|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DRIVING TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE
More ways to keep 'em coming back
By James D. Cimino
In my last article, we talked about getting visitors to come back to your Web site. In this article, we'll talk a little more about some of the tools and techniques that can be used to further accomplish this goal. These tools will include internal services that you can host on your Domino server, as well as third-party services that can be used to drive traffic to your Web site.
Web rings
Web rings provide the World Wide Web with a different way to organize Web sites. The Web ring is a way to group together sites with similar content (or any pages at all, if one so desires) by linking them together in a circle, or ring.
A Web ring is a ring of sites all on the same topic. The idea is that on each page a code is placed that links to other pages in the ring. They are all in some kind of order and you would see several options to click on such as: Next, Skip the Next, Back, Skip the one behind, Two ahead, and Random. Users clicking on one of these buttons first go to the central Web ring system dispatcher and from there they are sent to the appropriate site in the Web ring.
This is actually something you can do without the Web ring system by simply having each page owner link their site to the next. However, when somebody wants to join the ring, someone has to edit their page to point to the new page and -- when the ring gets big enough -- it becomes more and more difficult to keep the ring intact when pages disappear and servers go down.
The Web ring concept provides a solution to all of these problems, as well as numerous enhancements. When you join a Web ring, the HTML code on your home page never changes. Links point to a special program at the Web ring host that will send people to the next (or previous) site in the ring. Because the central ring database is located in one location, sites can be added and removed quickly and easily, and because the Web ring server allows you go continue past sites that are unreachable, you will always be able to continue around the loop.
A central operator of Web rings is http://www.webring.com. We list a number of Notes and Domino-related Web rings in the product availability and resources section at the end of this article.
List Servers
In its' simplest form, a list server is an automated mail forwarder. It maintains a series of mail lists that users have the ability to add (subscribe) to or remove (unsubscribe) themselves from. Messages sent to the list server are directed towards a specific list, and the list server forwards those messages to all the subscribers of the list.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-- Advertisement --
AUTOMATE LOTUS NOTES USER ID MANAGEMENT
ID Manager 4.5 from HELP Software provides a new level of automaton for managing Lotus Notes IDs. ID Manager lets Lotus Notes administrators get out of the business of creating and managing user IDs. Use our ROI calculator to see how quickly ID Manager will pay for itself.
Learn more about HELP Software products |
-- Advertisement --
Want The Top Lotus Experts By Your Side Without Paying Hefty Consulting Fees? Look No Further.
Like having a team of consultants by your side -- ones who have all the answers and never make mistakes -- THE VIEW gives you immediate access to field-tested instruction, guidance, and best practices from the brightest Lotus professionals around.
Join your peers who realize their Lotus technology is too important to let people from blogs and forums tell them how they should implement it, run it, and use it. THE VIEW is where only the world's top Lotus experts provide validated support to you on a weekly basis to ensure you work more efficiently, get more out of your Lotus technology, and stay clear of costly mistakes.
Check out the new instruction, tips, and best practices added to THE VIEW this week. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
