Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 1 Committed to Shaping the Next Generation of IT Experts. Project 8: Prepping and Publishing a Web Site Kelly L. Valqui Essentials for Design XHTML Level 1

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 2 Objectives  Add comments to content and code  Work with special character entities  Add meta data to your pages  Include a document type definition  Validate a Web site  Register a domain name  Work with hosting companies  Submit a page to search engines

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 3 Visual Summary This storyboard gives a flow of the steps involved in publishing a Web site In general it is a good idea to construct your own storyboard for Web sites that you develop

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 4 Advantages of Comments  Helps multiple programmers work together on common Web sites  Provide useful information about the content of the code  Make it easier to update code  Can "comment out" code that you want to disable temporarily  Can use comments as reminders of when and where to place content updates

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 5 Comment tags   Begins with exclamation point and two dashes  Ends with two dashes  Anything inside the comment tag is ignored by the browser  Comments can be placed anywhere in the code  Example syntax: 

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 6 Representing Character Entities  Character entity – special character value  Representing character entities  Precede value by ampersand (&) and follow with semicolon (;)  Example: < for representing a the less- than symbol (<)  Example: > for representing a the less- than symbol (>)

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 7 Representing ASCII Values  ASCII value – the numeric representation of a character on a computer system  Representing ASCII values  Precede number by ampersand and hash mark (&#) and follow with semicolon (;)  Example: < for representing the less-than symbol (<)  Example: > for representing the less-than symbol (<)

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 8 Some ASCII Value Character Representations

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 9 Effect of Using Character Entities and ASCI Values Copyright © Kelly Valqui. "Success is counted sweetest….

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 10 Meta Information and Tags  Meta information – information about information  tag  Provides useful information about the content of your Web site  Boost site’s ranking in search engines and online directory listings  Provide keywords and descriptions

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 11 Tag Attributes for Keyword Search  Keywords – words or phrases that a user is likely to type into a search engine  name (or http-equiv)  name="keywords"  Indicates the content of the meta tag will have keywords  Content  Lists the actual keywords to match users' search  Example syntax: 

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 12 Tag Attributes for Page Descriptions  Description value – tells the search engine precisely what to return as the description of the page, rather than the first sentence of the page.  name (or http-equiv)  name="description"  Indicates the content of the meta tag will have keywords  Content  Indicates the actual description for search engine to return  Example syntax: 

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 13 How to Maximize Search Ranking  Pick strategic keywords  Predict what users will type into the Search field  Keywords should be two or more words long  Position keywords carefully  Keywords should appear in strategic locations on your Web pages (e.g. title)  Use keywords for page headlines

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 14 Web Page Validation  Check XHTML source code against a DTD  Document Type Definition (DTD) – specifies “rules” that apply to a document’s source code  DTD specified in tag (required for strict XHTML)  Three DOCTYPES  Strict  Transitional  Frameset

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 15 DTD Options  Strict   Transitional  /  Frameset 

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 16 Meaning of a DTD Tag  <!DOCTYPE html  indicates the document type to the Web browser (hypertext)  PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"  indicates the type of XHTML you used (strict)  /> /  indicates the URL for the DTD

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 17 Validating a Home Page  You can validate an XHTML document by visiting a validation site  Example: d.html d.html  At this site, do the following:  Specify the file you want to validate  Click the Validate It! Button  View the error and warning messages

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 18 Using HTMLHelp Go to this URL Click the Browse button to get a File Open dialog box

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 19 Using HTMLHelp (cont.) Select the XHTML file to upload

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 20 Using HTMLHelp (cont.) View the error messages, then make the proper corrections and re- validate

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 21 More on Tags   tells the search engine how often it should revisit your page  helpful if you update your pages on a regular basis   useful if you want visitors to see the main page first, and then navigate the site in a specific manner  other content options: index, noindex

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 22 Domain Names  Used in URLs to identify specific Web pages  Example:  For URL:  Domain name is: againsttheclock.com  Common top-level domains .com for commercial business .edu for educational institutions .gov for government agencies .mil for the military .net for network organizations .org for nonprofit organizations

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 23 Domain Name Registration  InterNIC – the organization that indexes domain names  Domain registrar – a company that allows you to register domain names through them  Annual domain name registration fee – ranges from $15 to $35  Domain name always stays with you, regardless of where the site is hosted

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 24 Criteria for Choosing a Hosting Service Provider  Service options:  Simple account  Database support  FrontPage extensions  Others  Uptime/downtime guarantees  At least 95% uptime (or better)  Customer-care and technical-support  Cost

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 25 Checking Domain Name Availability Register.com is one site that enables you to check availability of domain names

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 26 Using Search Engines  Search engine – an online URL database or index  Using a search engine  enter specific keywords  click the Search button  search engine looks through its index to locate Web pages that match your keywords  Search criteria – your keywords  returned pages are ordered according to how relevant they are to your search criteria

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 27 Registering Your Web Site  Register your site with:  each individual search engine OR  a submission service  Search engine has an “Add Your URL” link  Complete an online registration form  Submit the form  Site should be active in a few weeks

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 28 Careers in Web Design  Web designer  Developing the look and feel of Web site  Web developer  Programmers, database experts, and site maintenance professionals  Responsible for the “wiring” of the site

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 29 Summary  In this chapter you learned to:  Comment your code  Work with character entities  Add meta data to your pages  Work with document type definitions  Validate a Web site  Register a domain name  Work with hosting companies  Submit a page to search engines

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 30 End-of-chapter Exercises  Multiple Choice  Discussion  Skill Drills  Comment a Web Page  Add Tags  Add Character Entities  Validate the Web Site  Challenge  Comment Out Sections of Body Content  Prepare for Search Engines  Find Free Hosting  Validate an Entire Site  Portfolio Builder  Publish a Portfolio Web Site

Copyright (c) 2004 Prentice-Hall. All rights reserved. 31 Questions?