How do I create a website?
Important: CETS provides website hosting to active SEAS accounts.
Your personal site will only be available for as long as you have a SEAS account.
If you are the contact for an activity account that has a website, you will need to transfer ownership before you leave SEAS to ensure the site remains online.
If you require a permanent home for your content, consider ScholarlyCommons for research (see below) or contact CETS with more details.
All websites must conform to the Penn Policy on Acceptable Use of Electronic Resources.
CETS officially supports several website hosting options:
Google Sites
Google Sites is available to all Google@SEAS accounts. Websites can be created on any computer with a web browser, making this a great option for beginners. It's easy to embed Google resources (documents, calendars, videos, etc.) or collaborate with other Google accounts. To get started, log into your Google@SEAS account and visit this page for further instructions:
Google Sites is also available via the New button in your Google Drive.
Warning: Like many Google resources, Google Sites may be blocked in mainland China. See Wikipedia's Websites blocked in mainland China chart for current status.
Note: Google plans to eventually drop support for Classic Google Sites. See the Convert your site to New Sites article for information on converting your Classic Google Site to a New Google Site.
Public HTML
All SEAS accounts include a directory for a personal website that is available at a special URL (where username is replaced with the account name):
https://www.seas.upenn.edu/~username/
This option requires advanced technical skills (HTML authorship, file transfer, etc.). See this Answers article for more details:
How do I install files in my public HTML directory?
WordPress
WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) used for a significant number of sites and blogs on the Web today. More advanced skills are required for installation, but after initial setup, everything can be managed via a web browser. See this Answers article for information on installing WordPress on SEAS servers:
Note: CETS provides support for WordPress installed on SEAS servers, but not for sites hosted at wordpress.com or other hosting providers.
CGI
CETS offers limited support for CGI/PHP applications. Advanced users who are interested in developing custom code or installing third party applications to generate web pages are expected to support and maintain these applications themselves. CETS does not guarantee that custom/third party code will run as expected and does not extend server administration privileges to anyone who is not a member of the CETS staff. See this Answers article for more information about enabling CGI for an account:
How do I run CGI on SEAS web servers?
ScholarlyCommons
Your SEAS personal site will only be available for as long as you have a SEAS account. Please consider ScholarlyCommons if you need a permanent home for research, dissertations, articles, data, etc. ScholarlyCommons provides generous storage and is well supported by Penn Libraries. For more information, visit:
Browse the School of Engineering and Applied Science Collections:
https://repository.upenn.edu/exhibits/orgunit/seas
External Hosting
Warning: CETS cannot provide support for services that it does not manage. If your website requires longterm support resilient to staff turnover, we strongly recommend using one of the supported options on this page. This will ensure that your website can be updated and will prevent abandoned websites from appearing in search engine results if access to the account is lost.