This section will help you troubleshoot some common mistakes relative to your design. Be sure to check your program’s help file for specific program-related help. Simply click on the “Help” tab on the program’s file menu to access this information, if provided.
My pages load too slowly. What can I do?
Try running an HTML validator. If possible, try removing some graphics if your have a large number on your pages. Every Web page should preferably be less than 100 kilobytes in size. If all else fails, try compressing them. A nice JPEG compressor called JPEG Imager is available for download at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Grid/7726/index.html. You can compress GIF images with GifClean32 from http://members.tripod.com/~mharing/gifclean.html. A fairly new concept, compressing the HTML pages themselves can be done with HTML (Un)Compress (http://gallery.uunet.be/Jacobs.Jan/htmlcomp/index.htm) or HTML Compressor (http://www.pc-guru.com/Products/html_compressor.htm). If your pages are still loading slowly, try switching to another hosting provider offering greater speed. And its possible the problem could be your modem or the processing capability of your computer system.
There are online GIF and JPEG image compressors if you’d rather compress your images there. For GIF images, go to http://www.gifcruncher.com and http://www.jpegcruncher.com for JPEG images.
I created my graphics in an image editor and they looked fine. Now they’re too big on screen. What can I do?
Look at your HTML and use your program’s “Find” feature (if available) and type in “<IMG” in the appropriate field. This will give you all the image tags in your document. If you happen to come across any graphics that have dimensions greater than what you created them at, find the graphic’s true dimensions (which can usually be done with your graphic editor by looking up the “Image Information”) and enter the correct dimensions into the HTML. Sometimes graphic editors use different zooming ratios other than 1:1 (the standard view). If you created your image in a ratio greater (or smaller) than 1:1 and saved them, then they would show up larger on Web browsers because the browser program calls images up at a 1:1 ratio level. To correct this problem, simply use your graphic editor’s “Resize” feature, if available. (Some programs may use a different name.)
My Web page address isn’t called up in any search engine. What can I do?
You have one of two options here. You can try re-submitting them or deleting a file called “robots.txt” if it exists. Usually, it takes about 2 weeks for a search engine to list a URL in their database. Sometimes, for some odd reason, your URL submission never makes it in. If you used a free promotional URL submission services (like http://submititfree.linkexchange.com), try re-submitting your URL to some of the more popular search engines. You’ll conveniently find a listing of these search engines starting on page 87. There are also valuable programs on the market that have the ability to submit your URL to thousands search engines. If you’re interested in obtaining a copy of one of these programs, we recommend SubmitWolf Pro (http://www.trellian.com/swolf) from Trellian.
If re-submitting your site fails, try looking for a file called “robots.txt.” This file’s intention is to prohibit search engines from searching your site, which is generally not recommended. To remove it, look in your root directory for this file. If it exists, simply click on it delete it by clicking the “Delete” button on your keyboard.
If trouble still exists trying to get your site listed in an acceptable position among other Web sites, try a professional Web site marketing service. A nice promotion service, Global Promote (http://www.gloprom.com) and they submit your site for international exposure. Although it may cost you some money, you’ll find it well worth it in the future as your site starts making a profit of its own.
It’s important to realize that not all Web sites can be listed in the top positions. Search engines generally list their URLs from specific criteria. You might want to take at various search engines’ submit page to learn more about this criteria.