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Internet frequently asked questions
- What
is a domain name?
- What
does it mean to "register" a domain name?
- How
long does a registration last? Can it be renewed?
- Which
is most appropriate for my business, .CO.UK, .COM, .NET or .ORG?
- What
are the valid characters for a Web address and how long can my Web
address be?
- What
does "hosting" my Web address mean?
- What
does "hosting" my web site mean?
- I
have free web space with my ISP, can I use this to host my web site
on?
- What should I put on my
web site?
- What is a "search
engine"?
- Why
does my web site need to be submitted to search engines?
- How
can I ensure that my web site will get to the top of the search
engine rankings?
- How long can a web page be?
Domain names are the familiar, easy to
remember names for computers on the Internet. They correspond to a
series of numbers, called Internet Protocol numbers (IP), that serve as
routing addresses on the Internet.
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The Internet domain name system (DNS)
consists of a directory, organized hierarchically, of all the domain
names and their corresponding computers registered to particular
companies and persons using the Internet. When you register a domain
name, it will be associated with the computer on the Internet you
designate during the period the registration is in effect.
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Initial and renewal registrations are
available in one-year increments, with a total registration period limit
of ten years.
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.CO.UK is appropriate for any
businesses that are UK specific. .COM is appropriate for any businesses
that deal internationally. .NET is usually used by businesses associated
with telecommunications, networks, or the Internet. .ORG is typically
used by non-profit organisations.
Anyone may register Web addresses in .CO.UK,
.COM, .NET, and .ORG. In fact, the best way to protect the uniqueness of
your online identity and brands is to register your Web addresses in all
of the top-level domains.
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Letters and numbers are always valid
characters in a Web address. Hyphens may also be used in Web Addresses,
but may not begin nor end your Web address. Spaces and special
characters are never permitted in Web addresses. The special characters
include, but are not limited to, these special characters: ! @ # $ % ^
& * ( ) ? "
You can use a total of 67 characters in
your domain name, including the extension .COM, .NET, .ORG or .CO.UK.
"www." and
"http://www." are not considered part of your Web
address.
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Every Web address must reside on a host
computer. Hosts are connected to the Internet and use special software
to translate Web addresses into the numerical addresses (Internet
Protocol numbers) used by the Internet. When Internet users enter your
Web address into their browser bar, the host directs them to your web
site. Without it, your Web address is invisible on the Internet.
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A Web site must be permanently
connected to the Internet, for people to be able to view it. It is
normally impractical and expensive to have a permanent connection on
your own computer. The alternatives are: to rent space on a server; to
rent a server. or co-location, where you buy a server and site it at an
internet service provider's premises, using their internet connection.
For most small to medium business webs
it is normally most cost effective to rent space on a server, known as
hosting.
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You can use free web space, but there
are several disadvantages to this:
1) By using a free service, you will
make a bad first impression with your customers, and transmit the
message that your website isn't important enough to have its own name.
2) Free names are inevitably going to
be longer, and hence more difficult to remember, than real ones.
3) Customers visiting your free site
will be subjected to pop-up boxes containing advertisements and other
rubbish.
4) Search engines are starting to
give higher priority to sites which have their own domain names. Some
will even refuse to list sites which don't have their own domains.
Using a free domain is probably the
worst mistake that you can make when setting up your business online.
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Unless you are going to sell directly
on-line, it is usually unnecessary to list all of your products and
services in detail. However you must give a good overall summary of what
your business offers. Detailed product information can often be found at
manufacturers sites, and most manufacturers will agree to linking to
their site.
Contact information is very important,
including telephone numbers, fax numbers, postal and e-mail addresses.
It is also helpful to give details of a person to contact, as it makes
your web site more personal.
If customers must travel to your
premises, a map and/or directions are also very useful. There are a
number of good map sites that we can link to.
It is often a good idea to link to
other related web sites, or to put some useful content on your own. If
you want people to come back again and again to your site, then you need
to consider what would be useful to your potential customers, whether
that is advice, good links, or regularly updated content.
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Search Engine software packages (such
as Yahoo, Alta Vista, WebCrawler or Lycos) helps you find what you are
looking for on the Web. You can type in a word or phrase to describe
what you are looking for and the search engine matches this against it’s
index, recording all likely matches. Most search engines are free.
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Most people find web sites by using
search engines.
Each search engine has its own index of
web sites, if yours is not in that index, it will not be found on that
search engine.
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- There are a lot of different factors
that affect how well your site will be ranked by the search engines.
The main factors include:
- web site design and content (there
are tags that can be used to highlight, to the search engine, the
most important text in a web page);
- the number of links from other sites
to your web site;
- the popularity of your web site
(i.e. number of visitors).
We can ensure that your web site is
designed to be search engine friendly. There are a large number of links
pages on the internet where you can promote your web site. Good design
and useful content will ensure popularity.
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There is no hard and fast rule, but as
a general guide, it is dictated by the speed at which your page loads.
Most Internet users would not want to wait more than about 20 seconds
for a page to load. If your page contains mainly text, then it can be
fairly long (4-5 screens), however if you have a large number of
graphics or photos on a page it would be inadvisable to make it more
than 1-2 screens, as this would increase the load time significantly.
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