Website?

nickmack

lky2k23 wrote:

Well the site im trying to develop on a basic scale is a comparison website like

https://www.find-dvd.co.uk

If you can design this with Frontpage, you're a better person than I.
This is a fairly professional site that probably took several people a few weeks to make.

Looking then to become more complex and be like https://www.confused.com

Again another site that's probably had a fair amount of money ploughed into it. Judging by the fact they advertise TV primetime as well, they're probably turning over a fair bit.

would I be better getting someone to help me do this then?

To be blunt, without any knowledge or budget, you have very little or no chance of replicating either of the above sites.

Sorry to sound negative, but I'm helping you stop wasting your time.

The fact that they are both established and I would guess fairly successful gives them an immediate advantage over anything you produce, even if it was professionally presented and coded.

wolfman

lky2k23 wrote:

Well the site im trying to develop on a basic scale is a comparison website like

https://www.find-dvd.co.uk

From the look of the site it's very complex.

Heavily relying on server-side coding. If you click on a dvd, they have all the prices for dozens of sites. This I'd imagine is done via "screen scrapping", which is where you code an application to firstly find the associated page on the website (say Amazon), and then run through the page until it finds the price.

And it doesn't stop there, seperate rules have to be used for each site as locating the price on Amazon will be different from HMV for example. And then if the site (HMV for example) change their layout, you have to adjust all of your rules to pickup the price.

It's a process probably running nightly as screen scrapping isn't something that sites tend to like be done to them frequently. It's a huge piece of work to do though. I wrote a basic scraper for https://www.imdb.com and that took me a week just to get the info off a specified page, let alone find the film.


However, you'll be able to find companies that have coded API's for site such as Amazon, so that you can easily get the price for a product by calling a simple piece of code in their application. Basically, they'll have done the bulk of the work for you, but I'd imagine their software won't come cheap.

With regards to coding, it'll take you at least a year to learn all the relevant stuff, then months (if not more) to develop it. You'd need to look at Java, or .Net.

wolfman

In fact, go to the https://www.find-dvd.co.uk site.

Click on Four Brothers (it's in the middle part).

Then on the next page, select Amazon Jersey. It comes up as £14.99 on Amazon despite find-dvd saying it's £8.65.

Just an example of where they haven't run the scraper, or their data is out of date. Basically shows it's not realtime information.

mr-mad_2

AVOID WEBDOCKERS. I just lost my website, and they are not responding to emails, I have had my website deleted before by these cowboys, with obscure excuses being given. This time they failed to respond to daily emails about the problem. Despite the fact that the jusT billed me fo another years hosting!

DO YOURSELVES A FAVOR AVOID MR.YAP & WEBDOCKERS

Dear Mick
This email confirms that WK Yap has accepted the 11.99 GBP you sent.

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Payment Details

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Amount: 11.99 GBP
To view your PayPal balance or other account information, log in to the PayPal website.
Thank you for using PayPal!
Sincerely,
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Annettebetts

I am having problems with webdockers as well they took an extra years money and have not refunded. My site has been down for 4 days now the last time this happen thay had changed their servers and did not inform anyone. Now their main site is down, they have no phone number to speak of, and it would appear they have gone bust. If they do come back I am moving to another provider. Sometimes moneysaving can be a bad thing.:mad:

sleep2much

I don't recommend the site as such, but it's one of many where you can search domain name availability http://www.servage.net/?coupon=cust41179 I use them for my sites, you can have multiple domains web space of 510GB!! 5000GB monthly transfers, it's just huge! all for £3 odd per month, also try out the 30 trial of dreamweaver from adobe, it's pretty good

richt71

I have many websites and I use godaddy.com or namecheap.com for non UK domains and hostgator for hosting websites. Loads of bandwithe included for little money.

chris_a_p

Hi

From what you have said, it sounds like you need a very basic member's area which can be accessed by making a one off payment via PayPal?

You then need the ability to update the text shown in the members area and only allow members to see this page?

You firstly need a domain name and hosting. Then you need a PayPal account.

Once you've got the above you then need to access your web pages.

You do this using an FTP program, I wouldn't recommend FrontPage as it is likely you will be needing to use a server side language such as PHP at some point.

CuteFTP is quite good.

Use this program to access your pages and upload member login scripts, etc. Free scripts can be found at HotScripts.

If you need to create a database for the website to run off make sure your hosting has phpMyAdmin or something similar.

You could of course get someone to custom build you what you need but you might be looking at a lot of money.

I can help when it comes to programming but not web design - I cannot draw a stick man!! So if you have any questions let me know and I'll try to help!

Chris