# Solved: Help Publishing Web Page



## Mia H. (Feb 14, 2009)

I've been using BlueVoda website builder and I finally got a web hosting account (with someone else), but I'm having trouble publishing. The program does come with its own FTP, but I can't figure it out. And it insists that I log in and that I pick an IP address from this long list in order to publish. I tried using my user name and password from the host account, but I can't get the IP address right. 
I went to a website to find out my IP address, but if it was right then it's nothing near anything on that list. I tried using a few other FTP programs, but when I try to upload the index.html file it shows up as gibberish rather than my design. The host site doesn't offer any help, and Voda only offers help for those who are using _their_ hosting. I've been searching like crazy, but I just keep finding the same useless and vague advice that doesn't get me anywhere.
Can anyone help me? (Aaaargh...)


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## colinsp (Sep 5, 2007)

When you signed up with your new host they should have sent you a welcome message with your ip address user id and password. These are what you should be using. I presume that you have a domain name registered and that you have the nameservers pointed to your hosting space? If not you need to do this first. Filezilla is a very good free ftp programme that will allow you to upload your files to your space.


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## Mia H. (Feb 14, 2009)

Thank you so much for answering me. I tried FileZilla, but my home page still comes up as gibberish when I visit my site. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I've been using the name and password the site gave me and I have no trouble logging in from all the FTPs I've tried. I'm taking the index.html file and uploading it onto the website from the FTP, which probably isn't right, but I don't know any other way to do it. When it comes up as gibberish I delete the file from the FTP and it goes back to saying "Index of/" then it says "parent directory" and ".ftp quota". Also you lost me a little when you were talking about "nameservers"?


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## Eriksrocks (Aug 7, 2005)

Nameservers are what point your domain (www.example.com) to the actual server that your website is being hosted on. You need to configure them correctly with your domain registrar before anybody can access your site.

What is URL to your site?


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## Mia H. (Feb 14, 2009)

Thanks, here's the url: http://www.nowhere-spade.site12.com/
There's nothing there though.


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## Eriksrocks (Aug 7, 2005)

I'm currently getting a 403 Forbidden error.

In your FTP program, set the permissions of index.html to 644. In FileZilla, this is accomplished by right-clicking on the file, then going to "File Permissions..." and setting the numerical value to 644.


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## Mia H. (Feb 14, 2009)

Hi Erik, I did what you said, but the file permission was already on 644. I think it's strange you got the 403 error message because when I go to the site from my browser it has the "Index of/", but when I click the link I posted it has the error. Even though the file permissions was already on 644, I retyped it, but it didn't do anything. 
Lol, am I like beyond help or something? 
Thanks anyway.


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## Eriksrocks (Aug 7, 2005)

Mia H. said:


> Hi Erik, I did what you said, but the file permission was already on 644. I think it's strange you got the 403 error message because when I go to the site from my browser it has the "Index of/", but when I click the link I posted it has the error. Even though the file permissions was already on 644, I retyped it, but it didn't do anything.
> Lol, am I like beyond help or something?
> Thanks anyway.


You're right. When I clicked in my browser's address field and pressed enter I got the "gibberish" that you've seen before.

To me this seems like a major server misconfiguration. You're probably going to have to contact your host. Before you do, however, make sure you're uploading index.html in ASCII mode. In FileZilla, go to Transfer > Transfer Type > ASCII and reupload. If that doesn't fix anything, then something is wrong with the host. 

Also, can you attach your HTML file that you're trying to upload?


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## Mia H. (Feb 14, 2009)

I changed it to ASCII like you said, but it didn't do anything. Do you think it could be the program I'm using? Because I know for a fact that you can't open one of their files without it. 
I tried to attach the html file, but it didn't work, sorry. I don't think it's the host site, but I don't really know that much to begin with. I have to be doing something wrong...
Man, I really want a website. I could totally dedicate it to people having trouble publishing their websites. Irony, lol.


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## Eriksrocks (Aug 7, 2005)

Ah, didn't even think about the possible program issues .  In the program you're using to create the page, find out how to export to HTML. You're probably saving your page in a proprietary format used by the program, but you need to save it as HTML. 

If you open the file you think you've saved as HTML in a text editor like Notepad, you should see regular HTML markup and not gibberish. 

I'm guessing this is most likely the problem.


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## colinsp (Sep 5, 2007)

It may be worth creating a very simple page in notepad and ftp that to your site to see if it works. Something like

```
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Test Page</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>This is a test page to see if my site is working</h1>
</body>
</html>
```
Cut and paste this into notepad and save it as index.html and and ftp it to your webserver and try it then.


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## Mia H. (Feb 14, 2009)

OMG that worked!!! Yay!!!  So does that mean I should just try to use another web builder??? Or is it only going to work if I use html? Cause I'm pretty illiterate when it comes to code. 
Thank you!!!


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## Mia H. (Feb 14, 2009)

Eriksrocks said:


> Ah, didn't even think about the possible program issues .  In the program you're using to create the page, find out how to export to HTML. You're probably saving your page in a proprietary format used by the program, but you need to save it as HTML.
> 
> If you open the file you think you've saved as HTML in a text editor like Notepad, you should see regular HTML markup and not gibberish.
> 
> I'm guessing this is most likely the problem.


Thanks so much!!! I'm so excited that it works!!!
I pasted the html colinsp posted into note pad and saved it as index.html. I uploaded it, and it works!!! So if I can't fix the format of the Voda files, it should be fine if I try using another program right? I mean given that that program doesn't have the same problem. I mean it says it's a .html firefox document so I don't get why it doesn't read it that way.


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## colinsp (Sep 5, 2007)

What that means is that your current editor is not creating HTML code. You need to get an editor that does. If you want a free one try Komposer, if you are prepared to pay the price get Dreamweaver, if you want to write your own code Notepad++ is good or there is Expression Web from M$ if you want to pay for an editor. I use Dreamweaver which is pretty much the industry standard.


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## Hughv (Jul 22, 2006)

You could also Google for "Free web page templates"
Use your editor to modify the contents and be up and running quickly.


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## colinsp (Sep 5, 2007)

You've missed the point that it is his editor that is causing the problems by not saving html rather than a problem with a template


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## Hughv (Jul 22, 2006)

Actually, I didn't miss that point, but was I assuming (she?) would take the advice to get a new editor.


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