Starting a website.

Wabbit · Joined: 31 May 2008 Posts: 14

Something else I've just thought of, do I need a bigger computer to have a website? I've just bought a new laptop which is fine for Ebay, but do I need to have a lot of files stored with this, or is everything on the domain/host?

suzsspace · Site Admin Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 114

It should be on the host computer, otherwise you'd need your computer on 24/7 to give people access. I do suggest having enough space to take a backup on a regular schedule, but you can burn that to DVD/CD and don't need to do what I do and keep it on my computer.
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Wabbit · Joined: 31 May 2008 Posts: 14

Ok suz, that's a relief! Also, what is the signifigance of bandwidth?

suzsspace · Site Admin Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 114

Bandwidth is the traffic to and from the website. The more items you have and the more they come up in searches the more bandwidth you will need. I recommend starting off with the basic level with whatever host you choose as you can always upgrade if you need to.
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jed · Joined: 31 May 2008 Posts: 8

suz

when you are looking at website hosting

they offer you 5 pages or more

how many do you recommend we need to start with

suzsspace · Site Admin Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 114

This depends on your needs. Write down all your ideas for your website include postage details, contact us. You'll find the headings will just stand out and you'll be able to make a decision about the number of pages from that.
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Wabbit · Joined: 31 May 2008 Posts: 14

What about domain name renewal? If I go get my domain name from Domain Central, which I'll do in the next few days, how many years in advance can I pay for? I REALLY don't want to end up with my customers going to some penis augmentation site because the name wasn't renewed in time due to an error.

Wabbit · Joined: 31 May 2008 Posts: 14

Also, how do we block people? I know there a a number of people I don't want to sell to, so how do I stop them buying?

suzsspace · Site Admin Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 114

I paid for two years. I've also received a renewal notice from another company trying to make me change my domain name over to be renewed by them. I don't need to renew until October and I've already got the letter so there are companies out there who will remind you very early in order to get your custom.

Don't know about blocking people.
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Wabbit · Joined: 31 May 2008 Posts: 14

Ok that's good to know.
I guess with blocking you'd just need to keep a notebook with the details of all those addresses you don't want to post to.
If I get a dot.com.au address can I have it automatically send people to the .com? Just remembering what was said about people typing the wrong one by mistake.

suzsspace · Site Admin Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 114

I believe you can. I'm planning on doing that this year. You need an ABN to get a dot com dot au and then I've heard it's possible to link one to the other. I've also seen it happen, just never done it myself.
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Judy · Joined: 13 Mar 2007 Posts: 33 Location: Adelaide, SA

sorry bookies, I haven't been keeping up with this topic. So many blogs, forums, discussion groups, so little time.

Wabbit, you don't need a bigger computer, but if you're using a laptop to store files, make sure you back it up regularly as Suz suggested 'cos laptop harddrives are notorious for their failure rate. Storing pics on a website like Flickr or Photbucket is something I really need to look into, in the event that either my harddrive fails or our website server fails or some other catastrophe.

Jed, if you're thinking of using a web host that limits pages, aim high. My site has over 300 products and probably close to 500 pages and I'm nowhere near finished .... well, I'll never be finished, but I have a lot more to list.

Blocking people - I don't think it can be done unless you block their IP address, and that only works if it's a static IP. Greg has a pest at the moment who places heaps of orders on his website every day, which really messes up his stock levels. The 'buyer' doesn't have a static IP, so we can't do anything about him. At least he uses the same name and address details all the time. It's probably a bot.

But why don't you want to sell to some people wabbit? A paying customer is always a good thing, surely?

Domain renewal - you should get plenty of warning, wabbit, and I think you get a grace period if its not renewed on time, where no-one else can grab it. As Suz mentioned, you need to be careful of bogus renewal notices from other domain registry companies. It's quite easy to keep track of stuff if you have all your domains with the same registry.

Right, that's enough from moi for now.
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Wabbit · Joined: 31 May 2008 Posts: 14

Judy, I was just remembering what you said about having trouble with someone from China, I think it was. I don't think blocking is something I'd need to do that much, as when you don't have to worry about Feedback nonsense it gets rid of a lot of the reasons for blocking.
So If I kept my backup info on a separate machine and just downloaded updates a couple of times a week, that should protect me against any problems?

Wabbit · Joined: 31 May 2008 Posts: 14

Also, what about viruses and hacking of the site? How good are the smaller places at clearing up something like that?

Judy · Joined: 13 Mar 2007 Posts: 33 Location: Adelaide, SA

wabbit, I'm so sorry I keep forgetting to drop in here - so many blogs and forums, so little time.

Anyway .... blocking buyers is pretty low on the list of what you need to think about when you set up a website, whereas hackers are an absolute pain in the neck. We've had quite a few of our sites hacked, at least one of them more than once. And it's the site owner's responsibility, not the host. So the host of the site that has been hacked twice has warned us that if it happens a third time, it will be shut down. We've actually transferred that site to another host 'cos they were extremely unhelpful and not at all proactive. I can't remember the name of the host, it was a small US company.

I had another little episode this week where Google analytics told me that one of my small sites had some 'unsafe activity' on it. I couldn't actually find anything wrong, but it was easer to just delete and reupload all the pages than to go through the HTML of each page and try and find malicious code.

You need to have really, really, really good passwords, using capitals, punctuation and whatever else you can think of so that it can't be randomly generated.

And yes, back the site up frequently.
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