Frequently asked questions

As soon as you start dealing with web sites, there's a whole new and confusing vocabulary of words and acronyms to confuse you.

Don't panic !

Do I need a web site ?
I already have a domain name
Do I get a new email account?
How much will it cost to make changes to my website?
How do I make a change to my website?
Will search engines be able to find my website?
What is HTML/DHTML/XHTML ?
What is JavaScript ?
What is PHP ?
What are server side and client side scripts ?

Do I need a web site? It is your advertisement to the whole world, to let them see your business and for you to present your goods and services. People can find out more about what your business offers and can provide information about your location and how they can contact you.

I already have a domain name. No problem. If you want to host a site on our server, you need to get in contact with your domain name registrar to change the name servers to ours. This may take up to 48 hours to propagate completely.

Do I get a new email account? Yes, in fact you can have two! If you need any more email accounts for your own domain, please contact us for details.

How much will it cost to make changes to my website? As stated on the rates page, we charge an hourly rate or part thereof for alterations, additions or any other 'touch ups' to your website.

How do I make a change to my website? Get in touch with us regarding any changes to your web pages. To help us both, have the details of which page and what changes are needed at hand. We can then give you a quote on the work that is required to implement said changes.

Will search engines be able to find my website? When your site is complete, paid for and online, we shall inform Google of your site on your behalf. This will add your site into their index and you will appear on their results pages, but can take up to a fortnight to get 'spidered' by their googlebot. We cannot guarantee a prominent position in the listings. This can only be achieved with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). SEO is a very complex, costly and time consuming process which Stoke Web Services do not offer. Although as your site is built, the insertion of keywords, and other techniques aimed at SEO will be used to make your site more easily found by search engines, which may help your site naturally progress to a more favourable position in the results page listings after a few months of being available.

HTML: By far the commonest piece of gobbledygook is HTML (or Hyper Text Markup Language). This is the standard language in which all web pages are delivered to users' web browsers. HTML is ordered <tags> which are interpreted by browsers (Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox for example) to control the layout and appearance of content (text, images etc.) so that it is delivered in an attractive and usable manner.
DHTML: DHTML(Dynamic HTML) uses client side scripting languages (e.g. JavaScript) to enhance the user experience by providing rollover images, drop-down menus and other advanced user interface features.
XHTML: Abbreviation for Extensible Hypertext Mark-up Language and is a hybrid of XML and HTML. Web pages designed in XHTML should look the same across all platforms.

JavaScript: This is a programming language that is mostly used in web pages, usually to add features that make the web page more interactive. When JavaScript is included in an HTML file it relies upon the visitors browser to interpret the JavaScript. When JavaScript is combined with Cascading Style Sheets(CSS), and later versions of HTML (4.0 and later) the result is often called DHTML.

PHP: PHP is the most popular open source programming language for building dynamic web sites which can be used to write server side programs that access databases. Because PHP is executed on the server, the viewer cannot see the code.

Server/Client side scripts: If the script is run on the visitors browser, then it is called Client side (eg JavaScript).
Main advantage - no special hosting is needed to run the scripts
Main disadvantage - some visitors may be surfing the web with JavaScript turned off, making these scripts useless.
If the script is run at the computer where the web pages are stored, this is Server side (eg PHP).
Main advantage - the script is run at the server with its output sent as html
Main disadvantage - not all hosting packages can run php scripts.