Q: When was Broch Information Services founded?
A: Broch was founded in 1996 to assist clients with the internet, databases, marketing and application development, and other aspects of technology management. 

Q: Why should I have a response form?
A: This is the easiest and quickest way to capture sales leads or feedback from the people viewing your site. It also gives an indication of the number of hits you are getting on your site. You can have more than one response form and tailor them for individual purposes. It is possible in this way to actually conduct a customer survey. You can also provide prizes or other incentives in order to get people to complete your survey.

Q: What are frames?
Frames are like tables but much more versatile. They allow the web page to be broken up into several independent parts.

Navigation is aided by frames, as the navigation bar may be placed in one frame and the text in another, allowing successive pages to be loaded while retaining the navigation links in another section of the same screen.

Q: What factors affect download time?
Downloading pure text is straightforward and fast. Graphics will slow things down considerably. Graphics can often be manipulated to reduce their file size with only limited effect on quality. They should always be used sparingly to keep download times fast.

Q: How do I get people to come to my site?
There are a number of things you can do. Firstly register with the search engines and directories. For advice on how this is achieved look at our section on Search Engines.

Do not rely on search engines alone you must print your URL (web address) on all your publicity, business cards, adverts, packaging - indeed anything that gets sent out by your company.

Teach your staff to continually point customers to your web site so that they learn your web address and learn the fastest way to get up to date information is to go to your web site.

Q: How do I get people to stay at my site and keep coming back?
Make sure you understand your target audience and get and keep their interest. We will shortly be publishing an article on this very subject so watch this space.

How can I design to ensure a page will print out within the width of a standard printer?
If you limit your page width to 550 pixels this should solve this problem on most printers.

Are there any differences between advertising on the net and normal advertising?
Yes in as much as you must, in theory, take into account the national rules of all countries where you advertise (on the Web this means everywhere!). Conflicts on trade marks can also give rise to problems. If in doubt add a disclaimer to the site saying "not for sale in ***"

Q: How do I give my visitors confidence that any information will be kept private?
There is great concern about private information extracted via the net being abused or extracted by hackers. Because of this legislation comes into force in the UK this year to ensure that "unambiguous consent" must be given by an individual to a company stating that they can process that information in specific ways.

So publish a clear privacy policy on your web site and state how the information will be used.

Any requests for information should be in the affirmative - i.e. "tick here if you are happy for this info to be used for mailings" rather than "tick here if you don't want this info used for mailings".
Give visitors a choice and provide benefits for providing info and explain these benefits
Warn if your site uses cookies (for an explanation of Cookies see our Jargon Buster section at Web World.

You can sign up for an arbitration service such as TRUSTe (www.truste.org). You register and they can be called upon to arbitrate if a visitor believes you have breached your own privacy policy.

Q: Are domain names case sensitive?
No. Conventionally all domain names are written and used in lower case.

How can I save/download the text of a page for reading offline?
You can select and copy the text to another application or you can save the page as HTML and just open it with your browser off line.

Q: What is a URL?
Every page on the World Wide Web has a unique "address", known as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Your browser's toolbar (top of the page) has a box in which the address you want to access may be typed.

Q: What is mail forwarding?
Mail forwarding allows you to redirect your mail to a different address. For example you could forward mail to johnsmith@mycompany.co.uk to john.smith@hotmail.com.

Q: Where will my site appear in search engines?
There are no guarantees as to where your site will appear. To get the best position means hard work. For tips see our section on Search Engines in Design.

Q: What is the difference between a directory and a search engine?
Have a look at our section on Search Engines in Design for a definitive explanation.

Q: How do I know if a web site is secure?
If asked to enter personal details such as your credit card number a secure web site will show a padlock icon at the bottom of your browser window.
This shows that the site has entered a secure area using SSL technology.
Short for Secure Socket Layer, a protocol developed by Netscape for transmitting private information via the Internet.

Q: How safe is it to shop on the Internet?
It is very safe providing that the site you are buying from uses technology such as SSL (Secure Socket Layer). This provides on line encryption technology. Encryption converts any information entered whilst within a secure web site into secret code which is then sent over the Internet The most common code, known as 40-bit encryption, produces no less than 1,099,511,627,776 combinations.

Q: What are frames?
Frames are like tables but much more versatile. They allow the web page to be broken up into several independent parts.
Navigation is aided by frames, as the navigation bar may be placed in one frame and the text in another, allowing successive pages to be loaded while retaining the navigation links in another section of the same screen.

Q: What factors affect download time?
Downloading pure text is straightforward and fast. Graphics will slow things down considerably. Graphics can often be manipulated to reduce their file size with only limited effect on quality. They should always be used sparingly to keep download times fast.

Q: How can I check if the domain that I want is available?
If you have Internet access you go to the Nominet site. The address is www.nic.uk
This is the central body of domain name registration in the UK. If you want a domain name with a .com suffix you must go to www.register.com. You can check all domain availability on this site. Please remember that if you want to register a .ltd.uk or.plc.uk site you must have the company registration number for a limited or Plc Company ready to send to us. This is because only a Limited company can own a .Ltd.uk suffix for a domain name.

If you do not have Internet access we will do all the checking and will contact you if the domain that you requested is not available and will offer you alternatives.

Q: How do people find my site?
As an initial service we submit your site to the top ten search engines and this will mean that your site gets entered into the listings. Search engines appear on Portals and are often used as the main access point to the Internet. They work by using a 'spider' which is a computerised method of picking up the selected sites and listing them in their pages.

The keywords that we ask you submit are used by the spider, so that when some one enters a search into the engine the spider searches for all the web sites that have been submitted with the word in their keywords. Common search engines are Lycos, Infoseek, AltaVista and UK Plus. Yahoo works in a slightly different way, as all the sites are checked manually and are only listed if they are selected to be entered into the pages. Yahoo also categorise all sites into nested directories. Your site will be submitted to Yahoo but we cannot guarantee selection. Some search engines take many weeks to review new submissions so it can be a lengthy process.

As with many aspects of the Internet nothing is a certainty and so we can only submit your site to the search engines, we cannot guarantee the ranking of them. There are many ways to optimise the ranking of your site - see our section on Search Engines in Web World.

Q: Why does the Internet sometimes seem much slower than usual?
This is primarily due to excess traffic between Europe and North America at certain times of the day.

Q: What can I do to avoid the Internet rush hour?
In Europe try to avoid browsing later in the day as North Americans start work at around 2pm BST. Conversely if you are in North America try to browse in the afternoon after, say, 1pm US Eastern time when most Europeans have stopped work. This will certainly improve response time.

Q: How can I remember all those different URLs?
Virtually all browsers allow you to save a list of favourite Web pages. It is a convenient way of remembering the page location without having to write down the URL. Just follow the instructions for your particular browser.

Q: My question isn't listed here, what should I do?
A: Please visit the contact page to find out where to address your inquiry.