Frequently Asked Questions

Below are answers to questions which we encounter on a frequent basis. If your question isn't listed, please feel free to contact us, and we'll do our best to assist you in navigating the sometimes murky waters of web development.

• How much is a website?
• What else do I have to pay for?
• Will you register my domain name for me?
• What's a "domain name transfer"?
• What's a "host"?
• What kind of hosting account do I need?
• Do you do hosting?
• Hey, my website is down!!
• How do I get my site listed on search engines?
• I saw my site on a friend's computer the other day and it looks different! How come?
• What do you mean a "standards-compliant browser"?

How much is a website?

A good question. We tend not to trust people who have an immediate answer ("Well, we have our Silver Package for only $499.95!"). Building a website is a lot like building a house. Do you want a small bungalow or were you thinking more along the lines of a chateau on the riviera? Did you want the solar panels and built-in pool? Exotic approaches every project as absolutely unique, so our answer to this question will be more questions (see our contact form). However, just so you have an idea of where the ballpark is, we've built sites for as little as $300 and for as much as $30,000. An e-commerce enabled site for a small to medium-sized business typically falls within the $1,500 - $5,000 range.

What else do I have to pay for?

In addition to the cost of developing your website, there are several additional costs that you should be aware of:

1) Your Domain Name - Domain names ("mydomainname.com, theirdomainname.net") are registered on a yearly basis. Most of the time, you will have purchased your domain name from a "Domain Registrar", such as Network Solutions or Dotster. They will maintain your records and let you know when your registration is about to expire. Domain name registration typically run between $15 and $50 per year. Now that the domain registration business is open to competition, it pays to shop around.

2) Your Hosting Account (also see: "What's a Host?") - Once your site is developed, it will need a host computer to be served from. Hosting services are normally purchased on a monthly basis. The cost of your hosting account will depend on the level of hosting services that your site requires. The average monthly hosting cost for small to medium businesses is between $20 - $50.

3) Marketing and Search Engine Registration (also see: "How do I get my site listed on search engines?") - Once you've developed your site, you'll need to let people know it's there. Most search engines and directories will allow you to submit your site to them at no cost. While you can choose to do the submissions yourself, one-by-one, many clients choose to pay someone else to perform their submissions for them. Many companies will offer to submit your site to "hundreds" of search engines for a fee. Also, it is worth noting that two of the most popular directories, Yahoo! and LookSmart, now charge for business listings. The bottom line is that most successful web sites depend on a regular marketing budget.

4) E-Commerce Related Fees - If you will be accepting credit card transactions through your website, you will be looking at several additional fees:

a) Merchant Account - If your business already accepts credit cards then you already have a merchant account; however, you will want to check with your bank to see if they accept internet transactions. If they do not, you will need to open an additional merchant account.

b) Secure Certificate - The secure certificate is installed on your server and guarantees to the person using your website that you are who you say you are. Secure certificates can be purchased for as little as $119 per year.

Will you register my domain name for me?

Yes. Exotic can register your domain name, and provide assistance in selecting alternate name and/or domains should your chosen domain name not be available.

What's a "domain name transfer"?

When you register a domain name, the registrar will associate the domain name with the IP address of a particular computer. If you have a hosting account ready, you will provide the registrar with the IP addresses of the nameservers for that host. If you do not, the registrar will "park" your domain name on their nameservers until you are ready to host your site.

The easiset way to understand the process is to think of the domain name as your name and the IP address as your house address. When someone types in www.yourdomainname.com, it is the associated IP address which tells the computer where to go to find your website. If you should choose to move your website to a new host computer, or if you parked your domain name when you registered it, you will need to order a domain name transfer. This instructs the domain name registrar to associate your domain name with a new IP address.

To order a domain name transfer, you must contact your domain name registrar and provide them with the nameserver addresses for the host you wish to point your domain name towards (your host will provide you with that information). The domain registrar will have some method of authorization to make sure that you have the authority to order the transfer. Network Solutions/VeriSign often uses a "Mail-From" method of authorization. This means that instructions they receive must come from the email address that you listed as your address when you signed up with them. For this reason, it is very important to keep your domain registration records up to date, an to let them know should you decide to no longer use the email address that you listed on your registration form.

What's a host?

A host is the company that owns and maintains the computer that your website is actually served from ("the server"). Typically you pay a monthly fee for your hosting services. Many different levels and types of hosting services are available, depending on the particular needs of your website. Your host will provide you with the information necessary to connect to and transfer files to your host computer. Typically, it is your web developer who will actually install the website on the host computer.

What kind of hosting account do I need?

That really depends on your website. If your website involves a lot of back-end programming, web applications or a database, the type of hosting account you need will be dictated by the specifications of the particular technologies utilized. For this reason, it's usually good to hold off on opening a hosting account until you have consulted with your web developer.

It is also important to realize that the day to day performance of your website depends heavily on your server. The server and the software on it needs to be robust enough to support the demands that traffic to your website will make on it. For this reason, it is important to form a relationship with a hosting company that is reputable and that provides full technical support.

Do you do hosting?

Yes. Exotic offers Windows 2000 hosting at competitive pricing. Occasionally, the technical requirements of a site may require additional capabilties (such as RealMedia streaming, etc.). In that case, we will be happy to assist you in selecting a hosting plan that meets your needs.

Hey, my website is down!!

Okay, take a deep breath. One of two things has happened. Either your domain name registration has expired or, more likely, there's an issue with your server. Either call your host's technical support, or call us and we'll call them for you.

How do I get my site listed on search engines?

To begin with, you and your web developer should discuss your keywords and building the site in a such a way as to be search engine friendly. Once the website is developed and installed on the server, it's time to submit your site to search engines and directories.

There are several different ways to go about this:

A) You can go to each individual search engine site and submit your site to each one. Most are free (with the notable exceptions of Yahoo! and LookSmart).

or

B) You can pay someone to do the submissions for you. Many companies use special software to submit your site to hundreds of search engines at once, and continue to re-submit the site periodically over a given period. Often times they will also offer to "optimize" your site for search engines for a fee. If your web developer has done their job, you shouldn't need this service. (It should also be noted that most companies will not guarantee you any results.)

It can take anywhere from two to eight weeks for your site to show up once it has been submitted. Every search site has it's own criteria for how it ranks a site, and your ranking will depend on a number of factors, including strategic keyword placement and the popularity of your site.

For further reading, try Webmonkey's article Drumming Up Web Traffic on the Cheap.

I saw my site on a friend's computer the other day and it looks different! How come?

The web is a unique medium, in that a website will be viewed not only on monitors of varying size and quality, but also in different web browsers, on different operating systems, and even on different devices (such as WebTV or hand-held PDA's). To make matters even more complicated, the speed with which visitors to your site are connected to the internet can vary widely, resulting in faster or slower load times.

Many browsers have preference settings which allow a user to control at least some aspects of how a web page displays, including text size, whether or not images are displayed, etc. Macintosh and PC monitors not only have different resolutions, but also different "gamma" settings, making colors appear either lighter or darker. All of these factors mean that the same website will appear differently depending on the user's hardware and preference settings.

However, a well-built website should display well whether it's on a 15" monitor or on a 21", whether it's viewed on a PC or a Macintosh, and on any standards-compliant browser.

What do you mean a "standards-compliant browser"?

Glad you asked. In the beginning, the web was conceived of as a medium through which one could exchange information regardless of the type of computer one had. HTML (HyperText Markup Language) was conceived of as a method of formatting documents so that they could be read uniformly on a variety of computers. However, as soon as commercial factors began to influence the makers of web browsers (Netscape and Microsoft being the big players), they began a race to one-up each other by releasing new versions with new special features and gadgets in an attempt to seduce internet users into using their browser.

The problem was (is) that in they often provided inconsistent support for HTML, javascript and other things that effect how a web page displays, with the end result that a web page that worked great in one browser might fail miserably in another. So web developers everywhere were faced with the frustrating task of often having to build seperate versions of a site to please different browsers, and having to pass that cost on to their clients. To make matters worse, sites built to please specific browsers would often fail to hold up with the next release of a new browser version, or on a new device such as a PDA.

In order to remedy that undesirable situation, the Web Standards Project (WaSP) was formed to lobby browser manufacturers for standards. The browser manufacturers were responsive, and for several years have been striving to make their browsers standards compliant, with varying degrees of success. Internet Explorer versions 5 and later and Netscape 6 are for most intents and purposes standards-compliant. The problem remains however, that a certain percentage of internet users still use old browsers. So web developers and their clients must decide at the onset what strategy they will adopt when developing a website: Use non-standard code that will please pre-standards browsers, but might break-down in browsers and other internet devices released in the future; or use standard code that will hold up in all standards-compliant devices, but will not necessarily support older browsers?

It's not an easy question, but if your web developer hasn't broached the subject, then you might want to start shopping for a new web developer.

Read more about this issue here.