Getting a Website, etc.

[Louise-Paisley]

Really the only problem I have encountered from a US host is the time difference, the server and MYSQL server being set to mountain time means that orders placed in the UK have the wrong timestamp in customers order history, even this can be fixed fairly easily by changing the timezone in PHP and issuing a mysql query to change the mysql timezone into the mysql intit configuration but to be honest the benefits from doing it is not worth the hassle of actually doing it.

Surely it's using UTC and therefore the timestamp will be automatically adjusted?

Or is your PHP script converting it in situ? It's easy enough to add 7 hours...

Apparently not, the mysql server is set to mountain time, so to correct it I would have to add a line to set the mysql timezone on each init otherwise it just reverts back to mountain time - yes its a bit of a pain I guess but really not enough to need to waste time editing the code over. Besides which, much of my sales is international so fixing for UK would not fix for other countries.

I think it is a combination of the server configuration and poor support for timezones in my cart software rather than one or the other. But really, for less than £80 a year for all my websites not just one and free cart software, well I can live with a few silly niggles

Oh as for registration address details etc.. yes good advice, it is worth opting for domain privacy if you are offered it when you buy - if your phone/ email address is entered into the register you are also likely to start getting spam from it as well!

 

[Louise-Paisley]

Leaving the argument aside

adding to the advise - its often a good idea to use anon registration of your domain so that people cannot lookup your home address if you pee them off..............................

I am not arguing, I though it was a discussion forum

I accept that the advice given is good, just trying to make the point that for a startup wanting a fairly simple showcase website some of the points are not quite so important as it makes them appear.

If you can get good hosting in the UK, at a good price, then of course there is no reason to not do so. If you can get equally good hosting at a better price and it happens to be in the USA then there is really no reason to NOT go for that and save a bit of money.. Well that's my experience anyway

 

[Dibs-h]

Domain masking - I personally wouldn't. Would you buy from a website - that has no real-world "Contact Us" details?

Don't mask your domain details and make sure they match the Contact Us details on your website - after all you do want people to contact you?

My 2p worth.

Dibs

 

[brianhabby]

Domain masking - I personally wouldn't. Would you buy from a website - that has no real-world "Contact Us" details?

Don't mask your domain details and make sure they match the Contact Us details on your website - after all you do want people to contact you?

My 2p worth.

Dibs

That's a fair point - depends on if you are running a business of course, not all websites are. Just make sure the registration address matches your business address if different from your home.

More importantly though is if you are running a business then your trading address MUST be on your website, I think there's a law somewhere that says so. I also check any website I've not dealt with before and if I can't find a proper address and phone number I don't buy.

regards

Brian

 

[Dibs-h]

@Louise

I didn't suggest having a UK IP was the end all and be all. IP addresses do make a difference to rankings in Google (and possibly affect whether a page is in the results if you select "Page from the UK"). We can agree to disagree about matters. Rankings being affected by the location of an IP are not outdated - but if you believe it doesn't - that's cool.

UK Hosting - just because you got crap service, doesn't mean UK Hosting is crap. :wink: I've had hosting for almost 10yrs out of TeleHouse & have to say it's been rock solid.

£80 per year - quality hosting is available in the UK for that or less per year. Not necessarily Retail (i.e. they aren't holding your hand) but it's available. However - if you're happy with yours - that's even better.

Yes - some (I too) sit on the edge of large commercial IT entities with hosting up to the eyeballs - but those elements that are applicable to all and those just to some - aren't difficult to see\understand. :wink:

YMMV.

Dibs

 

[Louise-Paisley]

Again, how many people here have used whois to check credentials of a website owner before making a purchase or enquiry? How many people lookup the site in the domain register to obtain contact details to make an enquiry? Compare that to how many people go straight to the 'contact us' link on the website and fire off an enquiry..

For sure the only time I have ever gone to whois is to report abuse and I would guess over 99% of web users would not even be aware of whois lookup let alone how to use it.

Including contact details on the website is of course a common sense requirement although I am not sure it is a legal requirement for a sole trader as it is with a company (ltd,plc) It would of course be stupid to not include it on a website, there is little point in having a great showcase and no means for viewers to contact you

Even then it is worth making some effort to prevent spambots harvesting the details, contact us pages rather than mailto links, telephone numbers as bitmaps rather than text, that sort of thing. You can quickly end up with 50 spam emails masking one genuine enquiry otherwise and relying on spam filters to sort this mess out after the event is less than ideal as you still run the risk of genuine enquiries being lost.

Again this comes down to the size of the business, large ones with staff who's remit is to sort through the incoming communications and pass on the genuine ones to those able to answer it can, and probably should, have the domain registration details confirm the business, but one guy scraping out a living wants to be able to get on with earning activities not wading through spam to find genuine contacts.

The email address associated with my domain registrations gets on average 500 spam emails per week and they are ONLY used in domain registration, the ones associated with the websites get very few indeed (one every couple of days) - I don't have the free time to wade through that level of junk to find genuine emails because every hour I spend on that is a hour I am not earning money.

 

[Louise-Paisley]

@Louise

I didn't suggest having a UK IP was the end all and be all. IP addresses do make a difference to rankings in Google (and possibly affect whether a page is in the results if you select "Page from the UK"). We can agree to disagree about matters. Rankings being affected by the location of an IP are not outdated - but if you believe it doesn't - that's cool.

UK Hosting - just because you got rubbish service, doesn't mean UK Hosting is rubbish. :wink: I've had hosting for almost 10yrs out of TeleHouse & have to say it's been rock solid.

£80 per year - quality hosting is available in the UK for that or less per year. Not necessarily Retail (i.e. they aren't holding your hand) but it's available. However - if you're happy with yours - that's even better.

Yes - some (I too) sit on the edge of large commercial IT entities with hosting up to the eyeballs - but those elements that are applicable to all and those just to some - aren't difficult to see\understand. :wink:

YMMV.

Dibs

The 'pages from the UK' does not affect my search rankings despite my host being usa based, I checked it again when you mentioned it, the google geolocation is far more sophisticated than simply resolving an IP address and takes into account many other factors including but not limited to the TLD.

I absolutely agree that one UK hosting bad apple does not mean they are all bad, this is exactly my point, the exact same thing goes for USA hosting.. There is obviously good and bad both sides and selecting a good one is far more important than selecting one based on location, a good USA host is going to be a much better choice than a crappy UK one and visa versa Well, of course that is my opinion, I can only speak from experience after all.

I am happy with my host as I have indicated, though I have no loyalty to them. Up to now they have provided a great service, I get plenty of sales from my website (too many of late truth be told), I have sent products to almost every country on the planet and the website earns me a living without any advertising costs at all. It was initially cheaper than every UK based host I found, most of which did not provide anywhere near the benefits. That gap has I admit closed somewhat in the years I have had my sites, and should the standard of service I get fall I would switch hosts without a seconds thought - I have all my domains with 123reg so it is a fairly simple matter of backing up the files and databases, restoring them to a new host and changing nameservers in 123, but for now at least I am getting good value for money so I stay with what I know.

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to say USA hosting is better, I am simply saying that there is not really anything different between UK/USA especially for someone just starting out with a small website to showcase their work, if there is then I have not as yet encountered it.

 

[brianhabby]

Including contact details on the website is of course a common sense requirement although I am not sure it is a legal requirement for a sole trader as it is with a company (ltd,plc)

You are right, it is certainly 'Good Practice' for any business to properly display its full contact details for the benefit of potential customers, however, if you are actually selling from your website there is specific information that MUST be provided prior to someone making a purchase.

There are two pieces of legislation that would appear to be relevant here:

'The distance Selling Regulations' and the 'E-Commerce Regulations' both seem to require the full contact details of the business to be provided before any transaction takes place irrespective of the firm's legal status.

regards

Brian

 

[Louise-Paisley]

Including contact details on the website is of course a common sense requirement although I am not sure it is a legal requirement for a sole trader as it is with a company (ltd,plc)

You are right, it is certainly 'Good Practice' for any business to properly display its full contact details for the benefit of potential customers, however, if you are actually selling from your website there is specific information that MUST be provided prior to someone making a purchase.

There are two pieces of legislation that would appear to be relevant here:

'The distance Selling Regulations' and the 'E-Commerce Regulations' both seem to require the full contact details of the business to be provided before any transaction takes place irrespective of the firm's legal status.

regards

Brian

I suspected as much, I have contact details on the site anyway because its just sensible from a selling point of view, but the above would be met if the information was provided during checkout prior to payment I guess.

Still I cannot think why anyone would not provide contact details, although I am fairly sure I have encountered sites that don't once in a while.

 

[brianhabby]

Actually, I have encountered such sites all too often and never buy from them - I take the view that if they want to hide their address then what else are they hiding?

I have sometimes emailed to ask for a physical address and surprisingly some firms still wont give the information - business madness in my opinion.

regards

Brian

 

[Louise-Paisley]

indeed

 

[Dibs-h]

it is a fairly simple matter of backing up the files and databases,

I'd suggest, if you don't already do it, back them up weekly or monthly - better to have them when you don't need them as opposed to not have them when you need them. Hosting companies can hit the wall, due to unforeseen circumstances (both US & UK ones).

Dibs

 

[Louise-Paisley]

it is a fairly simple matter of backing up the files and databases,

I'd suggest, if you don't already do it, back them up weekly or monthly - better to have them when you don't need them as opposed to not have them when you need them. Hosting companies can hit the wall, due to unforeseen circumstances (both US & UK ones).

Dibs

I backup the db weekly, I also have manager software running on the computer which keeps a copy of the db and updates the local copy when it polls for changes every 15 minutes, the files do not really change other than images I upload with new products and they are also kept locally so not critical but I do a files backup once a month just for added security.

I also have a host backup service which backs up the entire site and db onto different servers with several weeks worth accessible.

Of course this level of backup is only needed for a dynamic site, a showcase site without online sales and accounts to track would only need backing up if you make changes - but you should have a backup absolutely, nothing worse than finding everything lost

 

[MajorGFX]

No idea if you have had experience with GoDaddy but I would never recommend them. I'm a website designer and would steer clear of that hosting company.

In terms of SEO you want a UK based hosting company.

GoDaddy servers are in Holland, 1and1 servers are in Germany.

Google - UK Web hosting. Just my 2 pence.

 

[Dibs-h]

I use Godaddy purely for domain registrations along with 1&1 - never used either for hosting.

Dibs

 

[henton49er]

OK, so I have bought my domain name and chosen a web hosting company (Fasthosts). The two are now linked together and I want to design and upload my web pages.

The web builder that comes with my hosting package (called Sitebuilder) is utterly useless (no its not, its worse than utterly useless). Can I produce a series of pages on, say, Word or Powerpoint or something that thinks and works in a way that is vaguely intuitive? (or at least I am used to its foibles!!). I have spent most of today wasting my time, I fear (and maybe my money if I have to kick my hosting company into touch).

Any guidance would be appreciated.

 

[brianhabby]

You probably can create your website in one of the Microsoft products but you would be strongly advised not to. The verbose code that these programs create will make for a very slow and cumbersome website that will be virtually impossible to edit with anything else.

What you need is an HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor as it is HTML that your website is based on. Most professionals will use something like Dreamweaver but you would be looking to spend several hundred pounds for that program.

If you search the web you will find several free HTML WYSIWYG editors and I'm sure people will be along soon with their favourite recommendations. These programs will be fairly basic compared to the professional programs like Dreamweaver but that is probably a good thing given that you are a beginner in all of this.

Whatever you do - don't give up - but don't use the MS stuff.

HTH

regards

Brian

 

[Louise-Paisley]

http://www.trellian.com/webpage/index.html

Is reported to be quite good

 

[Dibs-h]

http://www.weebly.com allows you to create a decent looking website very quickly and then you can backup the website and restore it to your own host (editing the html, php files to replace domain names) and you can end up with decent looking website.

Nothing I've read in their T&C's prohibit this apparently.

HIH

Dibs

 

[MIGNAL]

I changed my site, from one that was edited (only occasionally) by a web designer to one that I did in Weebly. It's just incredibly simple to create and make any changes that are needed. I'm sure it has it's limitations but for your average craftsperson showing off their wares it's more than adequate. Now I even have embedded u-tube videos.
Anyone with a hint of page layout and basic design can produce a professional looking site. For the money I saved on my previous website update fees I just paid for the full Weebly upgrade. It's hardly a huge amount anyway.