It helps to have a clear concept of where things are and how they relate to each other. You work at one computer and then an internet host company provides another computer called a server computer. To own a website, you must rent space on a server computer for the files and resources that create the site. That's where your website will exist - not on your computer, but rather on your server's computer.

A server is a computer in an Internet host facility.

Any website runs on a server somewhere in the world. That server is just another computer, but most people's websites are on servers that are in shared hosting facilities.

An Internet host facility is a building containing many computers, all of them connected to the Internet. The server computers run server software that presents your website to any visitor that goes to your domain name. That host facility is usually a big warehouse full of computers and air conditioning systems, and a few harried individuals who run around trying to keep the computers working.

The strange thing about most of our websites is that we've never physically been there. We "go there" in our web browsers and our FTP programs (which will be explained later) and work on our sites. But very few website owners ever walk into the room where the actual computer is that hosts and runs their website.

For example, you could be in your office or home in Texas and your website could be in lower Manhattan. It doesn't matter where it is. But the key element when you work on your website is that you must communicate between your computer and the server computer.

When you work on your site you commonly have to move files from your computer to the server computer. If you write an article, you have to upload - that is, move those words in that text file - from your computer to the server.

Then when people go to your website, they will in fact be going to that server computer to read your article. Neither one of you has to know where the physical server is. So it's that communication link between your computer and the server computer that is the important link in your ability to build and maintain a website.

One of the fundamental concepts here is that you upload files from your computer to the server computer. You can also download files from the server computer to your computer. You commonly do that with what's called an FTP program.

FTP means file transfer protocol. It just means a program that knows how to move files from one place to the other. This site has more articles on FTP and other parts of the webmaster's job.

Creating a website or repairing a website that already exists, you have to be able to upload and download files; to modify them on your computer; and to upload them to the server computer.

Then when someone goes to your website, what that means is their browser on their computer links up to the server, and that server computer sends them a copy of your article. It appears on your visitor's computer screen in their browser window.

That's what we call going to a website.

Suzann Kale is a technical writer and copy editor. She helps edit Website-DoItYourself and has written many articles for science-oriented sites and hard copy magazines. She also runs a site on cosmetics and animal safety.