Often when switching hosts or signing up at new host you'll have to set your domain's name servers to your new website host's name servers. This step is necessary because it allows your new host's servers to receive and serve requests for your website from your visitor's browsers. However the Domain Name System (DNS) is such that it takes time for this new mapping between your domain name and your host's servers to propagate across the Internet. Depending on your new host's DNS servers and your Internet Service Provider it can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days before you will be able to access your website via the domain name. If, in the meantime, you want to upload files to your website and test it you will need to edit your Windows HOSTS file to manually map your domain name to your web host's IP address.
The first step is finding out the IP address of your new host's servers. A lot of enlightened hosts include this information in the email they send you when you sign up with them. In that case you can skip to the next step. But if your host does not provide with this info then you will have to do an ns lookup:
Next open up your windows HOSTS file using your favourite text editor such as notepad. You can open this file by copy pasting %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS into your editor's open file window. In most cases you can also try C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS . Keep in mind that the file has no extension.
Open up the file and on a new line type in your host's ip address followed by a space and your domain name. For ex:
208.113.192.208 websitetheme.com
You may also prefer to add the www version:
208.113.192.208 www.websitetheme.com
Save the file and try to access your site by typing in your domain name in your favourite browser. It should work now! To enable ftp access add another line with the ftp subdomain:
208.113.192.208 ftp.websitetheme.com
Using this technique you should be able to access your site while DNS is being propagated.
Here are a few ideas on how bloggers can mess with their readers
:
Make sure your comment form asks users for their website address. Also make sure that that website address is never displayed in user's comments
. Users eager for backlinks will place comments on your blog only to find that they have been duped and their comments don't include links to their sites
. A similar tactic is widely used on wordpress blogs where links in comments do not pass page rank because the blog software automatically inserts no-follow attributes.
Write a post supporting censorship and make sure that you enable moderated comments. Enthusiastic users will write lengthy comments only to find that their comments disappear once they press the submit button
. Some of them will even protest that their comments are not showing up without realising the bloody irony of the whole business
.