Moonfruit Lounge - Technical info

Domain Price Increases

Walt — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Following price increases by two of the major domain registries (Verisign and Neustar) on 15 Jan and 1 Feb respectively, we have decided to increase the cost of buying, transferring and renewing a domain from 1 March, 2012. The prices will increase to £11.99 per year (including UK VAT where applicable), US$15.99, €13.99 and AUD$20.00 respectively. Our full price list of the current domains, currencies and prices available can be found at www.moonfruit.com/domains-pricing.

We have deferred passing on the price increases until 1 March to give our customers time to renew at current prices. You can easily renew your domains ahead of time and over multiple years (except for .uk domains which are restricted to 2 year renewals within 30 days of expiry by the registry: Nominet).

And remember, you still get a free domain voucher with SiteMaker Standard, two vouchers with the Plus account and three vouchers with the Max account. So these are now even better value. And with all of our domains you still get 5 free mailboxes, so we hope you still think it’s a good deal.

Domain Name Prices Rise

Walt — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:58:00 +0000

Effective immediately, we have had to raise our domain name prices from a basic price of £8.99/$12.99/€11.99 to £10.99/$14.99/€12.99 including UK VAT. There are several reasons for this, which are really based on the wholesale prices of domains increasing and not us wanting to take more of your money.

As some of you may know, most domain wholesale prices are actually set in USD (US Dollars). Two things have happened to affect the rate here. Firstly, Verisign (the registry that manages COM/NET domains) has decided to increase domain name prices for the 3rd time in 4 years by another 7%, taking the total increase to about 22% since 2006. Secondly, the GBP (British Pounds) exchange rate has fallen vs the Dollar (and Euro) significantly in the last couple of years, which makes prices more expensive for all domains. We try to keep all domains at the same price and manage profitability across them all as a group, which is why all domains are affected by this price increase.

Many other domain providers have also raised their prices in the last year or so in response to the price increases. They also tend to quote prices excluding VAT, while we quote prices including VAT. For example many providers may quote for a £9.99 domain + UK VAT = £11.73, while we are charging £10.99 including VAT.

Remember, you still get a free domain voucher with SiteMaker Standard and Plus accounts with two vouchers for a Max account. So these are now even better value.

And with all of our domains you still get 5 free mailboxes, so we hope you still feel it’s a good deal.

We did notice that there was a bug with the voucher pricing: they were still at the old prices and did not fully cover these price increases. We have now fixed this bug and we have a list of customers who have had to 'top-up' with a payment to make the purchase. We will refund that 'top-up' to all those customers over the next 24-48 hours. We can only apologies for the inconvenience that this has caused.

So there you have it. And just in case you thought this was a sign of things to come, we have no plans to increase our prices on the software. In fact we haven't put prices up on SiteMaker for over 5 years even though we continue to develop the product and release more features on a regular basis.

PayPal Button and Linking Issues.

Walt — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:23:00 +0000

UPDATE 12:34 GMT - The issue has now been resolved. We found a work-around that has re-enabled links and buttons. You may need to click back (on the browser) once to return to your site and try the button again to make the code change at our end work.

In the meantime we will be contacting PayPal to find what they changed in their code, why they changed it and why the failed to post any notifications anywhere on the web about this change. We do apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Thanks

Walt

We aware that PayPal have changed some code which has an impact on our PayPal link and button behaviour. Our technical team are currently investigating what has changed, how to fix it (or whether a work-around is possible), and then why. Nothing has changed in our code so we will be checking with PayPal over this issue to try and try to get it resolved as quickly as possible.

I do apologise for the inconvenience this has caused.

- Walt

Accessing Email from the Web

Walt — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 13:58:00 +0000

If you ever have problems accessing your email through the Moonfruit portal i.e. moonfruit.com (via the Domains tab) or you seem to be getting errors in you mail client e.g. Outlook or Mail then the quickest way to access your mail is via Webmail.

Simply access your account using:

http://webmail.mysitename.com

So simply add 'webmail.' to the front of your domain name without the www. This will bring up your webmail login page. Add your mailbox name (not an alias as this won't work), i.e. your full email address in the top fields and your email password in the field below e.g. mailbox@mysitename.com

The same applies to all other domains where a mailbox has been set up, and don't forget to use the mail box name not an alias.

The other good thing you can do with webmail is that you can bookmark this webmail address to your Favorites in the browser.

Hope you find this useful.

Walt

Upgrading your Adobe Flash Player (v9.0.159.0 and v10.0.22.87 for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris)

Walt — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:22:00 +0100

Following a bulletin from Adobe, we are advising all customers to update their Flash Player version if they are currently running v9.0.159.0 and v10.0.22.87 for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris. This upgrade is strongly recommended by Adobe.

To verify the Adobe Flash Player version number running on your system, access the About Flash Player page, or right-click on the Flash content and then select “About Adobe Flash Player” from the menu. If you use multiple browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera etc) on the same computer, please perform the check for each browser you have installed on your system. The page will indicate the ‘Version Information’ in a boxed section and list the version number e.g. “You have version 10,0,22,87 installed”.

If you are currently running Adobe Flash Player 9.0.246.0 or 10.0.32.18 then you don’t need to do anything. You have the latest version.

However if you are running another version, especially v9.0.159.0 and v10.0.22.87 then Adobe recommends that all Flash Player users upgrade to the most recent version of the player through the Flash Player Download Centre and take advantage of security updates.

More details on this, if interested, can be found on the Adobe Website Bulletin page.

From domain to email in just a few simple steps. No Joke!!!

Walt — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:00:00 +0100

Well, more half a dozen simple steps than just a few. But it is fairly simple.

Once your domain order is complete, you can associate your domain with your website. You can also create up to five individual mailboxes with your domain. Within each mailbox you will also be able to create as many unique aliases as you wish. Alternatively you can also forward your addresses to external email accounts like GoogleMail, Yahoo and Hotmail, which you already own or have access to.

For a quick introduction on how to set up your email just read the instructions below...

Creating your first email address

First things first!

You can either forward to an external email address eg, Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail, or you can set up your own mailboxes, but you cannot do both.

If you use forwarding you can set up aliases that will forward all mail to your chosen external account. However, if you set up mailboxes (maximum of five), then you can assign each mailbox its own password access plus give each one an unlimited number of aliases. Additionally, you can also choose how to access your mailboxes: through webmail online, or through an email client like Outlook, Thunderbird or Mac Mail etc.

To begin with:

Log in to the portal eg, moonfruit.com or log in to your site
Go to the ‘Domains’ section on either the portal toolbar or your website toolbar
Go to ’Manage’
Locate your domain - If you haven’t already you can assign your domain name to a website in your account
Click on the ‘Email & Settings’ link
Decide whether you wish to forward your emails to an external email address or you wish to create one or more mailboxes.

Forwarding your emails to another address

If you are going to forward your emails to an existing address you need to decide the aliases you want use and then enter the external email address you want all your mail to forward to. We provide a number of preset aliases ie, admin, support, info, but you can replace, remove or simply add to this list of addresses.

NB. If you set up your email to forward to an external account, you will not be able to set up access to that address through a client eg, Outlook or Mac Mail. You need a mailbox to do this, so when you forward your emails a mailbox just simply doesn't exist! Forwarding emails just passes the email onto another address.

Setting up a Mailbox

If on the other hand you want your address to be a mailbox where you can send and receive mail, then you can set up one to five mailboxes e.g admin@mysite.com, support@mysite.com, info@mysite.com.

The mailbox names should all be simple, understandable and as short as possible. You do not need mysite.com@mysite.com. You are better creating something that is easy for users to remember or type.

Each mailbox has its own password so that you can, if you wish set up each mailbox independently, to make it secure eg, one for the sales team, one for support, one for admin, one for management. Each mailbox password is separate from your website login, so please ensure you remember, store or save the details.

Once you set up a mailbox you can set up aliases eg, The sales@mysite.com mailbox could have john@mysite.com, suzi@mysite.com, imran@mysite.com – the Sales team - as aliases. Each team member could use the password to access the sales mailbox.

NB. A word of warning though. All aliases MUST be unique, that is they must not be duplicated under another mailbox or in fact match another mailbox. Any duplication will cause incoming mail to those addresses to fail as the system will not know which mailbox to deliver the mail to.

Each mailbox is pre-populated with four aliases which can be used or removed. These are: mail, info, support, admin.

Now What?

Use the ‘Open my webmail’ button to access your email account online. And make note of the URL in the browser address bar for direct access to your mail online. For more details on Webmail you can read an article we published on the Lounge.

If you prefer to use an email client then we have another article on how to set this up with the likes of Outlook, Mail etc.

Use the ‘Change my settings’ link to change your password.

And that, as they say, is that. Good luck and enjoy using your email.

Transferring your domain to SiteMaker - Lock, Tag and two smoking emails

Walt — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:38:00 +0000

Transferring your domain name from your current domain name provider to SiteMaker should be easy. But the process can be as complicated as an East End heist gone wrong in a Guy Ritchie film. And what makes matters worse is that it differs between registries, the organisations who have overall control of the specific TLDs (top level domains) e.g. .com, .uk, .eu, .name, .biz, .info. The registries are the domain wholesalers.

Then there are the registrars, who are the domain retailers, better known as domain name providers who have their own rules of engagement. And still the plot thickens. Add to this tags versus auth codes, automatic domain locking, a small matter of confirmation emails and you have the dark underworld of domain name transfer.

But there is a happy ending! Read on and hopefully we'll be able to straighten out the twists and turns of the transfer process...

The Main Issues

So what can delay a domain transfer from being processed? Frankly, lots!

Domain locking - Firstly you cannot transfer a domain if it is locked. Some providers do this automatically so they need to be asked to unlock the domain.
Sixty days - When a domain is first created all registrars block transfer out in the first sixty days. Some registrars also apply this restriction within sixty days of expiry. So you may wish to check 1. what rules your domain name provider (registrar) have around transfers out, and 2. creation and expiry dates.
Wrong Email Address - When you request a domain transfer a confirmation email is sent to the email address you originally registered against your domain name (unless you updated it). This ensures, for legal reasons, that the correct owner of the domain confirms that they have requested the transfer. The trouble is many people change email addresses and forget to update this very important contact point so they don't get the confirmation email. If the email isn't replied to or isn't done exactly as described in the email then the transfer will fail. In the case of our transfer confirmation email it must be replied to with only the transfer code left in the body - but full instructions are given in the email.
Supply the correct 'TAG' - A tag is created for each registrar by Nominet (the registry that controls .uk domains). Initiating a .uk transfer requires the domain owner to supply a 'tag' to their current domain name provider (registrar). This is what is known as a 'push' process so by supplying your current provider with the tag e.g. 'GANDI', your domain will be 'pushed' towards the new domain name provider, in this case us. If this tag is not supplied or it is incorrect then the 'push' will not be initiated and the transfer will fail, so just remember to supply your current provider with the tag 'GANDI'.
Getting an 'Auth' code - The bulk of the other domain transfers, e.g. .com, .net, .biz, .org, use what is known as a 'pull' process. Unlike .uk transfers, the owner of the domain must go to their current domain name provider and request an authorisation code or 'Auth' code. This is then provided to the receiving provider during the transfer process. Most donating providers put a time limit on the Auth code so if action isn't taken quickly then the Auth code can expire and the transfer fail. The other bigger trap is transcribing (reading and retyping) the Auth code. It is not uncommon for users to mistake l (L) and I (i) or 0 (zero) and O (letter o). So the surest way to not make a mistake is to copy and paste where possible.
Contact Details - When setting up the transfer any missing or incorrect address details will cause the transfer to stall. Check that full and accurate address and postcode details are provided and that the phone number format is correct. Also ensure you use exactly the same name you provided to your current provider as any minor difference will delay the process.
Country Restrictions - Finally, some registries (the guys that have overall control of the TLDs) set rules over domain ownership. For example if you wish to own a .eu domain, then you MUST provide an address with the EU. This is more noticeable when buying a domain but some domain owners move countries and this may cause a transfer to fail.

Transferring .uk Domains

Want to know how to make your .uk domain transfer flow smoothly? Just follow the steps below:

Email access - also check with your current provider what email address is registered against your domain. If necessary, change it.
Tag - supply your current domain name provider with the new tag, 'GANDI'
Contact Details - ensure that the contact details you provide in our domains module match those held by your current provider
Email action - Once you receive the confirmation email from Gandi you must take action - reply to the email, in plain text, changing only the body of the email i.e. removing everything in the email body except the transfer code (code.../ACCEPT)
Have patience - Transfers can sometimes take days, sometimes weeks. This often depends on how quickly you respond, the accuracy of your tag or contact details and how quick your current provider take action to release your domain from their service. While this is the Internet, the process is not instant!

Transferring Other Domains e.g. .com, .net, .org

To ensure a pain free transfer of your .com (or .net, .org, .name, etc etc) please just follow the steps below:

Unlock - check with your current provider that the domain is unlocked and available for transfer
Email access - also check with your current provider what email address is registered against your domain. If necessary, change it.
Auth Code - request an Auth code (authorisation code) from your current domain name provider. You must get this before starting the process as you will be asked for this during the transfer process. And try to copy and paste it to ensure there are no 'typos'
Contact Details - ensure that the contact details you provide in our domains module match those held by your current provider
Email action - Once you receive the confirmation email from Gandi you must take action - reply to the email, in plain text, changing only the body of the email i.e. removing everything in the email body except the transfer code (code.../ACCEPT)
Have patience - Transfers can sometimes take days, sometimes weeks. This often depends on how quickly you respond, the accuracy of your Auth code and contact details and how quick your current provider takes action to release your domain from their service. While this is the Internet, this process is not instant!

What about my emails?

If you value your emails and wish to transfer your domain name into us you should be aware of a few things:

If you use webmail then your emails will be stored on your current domain name provider's mail servers. If you transfer your domain across to us then you will lose ALL your emails as they will remain, and no doubt be deleted from, the mail servers of your current provider. If this is important to you then please see the next point.
If you use an email client e.g. Outlook, (Mac) Mail, Thunderbird, then you will need to store copies of your emails locally (on your computer) to ensure you save copies. Most email clients will provide an option to do this. Make sure you save copies of your emails before you initiate the transfer to ensure you have full access to your mail while you still have access.
If you wish to set up a client so that you can save copies of your emails then please refer to our article on this subject: Getting Connected: Setting up your email client

Jargon Buster

Registries: The controlling organisations which include three of the main registries: Nominet, who control .uk domains; Verisign who control .com and .net; Public Interest Registry, who control .org.

Registrars: Your domain name provider.

Auth Code: Authorisation Code, supplied by your current domain name provider (registrar) to transfer your .com, .net, .org, .biz, .mobi etc. This must be supplied to your new domain name provider so that they can request or 'pull' the domain across. This is usually a string of letters, numbers of combination of both, and often in mixed upper lower case letters.

Tag: A "TAG" is a handle or label specific to each registrar. This is only important when you wish to transfer a .uk domain. It is usually obtained from your new or receiving domain name provider (registrar) . It must be supplied to your existing or donating provider so that they can release or 'push' your domain over to the new provider. It usually consists of your new provider's name, so when transferring a .uk domain to us you would use our domain partner's name: GANDI

Locking: A lock placed on your domain by your current provider to stop it being transferred. Some providers automatically lock it, so you must request it to be unlocked for the transfer to take place.

Confirmation email: You will be sent an email asking you to confirm that you requested the domain name transfer. Two key points: 1. It will be sent to the email address you currently have registered against that domain e.g. when you first set it up, and 2. you must follow the 'acceptance' instructions in the email exactly for your confirmation to be accepted. This email generally requires a response within 5 days.

60 day rule: This is the minimum period of time required between the original domain creation date and the time after which transfers are permitted. This delay does apply to all registrars.

Patience: A quality required in ample amounts when transferring. It usually takes between one and six weeks for a transfer to complete although it has been known to take as little as a few days. If domains are locked, auth codes are wrong (or tags not supplied), emails aren't answered then it could take six weeks (worst case).

Getting Connected: Setting up your Webmail

Walt — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:27:00 +0000

So you're now the proud owner of a domain name or you've been one for while and you want to set up your email so that you can access it on line.

It's all pretty easy with webmail, you just have to remember to use your mailbox name and not an alias to log in. There are a few other rules but we'll cover those below. So if you need some help, have a problem to solve or you're just curious please read on...

Emails Online

Accessing your mail online is not unlike accessing mail from Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo. All you need is access to the Internet, your login details and hey presto, you have mail! So even if you are miles from home or your own computer, you can access your mail. With our mail, you get 5 mailboxes, unlimited aliases and 1GB of disc space to store you mail.

Access

You can access your mail from the Domains module on Moonfruit.com where you can confirm your mailbox name. Or you can go direct to your webmail login page by using the following format: webmail.yourdomain.tld (where TLD means Top Level Domain e.g. .com, .co.uk, .net, .org). You can even save your webmail login page to your Favorites.

Once you open your webmail page:

1. Add your mail box name in the field (not one of your aliases)

2. The settings for "Interface" and "Open in new window" can be left alone

3. Tick the "Remember me" if you wish the system to remember your login details

4. Click "Login"

Once logged in you will see the usual tools and features including folder and email management, address book, mailbox settings and email rules.

FAQ

Q. Why am I getting an error when l try to log in?

A. The usual causes are incorrect password or using the wrong mailbox name. If you use an alias rather than the mailbox name the login will fail. To check this, just login to moonfruit.com, go to the Mange Domains section and click the 'Email & Settings' link beside your domain. The name of your mailbox or mailboxes will be listed. These are the ones you must use to login.

Q. Why am I not receiving my emails?

A. The most common problem is creating an alias that conflicts with one of your mailboxes. For example if you have mailboxes named Sales, Support and Billing and the Billing mail box also has an alias called Sales. If an email is sent to sales@ then the system won't know which mailbox to deliver it to, so it will fail. Please just check your aliases in all your mailboxes and remove any that conflict.

A. Sometimes when testing emails you may use a redirect externally, one that bounces your email back to your new email address. This is never guaranteed to work as some email systems view emails being sent back to themselves as redundant and delete or block their return. If you wish to test your email address use another external account or service to forward to.

Q. How much space do I get to store my emails?

A. With our webmail you get 1GB

Q. If I transfer my domain name to you, will my email be transferred as well?

A. If you are transferring your domain name to us, all your mail will be stored on you current provider's servers, so once the transfer completes your mail will be lost. We suggest using an email client (like Outlook, Mail, Thunderbird) to back up your mailbox locally onto your computer before you begin transferring your domain name.

Q. So how do I actually set up my email now that I have a domain?

A. This can be done quite simple through the Domains module. Locate your domain and click on the Email & Settings link. You can then either forward your email address to an external account or you can create up to five mailboxes. More details on creating your email addresses is available in another article: " From domain to email in just a few simple steps "

Q. How do I access my mail using an email application like Outlook?

A. Our webmail uses POP, IMAP and SMTP. Both POP (POP3 actually) and IMAP allow you to receive mail, while SMTP is used for sending mail. So any application (email client) that uses these 'protocols' will allow you to access your mail from your computer. These include MS Outlook, Mac Mail, Eudora, Mozilla Thunderbird. More details on how to set up an email client can be found in another article: " Getting Connected: Setting up your email client "

Jargon Buster

Alias: Alternative names you can give to a specific mailbox to provide more flexibility with your service. For example under the sales@myname mailbox you could have the names of your sales team e.g. john@, susi@, josh@ all of which would redirect to Sales. Be warned though that 'all' addresses must be unique.

Email Client: Another name for an application that allows you to access, manage and download your emails to your computer. These include MS Outlook, Mac Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora and Opera Mail. To use these clients you need to set up your incoming and outgoing services e.g. POP, IMAP, SMTP.

Mail Forwarding: This means that you won't have a mailbox for receiving or sending mail and any mail sent to your new email address will not be stored on the server but redirected or forwarded to the email address you want to access it from e.g. me@mydomainname.com > me@gmail.com

Mailbox: This is an account you create using your domain name which allows you to view, save and send emails from. You can access your mailbox using webmail or by using an email client like Outlook, Mac Mail, Thunderbird etc. The mailbox name must be used as the username to login to it.

Webmail: This means accessing your email online, that is without an email application on your computer. The most common examples are Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo, although our webmail also lets you access your mail over the internet

Getting Connected: Setting up your email client

Walt — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:05:00 +0000

So you've bought a domain name through Moonfruit, or maybe you've transferred your domain in to us. You want to know how to set it up with Outlook? Or perhaps Mac Mail or even Thunderbird. Any email client (application) that supports POP3 or IMAP (and SMTP) will permit you to set up an account to send and receive emails.

It's fairly straightforward (although using Webmail is even easier) but there are a couple of things you have to watch for. You may find you can't send emails (although receiving is OK) or you find you're sending emails OK but you just don't see them turning up in your Inbox. So, if you need some help, have a problem to solve or you're just curious please read on...

Email on your computer system

Email clients are applications or software that enable you to read, send and often save emails on your computer (as well as some mobile devices like iPhones and Blackberrys). The most commonly known and used clients are MS Outlook, Mac Mail, Eudora, Mozilla Thunderbird which all support POP and IMAP - essential protocols for setting up your email accounts.

Generally, setting up your email is quite a similar process for all clients. So where to start?

Once you have your domain set up, for example, sitemaker.com, you need to create your mailbox through the Moonfruit portal i.e. www.moonfruit.com which you can access through your website. The Domains module is where you can manage your domains, renewals, hide your Whois contact details, check your billing and manage your mailboxes.

We'll use Outlook as the example for setting up your email client due to it currently being the most popular client available. Just remember that Mac Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird etc will vary only a little with settings. So...

Setting Up - E-mail Accounts

The easiest way to set up your account is using POP3 or simply POP (IMAP works just as well and will be similar to set up)
Your name could be anything from Admin, John Smith, Johno987 - this is what your recipients will see in the 'From' section of your email
Email address is the full email (mailbox) address you set up with your domain name - the Mailbox name not any aliases
Your username will be your FULL mailbox address e.g. admin@sitemaker.com (not just "admin")
The password will be your mailbox password, NOT your SiteMaker (website) login
The format you use for your incoming (to receive mail) server will be, for example: pop.sitemaker.com
The format for your outgoing (to send mail) server will be, for example: smtp.sitemaker.com

NB. Click on the images to see a larger version with more detail.

So, is that it then?

Well, not quite. The final steps you need to complete setting up email are to be found in 'More Settings' on the main panel. Click this and a new panel will appear containing four tabs.

More Settings (the forgotten step)

The first tab in 'More Settings' is the 'General' tab. You only need confirm that the 'Email Account' matches your POP or incoming server address e.g. pop.sitemaker.com

The next tab is the 'Outgoing' tab. You need to check or select the 'My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication' option.

Please note that the most important step is to ensure that you select 'Use same settings as my incoming mail server'. This will match the username and password between incoming and outgoing servers and ensure you can easily send and receive mail.

The 'Connection' tab settings are down to you and how you connect to the Internet but should normally be left alone using the defaults provided.

The same can be said of the 'Advanced' tab which controls the ports used. The defaults for the ports should normally be left alone also.

Once you have saved your settings, your email should now be ready to test and use.

NB. If you get an incoming/receiving error please double check your username matches your email address (mailbox name) and that the password is correct for your email account. If you get an outgoing/sending error please do check the 'Outgoing' tab and the same settings are used as your incoming mail server.

Additional Settings (should they be required)

The following 'Settings' are given using 'sitemaker.com' as an example should they be required beyond the default values:

User Name: your full email address i.e. support@sitemaker.com
Email type: POP3
Incoming mail server: pop.sitemaker.com
Incoming mail server port: leave as default - normally 110 (143 for POP SSL)
Outgoing mail server: smtp.sitemaker.com
Outgoing mail server port: 25 (465 or 587 for SMTP SSL)
Password: What was created when mail box created
Access Point: Choose own setting e.g. WIFI, 3G (whatever you use to access the web)

FAQ

Q. Why am I getting an error when I try to log in?

A. The usual causes are incorrect password or using the wrong mailbox name. If you use an alias rather than the mailbox name the login will fail. To check this, just login to moonfruit.com, go to the Manage Domains section and click the 'Email & Settings' link beside your domain. The name of your mailbox or mailboxes will be listed. These are the ones you must use to login.

Q. Why am I not receiving my emails?

A1. The most common problem is creating an alias that conflicts with one of your mailboxes. For example if you have mailboxes named Admin, Support and Sales and the Sales mail box also has an alias called Admin then an email sent to admin@mydomain.com may fail. The system won't know which mailbox to deliver it to, Admin or Sales (which has the alias Admin) so it is likely to fail. Please just check the aliases in all your mailboxes and remove all that conflict.

A2. Sometimes when testing emails you may try sending an email to yourself i.e. the from and to addresses are the same. This is never guaranteed to work as some email systems view emails being sent back to themselves as redundant and delete or block their return. If you wish to test your email address use another external account to test with e.g. Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo.

Q. Why can't I send any emails?

A. The most common problem is not setting up the SMTP server correctly. Normally the main settings will be set up with correct username, password and server but the user forgets to set them up correctly on the Outgoing element of the account. The simplest way to correct this is to enable SMTP authentication, if provided, by selecting the "Use the same settings as my incoming mail server" option.

Q. How much space do I get to store my emails?

A. With our webmail you get 1GB

Q. If I transfer my domain name to you, will my email be transferred as well?

A. If you are transferring your domain name to us, all your mail will be stored on your current provider's servers, so once the transfer completes your mail will be lost. We suggest using an email client (like Outlook, Mail, Thunderbird) to back up your mailbox locally onto your computer before you begin transferring your domain name.

Q. How do I set up IMAP?

A. Set up IMAP the same as you would set up POP. The only difference will be that the incoming mail servers will use IMAP instead of POP. So on the Main panel the incoming server would be for example: imap.sitemaker.com. You would also need to ensure this is configured on the General tab through More Settings.

Q. Can I view my emails on my mobile phone?

A. If your mobile phone supports POP3 or IMAP then you should be able to set up your email just as simply as we have explained above. Please read your mobile phone User Guide for more detail should you need help settings up your mobile device.

Q. So how do I actually set up my email now that I have a domain?

Q. I need to access my mail remotely while I'm travelling. Can I do this online?

A. Yes you can. You only need the webmail URL for your email account, the username (the full mailbox address) and the password for that mailbox. More details on how to access your webmail can be found in another article: " Getting Connected: Setting up your webmail "

Jargon Buster

POP Or POP3 is the most common way to receive mail. Will be used with SMTP to send mail.

IMAP An suitable alternate to POP for receiving mail. Still uses SMTP for outgoing.

SMTP This is the outgoing server responsible for sending mail. SMTP will be used regardless of incoming choice (POP or IMAP). The simplest process is to use the same settings as the Incoming server by using the 'Requires Authentication' option.

Username This is the full mailbox address e.g. john987@mysite.com (not just 'john987').

.tld This is short for top level domain and simply refers to the extension after your actual domain e.g. .com, .net, .uk, .eu, .us

Mailbox: This is an account you create using your domain name and has a prefix like admin or sales or mail e.g admin@mydomain.com. The mailbox name (the full address) must be used as the username to login to it.

Alias: Alternative names you can give to a specific mailbox to provide more flexibility with your service. For example under the sales@mydomain.com mailbox you could have the names of your sales team e.g. john@, susi@, josh@ all of which would redirect to Sales. Be warned though that 'all' addresses must be unique and aliases cannot be used to access your mail only the mailbox name can.

Changes to the way HTML is generated

Dan — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:55:00 +0000

Hi, Dan here, SiteMaker's HTML developer guy. I've been working to make the HTML that we output a little more user and search engine friendly. As you may or may not know, we generate an HTML version of your site mainly for SEO reasons but also as an alternative for people who don't have Flash or are using a non-visual web browser. If you wanna know exactly what I've been up to, then read on...

Previously we'd been attempting to make a visually equivalent page with varying degrees of success...so we've decided to switch focus to a content based approach. What does that mean? Well, the idea is that the most important thing on your website is the content - the text and pictures -and I've been focusing on making the HTML site more readable when you don't have flash (maybe you're browsing on your iPhone for example). There's a fair distance to go but here are the changes that have gone out in this release:

H1 and H2 tags - The first Title text box on a page is now rendered as an H1 tag, all other 'title boxes' are rendered as H2. The idea here is that you want to promote the content of each page and I'm making a best guess that the first Title text box on a page is going to be the page's title. Title text boxes on the Page Master are still rendered as h2s. The idea here is to focus on the unique content on each page.

H3 tags - Lots of you seem to be using normal text boxes using bold text as smaller headings. If you've got a text box that only has bold text in it and it's less than 120 characters long then it'll be converted to an H3.

No more boxes around text - The HTML now ignores text box dimensions. I found that a lot of the time the text rendered in the HTML didn't fit inside smaller sized boxes and you ended up with an HTML site covered in scroll bars.

New "View HTML Version" on the Page Settings panel - If you click this now you'll get a view of the site as it appears to people without Flash (minus the graphic that shouts INSTALL FLASH!).

Continuing the work on the HTML version of the site I'm currently looking into making the text render in the right order if it's laid out in more than one column (you know, like a sidebar or something similar). Feedback as always is welcome, after all, this is something of a work in progress.

Sitemaps and Google Verify

Walt — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:16:00 +0000

The wait is over. We took on board the number of requests for these two tools and decided you'd waited long enough. All users can now publish sitemaps, as well as Verify their websites.

For details on how to check for the sitemap and how to add Google Verify, read on...

Verify To add Google Verify to your site, please just follow the simple instructions below:

Log in to your website
Select “Admin” on the toolbar
Visit the “Site Information” tab
Click on the “Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools” button
On the bottom of the Webmaster Tools panel click “Get your Google ID”
Google should open in a new window and ask you to sign in
You’ll be taken to the Google "Dashboard"
Add your website address in blank field and click "Add Site"
Look for the "Next step" box and select, "Verify Site"
Go to the "Verification Method" drop down and select "Add a meta tag"
Copy the code string e.g.: <meta name="verify-v1" content="UqbdIVXyU8m8PIvMSJLj+W6bf5Sa4An1CZcxazTgafs=" />
Return to your website and paste the code string into the blank field in the "Webmaster Tools" panel
Click "OK"
Click "OK" on "Admin" panel
Your site will now have the Google Verification code added to the HTML

N.B. The code string given above (<meta name="verify-v1" content="UqbdIVXyU8m8PIvMSJLj+W6bf5Sa4An1CZcxazTgafs=" />) is an example, please do not use this, it won't work! You must register with Google and request your own.

Sitemap We automatically generate an XML file which search engines will index when ever they visit your site. We automatically publish all pages visible in the menu and withhold those that are hidden. If you wish hidden pages to be published you will need to visit the hidden page, click on "Edit" and then go to "Page Settings". You can then select the check box for "Include this page in my Site Map".

To see your site map, you only need to add "/sitemap.xml" to the end of your website address (or URL) in the web browser address bar e.g. www.mysitename.com/sitemap.xml

If you see the message: "This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.", don't panic! This is being generated by the browser (most likely Firefox) and relates to 'how' the information is being displayed in your browser and does not affect what the search engines 'see'.

UPDATE (18/01/08):

For those of you checking site verification you will probably encounter some "403 (Forbidden)" errors. They will appear in list with entries similar to the two below:

(http://www.mysite.com/_app/8296/partner/moonfruit/modules/) 403 (Forbidden) _?_
(http://www.mysite.com/_app/8296/resources/) 403 (Forbidden) _?_

These are folders that the the web crawlers (or robots) should not be accessing as they contain and relate to software that runs your site and they do not contain any of your site content.

Our mistake has been to omit an 'exclude' comment telling robots not to look in these directories, which have restricted access anyway. So the web crawlers attempt to read these directories, are not permitted and subsequently generate a 'Forbidden' error.

This bug will be fixed very soon. We will simply request that the web crawlers do not check those directories and this will mean errors will not be generated.

These errors will have no impact on the indexing of your site or your page rankings!

UPDATE (08/02/08):

We have now modified the 'robots.txt' file to stop the web crawlers reading our application directories and throwing up 'errors'. However, now that we have blocked these directories you will probably see a report from Google that says: "URL restricted by robots.txt " and listing the same '.../_app/...' directories (as mentioned above). Google themselves recognise that some directories can be restricted for a logical reason and then simply continue crawling your site for valid content and links.

Just to reiterate, seeing a 'restricted' message is not a cause for alarm and this will not affect your site being indexed or impact your page rankings.

SiteMaker and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - Part VI - Return of the Taxi

Walt — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:35:00 +0000

If you thought we'd let Joe's Taxis gather dust in West London you were wrong. Far from being abandoned to the internet ether we've kept tabs on how the 'mythical' west London taxi business was doing six months down the line, after being set up by Joe. As far as rankings go, the two domain names are doing very nicely thank you.

For an update on how Joe's London Taxis and West London Taxis have changed in their rankings with the major search engines, read on.

In Joe's SEO article (SEO III) on Friday, March 16 2007 he had began his submissions process to Google, Yahoo and MSN. By Tuesday, March 27 2007, Joe's sites had found their mark with at least two of the major search engines. And by June his site had managed some success (check out his last article, "SEO V"):

June 12

"West London Taxi" - number 7, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (Google.com)
"West London Taxi" - number 2, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (Yahoo.com)
"West London Taxi" - number 1, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (msn.com)

Yesterday, we used the same set of keywords - "west london taxi" and "joes london taxis" - and we got the following results:

December 12

"West London Taxi" - number 1, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (Google.com)
"West London Taxi" - number 1, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (Yahoo.com)
"West London Taxi" - number 6, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (msn.com)

So, what have we done? Well, to be honest, nothing. But this does go to show you that with some solid groundwork in the early stages of your journey to the dark side of SEO you can actually get your site or sites into a very good position on the page rankings of the major search engines. However, if you resubmit your domain name (URL), keep your content fresh and get some incoming links from popular sites then you can ensure your site has a much better chance of achieving and maintaining a top ranking.

A reminder

Just to highlight the steps Joe took all those months ago, remember that search engines do look for consistency and relevancy in a number of different areas of your in-page content and referral links. These include:

The URL (or address) of your site (or specific pages on your site), e.g. www.joeslondontaxis.com, or www.joeslondontaxis.com/taxibooking, etc.
Your site name or title (and page titles) being published in the HTML, e.g. "London taxi company", or "London taxi bookings page"
Your site and page keywords meta data published in the HTML, e.g. "London taxis, London taxi, Joes taxis, West London taxi, etc."
Your site and page description meta data published in the HTML, e.g. "London taxi company provides taxi services..."
Your page content, e.g. the text that is on your page and relevant to your site name, keywords and description
Links on your page, including the anchor text, e.g. the text on which the link is set, e.g. "Book a west London taxi" links to http://www.joeslondontaxis.com/taxibooking
Images on your page, including the name of the image file (or Alt text)
Referral links to your site or specific pages on your site, e.g. a link on another site (incoming links) referring to your site

Points 1-7 are easily within your control as they all relate to the contents of your site and all can be easily managed through your SiteMaker site. Point 8 requires linking to your site from other external sites, which is less easy to achieve, though there are a number of ways in which you can go about doing this.

If you haven't yet had a read of Joe's articles and you are interested in getting your site listed or improving the rankings of your site, then the easiest way to find the articles is just enter "SEO" in the Moonfruit Lounge search.

Finally

Just remember, as Joe has already mentioned, SEO isn't everything. It certainly plays a big part in marketing your website but traditional off-line publishing methods still play a crucial part in the overall marketing strategy of any site. Good luck, persist with your search engine optimisation, and be patient. It doesn't happen overnight but if you follow our guidelines it will happen.

More Articles about SEO

SiteMaker and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - Part I (In the beginning - the 1st in this series by Joe)

SiteMaker, Flash and SEO (Why SiteMaker works with SEO)

Why am I (or my visitors) seeing a text only version of my site?

Walt — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:14:00 +0000

This problem is being encountered for users with Internet Explorer 6.

To enable the SiteMaker application and the web pages to load quicker we made changes to some code (JavaScript) which we released recently.

We use JavaScript to detect what version of Flash Player you have installed on your system amongst other things and we upgraded the JavaScript file and the loading process for this file to provide several improvements. Unfortunately, IE6 isn't exactly standards compliant so our mission to improve efficiency appears to have upset the IE6 web browser.

IE7, Firefox, Safari etc have no issues with these improvements.

Web browsers will store or cache commonly visited pages and files (like JavaScript) to make web browsing more efficient. The older JavaSript file should have been replaced by the newer version, but due to a deficiency in IE6 the older version was not over-written in some cases. In effect, IE6 thinks there is no Flash Player installed and therefore displays the text only version of your site.

Fixing this is simple. All you need to do is to delete your 'temporary Internet files', also known as 'clearing your cache', which will delete the older JavaScript file and force the browser to request the latest version. To do this, go to the IE6 toolbar:

Open the Tools menu
Select Internet Options
If the General tab is not selected, select it
Select Delete Files in the Temporary Internet Files section
Choose OK
Close and re-open your web browser

The other option is to upgrade to IE7 which offers tabbed browsing, more options and a more 'robust' version of web browser. You can upgrade to IE7 by visiting the Microsoft website.

Should you need to upgrade Flash, our minimum requirement is now Flash Player 8 and you can download the latest Flash version from the Adobe website.

My music is playing back too fast - it sounds like Chipmunks!

Walt — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:00:00 +0000

Do the MP3s on your site sounding like Chip and Dale (the chipmunks) are doing covers of your favourite songs? The reason is down to how you initially encoded your songs. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

Files encoded using 'standard' MP3 format at CONSTANT bit rate will normally play without issue, provided the sample rate is a multiple of 44.1kHz - other 'interpolating' sample rates cause Flash Player to speed up the playback.

So, how do you fix this problem? You have two choices...

IMPORTANT Update 21 Dec 07: Especially if your page lengths remain constant throughout your site in IE7: Please just go to Adobe and download the latest Flash player and this should fix get the chipmunks out of your site and give you variable page lengths back. If you downloaded the beta version (in article below) you will find a fix with instructions in comment #2 beneath this post.

You can fix it now: Sample rates of 96000, 44100, 22050 and 11025 samples/second at 8, 16 and 32 bit depth will all work fine. So if you wish to remove the chipmunks from your site you will have to re-encode the offending files using the sample rates given above with one of the constant bit rates. If you are interested there is more information about this bug available.

Adobe will fix it later: This bug will be fixed soon by the release of Flash Player Update 3 which is currently at the Beta 2 stage which will play back any MP3 sampling rate. So, no more chipmunks. Ever. But this will require all your visitors to have downloaded the soon to be released Flash update for this to work, i.e. your visitors must have the update to hear your music correctly.

So you have an option. You can re-encode your music and remove the chipmunks now, or you can wait for the fix to hit the masses.

Google Webmaster Tools - the lowdown

Walt — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:45:00 +0000

Firstly, sorry for going quiet on you in the forum with regards to some requests. The truth is we have been listening but we've been busy over the last few weeks discussing what we could offer, how it would be presented and when we would find time to develop it. So in answer to your many questions about Google Webmaster tools on Moonfruit, please read on...

From what we hear (on the forum) the main requests are for Google Verify and Google Sitemaps. Let's look at them one at a time.

Google Verify Just to be clear, site verification is a process that Google uses to ensure that only site owners can see detailed diagnostics, statistics and other information. It is worth also noting that Verification doesn't affect Page Rank or improve your site's performance in Google's search results. This is from the horse's mouth.

What we currently offer: Google Analytics, which is the statistics element you would be using to monitor your site stats once verification is enabled. Analytics allows you to find out where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site.

What we are looking to implement: We've already started looking at how we can enable Verify on users' sites. Inserting the meta tag which Google provide may be the best solution for us and the quickest for you. We're looking at doing this at the moment, so if you're lucky you may find it in your Xmas stockings.

Google SiteMaps When it comes to Sitemaps you have a choice of generating different types of files which can then be submitted or uploaded to Google or Yahoo or having some code included in your site which is read by the various search engines. Simply put, a sitemap using the Sitemap Protocol is an XML file that lists URLs (unique pages) for a site. It also permits the inclusion of additional information about each URL (when it was last updated; how often it changes; how important it is in relation to other URLs in your site) so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site.

What we currently do: We render all the content (publicly available on your site) into the HTML for each page so that they can be read by the search engines along with page title, links, meta keywords and meta description for those pages.

What we are looking to implement: We are currently working on using the Sitemap Protocol to publish a sitemap for each site so that every page URL (that you wish displayed) is listed for not just Google to crawl and index, but Yahoo and any other search engine that will read this widely accepted protocol.

This is being worked on at present although we make no promises about Xmas stockings. But, you never know!

Where's my email? The truth about forms

Walt — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:44:00 +0000

We often have customers ask us why emails that are sent from forms on their site take so long to arrive or why they just don't arrive at all? Slow or lost emails isn't a common event but the cause of this problem usually is. For more details read on...

Common Cause

The most common cause of emails not being delivered to a site owner or site leader's inbox is the email filter. This could either be a junk or spam filter.

When a visitor completes a form on your site and submits it, an email is generated to you (the site leader) from mailings@sitemakerlive.com. Our mail server sends the email to the nominated email address immediately and once it leaves our servers we lose all control over what path it takes and whether or not it gets delivered. If the email client - the package or application you use to view, send and manage your emails - has strict filters then some 'safe' emails may never reach your inbox.

One way of ensuring your emails from 'sitemakerlive.com' arrive in your inbox is to check your spam and junk mail folders and if you find any emails from us just highlight or select them and mark them as 'not junk' or 'not spam'. The other useful way of ensuring that your emails arrive is to add 'sitemakerlive.com' to your list of safe domains.

We have also found that having your own email domain and forwarding your emails can have its problems also. Using an email address with your domain name - when you buy your own website domain name you may get email addresses as well - on your forms will mean mail is normally sent to your domain name provider where it will then be forwarded (by them) to your own private email account. Occasionally, the domain name providers hold the emails, scan them for viruses, or for phrases and words linked to spam email and then will either delete them if they think they pose a risk or pass them on. This presents two problems: 1) they decide if incoming emails are spam, not you and 2) your emails may be held in a queue for an undefined length of time. So the forwarding of emails could result in you either not getting your emails or getting them hours or days later.

How to test?

Create a hidden page on your site and add a couple of forms to the page. Set one up to go direct to your own private email address and set the other (if you have your own email domain) to use your domain email address. Save the page and then just send two messages, one from each form.

Next, just check how long it takes for those two emails to arrive in your private inbox (if you have forwarded the latter of the two email addresses). If problems exist with you receiving your forwarded email then you will need to speak to your domain name provider and check why emails from 'sitemakerlive.com' are either being delayed or not forwarded. Usually, advising them that emails from our domain are safe is enough to fix the problem.

The best advice is just test your emails on a regular basis to ensure that your service is working correctly.

Also, in the next release (version) of the Form, we will also be saving all the data collected (from the submitted email) to a file that you can download from your site, so you'll never have to worry about losing responses again!

Happy emailing!

Flash and Vista bug: with Internet Explorer and Vista, text entry in Flash drops keystrokes - solution!

Joe — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:08:00 +0100

Some of you new vista users may have noticed problems with text entry in Flash, which will have affected your SiteMaker site. This is due to a general problem with the Flash player and Internet Explorer, which Adobe have now fixed. There is a new version of the Flash player that fixes this issue for IE users on Vista, which is not yet on general release, but can be downloaded and installed from their pre-release site. When Adobe release it in full it will be pushed out by them to all customers, but if you want to upgrade ahead of the game, read on.

This issue only affects users of Microsoft Vista and Internet Explorer. If you use XP or Firefox or a Max, don't worry about it ;-)

How to fix it
This problem has now been fixed by Adobe in the latest version of the Flash player, so please download it here;

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

And that should be that. Let us know if you still have any problems.

SiteMaker and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - Part V

Joe — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:58:00 +0100

So, done by keywords, started my optimisation, quick check on my current ranks:

"West London Taxi" - number 7, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (Google.com)
"West London Taxi" - number 2, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (Yahoo.com)
"West London Taxi" - number 1, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (msn.com)

Looks good, and I've even finally been listed by Yahoo!

If you've been reading the all the articles in this series of SEO, this will make more sense to you. For those of you who are new, these articles are about how to get your site listed and up in the rankings on the major search engines. I've been building my own site as a practical example as I go, and things seem to be going well.

We've now looking at the last places that you'll want to make sure your keywords are correctly represented to make sure there is good consistency in your content.

5 Your page content, e.g. the text that is on your page

This includes all the other contents on your page, particularly text and any 'alt tags' (alternative text) you have on your images. All this text is represented in the HTML and therefore gets picked up and used by search engines, so make sure it includes some of your keywords. Don't just dump them in so that it's a mess of words (remember your site is read by people too!), so make sure they are relevant and fit in.

For example, on my site I've included the following passage on the home page:

"Picking up and dropping off 24 hours per day!! If you want a West London Taxi call us now" and "So when you want to book a West London Taxi just think of us and call 0870 23 34 xx".

Both of these include my "west London taxi" keyword, and with other references to "Taxi bookings" and other services I offer on the page, this will all support my rankings. But I've been careful to make sure it's still readable and not overly crowded.

6 Links on your page, including the anchor text, e.g. the text on which the link is set

As well as the menu links on my page (which use the menu name as alt text), links in text on your page are a good way of reinforcing your keywords and creating interlinking between your pages.

For example on my home page, I have created links on the words "book a west london taxi" which go to my taxi booking page. To do this in SiteMaker you have to be using a 'standard font' text box (usually preset to be your body font), as only these types of text boxes allow links ('graphic fonts' do not allow links to be set). Next select the text box, then select the text string by clicking and dragging. Then go to the editor, and click on the link panel, choose 'link to a page' and select your page. Then 'apply' and save the page. This link will be correctly represented in your HTML along with the 'anchor text' which is the words on which the link is set, and be read and indexed by search engines.

Then on my taxi bookings page (and other pages), I have created links in the text back to my home page using anchor text like "Joes West London taxis", etc.

Try to make sure that all your pages have 1, 2 or 3 links to other pages using relevant keywords. Don't go nuts and put in 10/20 links, this might be overkill and penalised.

7 Images on your page

Your images can also be used to flag keywords as well as provide a text description of the image itself. For example on my home page I have set an 'alt tag' on the image to say "Office building image - book a west london taxi". This additional text provides extra information about your site, and the text description makes the contents more accessible user users with screenreaders. You can also make these images links to other pages in your site too, which will further improve the interlinking of pages.

To create an 'alt tag' on your image, select the image and then in the 'Editor' click on the 'Style' tab, and then the 'alt tag' button. Then enter your text and choose whether you want to display the text on rollover (it will always be displayed in the HTML), and then 'apply' and you're done.

8 Referral links to your pages

We used referral links to get the site listed in the first place, but they are also a good tool to improve the keyword relevancy and keep your site high in the rankings. It's always worth asking other site owners in related fields to put a link back to your site, and include some of your keywords in the link text. No everyone will do this, and its best not to pester people too much, but if you already have a relationship with another site owner, then this could be a good thing to do.

And that, as they say, is that! Like I said at the beginning, this is not meant to be the be all and end all of SEO guides, but provides some useful, practical tips in a confusing world.

Another good free tool to check how well you've optimised your site is: http://www.widexl.com/remote/search-engines/metatag-analyzer.html

Which will give you a report on the keyword density of your site and the links on your page. My site ranks 'very good' for title, description and keyword relevancy to the site contents, which is a good place to start.

Anyway, I hope you've found this useful, and let me know if you have any tips of your own.

Next Article in Series: SiteMaker and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - Part VI

SiteMaker and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - Part IV

Joe — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 12:31:00 +0100

Ok, so I've done the work, got my keywords worked out for my different pages, got my site listed on the major search engines (see previous article), now what do I do with them? How do I make these changes in SiteMaker? Good question. Glad I know the answer. Here's the how-to's for SiteMaker...

So now that you've got your keywords, we're ready to start making some changes. These keywords (or phrases) are your target words that you want to be found on when people search in search engines. So we want to make sure that they are used appropriately on your site, and there is a consistency in how they appear. However this still needs to be reasonable usage, just dumping a bunch of words on your site that don't really make sense or fit in can lead to problems, so let's do it carefully. (If none of this is making sense to you, try going back and reading SEO I, II and III for some background).

My keywords
For my site (www.joeslondontaxis.com) I've chosen a set of keywords which are:

"Joes London Taxis, London Taxi, West London Taxi, Hammersmith Taxi, London minicab, West London minicab, London airport minicab, London airport taxi, London Taxis, West London Taxis, Hammersmith Taxis, London minicab, West London minicab, London airport minicab, London airport taxis"

This is the general set that I've chosen and appropriate for the different markets I am interesting in, e.g. mostly in West London, and including airport services. I will further tailor them to each of my pages to make sure they are better matched.

For example on my 'taxi bookings' page (www.joeslondontaxis.com/taxibookings) I will use:

"book a london taxi, london taxi booking, west london taxi, book a minicab, london minicab booking, Joes London Taxis, London Taxi, West London Taxi, Hammersmith Taxi, London minicab, West London minicab"

This contains some overlap with my site keywords, but also more specific words/phrases to do with my bookings page. Using these two pages as an example I can now start to put the keywords onto the pages such that they are usefully picked up by search engines. If you remember from the first article, we had 8 different areas to optimise, I'll go through each of these in turn. This Article deals with points 1 - 4.

1 Your URL (or address) of your page
This can be the URL of your site, or indeed the URL of a particular page. In my example www.joeslondontaxis.com for the site, or www.joeslondontaxis.com/taxibooking for the page.

This URL should be relevant to the contents of the page, and use (if appropriate) some of your keywords. For example, my company 'Joe's London Taxis' is my domain name, and my bookings page, is named taxibookings (not page1.htm). If you have a brand name that isn't specific to your product, e.g. moonfruit, don't worry about that, just make sure it's one of your keywords, as it may be something people search for.

2 Your page title in the HTML, e.g. "London taxi company", or "London taxi bookings page"
3 Your Keywords metadata in the HTML, e.g. "London taxis, London taxi, Joes taxis, West London taxi, etc."
4 Your Description metadata in the HTML, e.g. "London taxi company provides taxi services..."

The 'Title' tag in the HTML is the name you see in the top of the browser bar when you visit the page. The Keywords metadata is also hidden in the HTML and gives the search engine an idea of what you site is about based on particular words and phrases. The Descriptions metadata is again hidden in the HTML and is a short text summary of your site.

All three are important to get right and consistent as they are used by search engines, though always in context of the rest of your contents. In SiteMaker there are a couple of ways of setting these things, we let you set a default for all pages (useful if you have hundreds), but also set these things for individual pages.

If you go to 'edit' -> 'admin' -> 'site information' you'll see the 'site title', 'site description' and 'site keywords' fields. This will be the default values in the HTML for all of your pages, unless there they are set in the individual pages settings themselves.

If you go to 'edit' -> 'page settings' -> 'meta tags' you will see the 'page title', 'page description' and 'page keywords' fields which set these values in the HTML for that particular page.

For my site I have chosen to set the default keywords to:

Keywords - "Joes London Taxis, London Taxi, West London Taxi, Hammersmith Taxi, London minicab, West London minicab, London airport minicab, London airport taxi, London Taxis, West London Taxis, Hammersmith Taxis, London minicab, West London minicab, London airport minicab, London airport taxis"

Description - "Joes London Taxis provides Taxi Services to all Central and West London areas. If you want a West London Taxi, call us on 0870 23 34 xx"

These will appear for every page I create unless I set a different set for that page using the 'Page Settings' panel. For my Taxi Bookings page, I have decided to create a different set and changed these to be,

Title - "Taxi booking page - book a london taxi"

Keywords - "book a london taxi, london taxi booking, west london taxi, book a minicab, london minicab booking, Joes London Taxis, London Taxi, West London Taxi, Hammersmith Taxi, London minicab, West London minicab"

Description - "Use this page to book a west london taxi with joes london taxis. Book by phone or by email."

You should be able to see how you can make some adjustments to the keywords/description to be more specific to the actual page you are on, without having to change them all.

Ok, that's enough for now. The next article will deal with points 5 - 8 and round things off. Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions.

Next Article in Series: SiteMaker and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - Part V

Notice of Flash Player upgrade

Ian — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 14:47:00 +0100

SiteMaker will be increasing the minimum Flash Player requirement for viewing and editing your site from Flash Player 7 to Flash Player 8 in the coming months. We thought we'd give you a bit of notice, tell you why we're doing it and let you know a bit more about what you can expect from the change.

Flash Player 7, Flash Player 8, what does it all mean? Well, as you know SiteMaker uses the Adobe Flash Platform which let's us give you access to unparalleled ease of use in editing (e.g. drag and drop tools plus point and click editing), rich graphical interfaces and media (e.g. MP3 players, Video players, animation, etc.) and integrated features (e.g. forms, galleries, etc.).

This means that your visitors need to have the Flash Player installed so that they can view and interact with your site. The Flash Player is now the most widely installed piece of software in history, meaning it is available on more computers than any other piece of software (even more than Microsoft Windows). This is one reason why it has become the video/interactive standard adopted by Google Video, Youtube, Amazon and Ebay. According to Adobe (the people behind Flash) in an independent study, 98.3% of users have Flash Player 6 or above pre-installed.

Flash Players also have different versions. SiteMaker 4.0 was launched in Nov 2004 and required Flash Player 7 to use it. Since then, Adobe have released 2 newer versions, Flash Player 8 in September 2005, and Flash Player 9 in June 2006. Chances are you're already using one of these (right click on any Flash object to find out which version you're using). Each Flash Player has a different level of penetration which grows over time. By Dec 06 Flash Player 7 was available on 97.3% of computers, Flash Player 8 on 94.2% and Flash Player 9 on 55.8%. You can get the details from Adobe here.

With each new version of the Flash player, we are able to enhance SiteMaker using the new features made available in the player. For example video only became possible in Flash Player 7. Flash Player 8 will allow a number of new things to be possible. These include:

Uploading/downloading of files through Flash - this will allow us to create a better file manager
More customisable widgets - 'skinable' widgets so the interface can match your site, e.g. advanced form, comment widget and new forums, blogs, etc.
Better video compatibility - some videos require Flash player 8
More advanced image editing/effects - will allow you to apply filters or other advanced effects to your images

A comment widget, which will allow messages/posts to be made on your site, will be the first new feature released which requires Flash Player 8. This will be in beta in April and you can expect the full version in May. This means we won't be changing the site requirements (and Flash Player detection) to Flash Player 8 until at least May, possibly later, depending on other developments.

In future, we will upgrade the requirements for Flash Player as and when penetration reaches a high enough level, and when new features are sufficiently attractive to offer real benefits to you, our customers. So for now Flash Player 8 has reached that 95% threshold and offers some good new options.

What will it mean for your visitors?
For 95% of them, it won't make any difference at all. For the minority who don't have Flash Player 8 or higher, they will be asked to upgrade their player when they visit the site and see the alternative text and image only version. The upgrade process is simple and well supported by Adobe.

So there you have it. We'll confirm when the change will be made, but you have a couple of months to go, and some great new features to look forward to.