As an addendum I would just like to comment on some of the problems with setting up this site, apart from the time involved!

So many links I  visit do not work - all of the one's on this site should! - please let me know if they don't - but warning some of these links will take you onto sites where many do not work.

Software used: FrontPage 2000 with FrontPage Image Editor. I have avoided animated Gif's, Java applets. I have tried to make sure most of the features will show on a more modest computer system. Font used throughout is Comic Sans MS - I am aware on many systems this will not be recognised. Browser - IE 5. Windows 98.

Computer used: PC 350 Pentium11, 200 Meg RAM, 8 Gig hard drive, Agfa snapscan, Iomega Zip drive.

There are a lot of pictures of pools, places of interest - I hope they are useful - it is a compromise between quality and speed of loading, but the majority have been prepared for web sites through FrontPage Image Editor and I have invariably used the medium quality setting. The majority of graphics are now as thumbnails as this facilitates speed of download with the choice of clicking on the thumbnail to get the original picture. Camera used is an Olympus Camedia digital 1000L (500L in America). Medium quality setting has been used for taking the pictures.

The thumbnails - from Mountains to the Sea have been scanned from prints using an Agfa scapscan at the highest settings - if you click on the thumbnails they will take ages to load - but at least you have a choice!

I could write a book about how to get recognised by search engines. I have used a system devised by Bruce Clay - it is excellent but takes a great deal of painstaking work to implement. Yahoo! has a whole category devoted to improving your search engine ranking - this is a very important URL.   Rank this is a very useful utility for determining your web site position in some of the more important search engines. Also PositionAgent - Monitor Web Site Search Engine Rankings On Top Search Engines, Improve Search Engine Listings To Get More Hits - Submit It's Position Agent is a quick tool to check your position in search engines. One other useful to monitor your progress and avoid constantly checking that your URL has been listed is the Informant personal search agent. A collection of helpful utilities which all help with monitoring your position with the search engines is URL Checking Services. I must admit I seldom bother now to resubmit to search engines - without sounding too arrogant most of the major ones seem to find this site and sub pages. Net Direct the ISP used for this site offers a very useful facility - for a one off payment of £10 they send a list of everyone who has visited your site via e-mail. This also allows one to "see" how people have accessed the site, which search engines etc.

At the moment the site is listed by Alta Vista, Hot Bot, Infoseek, Snap, Planet Search, UK Plus, Lycos, Excite. Yahoo now lists this site! One very easy way of submitting your site to a large number of web sites is Easy Submit! Submit your URL to the TOP Search Engines FREE! Brilliant! Another equally effective site is "Signpost" again a free service. Want a free domain name........co.uk use "Freenetname" one domain name per account totally free - there seems to be no catch! I have registered http://www.seatroutfishing.co.uk which will be developed shortly for anyone with an interest in sea trout fishing, anywhere.

Meta Medic is an excellent utility to check Meta description tags and Meta keyword tags. Doctor HTML is another utility worth using to check document structure, table structure, form structure etc. Web Site Garage is another easy way of checking your site for the commonest flaws.

The best book on Web Design must be "Web Pages That Suck" Learn Good Design by Looking at Bad Design by Vincent Flanders & Michael Willis ISBN 0-7821-2187-X. Beg, steal or borrow this book. The CD ROM with the book allows you to connect directly to search engines easily so you can submit your site. There is also a very valuable selection of utilities to help you set up your site. Essential!

If your keen on surfing the web, there is an excellent search utility called Copernic 99. This submits your query to eleven of the major search engines and then ranks them. You can download the first page of each site listed and then view offline - all this takes minutes, if you did this manually it would take ages. Even better news is that the basic version is available to download for free!  The plus version with many more specialised search engines enables is available for download costing $29.99. Copernic is worth it's weight in gold!

19/09/99

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