FAQ

what does “cms” mean?

CMS stands for Content Management System and is the system that you use to update or add pages to your website. There are many different types of content management systems out there but we use the Monkey Magic content manager as we have found it to be easier for our clients to use than some of the other systems available.

With the Monkey Magic content management system you have complete control over your website and with the freedom of the system we can build complicated websites and yet you can change the body content incredibly easily.

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how can I get higher in Google & BING!?

Good question. If we knew the one quick way to make this happen then we would already be very rich. The issue is that there is no quick way to get your website ranking better. There are a number of factors that all search engines will look at to determine where in the list your website should come and they are not telling anyone what those factors are.

The big search engines like Google and BING are very secretive about exactly what makes up each of their 'ranking algorithm' however there are certain things which are accepted as best practice and there are a few things that we know affect your ranking.

By doing the things we know will affect your position and then working on the things we think are going to help your website should improve it's position.

However there are no guarantees and if the search engines change their algorithm (which they do several times a year) then your website position may improve or get worse without you actually doing anything. You also have to take into account the several million websites that are also trying to get a decent ranking for the same search terms as yourself and you can see that improving your ranking is a fair amount of work.

We can help you get started however and we have some services which can ensure that your website is doing the right things and we can help get people linking to your website.

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can I see your work?

Of course, in fact we would prefer that you had seen some of our work liked it and wanted us to do something just as good for you. Obviously we don't pass the same designs around to various clients so please don't ask us for an identical website but given the go ahead we can produce work just as good for yourself.

Check out our website portfolio here and some of our design work here

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do I own my website?

Yes, every website is designed from scratch so as long as you have paid all bills up to date the website design and content is 100% yours.

Any elements that have been added to the website by yourself such as photos which you don't have permission to use are obviously not yours just because they are on your site but any stock photos or material we have provided will have been done in good faith and are provided to you as part of the design/website.

The only thing you don't own is the Monkey Magic content management system (if applicable) which you are entitled to use in perpetuity while the website is hosted on our server.

If you ever want to host the site with someone else then we will be happy to provide your website on a disc or as a digital download so that you can take host it wherever you like.

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do I need a domain name?

Every website needs a domain name but you don't have to have one before you call us.

Although we are happy to manage any domain names for you and simply bill you for the renewal when it is due, as a general rule we prefer you to have ownership of your own domain name. We prefer this because it gives you the control and security so that if there are any problems in the future ultimately you have control over where the domain name points.

So if you have already bought a domain name then we can simply point it to one of our servers once the website is ready to be seen by the public. If you don't have a domain name then we can buy one for you and transfer all control over it to yourself once we have explained how it works.

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what is a blog and do I need one?

A blog is simply an online diary and the name itself comes from the words 'web log'. Commonly a blog is used as a means to communicate with the world at large and encourage people to comment on what you have written. It is generally a 2 way communication with strangers leaving their own messages on your blog - if you do allow people to comment on what you have written then you will want to moderate the content to ensure that you don't allow illegal comments or links to be posted.

If you are unsure about if you need a blog then you should take some time to think about what you actually need to do on the website as there are other options available to you before you add a wordpress blog to your website.

If you are looking for a way to communicate with your visitors by updating them on what you are up to and what is coming up then perhaps a news/updates module would be a better idea. This is a simpler system but it still allows you to add daily content exactly like a blog - the only thing missing is that visitors to your website cannot leave their own message.

If you decide that you want to use a blog then we would recommend wordpress as it is the most popular software for blogs available at this time. Adding a wordpress blog is not difficult but the templates of your website will need to be recreated as Wordpress templates and any future changes will have to be made to both the website and the blog.

As the Wordpress blog stands alone it is not part of the Monkey Magic content management system and so a separate login is required.

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what is meant by monitor and supervise third party activity?

Our website hosting terms we supply cover the majority of the websites that we host and some of the terminology might not be relevant to your website. In this case where a website has a forum or other method for visitors to the website to leave a message, links to websites or other content this must be moderated.

You should ensure that at no point a third party adds pornography, terrorist or any other illegal content to your website. If this does happen then if necessary we reserve the right to terminate your account immediately.

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how is SPAM managed?

We use standard spam filtering software on all our mail servers and the 'aggressiveness' of this software can be increased if you find that you are receiving a lot of junk mail. Be aware that the trade off for having an aggressive spam filter is that genuine messages might be removed as well.

The best methods we have found is a combination of filtering on the mail server and filters on your email client. This allows you a lot more control with the mail server removing the most obvious spam and your local filters marking anything else suspicious that comes through as junk.

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what search engine optimisation tools do you have?

The Monkey Magic content manager allows you to make sure that your meta description and title tags are search engine friendly. The structure of the website itself will be easy for the search engines to navigate and so the best way to increase traffic is to make sure that the content on your website is useful and easy to read.

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do your servers go down often?

We host our websites with one of the larger hosting companies in the UK. With state of the art hardware and 8 daily backups taken every day we have never had any issues with hosting at all. In the past 6 years they have sustained a 99.98% uptime rating. There are scheduled outages for maintenance but these are taken overnight and if there is any downtime it will last no longer than a few minutes unless notified otherwise.

In the past 6 years we have had one serious outage when the building holding the servers had a major fire and the servers were shut down for safety. It took the best part of a day to get the websites back up and running but rest assured that this is not a regular occurence. If you need a 100% uptime then we can provide the costs for dual servers running at separate locations but the cost for this will be prohibitive for only the most serious websites managers.

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what if my email is already setup on a different mail server?

Although our clients generally need us to set up their email and website at the same time some already have emails set up on an exchange server or with their IT support company.

In this case we are more than happy to provide the website on our server without the emails.

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what if I need a lot more than a 25MB pop3 email account?

We provide a small number of pop3 accounts in our hosting with a limited quota as the space allocated to an email account is space that we can't use for hosting websites. If you find that you will need a much larger quota then we can work with you to provide a solution.

One of the most popular solutions that we have is for your emails to be hosted with your domain registrar. The registrars such as 123-reg or Go Daddy generally offer email hosting at a much larger scale than we can. But you may have to pay them directly and this cost can be anywhere between