My Mind Palace

Independent Web Presence Guide

6 min read

Table of Contents

  1. Why create your own web space?
  2. Choosing and registering a domain name
  3. Hosting options
  4. Creating your first website
  5. Securing your digital identity
  6. Decentralized interactions
  7. Discovery and community
  8. Resources and tools

Why create your own web space? {#why}

In a web dominated by a few large platforms, creating your own website means:

  • Actually owning your content: no risk of posts being deleted or accounts suspended
  • Controlling your presentation: design and organization according to your taste, not an algorithm
  • Avoiding surveillance: no advertising tracking, no behavioral profiling
  • Joining a community: the independent web brings together people sharing these values
  • Learning: understanding how the web works by building your own

The goal isn’t to completely replace social networks, but to have a stable and durable digital “home.”

Choosing and registering a domain name {#domain}

What is a domain name?

A domain name (like yourname.com) is your address on the internet. It’s the equivalent of your postal address for the web.

Choosing your name

Practical tips:

  • Use your name if available (john-doe.com)
  • Or a stable pseudonym you already use
  • Avoid hyphens and numbers if possible
  • Prefer .com, .org, or your country’s extension (.fr, .uk, .ca, etc.)

Registration steps

  1. Check availability of your name on the registrar’s website
  2. Create an account
  3. Add the domain to cart (usually $10-15/year)
  4. Important: Enable WHOIS protection to protect your personal data
  5. Configure DNS (see hosting section)

Hosting options {#hosting}

Free hosting (to get started)

GitHub Pages

  • Perfect for static sites
  • Free custom domain
  • Git-based interface (somewhat technical) Neocities
  • Simple web interface
  • Active community
  • 1GB storage limit Netlify
  • Excellent for static sites
  • Automatic deployment
  • Generous free plan

Traditional paid hosting

Recommended hosts:

  • Alwaysdata - Great support, reasonable prices
  • DreamHost - Long-standing, indie-friendly
  • NearlyFreeSpeech - Pay-what-you-use model
  • Hetzner - Germany-based, excellent value

Self-hosting (advanced)

If you’re technically comfortable:

  • VPS from Hetzner, DigitalOcean, or Linode
  • Raspberry Pi at home (mind the bandwidth)
  • Home server with dynamic DNS

Creating your first website {#first-site}

Option 1: Simple HTML

To start, a simple index.html file:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>Your Name - Web Developer</title>
    <style>
        body { 
            font-family: system-ui, sans-serif;
            max-width: 600px;
            margin: 0 auto;
            padding: 20px;
            line-height: 1.6;
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Hello, I'm [Your Name]</h1>
    <p>Welcome to my corner of the web!</p>
    
    <h2>About</h2>
    <p>I'm a [description]. I'm interested in [your interests].</p>
    
    <h2>Contact</h2>
    <p>Email: <a href="mailto:you@yourdomain.com">you@yourdomain.com</a></p>
    
    <h2>Elsewhere</h2>
    <ul>
        <li><a href="https://github.com/yourusername">GitHub</a></li>
        <li><a href="/feed.xml">RSS</a></li>
    </ul>
</body>
</html>

Option 2: Static site generators

For beginners:

  • Jekyll - Integrated with GitHub Pages
  • Hugo - Very fast, many themes More modern:
  • Eleventy - Flexible, JavaScript-based
  • Astro - Modern, excellent performance
mysite/
├── index.html          # Homepage
├── about/             # About page
├── blog/              # Articles
├── contact/           # Contact
├── feed.xml           # RSS feed
└── .well-known/       # Web standards

Securing your digital identity {#identity-security}

Creating a PGP key

PGP cryptography allows you to sign your content and prove your identity.

With GPG (command line):

# Generate a new key
gpg --full-generate-key
 
# Choose:
# - Type: RSA and RSA
# - Size: 4096 bits
# - Duration: 0 (no expiration) or 2 years
 
# Export the public key
gpg --armor --export your@email.com > my-public-key.asc

With graphical interface:

  • Windows: Gpg4win
  • macOS: GPG Suite
  • Linux: Seahorse (GNOME) or KGpg (KDE)

Publishing your public key

  1. On your website: /pgp-key.asc or in /.well-known/
  2. Keyserver: keys.openpgp.org or keyserver.ubuntu.com

Signing your content

Sign your important articles or recommendations:

# Sign a file
gpg --clearsign --armor my-article.md
 
# Create a detached signature
gpg --detach-sign --armor recommendations.json

Decentralized interactions {#interactions}

RSS - Following and being followed

Creating your RSS feed:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
    <title>My Blog</title>
    <link>https://mysite.com</link>
    <description>My thoughts on web and tech</description>
    <language>en</language>
    
    <item>
        <title>My first post</title>
        <link>https://mysite.com/blog/first-post</link>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Jun 2025 10:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
        <description>Post content...</description>
    </item>
</channel>
</rss>

Recommended RSS readers:

  • Feedly - Modern interface, synchronization
  • Inoreader - Very comprehensive
  • NetNewsWire (Mac/iOS) - Open source, elegant
  • FreshRSS - Self-hosted

Webmentions - Web interactions

Webmentions allow you to notify a site when you mention it. Receiving webmentions:

  1. Add to your <head>:
<link rel="webmention" href="https://webmention.io/mysite.com/webmention" />
  1. Create an account on webmention.io
  2. Display mentions on your pages Sending webmentions:
  • Manual: Telegraph
  • Automatic: integration in your site generator

IndieAuth - Decentralized authentication

Use your own site as identity:

<!-- In the <head> of your homepage -->
<link rel="authorization_endpoint" href="https://indieauth.com/auth">
<link rel="token_endpoint" href="https://tokens.indieauth.com/token">

Discovery and community {#discovery}

Create a “Links” or “Blogroll” page with your favorite sites:

<h2>Sites I recommend</h2>
<ul>
    <li><a href="https://example.com">Site Name</a> - Short description</li>
    <li><a href="https://other.example">Other Site</a> - Why it's interesting</li>
</ul>

Webrings

Webrings are circles of sites linked together:

Directories and indexes

Submit your site to:

Recommendation protocol (in development)

An emerging standard for sharing site recommendations:

{
  "identity": "https://mysite.com",
  "updated": "2025-06-01",
  "recommendations": [
    {
      "url": "https://otherblog.com",
      "title": "Marie's Blog",
      "description": "Excellent articles on urban permaculture",
      "tags": ["gardening", "ecology", "urban"],
      "type": "blog",
      "language": "en"
    }
  ],
  "interests": ["web", "ecology", "photography"]
}

Resources and tools {#resources}

Communities

Development tools

Code editors:

  • VS Code - Free, very complete
  • Sublime Text - Fast and elegant
  • Vim/Neovim - For purists Site generators:
  • Jekyll - Ruby, GitHub integration
  • Hugo - Go, very fast
  • Eleventy - JavaScript, flexible
  • Astro - Modern, multi-framework

Design and typography

Minimal CSS frameworks:

Analyzers and validators

Analytics (privacy-friendly)

Next steps

  1. Start simple: a basic HTML file
  2. Add content regularly
  3. Connect with the IndieWeb community
  4. Experiment with technologies that interest you
  5. Share your experience and help others get started

The independent web is built little by little, site by site, person by person. Welcome to this adventure!