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Root Domain

Subdomains

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Tips & Review

Remember back before everyone had computers that fit in their pocket, how companies would ship a book full of phone numbers to your doorstep? We might have known who we were looking for, but we needed to look up phone numbers unless they were your crazy relatives that you learned to memorize. When you get your own domain name, by default it’s nothing more than a shortcut, an address, or (to fit this very imperfect analogy) a phone number. When you type a domain name into the address bar of your browser, someone has to identify it and tell it what to display. That’s where a name server comes in.

A name server is a computer, running as a server, that keeps a record of all the domain names that are associated with it and keeps track of where those domains should go. In the case of Emerson.build, the name server is the same computer that runs the hosting. You can peek behind the hood and see this in action by going to the 'Domains' panel of your cPanel account and clicking on 'Zone Editor', then 'Manage' next to your domain in the table.

DNS stands for Domain Name System and the name server on Emerson.build gives control to it to identify what should be displayed when someone types in your domain. Consider the fact that you might have one or more subdomains in your account. The name server and DNS are able to identify those subdomains and let the world wide web know that they exist and point to some files/folders on a computer somewhere.

When you signed up for a domain through the Emerson.build system your name servers were chosen for you. So when people type in your address, the server responds with information about your account. When you migrate an account away from one hosting platform (like Emerson.build) and onto a new service, it will require you to change the name servers so that your domain name points to a new server with its own files and structure. It’s also possible to have subdomains that point to entirely different servers than Emerson.build. For example, you could have a subdomain that looks to Tumblr for files.

To access your Google email account, you’re directed to “mail.google.com“. When you view an email, draft messages, or change your email settings, your web browser is looking for that content within the part of the site indicated by the “mail.google.com” URL.

If you next want to access Google Drive, you’re instead directed to “drive.google.com“. Your documents live within the portion of the site indicated by this different URL.

The difference in the URL corresponds with which application you’re using: mail, drive, or just the main search. You can also see this at work when you use other Google applications, such as “calendar.google.com” and “maps.google.com“. Each of these is a different subdomain of google.com.

Domain mapping, simply put, is deciding where visitors should be directed when they visit various pieces of your website. Domains and subdomains can be mapped directly to folders located within your webhosting account, where you may have installed WordPress, Omeka, MediaWiki, or other web applications. Domains and subdomains can also be mapped to some third-party providers.

Installing WordPress

Resources for configuring and using WordPress

Visit your WordPress site’s Dashboard by clicking the /wp-admin/ link in your “My Applications” list (From the cPanel: Applications > My Apps). This is where you will configure your WordPress site’s settings and add content. There is extensive documentation on using WordPress online. We’ll be linking to topics of interest in the WordPress.org documentation below.

First Steps with WordPress

Glossary of terms (includes advanced topics)

Settings

• Overview of Configuration Settings
• Discussion Settings: allowing comments (or not)
• Reading Settings: set the front page and search engine visibility

Appearance and Themes

• Selecting and Installing Themes
• Custom Navigation Menus (Note: Remember to always click “Save Menu” after making changes to your menu location or content so you don’t lose your work!)
• Using Widgets

Plugins

• What are Plugins?

Publishing Content

The primary activity that you’re likely to be doing on your WordPress site is publishing content. The content could be text you write, pictures you take, videos or audios (which may be hosted on another site), or other media that you’ve found elsewhere on the web.

• Adding a New Post
• Media Library
• All About Pages

Special note: Posts vs Pages

Installing Omeka

Omeka is an open-source web application that can be used to create and display online digital collections. Developed by programmers at George Mason University, Omeka was designed to be user-friendly, both during installation and daily usage. To install Omeka, follow these steps:

1. Log-in to your cPanel (https://emerson.build/dashboard) using your Emerson username and password.

2. Click Omeka in the cPanel’s Applications section.

3. Click Install this application in the upper-righthand corner.

4. The next page asks for some information.

First you’ll decide where to install the site, which will determine its address. If you want to install Omeka on your main directory (the same address as your domain), you can leave the directory field empty. If you’ve created a subdomain, you can select it from the dropdown menu.

Continuing down the page: under Automatic Update Backup, select “Do not create a backup.” See Managing Backups for more information about how to create backups.

Under Settings, choose your administrator username and password for the new site. Write these down and don’t share them with anyone!

Under Advanced, leave “Automatically manage advanced settings for me” checked and the installer will create a database for you (recommended). If you’ve already created a database for this website, you can choose “Let me manage these settings” and enter the details.

Click Install to continue.

5. Omeka will take a few moments to install, and a progress bar will keep you updated. When it is complete, you will see a link to the front-end of your new Omeka site as well as a link to the back-end administrative section for your Omeka site. Click the back-end link (ending in “/admin”). Write down this address: it’s where you go to edit your site.

Log-in using the administrative username and password you chose in step 4.

6. Click Settings in your Omeka site’s top admin bar. Enter an Administrator Email and a Site Title. In the “ImageMagick Directory Path” field, enter “/usr/bin“. This will allow Omeka to properly process and display images.

The Administrator Email is the address that messages from the system (e.g. a forgotten password reminder) will be sent from. You might want to create a custom email address using these instructions, for example webmaster@yourdomain.com or omeka-admin@yourdomain.com, to use for this purpose.

The Site Title will appear at the top of your visitors’ browser windows.

Installing Plugins

There are a variety of plugins that enable additional functionality in Omeka. See all plugins available for Omeka and their descriptions.

1. Download the desired plugin from the page linked above by clicking the Download button to its right. A zip file will download.

2. Next, go to your cPanel (https://emerson.build/dashboard). Click on File Manager.

3. Go to the public_html > plugins folder by clicking the + left of the public_html folder to expand it, then clicking on the revealed Plugins folder.

NOTE: If you installed Omeka in a subdirectory, you’ll need to add the subdomain to the above path. For example, if you installed Omeka in the “archive” subdirectory, the path to the Plugins folder will be public_html > archive > plugins.

4. Next, you will need to upload the zip file from step 1 into the Plugins folder. Click Upload in the top menu to open a new window. Click Select File to browse your computer, or drag-and-drop the file into the window.

When the upload is complete, click “Go back to home/yourdomain/public_html/plugins” at the bottom of the page to return to the File Manager. You will see that the zip file has appeared in the Plugins folder.

5. Make sure the zip file is selected (it should be highlighted in blue), then click Extract from the menu at the top of the page. A small window will open up to confirm where the file will be extracted to. If you clicked Upload from the Plugins folder, it should read public_html/plugins. Leave this field as-is. Click Extract File(s).

Another pop-up window will list the extracted contents. Click the Close button.

6. The new plugin should now be available on the Plugins page, accessible by clicking Plugins in the black admin bar at top-right of your Omeka dashboard. Find it and click the Install button to its right. Your plugin is now active.

Note: Some plugins will create a new button on the dashboard, like so. Click on their button to use them!

Using Omeka

You can learn how to use this application in the official Omeka Support Documentation.

Or, see the next guide to learn how to use the Neatline plugin to create interactive maps!

Emerson.build currently utilizes subdomains of .emerson.build for the initial signup, however after using your space you may decide you’d like to register a top-level domain. This is typically a .com, .net, .org address, though other options are available. You can do this by registering a domain with a service provider and adding it to your space as an Addon Domain.

To start you’ll need to get the domain registered. When choosing a domain we recommend keeping it all lower-case, avoiding hyphens, keeping it short, and of course it will need to be a unique address. You’ll also need to choose a service provider to register your domain with. Different providers offer different pricing models and features, so it’s a good idea to do some research about your options before you make a choice.

After ensuring the domain is available for purchase you might be prompted to select whether you’d like to protect the contact information associated with the domain. All domain registrations are required to have valid contact information publicly available worldwide, however a proxy service to protect your identity is available for an additional fee. You can read more about this service, ID Protect, at http://docs.reclaimhosting.com/FAQ/ID-Protect-FAQ/.

In most cases, you’ll also be prompted to enter nameservers for the domain. You’ll want to point the nameservers to ns1.reclaimhosting.com and ns2.reclaimhosting.com (if those aren’t already selected) in order for the domain to work with our system.

Once you’ve completed the checkout process with payment information the domain will be registered automatically. The last step is to add it to your existing account here at Emerson.build. To do that you’ll log into your account at https://emerson.build/dashboard and in cPanel navigate to Domains > Addon Domains.

Here you will type in the domain that you registered previously to host it within your space on Emerson.build. cPanel will also setup a subdomain and a location for files to be saved (typically a folder inside of public_html). You can leave these with their default values.

NOTE: Creating an addon domain always results in the creation of a brand new subdomain. The subdomain field here must have a unique name that doesn’t already exist in your site’s subdomains or you’ll encounter an error.

Optionally, you can also create an additional FTP account on this screen.

Once you’re finished going through the options, click Add Domain. The domain will now be hosted in your Emerson.build account and you can use it to install software, upload files, and any number of other actions available to you in cPanel.

Pointing an addon domain to an existing application

If you previously set up an application or from-scratch website before buying a custom domain name, you can still use that custom domain name for that application/site. You still need to go through the Addon Domain process above, but there are a couple differences:

Option 1: Changing “Document Root”

While filling out the fields in “Create an Addon Domain”, change the location listed under “Document Root” to the file path for your existing site. For example, if you have a WordPress site installed at an existing subdomain blog.dogs.emerson.build, you would enter “blog.dogs.emerson.build” as the Document Root. As another example, if you have HTML files hosted in public_html/games you would enter “public_html/games” as the Document Root. You will start to get suggestions of existing directories and subdomains as you type in this field.

Option 2: Cloning your existing site

If the above option doesn’t work or you’d prefer to keep the default directory for your addon domain, you can clone your application into the new directory or copy/move your HTML files into it.

Choosing your domain name is the first step in getting started with staking your claim on the web. Your domain name is really just a unique Web address that can be used to build out your own digital presence. When you sign up for Emerson.build, your domain name will, by default, be a subdomain of the form “YOURNAME.emerson.build”. Not all of the considerations below will apply while choosing this first subdomain name. If you later choose to purchase your own custom domain name, all of the following are good to keep in mind.

Your Domain Name Must Be Available: Domain names must be unique, which means in order for you to claim your own, you need to be sure that it is currently available (and not being used by any one else or any company or organization). There are lots of tools to check on domain availability, and when you sign up on emerson.build, we’ll actually check the availability of your choice for you. If you’d like to spend some time thinking about your choice and checking availability before you actually sign-up, we recommend using whois.com.

You Must Choose a “Top Level Domain” or TLD: The TLD is the suffix (or ending part) of your domain name. Some common ones you’ve likely seen before are: .com, .net, .org., and .edu. On emerson.build, you won’t have an opportunity to change this when you first sign up. For custom domain names, you may choose which one you want to use. Note that the availability of your desired domain name may depend upon the TLD you choose. Historically, .com domains were meant for businesses and commercial entities. On the other hand, .org domains were usually used by non-profit organizations. The .net domain was meant to be used by internet service providers. All of that said, the “historic” uses of these TLDs mean very little anymore. You may find that .com domains are easier for people to remember, or you may like the “non-commercial” message of using a .org. The bottom line is that your choice of a TLD is entirely personal.

Choose a Domain You Can Live With: You should choose a domain name that you feel you can live with for quite some time. You should pick something that you won’t find embarrassing in the future. A good rule of thumb is to pick a domain that you would be comfortable putting on a future job application.

You May Wish to Include Your Name in Your Domain: There is no requirement that your domain reflect your specific identity in the form of your first and last name. However, choosing a domain name that includes your name may make it easier for you to achieve higher rankings in search engines when someone queries your real name.

Pick a Domain you Like: At the end of the day, your domain should reflect you. Pick a domain you like and are proud of. It can reflect your interests, sports you play, or your hobby. Or it could just be your name. The “right” domain for you is the one you’re comfortable with.

Reviewing the Guidelines

The Sign-Up Process

Create a Free Subdomain