On the subject of domain names, I am really interested in knowing if there is a way to find out if ‘out there’ there exists a site with a similar domain name to ours. Is there an easy way to find out?
As it happens, there is, yes. The utility that I use to check domain names is a thing called ‘Whois Ultra’ and it’s available from www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/whois.htm as a free download. It’s very simple to use and is of value to anyone thinking of registering a domain name, if for no other reason than to see what variants are available or which have already been taken.
Is there a tag I can use that forces a browser, when the browser is opened by the user, to update the page from the internet rather than expecting the user to hit F5? I tried <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="10"> but obviously it cycles every x seconds which is painful and inelegant; I just need a one-time refresh each time the page is visited.
You should be able to achieve the result that you’re after by putting the following meta tag in the <HEAD> element of the page: <meta http-equiv="no-cache"> since this tells the browser not to cache the page and, by implication, forces it to go out and get it every time.
I’m looking for a free multi-purpose tool to monitor the web-friendliness of web pages. I previously used the now defunct www.websitegarage.com Can you help?
There are a lot of these around. They’re mostly (but not all) commercial, but they’ll allow you to check a single page per visit for free, which should be enough to tell you if you’re on the right track. Ones that I tend to use are:
Dr Watson at http://watson.addy.com/
Dr HTML at www2.imagiware.com/RxHTML/
Netmechanic at www.netmechanic.com/
Bobby at http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp
For more, you could try a search at Google for web page checkers and see what you get.
What’s a Googlebomb? It’s a term I’ve heard now and then, but have never been sure exactly what it means.
A Googlebomb is a situation in which a group of people link to a specific chosen page using a specific chosen link-text, in order to push this page up in the Google ranking. This may be done for amusement, as a challenge or for socio-political reasons. You can find out more about them, plus some interesting examples, at http://blog.outer-court.com/googlebomb/
Site of the month
My site of the month is a silly one this time. Can you imagine what The Lord of the Rings would have been like if it had been written by someone else? Well, you don’t need to imagine, since you can find out at www.teemings.com/extras/lotr/ It’s a site full of very funny parodies and if you’re a fan of LotR you’ll love it and, even if you’re not, it should amuse you.
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Phil Bradley is an internet consultant, trainer, web designer and author. Visit www.philb.com for free information on internet introductions, search engine articles, web design tips and a host of other free information. New: visit Phil's Weblog (www.philb.com/blog/blogger.html)! If you have any questions about the internet send an email to philb@philb.com with the subject header 'column query'.