Creating a Web Site: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition

Introduction

These days, it’s all but impossible to find someone who hasn’t heard of the Internet. Companies create Web sites before they make business plans. Ordinary people build obsessively detailed pages describing their celebrity-themed swizzle-stick collections. And political activists attack their opponents with gossip, pictures, and embarrassing videos. The Internet has even changed our language: google and blog are now verbs, for example, and social networking has nothing to do with face-to-face encounters.

Everyone wants their own piece of Web real estate. Unfortunately, building a Web site isn’t as easy as it should be. Even though people have been building sites for years, Web site development has only become more complicated. That’s because Web programmers have been busy creating new technologies and introducing new standards that add features, solve problems, and iron out earlier quirks. If you want to create a fresh, cutting-edge Web site (instead of one that looks as hokey as a 1960s yearbook portrait), you need to understand these different ingredients and how they fit together.

That’s where this book comes in. Bookstore shelves are full of Web site design books written years ago. They don’t cover the current techniques your site needs to distinguish itself, make money, and show up in search results. This book corrects those mistakes—it includes all the advice and guidance you need to build a modern Web site. With this book by your side, you’ll learn how to:

• Create ...