The Office for Information Systems is often asked if we can host a parish or school web site. Unfortunately, we don't have the resources to host many sites at this time. If you are going to create a web site for your parish or school, you have a couple of options for hosting it.

You can use the server space that your Internet Service Provider makes available, it won't cost you anything in addition to what you're already paying for your monthly service. It's a good place to start because they give you enough space on their server for an average parish or school site. You can always purchase additional space if the site becomes more complex and requires additional storage requirements. Most ISPs will also offer Hosting Packages. You'll pay a fee for these additional services, usually $10 per month or more, but they include additional e-mail accounts, statistical reports, scripting options for your own on-line forms, and database capabilities for more advanced sites.

You can find any number of hosting companies by doing a search on the Internet, pricing for these services can range from a few dollars per month to hundreds of dollars per month. Carefully review the options so you can compare the services offered for the fee that they charge.

There are some 'free' hosting options for non-profits but make sure you read the fine print. They have to pay the bills some how and that usually means some kind of advertising links. Make sure you know what kind of ads appear will on your page before using one of these services.

Some other considerations...

Another issue is having your own domain (i.e. www.ourparishorschool.org). There is a fee to 'own' the domain; it varies based on how long the contract is...the more years you pay for the lower the cost per year. The hosting companies will typically take care of this for you, but for a price.

Each parish and school has a 'mini' site built into this web site. Parish sites are found here and school sites are found here. The parish and school offices have access to the content and can post a great deal of basic information on these pages. All of this maintenance is performed through our extranet and a content management system. Very little knowledge of HTML coding is required, a person simply needs to fill out some on-line forms and the data automatically appears on the site. We can even create a URL for you (i.e. www.archmil.org/parishes/ourparishname) not necessarily your own domain but pretty close. The best part with this option is that it's all free.

An important item for your parishes and schools to consider is maintaining the site. Once the enthusiasm of creating your site is over, who will maintain the site? Who knows how to write HTML code? Who will provide the content? Too many parish and school sites have outdated information on them. Many times the folks in the office didn't create the site and don't know how to update the information. Usually, a well intentioned volunteer is the person who created the site and planned on keeping it updated only to discover that they just don't have the time to get the job done.