Brian Whitaker tackles some teething troubles with his new Web site

The Guardian, 21 May, 1998

THE STORY so far: my expectations of joining the peerage as a global media magnate have suddenly been dashed. Half the files on my new Web site are invisible to the world at large.

This is very strange. I tested the site thoroughly before sending it to the Internet service provider that is hosting my site. The files have definitely arrived on their server, so there must be something wrong with the navigation links that call them up.

I re-check the coding of the links, but it seems fine. The problem affects all the files in four folders, but no others.

Why these four?

After staring at the screen for half an hour, I have an idea. The only thing the offending folders have in common is that their names begin with a capital letter. I rename them without capital letters and finally the links work.

The explanation, I think, is that when testing the Web site on my own PC, I was running Windows, which is not case sensitive. The Web server — the computer the service provider uses to deliver Web pages — on the other hand, runs on Unix, which is strict about that sort of thing.

With my peerage now back on course, it remains only to announce my Yemen Gateway Web site to the world.

Anyone who has tried to find something on the Internet will be familiar with the search engines Lycos, Infoseek, Yahoo!, and so on. It’s a simple matter to add your new Web site to their lists: from their search page, follow the links to the company’s Web site where there should be a link or checkbox labelled "Add URL". URL means "Internet address" (though when talking to Americans you should call it a "uniform resource locator" instead). You provide your address, together with some basic information about content, and the search engines do the rest.

Easy as this is, it is not for anyone of a sensitive disposition. After months of hard work, there’s nothing more dispiriting than replies that say thanks for your URL but we’re very busy, there are thousands of new Web sites every day and we will take a look in a few weeks if you’re lucky.

Resorting to more traditional methods, I spend an evening on the phone as unexcited friends and contacts pretend to search for pencils and write down my Web site address. The first bit — 'http: // www.ndirect.co.uk/' — goes OK.

Then we come to "~brian.w". I usually end up saying "Yes, it’s called a tilde. A squiggly thing."

In fact, I’m not entirely happy with my address. For an extra £287 I could have had my own easy-to-remember domain name (such as yemen.co.uk), but I don’t want to spend money on that just yet.

But there is one consoling thought. I’ve been told that the key to Internet success lies in getting people to bookmark your site (i.e. store the address in their browser so they can return to it easily). Logic tells me that the more complicated the address the more likely they are to bookmark it. Who in their right mind would waste a bookmark on ‘msn.com’ when it’s so easy to type?

Between phone calls I have been faxing an A4-sized leaflet headed: "Travel to Yemen in 5.4 seconds with Yemen Gateway." No, I haven’t timed it, but it’s certainly faster than British Airways. I have also sent out a couple of dozen e-mails. The beauty of these is that you can include a clickable link to the Web site in your message.

By the end of the first week I’m reaping the rewards of these efforts. The counter on my Web site has clocked up 35 visits. Of course, I have to admit that some — all right, most — of these occcurred when I visited it myself to check how the counter was getting on. But not all of them, surely.

FEEDBACK:

• Dirk- web counters. 23 May 1998
• Darren Bell- invisible files; search engines. 24 May 1998

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