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| 1 |
Why
should I have my web pages hosted with www.bitmark.com? |
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www.bitmark.com's Virtual Servers are
designed for individuals and businesses that wish to develop and publish World Wide Web
pages without incurring the cost of setting up their own web server. Our servers are ideal
for small to medium web presentations.
Your pages will be hosted on extremely fast DS3 servers and at the economical fees we
charge, the cost-benefit relationship is one of the best you can find anywhere. Our
servers are up 24 hours a day, every day and can be access and/or maintained from anywhere
in the world. With www.abitmark.com you have a world
wide web presence at minimal costs and fast delivery.
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| 2 |
What
steps are required to have my own web site? |
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Having a well visited web site is not an
easy feat. On the internet you compete with literally millions of web sites, all vying for
the same visitors.
It is therefore important to pay some attention to the "creation" of a web site.
Basically, here are a few steps on how to start having a successful internet presence:
- Design and construct your web pages with utmost care;
- Publish your web pages to a fast server on the Internet
(hosting);
- Have your web site registered with as many Search Engines
and Internet Directories as possible;
- Promote your web site in the traditional media (put your
Internet address on your calling cards, letter heads, put it in your ads, flyers,
invoices, etc. etc.);
- Update periodically the contents of your web pages so that
they will not appear stale to repeat visitors (you want as many repeat visitors as
possible as well as new visitors).
We at www.abitmark.com
can assist you with each and every step individually or as a whole package to assure that
your web site is all it can be.
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| 3 |
How
much does the creation and hosting of my web site cost? |
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Web site creation: The cost of building a web site will vary greatly depending on the scope of
work and the amount of services required. We can offer you from a very simple web page
with two scanned images and the text of a double spaces letter for only $25.00, up to the
more complex web sites required by your necessities. No matter how small or how complex
your needs are, www.abitmark.com will always strife
to offer you cost-effective and affordable web pages to your satisfaction. We can build
the site for you that meets your budget restraints as well as with your approval.
Web site hosting fees:
Our site hosting fees are amongst the lowest anywhere.
Please take a look at our price list to convince you of their
affordability.
You do not have to take our word for it; take USA Today's and see what they had to say about us. You can also contact our customers and ask them about us and our services.
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| 4 |
I like to have a web site
but cannot build it myself. What do I do? |
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You might start by reviewing our prices/hosting fees and your necessities and budget restraints and
then decide how extensive a site you want. Send us
our On-Line Registration Form or e-mail us about your intentions.
You should consider to have at least these pages in your
web site and should prepare the corresponding material for them so that we can build your
web pages:
- Home page (called the "index.html" page, the
page that shows up first when your site is accessed) that contains a brief description of
your business, contact information and links to your other pages and anything else you
consider of importance. This page should load very fast and thus should contain as few
graphics as possible.
- Information pages where you spell out in detail what
products and services you have to offer. These pages can be like those of a regular
catalog or brochure;
- A FAQ (frequently asked questions) page where you give
answers to questions your customers might ask of you;
- A Search Page so that your visitors can easily find
specific pages when they enter appropriate keywords into your search form;
- An Order Form so that your customers can order directly
from you web pages;
- A link page where you might want to indicate links to
other web sites that might be important to you and your customers.
When you have all this information prepared, inform us as
to how you'd like it to be laid out in your pages. Please note that all text items have to
be send to us in ASCII format (that is, plain text without any formatting. You can use
Notepad or a similar text editor for this). For further information and file extensions, please check out our respective pages in this web site.
After receiving and reviewing your material, we'll inform
you by e-mail and send you our price quotation and time estimate for building your web
site. Please note that if our price quotation is over US$250.00, a down payment of one
half of the cost is required before we can build your web site. For price quotations under
US$25.00, advance payment is indicated.
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| 5 |
I build my own web pages.
What's the next step to have them hosted on your Non-Domain Name server? |
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As soon as your web pages are ready to be
published on our Virtual Servers, you send them to us as an attachment to an e-mail. To be
able to host them, you would have to send us our completely filled-in On-Line Registration Form and payment.
For some tips on how to build your own web pages and assure that they'll run flawlessly on
our UNIX servers, please read our FAQ pages.
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| 6 |
Do you offer direct
Internet Access? |
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NO, we do not offer direct access to the
Internet. For this you need to establish an access account with an ISP (Internet Service
Provider) in your local calling area.
Our services include: web site hosting, web site design, Domain Name registration with
InterNIC, web site registration with Search Engines and web site maintenance.
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| 7 |
Can you host
international accounts? |
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Yes, we already host web sites for many
international customers, no matter where they are located. The only requirement is that
they have local access to the Internet.
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| 8 |
What is the difference
between a Domain-Name and a Non-Domain Name Host? |
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A Domain-Name host differs from a
Non-Domain Name host in that the former requires it's own registered Internet Address or
URL (Universal Resource Locator), while the latter does not.
- For us to host a Domain-Name host, your URL has to be
registered with InterNIC (the official Internet registration authority) who charges
US$100.00 for a two year registration of a Domain Name. Your Domain Name has to point to
our virtual servers so that your URL will be recognized by our servers. For this we need
to re-program our virtual servers and have to charge a one-time fee of US$35.00 per URL.
All this takes time and money and will delay the start-up of your web presence. This
server type also permits you to up-load your files yourself and manage your site either
with FTP or Microsoft's FrontPage program (or with Fetch for our Mac friends).
- With a Non-Domain Name server there are NO registration
and set-up fees whatsoever and we can host your pages almost immediately. You do not need
to manage your site nor up-load your files. We do it for you.
So, what's the advantage of having a Domain-Name server?
Well, with the Domain-Name server you'll have your "own" Internet address and
with it comes something like "prestige". The difference is basically in the
appearance of your Internet address and the ability to be able to manage your own site.
With the Domain-Name server your address could be something like this:
http://www.mycompany.com
With the Non-Domain Name server your Internet address
could be something like this:
http://www.bitmark.com/yourcompany/
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| 9 |
Why is a Non-Domain Name
Host less expensive than a Domain-Name Host? |
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A Non-Domain Name Host is much less
expensive than the Domain-Name Host because there are no additional hosting costs. You
e-mail us your complete files and we up-load them "as is" to your directory in
one of our servers. Voila!
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| 10 |
Can you register a Domain
Name for me with InterNIC? |
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Yes, we can register a Domain Name for you
with InterNIC. All you need to do is supply us your complete address, telephone, fax
number and e-mail address as well as the name of the person responsible for the domain.
Remember, a Domain Name can only have up to 23 characters (all in lower case, no spaces or
other symbols except the hyphen [-]). We then check if your selected name is still
available for registration and then submit your application, along with our technical
specifications, to InterNIC.
Normally, private persons or businesses have a ".com" extension after their
Domain Name, organizations have ".org", networks have ".net",
educational institutions have ".edu" while the government has ".gov".
Domain addresses from overseas also indicate with two letters their location, like
"telcel.net.ve" (for Venezuela, in this case).
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| 11 |
How long does it take to
have my own Domain Name registered? |
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Normally it takes only a few days to have
your Domain-Name registered with InterNIC. However, on a few occasions it has been longer.
Once registered, InterNIC will send you their invoice with snail mail for US$100.00 for a
two year registration. As soon as we receive registration confirmation either from
InterNIC or from you, we're ready to re-program our servers and host your pages. This will
take another 2-3 days.
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| 12 |
Does bitmark.com have any
content restrictions and other limitations? |
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Yes, we have a few restriction with respect
to the contents of your web pages as well as to the sending of unsolicited mass e-mails.
For full details, please read our respecitve web pages as you'll
have to agree to these restrictions before we can host your pages. You will also have to
send us a signed hard copy of this agreement with snail mail.
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| 13 |
If you build my web
pages, what does this include and at what price? |
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Since we'll build your web pages according
to your instructions and needs, there is no standard reply to this question. You decide
what you want to have included in your web site. You might want to have: text items
describing your products and services, your corporate logo, navigational links, menu
items, tables, feedback-forms, comments and suggestions, order forms, e-mail links,
hyperlinks to other pages, a searchable web site, images and photos, animations, sound and
video clips, applets, counters and anything else you deem necessary for your web site and
budget. Once we receive all the information you would like to be incorporated into your
web site, we'll send you our price quotation. (See also answer to
question # 4).
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| 14 |
How do I send you my own
graphics/pictures to have them included in my site? |
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You just send us your digital art as an
attachment to an e-mail. Your image files have to be in the ".gif" or
".jpg" format and the file name should not be longer than 8 characters, all in
lower case. To shorten the up- and down-load time, you might want to compress your files
into one PKzip file.
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| 15 |
Can my web site be
"seen" by any browser? |
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If you use our Non-Domain Name Host your
web site can be "seen" by any browser. If you use our Domain-Name Host, your
site can be "seen" by Netscape 2.0+ and Internet Explorer 3+, which make up the
great majority of browsers used today. Of course, if you have forms and/or frames in your
web site, those can only be "seen" by browsers that accept these formats and all
of the more recent versions do.
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| 16 |
How do I approve the web
site you're building for me before it is published to the Internet? |
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When your web pages are ready for
publication, we'll up-load them first to a temporary directory from where you can see your
web pages and indicate any necessary changes. We'll let you know by e-mail where you can
find your web pages on the Internet.
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| 17 |
Does bitmark.com
advertise my site? |
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We at www.abitmark.com
do not advertise your site. It is your responsibility to promote your site on your
business cards, brochures, and correspondence, etc. etc. We can, however, register your
site with the popular search engines.
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| 18 |
What kind of presentation
can I fit into 500k? |
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In 500k disk space on our virtual servers
you can easily fit all the contents of this web site and still have room to spare. Graphic
images, however, do take up quite some space. FrontPage extensions also use up additional
disk space and you might want to consider trading up to have more disk space.
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| 19 |
Who will have access to
my web presentation? |
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When you put your presentation on the
internet it can be accessed by anyone using the World Wide Web.
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| 20 |
Can you register my home
page with the popular Search Engines? |
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Yes, we can register your pages with the
popular Search Engines for a registration fee of $5.00 per page with these (at the moment)
most popular search engines and directories:
- AltaVista
- Yahoo!
- Infoseek
- Excite
- Lycos
- WebCrawler
- HotBot
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| 21 |
I'm interested in your hosting
services. How do I order? |
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You just send us our completely filled-in On-Line-Registration Form and we take it from there.
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| 22 |
I already have an InterNIC-registered
Domain Name. How do I switch to your servers? |
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If you already have a registered Domain Name and would
like us to host your Domain, you'll have to fill out a DNS modification
request and send it to InterNIC so that your Domain Name will point to our
virtual servers. There is no extra charge for this from InterNIC. To get this process
started, we would, however, need to receive our completely filled-in On-Line Registration Form so that we can indicate to you the
technical information you have to send to InterNIC.
While this is in process, we can copy your existing site to a temporary directory on our
servers so that your internet presence will not be interrupted. For Non-Domain-Name Hosts, this procedure is not required and we can host
your pages immediately.
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| 23 |
I do not yet have a Domain Name, can
you register one for me? |
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Yes, we can register a new Domain Name for you with
InterNIC. For this service we charge a one-time registration for of only US$25.00. You
should inform us what name you would like to register. There is a 23-character limit for
domain names. For more information on this subject, please read here.
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| 24 |
How can I pay for your services? |
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You can pay for our services by Check or Money Order
(drawn on a US bank), or with Visa and/or MasterCard. More
information on this subject can be found here.
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| 25 |
Do you offer technical assistance? |
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Yes, we offer technical assistance to all our customers.
However, before you contact us, please read ourFAQ page (this page) as your question might
already be answered here. You should also use our Search Engine to search our web site for keywords and concepts
you are interested in. If you cannot find answers
to your questions, then please e-mail us indicating, with as much detail as you can, the
problems you encounter. We will get back to you as soon as possible. Please remember, all
communication between our customers and us will be with e-mail.
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| 26 |
How do I "manage" my web
site from my local computer? |
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There are several answers to this question, depending on
what service you have with us:
- If we design and maintain your pages, you do not need to
do anything. We take care of all the "management" aspects of your site;
- If you have FTP privileges for your site, you publish and
manage your web pages with a downloadable FTP
utility (a FTP tutorial is available for first-time
users);
- If you have FrontPage extensions, you publish and manage
your site with FrontPage 97/98 (a Front Page
tutorials are available for first-time users);
- If you have a Non-Domain Name Host with us, you simply
send us your files as an attachment to an e-mail and we'll up-load your files for you. Our
hosting fee for the Non-Domain-Name Host includes five (5) free file up-loads (not site
up-loads) per 3-month contract.
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| 27 |
I up-loaded my file to your server but
am told that my page is not there. What gives? |
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This may be because your home page is not called: index.html or
is not in lower case letters. Make sure that when you build your web pages, that your Home
Page, the first page that shows up in the browser, is always called: index.html and that all other pages that link to
your home page use this file name. Remember, all other files should be in the 8-3 file format. Back to Top |
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| 28 |
Is there an access limit to my server? |
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There are NO access limits to your virtual
servers. You can manage your site 24-hours a day with either FTP or FrontPage no matter
how often you need to access your server. By the same token, your site is active on the
Internet without interruptions and can be seen around the world at any time. Furthermore,
we do not have any download nor upload limits. Your access is really limitless!
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| 29 |
What kind of hit volume will my server
support? |
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Our Virtual Servers are designed for individuals and
businesses with small to medium web presentations. They will easily handle 500 - 1000 hits
per day.
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| 30 |
Can I use Forms and CGI Scripts in my
web pages? |
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Yes, you can use forms and cgi-scripts
on our servers. Just let us know and we'll install and activate a cgi-bin for you in your
directory. You can then use your own cgi-scripts or some of ours. Remember, we
cannot guarantee the proper functioning of these cgi-scripts and will not be able to
provide assistance in this matter as these scripts are made by third parties and their
applications vary from user to user.
The cgi-bin directory-activation fee is only US$15.00.
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| 31 |
How do I set up my e-mail account? |
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We offer a tutorial
page for first-time users to assist in the basic configuration of their e-mail
program.
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| 32 |
What are e-mail aliases? |
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An e-mail alias allows you to specify an e-mail address
in your hosted web pages that is not the same as your normal e-mail address provided by
your ISP (Internet Service Provider).
- How does this work?
Lets say your company name is: Web Creations Inc. You could have an e-mail address in your
web pages of: websales@bitmark.com for sales, and websupport@bitmark.com for technical
support. (Note: the part after the "@" is always bitmark.com and the alias goes
before the @). You could then have your sales mail routed to one person and your support
mail routed to another, or you could have your sales and support mail routed to the same
person.
The advantage of an e-mail alias is that it is consistent with your URL address, and it
allows you to change your normal e-mail address without having to change your web page
e-mail address. E-mail aliases are optional. You can always use only your own e-mail
address if you wish. An e-mail alias does not replace your normal e-mail address.
- How do I structure my e-mail aliases?
The best way to structure your e-mail aliases is to align them with your directory name.
For example if your directory name is: netmark you would make your alias netmarksales@bitmark.com or just netmark@bitmark.com. All e-mail alias names must be unique on the server. If you plan
to use a personal name like 'Bill' you must add the first letter of the last name to it or
something like it. You cannot use general names or names already in use like:
sales@bitmark.com, webmaster@bitmark.com, websmith@bitmark.com, support@bitmark.com, etc.
- How do I install an e-mail alias?
You setup your web pages with the e-mail alias you selected and we can host. You send us
our On-Line-Registration Form and specify in it your alias names. Bitmark.com will then
install your aliases - if still available - when your order is processed.
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| 33 |
What is the difference between an
e-mail alias and a POP account? |
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- After an e-mail alias is created, the mail send to this
e-mail alias is not stored on our virtual servers but is forwarded directly to your local
ISP mail box.
- A POP server allows the e-mail for the user to reside on
our virtual servers and is NOT automatically forwarded to your local ISP mail box.
The POP service on our Virtual servers allows a customer
to have a unique Internet e-mail box. Virtual POP service also allows a customer to easily
switch ISP's without re-configuration of his/her e-mail client.
POP usernames are up to 8 characters in length and must
start with an alphabetic character. Passwords and user names are case sensitive and are
entered in lower case.
For more information, see our e-mail tutorial.
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| 34 |
What should be considered when
building my own web pages for my Non-Domain Name Host? (This can also be applied to the web-page creation process as a whole) |
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One of the best ways is to setup a development directory
on your computer that has the same name as your Server directory name. Develop your web
presentation in this directory. The home page of your web presentation must be named
'index.html'. Make sure all of your web pages and image files are located in the same
development directory. Do not use URL names or directory names in your web pages for links
to other pages and/or image files that are part of your presentation. Always use lower
case letters in the 8.3
format for all your .htm, .jpg, and .gif filenames. Develop your pages using a text
editor, then test your pages using any browser in local file mode. Once the web pages are
developed and tested, e-mail the entire directory as an attachment to www.abitmark.com Reminder:
Please take note that we up-load your files "AS IS". So please make sure that
all your .htm and graphic files (.jpg and .gif) are all in lower case letters and follow
the 8.3 format.
Your first or home page that will appear when a visitor accesses your site has to be
called: index.html (5.4) and that all pages that link to your home page use
index.html as their link base. Carefully check your spelling for all file names as many
files will apparently work very well on your local computer but will fail on our UNIX OS
for the slightest irregularity in above mentioned conventions. A 3-month-contract period
includes five (5) free file up-loads (not site up-loads) so it is in your own interest to
get it "right" the first time. Thank you.
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| 35 |
What is "spam" (unsolicited
e-mail)? |
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The answer to this question can be found on its own page as it is a very
important topic.
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| 36 |
Sometimes my Internet connection is
very, very slow. Is this the bitmark.com server? |
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As more and more people access the net, the Internet
access/response time will sometimes decrease dramatically, especially during peak hours.
If this occurs, we recommend that you connect again at off-peak hours (late evening to
early morning hours - USA time) and you'll see that our servers are up to speed. If you do
not believe us and are interested, you can download a free Internet analysis utility
called Net.Medic that will show you exactly where
the bottle necks are. You'll be surprised!
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| 37 |
Can I have a web counter on my home
page |
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It is very easy to install a hit or visitor counter into
your web pages so that you can track any visitors to your site. You can use your cgi-bin
directory in your Domain-Name server and a corresponding cgi-script. You can find many
free counter scripts on the Internet, such as Matt's Script Archive,
which you download and install into your cgi-bin directory and your web page. We can also
offer you our basic script
for tracking visitors which you can install into your pages. You can also use independent third party counters which will reside on
their server and thus will not occupy space in your directory. We found some excellent free web page hit
counters for which you only add their code to your web pages.
If you use Microsoft's Front Page 98 to create and manage
your site, then you can easily use the page counter that comes with FP98 at no
additional cost nor programming. (See also above.)
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| 38 |
How can I find out about my site
statistics |
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You have free access to our weekly general server
statistics. Please e-mail us and we'll send you the
information on how to access them. If you're
interested in more detailed statistics that pertain only to your site, you might want to
consider installing a site-specific web statistics program into your web pages. You can
find many such program on the Internet. There is a particularly useful program we like
called: Freestats. You can download it for free
and subscribe to their service. Once installed in your page, you can also add their page
counter.
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| 39 |
I would like to have my web pages
hosted by bitmark.com but I'm not living in the USA. What can you do for me? |
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We will gladly host your pages on our US-based servers
as if you where here in the States. To find out how much our fees are in your local
currency, please just click here and in no time
you'll receive an up-to-date answer.
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| 40 |
I registered my web site with many
Search Engines but my site does not seem to be indexed. Could you help me with this? |
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After you register your pages with Search Engines, it
can take up to 8 weeks before your pages show up in some of the indices - if ever. The
selection of the right keywords and Meta tags is an art you have to master over time.
There are, however, some utilities on the Internet that can help you "refine"
your keywords. To help you finding out if your pages are indexed and/or if they're listed,
and if so, in what position they are in, you can run a free test with the Position Agent.
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| 41 |
What is a cgi (common gateway
interface)? |
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The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) allows you to extend
your virtual server. CGI allows you to support situations when you want to send
information to the virtual server for more complicated processing. In general, web servers
do not process information themselves but rather hand off the work to gateway programs.
The CGI specification defines the mechanisms by which HTTP servers communicate with
gateway programs. Therefore, you need to understand the HTTP protocol and the CGI
specification to write server-side gateway programs and client HTML documents that use
these programs.
Since writing CGI programs is not easy, we provide a few simple cgi's to our
Domain-Name customers that can be installed into their cgi-bin directories, once
activated. (See also above.)Back to Top |
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| 42 |
Can I search for a Domain Name by
Keywords? |
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Yes, you can and you might want to download a shareware
program called DomainSearcher. It's written by IGS and you can download it from:
http://www.igsnet.com/dsearch.html
It allows you to do a search for a domain name by keyword. This might help you get some
idea of what's out there and what you have top pick from.To Top |