Frequently Asked Questions

This page covers our clients most Frequently Asked Questions – and the answers.
If you have a question which is not covered here please let us know and we’ll answer your question and add it to this page for future visitors.

Why can’t I just create my own website ?

You can, many company web sites are home grown – however be prepared to spend a lot of time reading and learning. A web site is a little like an iceberg – the visitor sees the visible part but underlying this are a great many factors such as browser compatibility, graphic optimizations, search engine optimization and a dozen others. Unless you understand these factors the web site that looks great on your own PC could look totally different or even not work at all on a visitors PC.       Back to top

How do I transfer my domain to Earth Skater and how much does it cost ?

You do not have to transfer your domain to Earth Skater.  We will provide new DNS information to be entered into your domain name settings with your domain company.  If a new domain account is needed, we will create one for you with our provider Enom.  We do not charge for domain transfers for the first year.  You own your domain name.       Back to top

How many e-mail accounts do I get with my account ?

Up to 25 email addresses/accounts are available with your account.  More email boxes are available by request.  We can also set up a ‘catchall’ account so if someone sends mail to an email address that does not exist under your domain name, the message will be forwarded to a default mail box that you specify.  Also you may forward any or all of your accounts to another e-mail address.       Back to top

Earth Skater built my web site and I need to make some updates what does it cost ?

Easily manage and update your website on your own using the content management system.  You also have a few options when it comes to Earth Skater website maintenance packages.  Affordable and flexible pricing options.  Roughly $100 / hour billed in 30 or 60 minute increments.  We always give you the project details and cost before carrying out any work.        Back to top

How do I pay ?

Your payment is automatically deducted from your credit card account each month.  You can also pay by PayPal, mail check, or money order or pay using Virtual Check     Back to top

We have hundreds of items in our product range, how can we include them all in our site ?

The Earth Skater shopping cart can handle 1 to 100,000+ products and more without worries.     Back to top

How can I see statistics on my visitors ?

All web sites include general/daily website statistics as well as Earth Traffic real time analytics that allows you to view the number of visitors to your site, the pages viewed and how they were referred to your site, in real time.      Back to top

How long will it take to set up my account ?

Due to the time it takes for a newly registered domain to become live or for DNS updates to a domain to propagate, new hosting accounts / email accounts are usually operational in around 24 hours.  Building your website and online store typically takes between 5 to 7 business days.       Back to top

Will my web pages load quickly ?

Yes! This is one of our prime considerations when designing web sites, Earth Skater websites consistently load in the top percentile when it comes to speed.        Back to top

Earth Skater built our web site – who owns it ?

You do! – You will always own and hold the copyright to your website content.  Earth Skater retains the exclusive license and rights to it’s software and you as our client receive a single domain license.       Back to top

Do we have to sign a contract ?

We do not require clients to sign a contract in most circumstances, however by placing an order the client is deemed to have agreed to our terms and conditions which appear on all invoices or payment pages.       Back to top

How will people find our site ?

As part of a marketing program we will work with you to produce a list of key words and phrases for the search engines. We will then optimize the pages for these keywords and phrases to ensure a good listing in the search engines.       Back to top

Where can I see examples of your work ?

A number of our clients site are featured in our Website Design Portfolio.       Back to top

Can Earth Skater help us with the sites written content ?

Yes ! We have a great deal of experience in writing copy for clients sites, we can reformat existing text or produce copy from scratch based on the information you supply.  Our writing staff  is creative and their talent is helping you to get your message across to your visitors on the Internet.  Copywriting service is performed on a package rate.        Back to top

Do I really need a website ?

Bottom line is yes.       Back to top

How do I get more visitors to my site ?

You need a two pronged attack – firstly you must optimize your website content for your target market (keywords).  Next, promote your site online by submitting to search engines.  Get instant traffic by advertising using PayPerClick (PPC) such as Google Adwords.  Finally, you must have useful and fresh content that people want to see – the greatest looking site will not hold a visitors interest without some substance to the content.       Back to top

Do you have an acceptable use policy ?

Yes, we do – it is include in our standard terms and conditions, basically we ban pornography, racist materials, illegal or unlicensed software and sending ‘spam’ from our servers – these policies are for your protection and ours and we will always enforce the terms and conditions if we are made aware of an infringement.  View our Acceptable Use Policy.       Back to top

Can visitors access my site with or without the WWW. ?

Yes, your site is available at yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com.       Back to top

What FTP clients can I use ?

Any FTP client should work with our servers – for clients new to FTP we recommend SmartFTP or FileZilla.   FTP is typically disabled to comply with PCI standards.    Back to top

I have an Earth Skater hosting account – do I have access to my log files?

Visitor log files are available inside the logs or ‘w3svc###’ directory in your FTP account.       Back to top

Do you provide a cgi-bin ?

We do – the servers run a perl interpreter. The cgi-bin is provided to provide legacy support for any .cgi scripts in your site but we do actively discourage the use of .CGI files where possible. Anything that can be done in a .cgi script can be done as well or better using Windows native scripting language .asp and places a much lower load on the servers.       Back to top

Will others have access to my files ?

By definition anything you place in your wwwroot folder will be available to people though your website – the exception to this is .asp and .php scripts where if called from a browser will return the result of the script and not the script source itself – any information that you do NOT want visitors to access should be placed in your ‘Private’ directory where it can be referenced from the scripts in your site. Nobody but you will have FTP access to your files unless you give them the username and password.       Back to top

How much disk space do I get ?

The hosting accounts begin at 2 GB – this is a huge amount for a website and few websites use more than 500MB.   We will expand your disk space without charge as your website requires however at some point a large scale website will require a dedicated server solution which we offer as well.    Back to top

How much bandwidth do I get ?

The hosting accounts begin at 20 GB per month total data transfer, again this is a huge amount for a typical site.  We will expand your bandwidth without charge as your website requires however at some point a heavy traffic website will require a dedicated server solution which we offer as well.         Back to top

Can I resell my web space ?

No, your account is for your use only.       Back to top

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