website question

[Billsotx]

I need to help on my website which I built on neocities.org. I had about half my pages
uploaded over there as well as the images for those pages. I was using their free version
and every thing worked ok. I had looked into their paid version, they call it supporter
and "I think" with that they allow you to use your own url. I obtained the domain of
txgunleather.com from GoDaddy and just parked it there not wanting to use GoDaddy. Then I joined
neocities opensource version which has considerably more space and bandwidth. Next I tried
to point, link to, whatever the term is, to my domain name and now instead of being able
to view my webpages as before I get the following on a "new blank page." Most of this text
is hper-links ...

Hmmm...can’t reach this page
Try this
Make sure you’ve got the right web address: https://txgunleather.com
Search for "https://txgunleather.com" on Bing
Refresh the page
Details
There was a temporary DNS error. Try refreshing the page.
Error Code: INET_E_RESOURCE_NOT_FOUND

I've tried to refresh the page multiple times and that does not work. I entered the url
in the address bar on three different browers, two computers and an iphone and it takes me
to neocities.org website. If I'm signed in on neocities, it take me to my profile there
but it does not find the website.

Does anyone use neocities as their host, or is anyone familiar with neocities that can
give me any advice? Thanks in advance for any ideas. ~Bill

[user2013]

I can't help with neocities, you would need to speak to their support, especially if you paid for it... 

The only point I could see - do not use https:// unless it is your intention and you have the security certificate for your domain.

Use http:// instead.

You would need https:// if you accept online payments or want to secure usernames and passwords with encryption.  

[Billsotx]

Thanks for the tip, good info to know. I actually just tried txgunleather.com and it now takes me to the neocities sign-in page. I didn't ignore what you suggest and tried http://txgunleather.com and got the same. When I sign-in I get my account and I can see my uploads, the only option is to edit them and from there I can "view" the website - except when I select view I get the message in my original post. I will attempt to get a response from them. If I get some help from them I'll come back here and note that in case someone else decides to use neocities. Not sure I have the terms right but I assume neocities is my host since I purchased my domain name and can supposedly according to GoDaddy's site use it on a long list of other hosts or whatever is used. GoDaddy doesn't list neocities so that may be the rub. I may have to look else where, but for now I'll try to contact them. 

 

Many thanks for your reply. ~Bill

 

[mikesc]

You need to ask neocities for the their "nameservers"..they ( and most other hosting companies ) will usually give you two nameservers to "point" your domain name ( which in your case is at Godaddy ) to..you'll probably have somewhere in your control panel at neocities that tells you to add the "incoming" domain to..( this part registers the incoming domain name at their nameservers, so their nameservers know which "space" ( account ) to send requests for txleathers.com to..That space corresponds to your website with them, where all your files and pages live.

At the Godaddy "domain name manager "end you will go to the "edit nameservers" section, choose "use custom nameservers"..and in the two fields there you put in the nameservers that neocities told you to use. input only one nameserver per field..Save them.

I don't know neocities..but nameservers are usually in the following formats.

NS1.NAMEOFHOSTINGCOMPANY.COM
and
NS2.NAMEOFHOSTINGCOMPANY.COM

they may also be written in lower case like

ns1.nameofhostingcompany.com
and
ns2.nameofhostingcompany.com

if they are hosting a lot of sites they may have more than just two nameservers, so they might say to you to use for ( example )
ns17.nameofhostingcompany.com
and
ns18.nameofhostingcompany.com

nameservers can also use .net or .org or dot anything at the end.

from what happens at the moment when you try to reach your domain..it looks like you did not ask neocities for their name servers, that you probably didn't set your txleather.com at the neocities end in their control panel and that you just put neocities.org in the "custom nameservers" fields at Godaddy.

Do not worry about the HTTPS or the HTTP..it looks like all sites hosted at neocities automatically get an HTTPS via what is called a "wildcard" SSL cert on their system.
In reality when neocities are hosting your "space" you don't have a domain hosted with them, but it is a subdomain of neocities.org..that is why ( when it works ) it would be txleather.neocities.org.

It works like this..
txleather ( is a subdomain ) of neocities.org ( which is the domain ) the dot org is the TLD ( top level domain )

if it was www.neocities.org then www ( would also be a subdomain of neocities )

Personally IIWY , I'd get a cheap hosting space with a paid hoster who uses cpanel and who has phone support ( without a premium rate number ) in the USA,as a "newbie" you'll find it much easier to deal with being hosted via a phone support system than via a chat or an email support.I don't use Godaddy for hosting ( but I do have a couple of hundred domain names registered with them, and have done for over 20 years now, I also have many other domains registered elsewhere in other countries ) their domain manager interface is fairly easy to use.I would not normally recommend hosting in the same place as your domain name is registered,but Godaddy do have cpanel, and phone support.. I know people who only run a handful of sites that have good things to say about dreamhosts, and bluehost.com, but both of those only offer non phone support, and they use their own control panels IFAIK.

Other than those two ( and Godaddy ) I don't know enough about any other shared hosters in the USA, if you were wanting to rent a server or a VPS I'd suggest hostdime..In the past I did some IT consultant work for a French hosting company who also wanted to run some hosting from the USA, I set them up with dedicated servers at Hostdime ( both managed and unmanaged ) they ( Hostdime )were good, but probably way above what most people reading here would ever require.All my stuff is now hosted in Europe.

re what you said here

GoDaddy doesn't list neocities so that may be the rub.

makes no difference..you could "point" any domain that is registered with any registrant anywhere to any hoster anywhere, as long as you put the nameservers in the "choose nameservers" fields at the registrant and also "add" the domain name at the "add domain" ( or whatever that form is called at your host ) form at the hosting company.

Edited October 31, 2017 by mikesc

[Billsotx]

Thanks Mike, I have found some of the settings at neociies but GoDaddy won't take them when I try to save them. I did get this far, but like you said it's only a subdomain: txgunleather.neocities.org ... 

 

Neocities is telling me what my "A Record" and "AAAA Record" and that they point to my domain, but I'm in the wrong place on GoDaddy apparently. 

 

I'll keep fussing with it. I appreciate you taking the time as this definitely helps to understand what I need to do. 

[mikesc]

This is the page at Godaddy's help files that explains how to set up your A record..
https://uk.godaddy.com/help/add-an-a-record-19238
( don't worry about it appearing to be their UK site, it should auto-redirect to the USA site for you if you copy and paste that into your address bar and then click enter )
But..it may still be a little confusing for you, so ..What I'd advise is..

Make sure that you have the message from neocities with you A record open, so that you can copy and paste from it later..

Log into your account at Godaddy ..then phone their customer service number, when you reach their multiple choice machine, choose "existing customer", then choose "tech support", then choose "domains"..

Explain to the tech what you want to do, ask them to "walk you through it"..don't be afraid to ask what you think might sound like "dumb questions" ( they will have heard things that are far far "dumber" ) ..when you have done what the tech says, and clicked "save at the final stage..You'll then have to allow some time for the internet to propagate that information.
Usually you'll read that domain pointing can take upto 72 hours..in my experience the Godaddy system gets picked up "live" in under an hour..To see if your domain name is "resolving" to your space at neocities, you'll need to either "flush your browser cache" and try again to reach your space by typing in your domain name ( the one you registered at Godaddy ) into the address bar, and click enter..Or start up a different browser and do the same thing..

Not knowing which operating system you are on and which browsers you might be using or have available to you I can't tell you how to "flush your browser cache"..You can Google that info by searching for your system OS ( might be win 7 ) and your browser ( might be IE10* ) and add the phrase "how to flush browser cache" to the search.

*If you don't know what version of your browser you are on..go to the "help button" on the browser, click it..then go to "about" and click that..it will tell you which version it is ..

btw ..an easy explanation of the difference between "nameservers" and "A records"
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=975353

observation..it is a shame that neocities don't have somewhere where people who want to find out how their system works before/ without setting up an account, can find this stuff ( like that they don't use nameservers but instead use A records directly )..it is open source, and they make the source available on git, so why hide how the back end works..

Edited November 3, 2017 by mikesc

[Billsotx]

Thanks Mike, I'll post feedback in awhile. I may be there and only need to flush my browsers. I've used Win 10, IE and Edge, and Ubuntu - Chromium. I'll work on flushing all and if it's not that I'll phone GoDaddy.

[Billsotx]

No luck with the customer support at GoDaddy over the phone; jason over there said they do not provide customer service to third party hosting. 

 

I continue to fuss with it. I finally figured out how to get the GoD dns-management menu to show me an A-record and managed to get it to save my entries but I have no idea if I entered the right data. After I save the A-record there was an option for the AAAA-record so I've tried that one also.

It could be that an hour is not long enough, but it's been about that long. If it comes up I'll post that here.

What I'm getting right now if I search for https://www.txgunleather.com is: This site can't be reached ..... www.txgunleather.com's server DNS address could not be found. ... DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NIXDOMAIN ... and there is a reload button that just ditto's this message so far.

Back to fussing with it.

[Billsotx]

So far, it's been days neocities doesn't answer anything but there is a contact link. You'd think after a week they'd reply.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Billsotx

[Billsotx]

Mike, I'm going to look into another host. I appreciate all your help. I'm not attached to that domain at GoDaddy. I think I saw somewhere that a domain name can't be transferred until it is over 60 days since it was created; if that's the case I'll just get something else, rather than wait another month. Jason at Godaddy was suggesting that I delete my account since I wasn't going to use them as host so I should probably do that.

Edited November 4, 2017 by Billsotx

[Constabulary]

I´m not a website pro (really not) and don`t know how the back end looks like but are sure you sure your domain is linked to the correct folder where the website is stored? Hope you know what I mean? Maybe you have to change some folder permissions on this certain folder or a certain folder one level up. But don´t ask me for details I only recall I once had a similar problem with a forum I once ran.

 

[mikesc]

You don't have to delete your name from Godaddy..

Godaddy is not your host..they are your registrar.
neocities is ( or would be if it worked ) your host<= they are where the problem is.

You can keep the domain registered at Godaddy and either host with them ( a small site hosting deal with them used to cost only around $3.00 per month, with cpanel ) what you won't get for that price with them is a free SSL cert ( and GD don't offer the "letsencrypt" free SSL cert ) But, unless you wanted to run your own shopping cart? You wouldn't need SSL ( which is what gives you the "s" part of https )..you could sell via paypal buttons or similar on your site, the site can be hosted anywhere.

What you do need is not to be futtzing around with A records and so on, you need a hoster who tells you the nameservers to use and then when the request arrives to their name servers they sort it out and send it to the webspace that you have..

And preferably a hoster who uses cpanel because you'll find it much easier to use it than any of the other ways to administer a website...and whose support is phone based.

It isn't a problem of folder permissions.

It appears to be a problem with the back end of neocities..I'm not surprised that they haven't got back to you.

[One thing that I don't understand though..why are your links that you have posted here to your domain name all with the https and the www part in them ?]

When you buy a domain name ..you actually buy the base name.
I'll show you a simplified version of how it works.
(I'll use example.com because there are agreements in place that it can never be used , so it won't link anywhere and it will be easier to see how domain names work and how domain space is structured.I'll keep Godaddy.com as the example of a registrar, and use a fictitious company "somehoster.com" as the hosting company )

You go to Godaddy and you buy "example.com"

That is your domain name..not www.example.com..

People could reach your domain if you then host it anywhere just by typing in example.com

They don't need to type in any www or http , or https..if they just typed in example.com into their browser address bar, the browser would ask the DNS system where is example.com, and..if a nameserver is set up for it, the DNS system replies "it is over here / there" and the browsers request is forwarded to the space at somehoster.com where example.com is hosted.

[Btw..because "somehoster.com" is a real hoster ( unlike neocities ) you, and your visitors will never see their address in the address bar when you connect to your site..so no example.somehoster.com

The www part , or, public_html, as you'll see it written if you use FTP to connect to your site
is actually a folder at example.com. www and public_html are just two names for the same folder.

You can choose ( when you build your website à whether to have your pages and any associated files ) to have the part of your site that people see , in the www folder, or in the example folder ( this is called the "site root" ) ..most people choose to put their public facing files ( including their pages ) in the www folder.

( I actually always put mine in the site root on my domains, because , amongst other things, it is easier to tell people the site name as example.com, than it is to say www.example.com..Do you say facebook or do you say www.facebook.com ? )

So..you've bought example.com at GD..when you buy it they have it set to be using their own name servers ( they want to sell you hosting , so that is convenient, or they want to put ads on it if you are not using it) now you need somewhere to host it.

If you host with them then everything is already set up for it to work..you upload your files to the webspace ( it will usually default to the www or public_html folder ) your files are in place, GD know that you are using the domain name on their hosting, and the site works.

If you want to host with someone else.
You rent hosting space with someone else, the someone else tells you the nameservers ( they'll usually tell you two ) to use to input at your registrar -( in this case GD )..you upload your files to the webspace at somehoster.com ( again the upload will usually default to the www or public_html folder ) and then you go to GD, you click on "domain manager", you click on the "domain name", you click on "manage nameservers", you choose "use custom nameservers", you see two input fields, you put one ( and only one nameserver ( exactly as they. somehoster.com gave it to you ) into the one field, then you go to the field below it and put in the other nameserver ( again exactly as they.somehoster.com gave it to you ) you don't add http or https or anything else ..you choose "save"..and you give it an hour or so..

Then you open up your browser, and you type into the address bar..the name of your domain
example.com you don't put http or https..just example.com
you hit enter..

If you site opens up fine, look at the address bar..
if it says
example.com
then your site is in the "domain root"
if it says www.example.com
then your site is in the www or the public_html folder..

Sometimes what might happen is that you'll put your files into the www or public_html folder and when you type in example.com the server may not be set up to "redirect" the browser request to that folder..
This will mean that if you put in example.com..you'll get nothing
But if you put in www.example.com.. your site will work

If that happens, ask your hoster to redirect ( that "redirect" is the term ) example.com requests to www.example.com
( you can do it yourself in various ways, but if I begin explaining how, you'll be way out of your depth, and your eyes would glaze over )


ps..Wherever you host..don't host on windows..it will make your life way more complicated than it needs to be.

Edited November 4, 2017 by mikesc

[Billsotx]

Thanks Mike, you break this down where it makes a lot more sense. I had used cpanel before and I was trying to avoid it. It was always a guess as to what I was doing. I'll look into it again. I took one more shot at neocities as your explanation made that A-record neocities thing on their little panel more clear to me. It's done for the last time, I'll let it sit for a few days and look into cpanel.

I appreciate you spending some much time helping me out. 

[mikesc]

If there is anything that you are not sure about on cpanel ( you want to do something but don't know how to , or where you should click ) ..or you are wondering " what happens if I click this". Ask in here :) ..

There are others here who have been doing this IT "thing" for a long time too..Some like wiz for example run website building ( and maybe hosting ? ) as a business..Like with the leatherwork, some here do it as a hobby, for some of us it is our business, or as in my case it is one of my businesses.

I don't build websites or write scripts or programs etc for anyone else now ( except very occasionally for friends in exchange for things like firewood and wood for sculpture ), nor do I sell hosting now ( I did for a while, but , it needs someone watching over it 24/7/365..and IMO doesn't pay well enough, nor is it interesting ) , I ( as mentioned above ), did, and do "consult" around IT sometimes..When I was hosting it was to help out friends who need hosting but had no idea how to do any of this..I like cpanel hosting because it is simple ( although cpanel writes some kludgy automated scripts to htaccess and such ) to explain , and it has ( at the layer above it ) WHM, which means that as a hoster you don't have to deal with two different kinds of "logic patterns" ..What the hoster sees is laid out almost the same as what the site owner sees.In my experience ( and that of almost all hosters ) it is the simplest and most efficient "point and click" site admin / control interface to offer to a user..and when you are a hoster it has built in auto billing etc , which makes managing the money easier.

If you are developing your site yourself ( rather than using a website builder of some sort, or having someone build your site for you ) then I'd recommend installing a free( as in beer ) Bitnami "wamp" , "lamp" or "mamp" server "stack" on your home computer..you can get them in a windows version, a linux version, a mac version etc..you won't get cpanel , but what you will get is a server on your own computer where you can build and test your pages and your website before you upload it to your hoster, It will match 99% of the apache servers that hosters offer. Same structure, database sytem etc..

Bitnami stuff is one click install..just make a note in a little book of any passwords etc that you create during installation.

They also make "one click installers" of ready made website shops such as prestashop..so you can build your shop "offline" and then upload it to wherever you are hosted.

A lot of hosters who offer cpanel have included within it the one click installers for shops such as prestashop.
It will install a shop that will work "out of the box" on desktops, tablets and smart phones, and allow very easy configuring, personalisation and updating of what you sell.

The documentation of the bitnami system and of prestashop is very comprehensive and clear.

Bitnami have other "modules" such as wordpress installers, drupal, magento etc..wordpress looks easy, and is a security nightmare, drupal is not much better, and magento is overkill for 99.9% of all webshops.

For most website owners, "flat files" ( pages written in html ) and with their accompanying images , css, some javascript and some php ( maybe ) is all that you need..unless you want it to work as a shop..in which case..I'd again recommend prestashop..it is free , it is reasonably secure ( nothing is 100% secure ), the documentation is good, it has a huge community that is very helpfull, it is easily customisable, and it is easy to understand for a non programmer.