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Web Site Administration - Maintaining Your Web Site
This is important work, often neglected because it can be time-consuming, but necessary if you want to keep your web site up to date and well-positioned in search engines. I can make your web site an asset, rather than merely a status symbol which effectively does nothing to bring in business. I can also help ensure that the content is fresh, accurate and interesting, and that it functions properly.
Keeping your web site up to date can be speeded up by using a database-driven solution, but this is not always ideal, as search engines generally "prefer" simple html-based sites - although they are much better now than they used to be at handling such sites. Nevertheless a database-driven site has to be set up very carefully so that search engines spider it properly. Also database-driven sites can be rather slow to display pages if they are not carefully designed. For some sites, especially very large and complex ones, there is no practicable alternative, but it is not always necessary to use such a complex solution for maintaining a smaller and less complex site.
The method which I employ for my site is to use server-side includes (SSI). This can be very useful, especially when one is constantly adding new pages which require the links menu on each page to be updated. Your server may need to be configured to allow SSI - this is usually little problem with a Linux / Apache setup. Microsoft have their own "webbot" include method which works with FrontPage, but is not designed for use with ordinary FTP and a server without special FrontPage extensions. However, most modern Microsoft Windows servers can be configured to use conventional SSI which is, in my view, the best method, because it is the most versatile.
In the "old days" frames were used, but frames-based sites are problematic with search engines and look ugly. Some of you may remember my old frame-based site!
Alternatively, one can use an extended "search-and-replace" function for updating common elements across various pages. This function is often available in various HTML editors. This is not the best method, but it is nonetheless useful.
Whichever method you choose to employ, it is always a good idea to have a dedicated web site administrator for the task of updating one's web site, adding new functionality, fine-tuning it for search engines, checking for broken links, and all the myriad of other tasks involved in ensuring that the site is maintained in good order. I can also do content-creation for you using my extensive skills in accessing information and writing copy.
my experience >
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alasdairbroun.org.uk
is hand-crafted* using
pure organic html
with CSS and SSI,
and is hosted on a
Unix Server running
Apache/1.3.29
*except for various
special features such as
newsfeeds, blogs, chat, etc.
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