A couple of questions about basic web development

[oliverfischer]

I have some ideas for websites, but I don't know if I'm way over my head or not. I find that using HTML and JAVA is fairly easy, but I've only really used them within the confines of educational platforms like codeacademy. I'm ignorant in the actual logistics of putting up websites. I feel stupid asking these questions, but here it goes.

If I were to install the WAMP software, and host a website, would the website only be up when my computer is running? Would it be wise to use a second computer simply for running the server if I wanted it to be up full time? Does hosting a website bog down a router and make my data usage go way up? Should I make sure I have unlimited data and a really good router? If I have a website up, and I start to get lots of traffic, does monetizing them with ads really generate much cash? Could I see myself making a substantial amount of money by building up websites and selling them? (All this assuming of course that I had enough experience down the road to make decent stuff.)

This is just a hobby for me. I'm not really that interested in just getting a job coding. But if I could pay rent by doing this, or just pay for steam games and the occasional vacation that would be pretty sweet.

 

[Obusco]

Hi Oliverfisher,

If I were to install the WAMP software, and host a website, would the website only be up when my computer is running?

If your computer and your router have the port 80/443 open, then yes it will

Would it be wise to use a second computer simply for running the server if I wanted it to be up full time?

It could, but chances are that the electric consumption of this computer might not be optimised for such a job compared to a classic server renting.

Does hosting a website bog down a router and make my data usage go way up?

Depending on the load of your website, in your case the data will be calculated on your computer, therefore you will just send the data over your brandwith, depending on the number of people, the size of the file that you will request (You can easily know that data using "postman" app), you will be able to know that value (assuming that image, css, html, json etc... won't go over 4-5 MB, expecting something like 10 people connected simultaneously, then you could have something about ~0.8 MB/s of upload being used, it's made up numbers here to get you an idea). So depending on your local brandwith, I still assume that most of the time, not that much these days. And then caching will help a lot (so they don't re-download images, js, css... they have a local version on their computer). Some services called : CDN will help A LOT too

Should I make sure I have unlimited data and a really good router?

If you have not unlimited data (I've forgot that this is some things that still exist in some country... tho I never saw such pricing plan since a decade now), I would then recommend unlimited data, and pretty decent router yes.

If I have a website up, and I start to get lots of traffic, does monetizing them with ads really generate much cash?

If you have a lot of traffic, you probably won't be able to host it on your local network/local computer.
Ads doesn't make that much cash unless you have specific agreement with specific advertiser.
Most of the time you use simple things such as AdSense, given that data : (https://monetizepros.com/display-advertising/average-cpm-rates/), you will need 1000 people (without AdBlockPlus in their computer), to make $2.80. It could probably be way more if you have specific agreement like CoinMarketCap has.

Could I see myself making a substantial amount of money by building up websites and selling them?

Making website and sell them (like web freelancer) is probably more profitable yes, but there is quite a lot of people in the market, so you might want to know your shit about it.
Selling a website that already work (such as selling something like a CoinMarketCap) is probably in this case more profitable.



General comment : Hosting is quite cheap. You will, I think, prefer to look at hosting services, with 8.99€/month you have something not that much awesome, but still good enought for basic need (I get them at online.net), other will prefer to run VPS solution at DigitalOcean for instance.
You can also look for the 1 year free plan at Amazon AWS.
Hosting in his own network, in his own computer is nowadays more of a ideological reason (like prefering to be "free" for external services), as the cost is higher.
Probably forgot a lot of stuff here, as the topic is very broad.