How My Website Was Developed

Introduction

I get quite a few people asking me how my website came to be, so here's the full story and an explanation of how I learned what I know now!

Full Story

Believe it or not, I didn’t buy my domain with the idea of creating a website. At the time I didn’t even know what a domain was.

I bought RyderCragie.co.uk in 2019 for £1 through a domain provider (I think they had a deal on it). I then realised what I could actually do with RyderCragie.co.uk so I set it to redirect to my Facebook profile at the time.

A few months later once I’d figured out how domains and IP addresses work, and learned what the different types of DNS records are (A, CNAME, MX, TXT, etc), I thought I’d look into setting up a website. I came across a Google Sites Facebook group so I joined it. Google Sites looked quite good from the posts I saw in the group so I went to sites.google.com and played around in the editor. I started by just adding social links and creating an “About” page and started typing about myself as a person including what I do and what I want to do in the future.

I then started talking to the admin of that Facebook group, Josh Bauer, on Facebook Messenger in March 2021, and he explained a lot about how Google Sites works and more about how domains work. I now talk to him on a regular basis and he’s a very good friend of mine. He also now acts as a hosting provider for my file hosting/CDN (CDN.RyderCragie.com). Update: I now use Cloudflare R2.

I then decided that I should probably pay the full domain price and buy RyderCragie.com instead and use that permanently, so I did. Then RyderCragie.co.uk eventually expired and I let it expire. (I did actually buy it back as the prices have dropped). As time went on I slowly started adding more information to my website including my interests, hobbies, skills, and career, and I also started writing some articles and tutorials - that’s pretty much where I am now. You can see the main revisions of my website here.

I’m now obsessed with domains and websites, and it’s all I ever play around with. DNS is a vital part of IT (sometimes in a slightly different way than described above), so I’m glad I’m enjoying learning it at the same time. (I’m also now addicted to Cloudflare, but that's another story for another day).

All of the domains I own are now registered for 10 years as shown here. Dedication!

Conclusion

Hopefully that explains my obsession with domains, websites and DNS that I've developed over the years. There will be more to come as the years pass!

Got any questions? Just email me!

Additional Resources

Google Sites

• Google Sites beginners guide:

  • Article

  • Video

• If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, create a post in the Google Sites group on Facebook, or ask a question in the Official Sites Community.

▲ Back to top ▲