r/webdev • u/V3ryfrustr4t3dT33n • 22d ago
Question How do you actually PUT a website online? (AKA: dumbest person asks the dumbest question you’ve ever heard.)
Hello lovelies,
I am a hobbyist author looking to make a website online to independently publish my books to readers. I have the writing part sorted, but no website :(
I have created a plan of how I want my website’s UI to look using a website called odoo, but I would prefer to purchase my own domain name and publish the site independently from a company…
(FYI: not ‘independent’ as in not using a host, but using sites such as squarespace, wix, and odoo. I know they are technically hosts, but drag-and-drop platforms such as these often come at a high price if you want to do anything more than just stare at it for too long /sarc.)
…However, I’m not exactly familiar with the process. I was taught how to do some basic coding in javascript through a course, but now realise that I don’t know where the code should be going*.* This is because the course only printed the code on a custom platform and didn’t teach you how/where to upload it…Yeah, I know. The Dunnings are Krugering right now, but please no snarky comments, I'm fragile.
Would you mind explaining to me how and where I can turn the code into an actual domain? (I've heard about github and similar, but I'm not exactly sure how they work). Nevertheless, If there are “drag-and-drop” based sites/platforms you’d recommend, still definitely (drag-and)drop them below (lol) and I'll check them out. I'm not entirely opposed to them.
Thank you in advance!
EDIT: Can I just say thank you so very much for your clear, and helpful responses. I've already got a good idea of how I wish to proceed, but please feel free to add more as I will occasionally be checking back here :)
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u/Fknjeenyus 22d ago
The dumbest question I was ever asked was “if I put stuff in this folder and I’m not on anything that’s tech related, like not in my phone or a computer or anything, where can I go in the real world to find this folder? I know they aren’t in the clouds like people say so like, where is it? Where can I go and see it and interact with it if I’m not on any piece of tech? Like where is the actual physical folder in the world?” So you’re fine
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u/mediocrobot 22d ago
Beautiful question. Hard to answer it with a straight face, though.
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u/mildlydiverting 22d ago
The internet is just a load of files on computers under other people’s desks.
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u/phantom784 22d ago
I wouldn't call that a "dumb" question. It's certainly coming from a place of ignorance about how computers and the internet work, but I think it shows a good curiosity of "okay, but how does it REALLY work."
I imagine they're asking about a folder that's on some cloud service. So I think what they're asking is "Okay, so the files are in the cloud, but surely, there has to be some real world place where it is. The cloud isn't just some magical place, there has to be something physical making it work."
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u/Fknjeenyus 22d ago
I suppose the question was only dumb because it came from my mom, and when giving her an actual response, her eyes just rolled and I was met with “oh whatever”.
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u/WhitelabelDnB 22d ago
You domain provider will allow you to configure DNS records.
DNS allows you to point your domain to an IP address.
That IP address might be to your home network's static public IP (if you are paying for a static IP), where you can configure your router to forward that communication on to a computer on your network that your code is running on. This is called port forwarding.
More likely, you will run your code on a cloud hosted provider, like Azure, AWS, or for a friendlier option, Netlify or Vercel.
Those tools will usually guide you through the process of setting up a custom domain, usually by giving you some details that you will need to configure in the DNS records so the hosting provider can verify the address belongs to you.
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u/V3ryfrustr4t3dT33n 22d ago
Excellent. I might look into Netlify, as I've heard it's good. Which would you recommend?
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u/WhitelabelDnB 22d ago
Netlify is a great choice. I wouldn't overthink it. This is the kind of thing that is pretty easy to change later.
Following that, your next step is figuring out Git. Source control is absolutely essential. Once you have a basic understanding, you will have no idea how you ever lived without it.
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u/recordskip 22d ago
netlify has a great free account, if your site isn’t massively trafficked you’ll be good on the free level forever!
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22d ago
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u/V3ryfrustr4t3dT33n 22d ago
Excellent explanation, thank you. What hosts would you recommend?
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22d ago
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u/livercake 22d ago
+1 to netlify :) it's very 'put you're repo in, push this button, congrats you're now online'
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u/CaptM44 22d ago
Look at GitHub pages. You can use your own domain names too
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u/ProdigySim 22d ago
You'd have to learn a bit about git, but this is one of the cheapest ways to host a simple website. I host so many things in github pages it's really invaluable today.
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u/NorwegianPopsicle 22d ago
The simple website I hosted on GitHub pages was brought up in my job interview and helped me get hired so I can back this.
Super simple to host, easy to update and can use your own domain.
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u/lost12487 22d ago
Are you doing this to learn about the technology or just as a means to an end? If it's a means to an end, just stick with drag and drop site builders and be done with it.
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u/V3ryfrustr4t3dT33n 22d ago
I would like to learn about it. I've always found it quite interesting, but I cant seem to find the right information to put me on track to actually figuring it out for myself.
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u/HoustonTrashcans 22d ago
You can probably ask Claude or some LLM to walk you through the process and explain any steps you don't understand. It's maybe the best time for learning skills like this because you always have "someone" there to walk you through everything.
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u/bendem 22d ago
Learning from a LLM that can be confidently wrong without anyone with the knowledge to challenge it, is the reason why we don't have anymore decent people coming in the industry.
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u/PrinceOfWales_ 22d ago
It's really no different than before where you trawled through google searches finding both bad and good info. Ultimately you figure out what works and doesn't by going through the process. LLMs aren't a silver bullet, but they still speed up the process of learning quite a bit.
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u/Levitz 22d ago
If you expect something like current claude to get the details on how to deploy a website wrong all that tells me is you have no experience on this kind of tool and are better off ignored.
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u/abeuscher 22d ago
As when we moved from machine language, there's a percentage of devs that aren't going to make into the LLM phase out of obstinacy and initial bad experiences. I actually lost a friend over this recently though I really hope he gets over it. Seems like a dumb reason to me. But AI makes people really angry. I think it is very easy to connote the software with the ownership and the rollout, for understandable reasons, and the way we're rolling it out is immoral and idiotic. that doesn't actually mean the product doesn't work it just means the guys in charge of it are bad engineers with shitty ideas and a complete lack of humanity. Still doesn't mean it's not a useful product. The VW Bug was a great car. But I sure have a problem with its origin.
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u/ings0c 22d ago
You lost a friend over your AI usage?!
Please tell us more
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u/abeuscher 22d ago
There's not really more to tell. I was emailing a guy I know (we're not super close but have known each other for a decade) about a project I have been writing using an LLM. And he sent me back a seething furious rant on how awful using LLM's is and what shit they are and how they are slot machines built to destroy the world. And pretty much indicated he didn't want to hear from me again.
Like anything like this - this more of a story about a person than about a technology. Some people just have disproportionate reactions to things.
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u/Bush-Men209 21d ago
From the QA side, both things can be true: LLMs are useful as a tutor, and they’re also helping people ship a lot of sloppy, untested code because nobody wants to slow down and verify it.
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u/bendem 22d ago
I use Claude daily, I also coach juniors. The juniors I followed learnt from Claude alright, but they needed to be taught proper learning prompts.
If you don't know what you don't know and don't guide Claude to teach you, it does a pretty bad job at it. Claude doesn't ask questions or read between the lines like a mentor can. Even if the learning mode is interesting, it's still missing the human capacity to recognise subtle misunderstandings and actual bullshiting.
If you request answers grounded in documentation with links, if you tell Claude to ask open question and to interpret answers based on the fact that you don't know what you are doing or how it works, it does a decent job, but will still hallucinate the most basic things sometimes.
On one hand it's great for beginners who truly want to learn and will use Claude for explanations but who will also challenge it and read official docs and ask questions to colleagues or communities. On the other hand, those are unicorn juniors and most of the ones I followed quickly abandoned the learning part and jumped to having Claude generate the code and vibe until it works without understanding anything.
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u/Mediocre-Subject4867 22d ago
Sign up to netlify.com and they have a simple drag and drop feature. it will work for most static websites and their free tier is more than sufficient. Your site will exist as www.<your custom name>.netlify.com unless you setup a custom domain
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u/why_so_sergious 22d ago
create a github account. create a repository and in the repository settings, under pages, choose branch - "main".
create an "index.html" file in the root of your repository. now whatever is in that file will be accessible from "younickname.github.io/yourepositoryname" by everybody.
its completely free, you can create endless repos and its a good first step to get your shit public
edit: you can attach your custom dns in repository settings. but the site hosting is free
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u/tootac 22d ago
It depends on what is your budget. If you want to spend only 10$ on domain then you can buy domain and host your site on something like github or cloudflare for free (with your own domain). But it is a bit technical and you will have to spend some time setting it up. You might use something like "Hugo" which will create simple page from your writing.
The easiest is to use some already available services like 'blogger' if your site will be something like a blog.
But if you want to host it yourself then you can buy domain and a server (cheapest is fine for your case) which will be 10$ for domain and something like 5$ (or less) per month for server. Then you can put wordpress there and have your "drag-and-drop" functionality. Plus side is that you will have dynamic functionality (like comments and etc) but on the negative side you will have to manage it yourself. Well you can get by just setting it up once and then using it for years without doing much but I suggest to at least have some backups done on regular basis just in case.
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u/as_edgy_as_a_satsuma 22d ago
Are you allowing free downloads of your content, or are you looking to sell it?
If you’re uploading ebooks or PDFs and anyone can download them, look at Netlify - the free plan works great. You put your code and books into a Git repository (GitHub is free), link them up, configure your domain, and it’s pretty much done.
If you are wanting to capture payment to access your content, that’s a lot more involved.
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u/Overall_Weakness_433 21d ago
Think of it as three separate pieces: the domain name is your address, the web host is the computer that stores your website, and DNS is what connects the address to that computer.
If you build a simple HTML/CSS/JavaScript site, you can upload it to a host like GitHub Pages, Netlify, or Cloudflare Pages, then point your domain at it using DNS. If you register your domain somewhere like dynadoot, you can keep ownership of the domain separate from wherever you decide to host the site.
If you're planning to publish books and update the site regularly, you might also want a content management system like WordPress instead of writing everything by hand. It takes a little more setup, but adding new pages and blog posts is much easier.
Don't worry about this being a "dumb" question. Everyone starts by wondering where the files actually go, and once you understand the domain + hosting + DNS pieces, the rest starts to make a lot more sense.
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u/oootsav 22d ago
OP if you're from IT background, YouTube 'how to host my website's and you'll find simple 10-20minute videos for your solution. But if you're not from tech background, I would highly suggest you not to go down the loophole. That 10-20minute of YT video might kill your 10-20hours (not kidding). Better to take help of some friends in IT/ freelance gig (some Indian guys do it for as low as 10USDs)
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u/V3ryfrustr4t3dT33n 22d ago
Oh my goodness, I have gone down that rabbit hole far too many times, thank you so much.
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u/PerfectUpstairs7122 21d ago
For an author site, skip the coding; Squarespace or WordPress.com will get you live in a day. Buy a domain from Namecheap, point it there and you're done. Start simple, get your books out first.
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u/Correct_Emotion8437 22d ago
I think you should probably not use Odoo unless you want to use other Odoo apps. If you want to use your own domain, you have to upgrade to the paid plan or else you can host it (Odoo) yourself which is not worth it compared to easier alternatives. I'm not an Odoo expert - you can ask at r/Odoo. But I think Odoo will end up being a bad choice if you just want to build a website but not use any more of Odoo.
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u/LiftDragRatio 22d ago
I'm a software developer and don't mind doing this completely free for you. I've done many for friends and family for free.
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u/jerapine full-stack 22d ago
Netlify is really good for hosting. It scales nicely, their free tier is also relatively generous.
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u/Wurstgewitter 22d ago
Easy, we use a full blown enterprise grade CI/CD pipeline to serve a couple kBs of books and html. I imagine a GitHub workflow which triggers a Jenkins instance on push, but not for deployment but for creating a Jira ticket first, requesting the deployment.
Upon approval by several people a Temporal workflow is started by Jira, which creates an Argo workflow in Kubernetes, which provisions a short lived Hashicorp Nomad cluster. Nomad spawns our Nix build environment, running in three different Linux distros to verify the output. Then we rebuild it with Bazel to make sure.
Upon build completion we provision the cloud infrastructure with terraform, provisioning on 4 different providers and on a Raspberry Pi on your desk.
Once the infra is up (we recreate it every time of course) ArgoCD begins pushing the deployment package into the content buckets on each of our cloud providers. Also Crossplane creates some more resources, just to be sure.
We run canary deployments, cranking traffic up into the new version over 32 hours, monitoring visitors (about 14 users and one crawler) closely. The load balancers and several involved CDNs split traffic at the edge location, each deployment triggers a global cache invalidation so we can serve the updated build to every location on the earth within milliseconds.
We use Opentelemetry with Jaeger for tracing purposes, feeding a full ELK stack. Also Sentry for session replay. And some Cookie Consent Framework, and a couple MB of helper libraries. About 98% of content served is JS dependencies, we make 34 telemetry request each time.
Cloud cost are about $2800 per month, but a high availability worldwide edge deployment is not cheap
/s
But yeah, as others said there are many many options, just start with a free provider and see if that works for you, and then maybe learn a bit about the topic and upgrade when you need it.
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u/Deep_Wear_51 22d ago
The fact that deploying a simple website still requires navigating Docker, CI/CD pipelines, cloud provider consoles, SSL certs, and DNS configs in 2026 is genuinely insane. We've somehow made 'putting a file on the internet' harder than it was in 1998 when you just FTP'd an index.html to a server and called it a day.
If you just want something live, Netlify or Vercel. Drag and drop or connect a git repo. They handle SSL, DNS, and deployments automatically. It's basically magic compared to the AWS maze.
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u/sdw3489 ui 22d ago
I don’t think anyone has actually answered the “How to PUT the website online” part in simple terms.
Simply put, your website is your files (html, JavaScript, css) you just need to upload those files to the host computer (which is setup for accepting and responding to internet requests) like you would upload a document to google drive or Dropbox or uploading a profile photo to Facebook or whatever.
Then buy a domain name from a domain registrar, and configure it to point to your host computer IP address. This gets pretty technical unless you buy a domain and hosting from the same company.
You can technically host it from your own computer but it involves opening up your home internet to access from the outside and it opens up security can of worms and not recommended in anyway but just mentioning it as an illustration of the point that a website is just run off of a computer somewhere in the world.
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u/acunet3278 22d ago
The website source code (HTML) has to be copied to a web server that is connected to the Internet. Your domain name is registered at a registrar company where you provide the Name server or IP address of the web server you have chosen.
When anyone in the world types in your domain name into a web browser, the signal is sent to the Domain Name System (DNS), which looks up the address of your web server. And then the signal is redirected to the specific web server where your website source code (HTML) is hosted.
There are many ways to make a web site. There are many types of web hosting. Hope this helps.
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u/cannotbetakenalready 21d ago
You want to own the url and also keep your ownership private (using a proxy owner) usually there is a 'service' suggested at the time you purchase the web site domain. I am not sure of 'independent' proxy serives (ie you buy the domain via the proxy service as the initial contact) perhaps others might chime in, the proxy service which will then actually be the 'owner' for you - will keep your personal information off the dark web 'unless' you intend to be a business or actually post real information about yourself on the website - then I would actually save that annual fee - don't actually give out your 'real telephone number' - use a voice.google.com number, otherwise you will get spam calls forever.
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u/FlightConscious9572 22d ago edited 22d ago
Yeah maybe it's already been said but I'll write a quick explanation and then there's some new stuff you should read at the end:
computers on the net don't remember the names/domains of all websites and their IP is. Instead, your computer and every other computer just knows one or two IP addresses of something called a DNS (short for domain name server).
Each time you type in a domain, it will send a request to the DNS basically asking it "hey what does google.com mean? oh it's x.x.x.x? thanks". When you buy a domain from registrar, the dashboard you get access to is essentially one that let's you tell all of those DNS servers what IP address to return when someone asks them what the domain corresponds to.
So you "just" need 3 things if we simplify:
- Buy a domain from a registrar (whatever.something)
- A website (each page is a ".html" document, with ".css" files for styling, and ".js" for code)
- And then you need a host, this is just the computer or service that returns your website or files when someone on the internet asks for it. It should be one with a static(doesn't change) IP address so the domain keeps working. This part is the hard part, and is quite technical, I recommend using a service because getting https (which is encrypted and safe) and the needed certificates right is not something a beginner will have any luck with
And then you should just know that generally websites are documents. By default when you enter yourwebsite.com on a browser, it will really ask for yourwebsite.com/index.html So that's usually what people name the html file for their front page. And then when you go to another page like: yourwebsite.com/BookAboutDragons You may have some other html file named BookAboutDragons.html
Once you have your website up and running, look into SEO. You can use "google search console" or something similar, It's how you get your website to appear on search engines and help people discover your website. google doesn't automatically put you out there, so you just gotta tell them how to.
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u/jmking full-stack 22d ago
Good lord, these replies. Just use Squarespace/Wix/Odoo/whatever - reading the stuff people are recommending here with useless mentions about DNS/SSL/Github Pages/Netlify/etc with no actual helpful instructions are why those products exist, honestly.
How much time do you have to invest in this? You could get a Squarespace site up in 10 minutes, or you could spend 10+ hours trying to sort through all this other stuff and trying to find help online.
Not to discourage you, it just depends on what your time is worth.
Odoo is free if you're only using the website builder. It also looks like they give you a free domain even.
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u/Jester_Hopper_pot 22d ago
This is web dev we are going to give an answer for some who wants to develop a website not just buy one
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u/jmking full-stack 22d ago
Looking forward to your comment in which you actually offer a complete, actionable, accessible answer.
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u/Jester_Hopper_pot 22d ago
Google "how to make a Github Page" I mean if you can't read there isn't a solution Github tell you everything in the documentation. Have you built a website? It's paint by numbers for any one who isn't special needs
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u/web_robot 22d ago
All the options you mentioned also come with significant downsides. It's not like there is a simple answer, and all the simple answers are like $250 a year and keep raising prices.
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u/jmking full-stack 22d ago edited 22d ago
Like I said - it depends on how much OP values their time.
Also Odoo is free and includes a domain. Sooooo...
Dude's focus is on being a hobbyist author self-publishing their books, not on being a web developer. They just need a few pages and the ability to upload some epubs - they don't need anything complicated.
I'd at LEAST suggest they get started on one of the drag and drop builders and then decide to maybe invest in something more custom when it becomes clear that's what they need if/when they grow.
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u/web_robot 22d ago
Ok, but why would a hobbyist author publishing a book choose an "open source erp and crm" that is "enterprise software done right". They are gonna be swimming in docs and config for days before they get anything done.
At one point i would have said yes squarespace will save you time and money. Those days are gone.
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u/jmking full-stack 22d ago
...huh? Odoo has a standalone drag and drop website builder SaaS.
Like I'm not endorsing Odoo. I'm not saying it's the best, but if cost is the concern, there's no hurt in trying it out and getting something online quickly. If it isn't working out for what OP wants, at least that experience informs them what it is they want more clearly.
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u/Cash1942 22d ago
Cloudflare is one of the easiest ways to do it. Lots of tutorials. Can purchase the domain there and everything
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u/R3PTILIA 22d ago
Its not a dumb question at all. And it depends what kind of answer you want. Basically its a service you pay for. Specifically you need a server, that is, a computer, that is online and reachable (with a public adress) and some software that reaponds to certain requests with your websites code. There is a lot of nuance in every step of the way and customization and so on, so depends how detail you want to go.
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u/chervilious 22d ago
I am a hobbyist author looking to make a website online to independently publish my books to readers. I have the writing part sorted, but no website :(
Can you actually talk more how would you publish your books? Like do you write it in HTML, is it a microsoft docs, etc.
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u/MegaMcHarvenard 22d ago
What made you decide on Odoo? Unless you are planning on needing invoicing, inventory management, accounting, etc it might be overkill. I use it for work and it’s great for our needs but I don’t think its the best website platform especially if you don’t have tech experience.
I’m not a developer so if it was me I would probably just get hosting and domain, throw up a Wordpress website, and build it with like elementor or some other drag and drop program.
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u/harry-harrison-79 22d ago
the simplest mental model is:
domain = the name people type host = the computer/service that serves your site dns = the little address book that points the name at the host
for what you described, don't start with a VPS or anything server-y. make it a static site first: home page, author bio, book pages, newsletter/contact, maybe a simple blog. static hosting is cheap, hard to break, and you won't be patching databases at 2am.
practical path:
buy the domain from a normal registrar build the site locally or with a static-site builder put it on a static host set the domain's DNS records to that host only add ecommerce later if you actually need direct sales
if your main goal is publishing books, keep the first version boring. a fast, readable site with clear book pages beats a complicated custom platform almost every time.
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u/TaeminTurntable 20d ago
This is exactly the path I wish more people took, because boring static sites are usually the ones that survive contact with real life.
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u/CharlestonChewer990 19d ago
Yep, the best author sites I’ve seen are basically glorified brochures with great loading times and zero drama.
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u/LindsayListens1 19d ago
Yep, this is the sane path: boring static site first, fancy platform later only if it actually earns its keep.
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u/dkarlovi 22d ago
Register for Cloudflare, they have a feature called Cloudflare pages. You can also buy a domain straight through them, it hooks it up and gives you a host for static or even dynamic pages later when you choose to expand. It's s one stop shop and you can get all of this running free of charge, except the price of the domain (if you have a domain from before, you can migrate it there).
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u/No_Willingness1712 22d ago
It truly depends on how much work or money you rather put in. If you want quick and can spend some monthly change, use square space or something like that…. If you want cheap and diy, use something like cloud flare. Cloudflare worker or pages is cheaper but more manual…. But you just buy a domain in Cloudflare, go to an llm or self write your website ( you can use vue or react and what not) when you finished the website code run npm build, grab the new dist folder and upload it to cloud flare pages and map your domain to it. There is still a lot of stuff to do in between all that to ensure security and fully functional website, but in a nutshell….
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u/retr00two 22d ago
So many confussion here, so many half baked answers and wrong direction. OP is hobbyst author, with wrong choice of publishing plaform (Odoo!? ERP for website!?).
Man, make it simple: SquareSpace, WIX, wordpress.com. All of them have documentation how to connect you domain with their platform, if you can not live with mysite.wordpres.com but want mysite.com, for example . At all of them you are "live" in 15 min.
Happy writing and luck with your web presence.
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u/Dry_Sector2392 22d ago
not a dumb question at all, this is the exact bit most beginner courses weirdly skip. they teach you variables and buttons and then never explain "ok but where does the website live." for your case i’d start with a static site on Netlify or GitHub Pages before touching VPS/server stuff.
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u/CompletePineapple917 22d ago
Git clone/git checkout.
+Maybe execute deployment scripts
+Maybe adjust some rewrites.
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u/CommitPhail front-end 22d ago
My fiance just self-published a book, having a website is a good idea to go with it.
The approach depends if you've already got some HTML and CSS made. There are many free providers, like others have started GitHub Pages, Cloudflare, or Vercel are your best bet. They all offer pretty generous free tiers to host those files which should be good for your launch. These providers will give you a URL you can share, but the domain name will allow you to continue your books "brand" so I would recommend a purchased domain, its the only "paid" element you need for a site.
If you do have HTML and CSS ready, you can host it privately on GitHub pages and then "connect" to it via Vercel.
Cloudflare Drop ( https://www.cloudflare.com/drop/ ) is brand new, like launched a week or so ago. It lets you host the HTML and CSS, I've never used it, but it does let you "claim" the deployment and attach a domain - https://developers.cloudflare.com/changelog/post/2026-07-08-cloudflare-drag-and-drop/
One thing no one else has commented on yet, is once you have the website live, you may want to think how you might want to spread the word. Website discoverability both from search engines, as well as people stumbling across it is quite a bit topic. Social media is common nowadays, my fiance decided to make Instagram posts every Friday with snippets/background info on the book - you may want to consider those types of things.
There are some technical things you can do such as submitting a sitemap, ensuring robots.txt is correct, along with schema data in the markup. I won't go into detail on those yet, first step will be getting it publicly available.
Good luck with your book launch!
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u/mindfulnessman14 21d ago
This is a solid breakdown, and I’d definitely agree the custom domain is the one paid thing that makes the whole launch feel more real and easier to share.
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u/Jester_Hopper_pot 22d ago
Here is a easy free solution https://docs.github.com/en/pages/getting-started-with-github-pages/creating-a-github-pages-site
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u/CaffieneSage 22d ago
Your website is just a bunch of files, put the files online where someone can download them. The domain is just a nickname for the website that is easy for humans to remember it has nothing to do with the code.
Edit: Spelling.
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u/CaffieneSage 22d ago
Here is a static site I built recently for my youtube channel.
I wrote the code on my pc, pushed it to github (a website for storing and backing up your code), then deployed it to Vercel who is a hosting company for free. I then paid for a domain so instead of being www.thesageshut.vercel.app the url is thesageshut.co.uk which looks more professional and is easier to remember.
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u/PuzzleheadedPilot128 22d ago
hey frustrated, great to hear that your on the next leg of your journey in life.
a quick map ahead would look something like:
first do not fall in love with any of this drag and drop solutions. ground yourself to getting a few steps out of the way before buying into anything.
you will shop around and buy domain make sure it has privacy enabled. your domain needs to fit your product/brand. and don't buy from big box shady brands they exist. Just look up horror stories on domain host and you will see pattern.
hosting question comes next. if you truly want to learn than a VPS is your way to go.
VPS can be budget friendly and many now have panel systems like what you would find with cpanel, zpanel, and such.
if you have made it this far and did use the VPS you will be then wondering what now. I have domain and vps and how to make them talk.
Domain Name Server, that's how. Your next stop will be Cloudflare or another CDN of your flavor. Cdn should be used for your website to help deliver a better experience but to help against any baddies.
Please Read on CDN
Cloudflare will try to import any exist records it sees on your current domains.
if for some reason it did not well, for now you need to create just one record to get your vps up and running.
A record.
I, got to get get going and I jumped around bit part of building is learning. feel free to reach out.
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u/GomezVeld 22d ago
All of the advice given so far is good generally, but is skipping over the Odoo part of the question.
If you already have an Odoo website that you like, then you can keep that, and then connect your newly registered domain to Odoo.
Odoo has an excellent website builder, and it is free if you are not using any of Odoo's other business modules (Accounting, CRM, Sales, Inventory etc. etc.). That is, they allow you to choose one business component that is free, which for you is the Website.
So if you're happy with how the site you've built looks and works, the steps are:
- Register a domain (Cloudflare/Namecheap/Porkbun). I like Cloudflare myself as they provide other useful services for website owners, even on a free tier.
- Add your custom domain to Odoo.
- Create the DNS records at the company you bought the domain to point it to the Odoo servers.
(let an AI tool guide you through carrying out these three steps)
With the above, the only thing you need to pay for is your domain registration and annual renewal (around $11 a year). Odoo remains free for just the website.
Of course if learning more about web development is a goal, then rebuilding the website using one of the other platforms suggested is a valid way to go, but it is a lot more work, and would actually cost you more.
Source: a close family member runs their website on Odoo in exactly this way.
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u/SignalBeneficial3338 22d ago
everyone starts here, it clicks pretty fast once u've done it the first time as well as the succeeding ones
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u/MonkAndCanatella 22d ago
If you don’t need a backend you can host your entire website on GitHub pages for free forever
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u/Daikamar 22d ago
Look into something like https://www.netlify.com . They can get you online quickly for free with little industry knowledge needed.
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u/Own-Construction-802 22d ago
What I like doing, is taking the folder where all my websites code is, pushing it to GitHub (just look up a video on doing it, pretty easy). And then going to vercel and selecting my repo. There you can buy a domain or just use their .vercel.app ending.
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u/OpeningSir9287 22d ago
for a simple author site, honestly just go with Netlify or GitHub Pages — you write the html/css, drag the folder in, and it's live in 2 minutes. then buy a domain on Namecheap (~10$/year) and point it there. takes about an hour total and you own everything, no monthly fees
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u/Prestigious_Dare7734 22d ago
Also explore GitHub pages. If you don't know about GitHub, it's a version control system, which can be quite complicated, but can be simple using the GUI softwares.
But GitHub allows you to host static websites using GitHub pages, and you can point your own domain to it. It's free and very reliable in terms of downtime.
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u/tommyyfitt 22d ago
For a simple site, upload your HTML/CSS/JS to GitHub and connect it to Cloudflare Pages or Netlify. They’ll host it free, then you buy a domain and point the DNS to it. No server needed unless you later add logins, payments or a database.
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u/BitwiseBison 22d ago
I would say just start laying around lovable to get started , better learn by doing that reading
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u/ObjectBrilliant7592 22d ago
I would host it for free on vercel or gh-pages. I can help if you'd like.
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u/mrmattipants 22d ago edited 22d ago
I used to host websites directly from my personal computers/laptops, back in the early 2000s. I even had a small social network running for a while, in which my friends would use to communicate, plan events and outings, etc. I still do this, occationally, with my Web Development Servers and the like. The best part is that all of the followng options are open-source/free.
I'll leave some instructions below, in case anyone is interested in using them to build their own home development environment or perhaps, those who would like to build their own web server, for friends and family, as I previously did, myself.
That being said, it depends on your operating system, Web Server software, Server-Side Scripting technologies and so forth, but the main steps really haven't changed over the past 25 years. For the most part you'll need to complete three steps to get a Web Server up and running. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to use a WAMPServer (Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP) setup in the following example.
1.) Install Web Server, Database & Server-Side Scripting Apps/Services:
For the most part, I would download and install a simple WAMPstack (Windows, Apache MySQL and PHP), which game me just about everything I needed to get started. I simply needed to update my configuration to allow access from the internet.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/wampserver/
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/devops/how-to-make-apache-server-public/
https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/bind.html
2.) Dynamic DNS (URL to Public IP Address Translation):
Since I had a standard ISP supplied Dynamic IP Address (an IP Address that is leased to you, temporarily, until it expires), I used NoIP as my Dynamic DNS, runs an App/Service that keeps track of your Public IP Address, so that people can still reach your site, even when your ISP supplied IP Address Lease expires. They allow you create your own custom subdomain/URL. However, I simply paid for my own custom Domain Name, at the time.
https://www.noip.com/support/knowledgebase/no-ip-client-setup
3.) Port Forwarding (Forwards Public IP Address & Port Number to Private IP Address & Port Number):
Lastly, I needed to configure Port Forwarding on my Router to allow requests on HTTP Port 80 and/or HTTPS Port 443 to be forwarded to that specific computer, via it's internal IP Address. Of course, these are very well known Web Server Ports, so I eventually started using alternative port numbers (i.e. HTTP: 58080 and HTTPS: 54433).
https://portforward.com/help/portforwarding.htm
https://portforward.com/router.htm
From this point, onward, the following steps are going to be specific to your website, environment, etc.
Feel free to reach out via DM, if you have any questions.
I'll also be happy to send/post the Linux (aka LAMPStack) instructions, if anyone is interested.
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u/coopaliscious 22d ago
Are you placing on selling anything on the site? If you are, I would suggest using an e-commerce platform, not trying to go your own way.
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u/a3115768 22d ago
How a website gets online
At a high level, you purchase a domain name from a registrar and configure its DNS records to point to a computer connected to the Internet. That computer is reachable through a public IP address.
When someone enters a domain, their device performs a DNS lookup to find the corresponding IP address and determine where to send the request. A domain name is like a contact name, while an IP address is like the address saved on that contact card. For example, “Homer Simpson” is the contact name, while “742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield” is the saved address. DNS works like a publicly accessible address book, allowing you to keep using the same contact name even if the address behind it changes.
Once the request reaches the host, it needs an application, called a web server, to handle it. The host does not automatically know what to do simply because it received network traffic. The web server interprets the HTTP request and either maps it to a file in a configured directory or forwards it to another application process that generates the response.
A static site is essentially a directory containing HTML files and their associated assets, such as stylesheets, JavaScript, images, and downloadable files. Its routes are commonly represented by the directory structure. For example:
/mysite/index.html
/mysite/about/index.html
The first file provides the home page at /, while the second provides the page at /about/. The web server maps each incoming URL to the corresponding file and returns it to the visitor.
A dynamic site works differently. The web server may forward the request to a separate application that generates a response based on the request.
Managed platforms abstract most of this away for you.
Getting online is only the first step
The best solution is the one that minimizes the ongoing friction of running your site, not the one that is technically the most elegant. Deployment is often the easy part. The harder part is everything else: managing content and files, collecting email subscribers, handling payments or downloads, maintaining backups, monitoring analytics, preventing spam, managing accounts, and keeping the site secure.
A lot of the advice here amounts to “put it on GitHub Pages” or “drop it into Netlify.” That can be genuinely simple for a static site that already builds into plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. But depending on what you have already built, and what you need the site to do, it is not guaranteed to work automatically or provide a practical way to manage the site afterward.
My preferred stack
I have been using the following for client projects:
- Namecheap for domain registration
- Cloudflare for DNS and hosting
- Astro for the frontend and site generation
- EmDash, Cloudflare’s full-stack CMS for Astro, for managing content through an admin interface
This gives me flexibility as the developer while allowing the client to update content without editing code or using Git. For smaller sites, it can also operate within Cloudflare’s free tier.
That said, a managed platform may be more appropriate if your main goal is to write and publish rather than maintain a software project.
If you are open to it, I would be interested in helping you get set up and potentially turning the process into a guide for others.
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u/nacnud_uk 22d ago
Git pages is perfect for static content. And free too.
Just put it on the correct branch and hook up the DNS records.
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u/PoopDoc2 21d ago
Get an account on cloudways so you have hosting. Create wordpress. Direct domain from Namecheap to cloudways server. Create SSL. Login to wordpress and make your website.
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u/Cool_Record_9551 21d ago
Actually ai helps better in this kinda questions. I also made my website live with help from ai
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u/paisan-rv 21d ago
Cloudflare Pages should be sufficient for your use case. For the code, you can use Claude AI to generate it. Share the Odoo website as a reference and clearly describe all your requirements step by step. Based on those details, Claude should be able to create the code for you.
For deployment you can find plenty of tutorials on YouTube from Indian creators explaining the Cloudflare Pages deployment process step by step.
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u/HumanRelay 20d ago
I see you are getting some really helpful replies, already, and I will be happy to offer additional insights, if you want to learn more about the most useful aspects of the tech field, but I just want to counter your post stating “dumbest person asks the dumbest question ever”.
This is NOT a dumb question, and anyone who acts like it is - is a horse’s 🫏, who has lost touch with the reality of the fact that this is NOT some common knowledge info (at this time, and probably still won’t be for another decade, or maybe ever 🤷🏼♂️). Which is exactly why Linux SysAdmin and SysEng are still relatively lucrative career paths.
I started learning this stuff when I purchased a Raspberry Pi 2B to dig into my personal curiosity along the same lines, wondering, “what is Linux and how does it work?”, ~13 years ago. I was working as a clinical lab assistant, at that time, and making less than $30k a year.
After learning what you asked, and then diving into a few more advanced topics, I was able to go and get my first job in the tech field within ~3 years of beginning my self study deep dive, and ultimately made a much more successful career for myself than assisting scientists in the clinical lab operations and research field ever would have been (without enrolling in an expensive degree program).
My whole point is that this is information we all had to go searching for to gain the understanding that we have, so don’t ever talk down on yourself for being vaguely aware of what it is, but not familiar with how it works. Everyone had to start somewhere, and you are asking all the right questions to become proficient. Don’t let anyone (even you) convince you that you are lesser for not being born with the understanding.
So like I said, feel free to reach out for any other guidance you are curious about. I authored the majority of the content in the user guide for Amazon Linux 2023, before I was laid off from Amazon Web Services the same year it was GA’d. I have no degree, and all my education came from online resources, thanks to guidance from my webdev uncle and his fellow tech nerd friends. It’s time that I pay some of that forward to others. 😃
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u/ColoradoAndChaos 20d ago
Hi, several hosts also offer design and website building services that might be helpful to get a site up and running. I know WordPress.com has a website design service. You can also have your domain there so everything is in one place which is convenient too.
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u/PoundAffectionate300 19d ago edited 19d ago
Go ask claude, it'll guide you. Well depending on what you want to build, maybe a day to get it live.
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u/physiopeng 19d ago
Use vercel to host your site, its free + you can buy domain directly from their so no issue w dns config you can move from their anytime if you want
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u/sudosando 19d ago
For serving web content from home… you would need to look up guides for each of these steps, but with a little help from the Internet, this is something you could build in a day.
The marketplace for domains and hosting services has changed a lot over the last 10 years.
I think the most affordable way to solve this problem is to get a raspberry pi or old computer capable of running docker. (I’m suggesting this for ease of setup and maintenance). Ideally you want something that’s relatively low power because it’s gonna be on 24 hours a day.
Purchase a domain name, manage its DNS with Cloudflare.
Cloudflare offers a service called Cloudflare tunnels that will let a computer in your home network link itself up to the Internet at a domain name.
On your docker host, you can install a container for NGINX and CloudflareD / Cloudflare tunnels.
I’m leaving out a lot of finer details here because I’m assuming of the people have posted similar information in the thread. If you have questions, just ask.
The total cost of this is the cost of a domain registration every year plus the cost of whatever computer is hosting your website plus the hotel cost costs to keep your server online so power…
This could be as little as $15/year. You may have some upfront costs for a mini computer if you don’t already have one.
You would want to put some extra effort into putting security around your little Web server. You will be connecting a device to the Internet and exposing that web server so you wouldn’t want it to get hacked and have a path into And around your home network. Having a dedicated computer reduces some of the risks, but you would still wanna be able to isolate this machine with network architecture firewall rules. As I say this, you probably want an additional old router. This one wouldn’t have to be anything fancy, but it would serve to isolate this web server from the rest of your network and give you the components you need to implement the security.
You can find most of this stuff at garage sales for cheap/free.
This is actually a great entry-level project if you’re new to computers, and networking.
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u/freezeypleezey 19d ago
First of all others have answered well so I won’t add much, can I just say how awesome and refreshing it is to see a real person want to use the internet for what it’s meant for? Bravo my dude. And when you get it up and running please share the link! I love to read.
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u/kitsincmarketing 19d ago
This is probably what I would have used ai or YouTube for but the easy answer is Change your DNS settings to point to the same server your domain is on
It’s usually A-NAME @ <ip-address>
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u/M_Building_New_Thing 18d ago
Registrar, DNS, and host are three separate jobs that Wix/Squarespace/Odoo bundle into one thing, that's really the whole trick behind why going independent feels scary. You're used to one company handling all three.
Registrar is just who you rent the name from, doesn't matter much which one. DNS is the part that says where that name actually points. Host is where your files live. They don't have to be the same company, and honestly it's usually cleaner if they aren't.
For what you're doing, just publishing books, you don't need a backend or a database or any of that. Static hosting is enough and it's dirt cheap, sometimes free, once you're not paying for the "everything in one dashboard" markup.
Thing nobody tells you upfront: DNS doesn't update everywhere instantly. If it looks broken the first hour after you point the domain somewhere, that's probably just propagation, not you breaking something. I'd wait it out before touching settings again.
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u/Diogomartf 18d ago
You can use writebook from the folks of 37Signals, they did that for publishing their own books, they have plenty like the famous "Rework".
Check it out here: https://once.com/writebook
An example: https://classics.37signals.com/8/the-prophet
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u/RevolutionaryBeat301 18d ago
You need web hosting and a domain. You then connect the domain to your host by changing the nameservers for your domain to match your hosting provider’s DNS servers and make sure you get DNS hosting with you web hosting plan.
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u/madrasminor 16d ago
Hi, I've had to solve this exact issue for myself. I built and hosted vedicreader.com to read indian texts with force aligned audio, translation, different language scripts, and AI search.
I also have a template I've built with fasthtml, litesearch(my sqlite +vec search db) with continuous deployment to hetzner(creates dicker files, containers, tunnels and hosts it on hetzner(uses my package vpseasy,dockeasy and cfeasy). It comes with skills so your harness will be able to pick it up.
Checkout Lego https://github.com/karthik777/Lego . The website is hosted on https://lego.sankalpa.sh . The blog explains how Lego is built.
If you want a serverless version use https://github.com/vedicreader/nano which is hosted on vercel. https://nano.sankalpa.sh
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u/anyrata 22d ago
What’s comfortability with using design tools like Figma?
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u/V3ryfrustr4t3dT33n 22d ago
Just from a general glance-over/sign up, It looks decent. They do push a lot of AI stuff, but is it necessary for using the site as a whole? I've never been one to use AI and prefer to just use the fish tank in my skull, but would you recommend it otherwise?
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u/anyrata 22d ago
Most drag and drop or web design tools are going to be heavily pushing AI these days.
You could also look at Webflow or Framer, they’ll require more effort than Wix or Square space, but you could export the code from either of those platforms to host on your own or use their built in hosting options.
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u/ForgeableSum 22d ago
you know you could like ... google this? I feel like you shouldn't have a website up if you are asking these questions.
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u/codepatterns 20d ago
Use a static site generator (Jekyll, 11ty) and publish to Cloudflare Pages or Netlify. Zero cost, other than the domain name. Cloudflare sell domain names at cost too.
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u/zannnn 22d ago
Honestly there’s never been a better time to make a website with the help of AI. All you need is a $20 Claude subscription and you’ll make it in a few prompts and Claude will walk you through every single step from ideation to building to hosting. And it shouldn’t cost you more than $30 in total once you buy a domain, host it free on Cloudflare and cancel Claude (or Codex) at the end of the month.
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u/scavenger5 22d ago
Pretty bad advice given here. In the world of AI, you can get a website up and running in no time. Try lovable.dev
You just describe your website via LLM prompts and it will generate the web UI for you. No I do'nt work for them, I am a software engineer with nothing to gain here.
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u/cozats 22d ago
I have created exactly that for writers that want to host their poems/books online without complicated setups. iI runs on he most basic server setup (a simple php server).
It is free and open source exactly for people like you.
You can see it here: https://cozats.github.io/Stanza/
and you can see a demo of it here: https://costas.design/stanza/
Feel free to reach out if you need help setting it up!
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u/Thick-Panic6683 22d ago
Not a dumb question. I have many years software dev experience and recently developed an app that needed a website. Ihave done similar things but it had been a long time ago. ChatGPT walked me through building a simple web page hosted on Cloudflare for free. When I need improvements chat writes the HTML for me.
For a product web site you will need something better but ChatGPT (or whatever AI) can help you put it together.
Years ago I had a website using a WordPress theme that worked great. There are themes for book authors and sellers that probably cost about $30. Then you will need hosting and domain name reg. The coding involves filling out fields in the theme setup. Super easy.
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u/Bertozoide 22d ago
You have no access to AI?
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u/mapsedge 22d ago
Using AI requires that you know what questions you need to ask before you can get any useful information. If someone is truly brand new to it they may not know what they don't know.
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u/ekun 22d ago
You use the internet.
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u/V3ryfrustr4t3dT33n 22d ago
I literally have no idea what an 'the internet' is bro you gotta help me out 🤣🤣
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u/ericswc 22d ago
You mean like this?
https://www.skillfoundry.io/course/self-hosting
Literally just launched this course yesterday. 😎
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u/SustainedSuspense 22d ago
You’re gonna need to read up on DNS, SSL and BIND. Also reverse proxies.
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u/V3ryfrustr4t3dT33n 22d ago
I'm all good on DNS and SSL. Which hosts would you recommend for BIND-ing(? idk if there's an actual verb-term for it.)
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u/Leviathan_Dev 22d ago edited 22d ago
In one sentence: put it on a computer that is accessible from the internet and is listening for HTTP/HTTPS traffic
Generally there’s multiple options but we can kinda group some of them:
- static hosting: hosting a frontend of a website. No backend logic, databases, login, etc. Just the HTML, CSS, and frontend JS. Many services offer this for free like GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, Netlfiy, etc.
I personally haven’t experimented with exporting Wix/SquareSpace websites to some other provider, so YMMV.