The PlanetDomain Blog

You have spent a considerable amount getting your new business off the ground and now it is time to join your comrades online.

Many budding entrepreneurs opt to self-design their website, and why not, who better knows their business right?

If you are developing a blueprint for your site there are few things that must be considered. Web pages which are visually appealing and fuelled with sales oomph may actually cause your site to lose visitors.

Say NO to Flash Animation

If you have ever been to a site where the first page is some fancy animation, it is not as appealing as it is annoying. Out of the world’s top sites NONE of them are prefaced by flash animation. What’s more when Google scans the first page of your site for relevant content, it can’t interpret the animation and registers the first page as void of content.

Flash animation can also take a notoriously long time to load. Not everyone has fast internet access so if you make your visitors wait most will leave the site and visit one that downloads quicker.

First Thing’s First; Key Information

Users don’t want to waste time looking for the most important information; make it easy for them by showing your company’s product on the first page. Make this message clear and to the point. Where possible adorn the page headings and titles with the keywords that best describe your site. Google places greater importance on information inside headings. So if you can succeed in getting your message across here your site is more likely to place well in the Google rankings.

Make sure contact details are easily visible. If they aren’t on your first page, make sure they are at least a click away.

Consistency is Key

The design must be simple and effective, which needs to be a carried throughout the entire site. Don’t go overboard with too many different fonts, colours and layouts.

When I Hear Music…

Music on a webpage, like flash animation, takes too long to load and because of this drives visitors from your site rather than draws them in. Unless your business is music related, don’t use music on your site to add extra flavour.

If people want to listen to music while they browse they will open their iTunes, not log on to your site.

Don’t Forget to Update!

Once your site is live, it still needs maintenance! Give it a face lift once the design becomes dated. Analyse the traffic reports, available from your hosting supplier, and customise your sight to better suit those who are visiting it the most. Make sure all of the links on your sight are operational; you will lose customers quickly if error messages on your site are common place.

The best plan of attack is to find a qualified web designer to work through any issues for you. Yet if this is not within your budget try and at least give your site the best chance of success.

By Stacey Manson

How many times have you tried to log on to a site and failed where previously you have had unabated access? The ‘thinking icon’ deliberates, contemplates and meditates, but still the desired information refuses to appear.

‘It’s the useless server again,’ you presume after a frustrating five minutes spent repeatedly clicking Mr Refresh. However researchers at the University of Washington have now discovered that this may not necessarily be the case.

Black Holes on the Net

Graduate student Ethan Katz-Bassett and his advisor Arvind Krishnamurthy have discovered that information is constantly being lost along digital conduits that were previously operational. They have termed these areas where information travels into oblivion as the internet’s ‘black holes’, and apparently they comprise a whopping 10% of the internet.

It appears the internet, which is trusted as a reliable communication network for many vital services, is actually less dependable than phone networks. In fact since the inception of their analysis last September almost a million black holes and reachability problems have been detected.

The Hubble Program

The researchers have designed a system called Hubble, named after the NASA space telescope that first detected intergalactic black holes. It operates via a network of cyber-probes which detect computers that can be reached by some, but not all, of the internet. This data suggest that there is an issue occurring en route and there is the presence of a black hole. The probes monitor up to 90% of the net.

Bassett and Krishnamurthy hope the new technology will drastically improve the functionality of the internet by allowing ISPs to track down the source of problems experienced on their network. Their data is updated every 15 minutes and their website hosts a map illustrating where black holes are occurring at any given minute.

What Triggers a Black Hole?

It is believed the black holes are caused by problems with particular routers. This can vary from issues with new router paths not operating properly to issues with multi-homing.

Multi homing protocol connects a site to the internet from more than one address, which enables it to have several different connectivity links. The technology is meant to make it easier for information packets reach their destination, yet it is also making it easier for those packets to be sent to black holes.

It is hoped that future versions of Hubble will be able to more precisely pinpoint the exact cause of the holes. Maybe the researchers will be able to find a way to permanently reroute SPAM to these holes too!

So next timed the hourglass refuses to disappear from your monitor don’t be so quick to blame your particular server. It is quite possible the information you desire has passed over the event horizon and into cyber oblivion.

By Stacey Manson

How do you know if your domain name registration quote is the best deal? With prices varying from $25 to almost $150 in Australia for one two year domain, what should a sensible business consider when deciding on the right price to pay for their online identity?

The importance of choosing the right domain name can’t be stressed enough. After all, it is the name above your shop, the first words your customers will see. But beyond registering control of the domain so you can point it to your website, what else is there? Why does the same domain cost so much more when registered with one company instead of another?

In Australia, for example, the wholesale cost of registering a domain name is a cheap $19.50 + GST for a .com.au or .net.au. For other forms of domain; such as .org.au, .com, .info, etc, the fees vary and may be cheaper still. These prices are set by the local registries responsible for each region. Some of these domains may come with other restrictions. For example, auDA (The Australian Domain Administrator) restricts the registration of .com.au domains to businesses with a tax ABN number.

But you or I cannot register domain names at the wholesale price. We need to use accredited companies with the authority to register and administer domains on our behalf. The wholesale domain name price forms only part of the fee charged to you by this company. With additional fees for service, these additional costs can blow this $19.50 +GST into very different prices.

So when considering which company to go with to register your domain names, you will need to consider a number of other factors to determine the best deal.

Do you want telephone customer support or can you work with email contact only?

Some budget domain name companies are able to afford to keep their costs so low by keeping staff levels to a minimum. This means no telephone customer support and all customer contact is done by email. May be fine in most circumstances, but when you need help with more complicated issues, an email conversation can be difficult. Also response times are much slower. You may be waiting hours for the email response you need.

Do you want support 24×7?

If you’re like me, you do a lot of personal web projects over the weekend. But if I hit a snag and have to wait until business hours on Monday to reach customer support, it can put my project back a week. If you think you may need support outside of normal business hours, you may need to pay a little more.

Are you hoping to keep all your website transactions in one place?

Granted, some of the budget domain name companies have cheap prices, but are they capable of dealing with all your other website needs? If you have your web hosting, web design, SEO and other services elsewhere, it may be worth paying that little but extra to have the same company look after your domain names too. Having all your website components in one place can make rebilling and administration a lot easier and that can save money in the long run

Do you want an easy but comprehensive online interface to administer your domains?

It is reasonable to assume that the cheaper the domain name, the less money the business has to put into other customer service features. If you will be using your online control panel to administer your domain names, make sure it is one you are comfortable with and capable of achieving what you need. Remember, if you hit a problem with your online control panel with a cheap provider, as mentioned above, you may not be able to get customer service support when you need it.

Once you know what level of service you want with your domain name, you can then decide how much that is worth to you. By comparing companies with the level of service you need, you will soon identify which one is providing the best deal and which one is relying on ignorance to fuel their high prices.

Of course, Planet Domain provides effective and unlimited telephone or email customer support with a proven online interface. Backed up by years of experience, we can honestly say we have one of the best domain name deals on the net.