Think you have to be a technical wizard to build a great web site? Think again. If you want to create an engaging web site, this thoroughly revised, completely updated edition of Creating a Web Site: The Missing Manual demystifies the process and provides tools, techniques, and expert guidance for developing a professional and reliable web presence. Whether you want to build a personal web site, an e-commerce site, a blog, or a web site for a specific occasion or promotion, this book gives you detailed instructions and clear-headed advice for:

• Everything from planning to launching. From picking and buying a domain name, choosing a Web hosting firm, building your site, and uploading the files to a web server, this book teaches you the nitty-gritty of creating your home on the Web.

• Ready-to-use building blocks. Creating your own web site doesn't mean you have to build everything from scratch. You'll learn how to incorporate loads of pre-built and freely available tools like interactive menus, PayPal shopping carts, Google ads, and Google Analytics.

• The modern Web. Today's best looking sites use powerful tools like Cascading Style Sheets (for sophisticated page layout), JavaScript (for rollover buttons and cascading menus), and video. This book doesn't treat these topics as fancy frills. From step one, you'll learn easy ways to create a powerful site with these tools.

• Blogs. Learn the basics behind the Web's most popular form of self-expression. And take a step-by-step tour through Blogger, the Google-run blogging service that will have you blogging before you close this book.

This isn't just another dry, uninspired book on how to create a web site. Creating a Web Site: The Missing Manual is a witty and intelligent guide you need to make your ideas and vision a web reality.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 36 Ratings

Great resource but beware of sites recommended within the pages - 2009-10-27
Reviewer Rating:
What's GOOD: A must have for any beginning web site developer. I continue to find this book an excellent resource as I develop my website.

What's BAD: Beware of sources/websites within the book. I did a lot of additional research on hosting solutions as recommended in the book and initially went with aplus.net (who is featured in the book also). After working on my site and looking at some other features I wanted to take advantage of, I canceled the aplus.net hosting solution and went with another provider. Needless to say, it has been 25+ days since the cancellation and aplus.net has not processed the refund (it's still "pending"). Shame on the author and publisher for including references to a company with such POOR business practices.

Great! - 2009-10-05
Reviewer Rating:
Bought this book for a coding class (learning HTML and CSS) and its great! very informative, easy to follow. I'll definitely keep it as a reference after the semester is over.

Creating a Web Site: The Missing Manual - 2009-06-27
Reviewer Rating:
A nice smooth read and nicely laid out, I highly recommend this book for anyone who is in need of information on creating a web site.

Another great book by O'Reilly - 2009-06-24
Reviewer Rating:
This book provides a great overview of web site creation that is not specific to one particular software package. I just finished a local community college site on web design and still had many unanswered questions as I looked to purchase web hosting services. This book is a great resource and answers many of questions and provided some answers I did not know I needed.

This is a great highly readable book. It is a book that it clear even when jumping from place to place or reading through chapter to chapter.

What book can cover everything? - 2009-06-13
Reviewer Rating:
Going through these reviews, like always there are reviewers dissing this book for missing the specifics they were hoping to find, or even being too old to cover what they wanted. Isn't that what publication dates are for in the descriptions? I've been knocking around websites for a dozen years. Had a couple of domain registrations, and even included ad hoc webmaster in one of my job descriptions. Soon I'll be teaching a class on web design in a high school. My bookshelf has 25+ books on different aspects of site creation. CSS, JS, AJAX, PHP, Linux and Apache server, assorted Adobe products, Perl, and some sysadmin pertaining to the configurations of the files available from Apache webhosts. When those don't have what I'm looking for, I have around 50 bookmarks for sites that can fill in the gaps from beginner to way beyond my expertise, with postings on subjects that are current right up until this morning. Impressed? Don't be, at least half of the reviewers here are more committed than I am.
There are two types of folks that this book may not be for - a rank beginner who needs to start with the basics of page creation, Internet/networking, and intro programming. The other type being someone who hand-codes and/or is a pro (lots of pros use editors). For the rest of us, this book is worth reading cover-to-cover, which I generally try to avoid.
Of course it could be edited to lose the discussions of version 3/4/5 browsers. Who cares? But even the most mundane sections on fonts, code conventions, color selection, links, etc, have nuggets in them. CSS explanations are clear and concise, and in sections that are clearly beyond the scope of the book there are suggestions for more advanced reading.
This book is a survey of skills, tools, and considerations for building a website. Like most O'Reilly publications, in the hands of the target audience it is a great resource. In the case of Creating Web Sites, that audience is broad enough to include most of us.

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