

Apache can be found here;
http://www.apache.org/
There are versions to run on several operating systems including Linux.

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 2:17 pm

Thanks for this. I will probably keep the website name, lest Scampatroller buys it to sell back to me Wink

, but don't want to keep paying for hosting.

Apache it is then, I'll let you know if I have problems.

419Eater is my life Joined: 11 Dec 2009 Posts: 316

Quote:

but don't want to keep paying for hosting.

The cheapest reliable plan I know about is hostso.com, the aspire plan for $ 12 / year, with 200 GB (yes!), FTP, MySQL, for hosting of 1 site (1 domain).
A US-company, as far as I know.

Quote:

a ... server to keep a copy there, without it being 'open to the public

.. if you protect the access with password it is closed to the public.

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 4:45 pm

If you need help with Apache, I am the wrong person to ask. I don't work in IT, but I see it alot. You will need to get an IT guru to help you. I have never run a webserver myself.

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 5:15 pm

If you still have access to the server, the easiest way would be to just copy all the files on it onto a USB drive/memory stick or onto the hard drive of a computer accessing it, that way you can move everything in one go with no loss of directory structure. Easy to load them all back up again too if you need to.

The domain name can easily be sold or passed to someone else if you don't need it.
If it's allowed to lapse and becomes available for anyone to buy, there is always a possibility of it attracting "Cybersquatters", people who buy up previously-owned domains either for marketing/advertising space, or to fraudulently claim to be the original owner, or else to sell the domain back to the original owners for a hefty fee. So if you're planning on using it again sometime in the future, it might be better to get someone trustworthy to hang onto it for you.

I've never actually used Wordpress though. I'm from a generation that used to write webpages using only notepad TXT editors. That was before all this fancy PHP, MySql, etc stuff came along.
Ahh, those were the days...
*goes off into nostalgic memories of the past, pausing to shout at the local kids to get off my lawn!*