Moonfruit Lounge

Holy Twitter Batman - the campaign response

Joe — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:45:00 +0100

Many of you will have noticed our twitter campaign that started on Tuesday to give away 10 Macbook Pros to celebrate the 10th Birthday of Moonfruit. Yes we're that old ;-). But I don't think any of us expected it to go quite so crazy.

We've been trending at the number 1 spot on twitter for the last 36 hours or more, our number of followers is approaching 20,000 before the end of the first 48 hours and our site traffic has increased by 8 times or more. Ouch.

Mashable (The Social Media Guide) has written this up as 'A Twitter campaign done right' and an SEO expert calls us bigger than Michael Jackson. And Brand Republic calls it a massive success.

At around midnight last night 300 tweets per minute were about moonfruit and this accounted for 1.63% of all twitter traffic. And including the Mashable article that was also trending about Moonfruit it was around 2.85% in total.

http://twist.flaptor.com/trends?gram=moonfruit&span=24

Interesting times. We're looking forward to seeing what happens...

RESOLVED: Service Disruption 09:11 BST (GMT +1) 02 Jul 2009

Walt — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:47:00 +0100

DETAIL: We are experiencing a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the services, which is currently overloading our firewalls.

RESPONSE: Our technical team are working hard to get this attack under control and return full service to all customers. We hope to have this completely resolved shortly.

UPDATE: We've managed to block what appears to have been three different types of DDoS attack. Combating the three attacks has taken us longer than expected but we appear to have got them under control as of 11:35 but continued to experience minor issues until 12:32 BST (GMT +1).

Celebrate 10 years of Moonfruit and win a MacBook Pro

Joe — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:47:00 +0100

To celebrate Moonfruit's 10th birthday we are giving away 10 new Macbook Pro's, one each day for 10 days! If you've never seen one of these in real life, they are just as svelte and beautifully crafted as they look in the pictures, we can't keep our hands off them! (I'm using on now, but not one of the competition ones obviously ;-) )

Check the full details of the competition at http://www.moonfruit.com/macbook-pro.html and follow us @moontweet to find out who the winners are each day.

We wouldn't be here today without all you wonderful people building websites with us and allowing us to support you in your online adventures. So a special thanks to the 2m+ of you who've built a site with us!

Happy tweeting!

RESOLVED: Service Disruption 06:10 BST (GMT +1) 25 Jun 2009

Walt — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:59:00 +0100

DETAIL: We are experiencing a large DDoS on one of our hosted sites, which is currently overloading our firewalls.

RESPONSE: Our technical team are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and should have it resolved shortly.

UPDATE: We are being flooded by an attack on one of our sites with 75% of all incoming traffic from over 2,300 IPs, which is causing all traffic to be congested and page load times to be affected. We are still currently investigating how to dynamically block this content.

"You actually cannot tell this isn't professionally built"

Joe — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:57:00 +0100

Now that's the kind of customer review we like to read about Moonfruit and our website builder! Have a read for yourself:

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/internet-sites/moonfruit-com-1/1226440/#rev

It's great to get this kind of feedback (actually both positive or negative) as it helps us keep in touch with what people want. And with the power of the social web nowadays getting reviews in public forums is always a boost.

So thank you mysterious reviewer "CokaCola" whoever you are ;-)

How to create members only/client only pages of your website

Joe — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:13:00 +0100

Members only areas or client only areas can be useful ways of providing privileged information to a select group of your site visitors. This can allow you to create better relationships with these people and use your website to present or distribute information privately with a guest list that you directly control. It’s one of the features that makes Moonfruit unique among other website builders, and extremely powerful.

We've also been asked about 'paid membership'. By using Groups to create a set of VIP members it is possible to charge a fee before adding a member to that group, though this has to be done manually. So here’s how to do all of these things.

Members only pages

Creating members only areas is reasonably easy and very powerful. It also means that anyone who joins your site will immediately get access to that page so there is no manual work to update the permissions with each new member.

Once again I'll be using my favourite and highly ranked taxi website www.joeslondontaxis.com. (some of you will remember this from our series of SEO articles).

To create a members only area first click on ‘People’ in the Toolbar and then the ‘Permissions’ tab. Here you will see a list of all your pages on the left, and the permissions settings of the selected page (or pages) on the right.

Every page can have its permissions set individually, or you can change the permissions for multiple pages as once (use the ‘control’ or ‘shift’ keys while selecting pages to select several at once).

I've created a page called 'members welcome page' which allows me to give a special welcome to my members. If I position this top of my pages list, then this will actually replace the normal 'welcome' page for members when they visit the site. Clever eh.

To make the page members only select the page from the list on the left, then change the ‘view’ settings for that page to ‘members only'. And that's it.

Image: creating a members only page

Client only areas

Creating and managing Groups is the key to client only areas. Groups can have permissions set as a whole, and any member who is part of that group will get those permissions. You can add or remove members from Groups at any time.

If you don’t have any Groups you will need to go to the ‘group’ tab first and set one up. I've created two groups, one called 'Clients' and one called 'Drivers'.

Image: adding groups

Next go back to the 'Permissions' tab and select the page that you wish to edit from the list on the left, then change the ‘view’ settings for that page to ‘Group’ and you can then choose which Group can see that page, e.g. Clients. I've done this for my 'clients' page, and also my 'drivers' page.

Image: assign view to Client Group

You can then add or remove individual members from that Group to control which ones can see that page. Here I have added 2 of my clients into the 'Clients' group, and selected the third in preparation to add him too (or her ;-). This would be the same process if you were creating a VIP section of selected members only.

Image: adding members to groups

You can also create members directly for clients by going to the ‘members’ tab and clicking ‘create member’. You can then define a username, password and email for the this client when you create the member. Once the member is created you can add them to a Group on your site so they have the correct permissions. Finally you can email your client with their username and password and a link to the login page. The ‘create member’ function makes it easy to setup client only areas without the client having to do anything themselves.

Image: creating members

There are numerous ways you can use this kind of functionality, so have a go and let us know what you think!

Why are members good for growing my site?

Joe — Fri, 22 May 2009 10:43:00 +0100

Members are people that have a relationship with your site, including their own login. They are users who have taken the step from being a visitor to signing up and creating their own account with you. Members can be advocates of your site and your services, along with helping you grow your site by telling other people about you (although they can also be detractors, so make sure you treat them nice!).

Your challenge is turning members into advocates. Members need to feel special and valued, so there should be good reasons why joining your site creates additional benefits for them. This might be access to members-only pages containing unique content, editing privileges allowing members to edit part of your site or being able to join in on certain discussions. It might be regular newsletters that offer them interesting or useful information on the same subject as your site.

To turn members into advocates you need to excite them and arm them with useful information. For most websites that do this well it will be about their content or services. If your site can offer them something they cannot get elsewhere, they will tell others about it. Remember you cannot force people to be advocates and trying too hard may annoy or alienate your members.

The simple rules are:

Focus on content and give your members things that they cannot get elsewhere
Make sure there is something extra for members, e.g. members-only content, discounts or communities
Communicate with your members via newsletters, Facebook/Twitter, etc.
Listen to them and give them a forum for their feedback. This helps them feel valued.

Some Moonfruit sites have already created large and successful membership bases, which support their site and business. Check out some of these.

http://extraicingonthecake.com/
1800+ members

http://extremekidrock.moonfruit.com
6500+ members

http://whitleybridge.moonfruit.com/
800+ members

http://simsgogogo.moonfruit.com/
2000+ members

New release - 18 May 2009 - Membership and more

Joe — Mon, 18 May 2009 10:00:00 +0100

Want to know how to grow your website with more members and advocates? How to interact, manage and develop a better relationship with your visitors? Want to create members-only/client-only pages or sections? Want to post information or updates from your website to Facebook/Twitter? Build a collaborative website with edit rights for different people?

Well then, the membership release is what you've been waiting for! After many months of development it has finally arrived, jam packed with new features and a lot of improvement. Read on for more detail...

This release sees a whole new membership section with a number of improvements to make it easier for site owners to attract, manage and communicate with their members. In particular, the main areas of improvement are: a) to make it easier to invite members to join; b) to ensure members become members of the site only and no longer have to create a SiteMaker account; c) to replace 'SiteMaker' branding in the join process with the site owner's own look and feel; d) to allow site owners to create site administrators; e) to make managing page permissions easier; and finally, f) to enable integration with some Facebook and Twitter services.

More detail on these features is provided below. While there are over 100 new FAQs in the Help section covering the various new features, we will aslo be publishing some specific articles over the coming weeks. These will highlight more of what's new, what's improved and how you can make the most of it.

Getting new members

It's now possible to invite new members using your Windows Live or Gmail address books. Alternatively, you can also just copy and paste a list of emails addresses if you want to transfer them from an offline address book. The content of the invite email can also be customised by you. As a site owner, it is now possible to create a member yourself, while in edit mode. Previously, the site owner would have to ask the new member to come to his or her site and create an account before being able to assign any access/edit rights.

Site Level Membership

Previously visitors to a Moonfruit site who wanted to join as a member were required to complete a two-stage sign up process: firstly, they had to create a SiteMaker account; secondly, they then had to join the site. Now, all new sites will be built with Site Level Membership, which means that visitors join the site in a one step process. It also means that the members are free to choose a username that is unique to that site alone. Previously, usernames had to be unique across all usernames for all members of the sites built by the partner.

Sites built before the launch will be able to upgrade their site to site level membership, therefore getting access to all the new features provided under site level membership. However, this is not mandatory and in fact some sites use the Moonfruit wide membership so that they can run a number of sites with shared logins.

The join up process now involves setting up a join page which contains a new customisable login/join widget where the site owner can create a branded experience explaining the benefits of joining their site. Previously, the join process took place in a SiteMaker editor style popup window Emails from the site now refer to the site's name and come from the site email address. Previously, some account emails were from the SiteMaker Team and mentioned SiteMaker.

Site Admin

A new role of Site Administrator has been created. A site admin has access to all the toolbar functions, but any information regarding the site owner, such as billing details, are not accessible. This feature is particularly useful for website resellers.

Managing members and page permissions

It is now possible to set up permissions for multiple pages at once. The interface on the settings panel has been improved to make it much simpler to understand what permissions have been given to individual members as well as each group.

You can now create groups and drag and drop members into those groups from a single panel. Site owners can now view and update members’ email addresses and send them an email that allows the member to reset their password (as long as the site is using site level membership)

Integration with Facebook and Twitter

It is now possible to allow visitors to become a member of your site using their Facebook login credentials, therefore making it easier for users to register as they won't have to create another username and password.

You can also link your site with your Facebook account enabling you to post notes and updates on your wall about your website so that your friend network on Facebook can hear about your site or be updated with any changes.

It is also possible to send updates to an associated Twitter account to communicate with your twitter followers about your site.

NB. If you have your own domain name you'll have to get a Facebook Application key to use the Facebook features. You can do this in the new 'People' section on the 'Settings' tab and we'll talk you through the process. It's quite simple.

And that as they say is that. It's taken a while for us to get our heads around it all, but we're sure you'll get to grips with it much faster. Let us know what you think and we hope you enjoy the new tools!

Scheduled Downtime planned 09:30 BST (GMT +1) 18 May 2009

Walt — Fri, 15 May 2009 11:31:00 +0100

Scheduled Downtime

We will be upgrading the database software to the latest version and performing a number of data updates in preparation for the release of the next version of SiteMaker.

Thank you for your patience and apologies for any inconvenience caused.

REASON: Database upgrade and software updates

PLANNED DURATION: Up to 60 minutes.

NOTES: Full details on the release and the new features will be provided following the upgrade.

NB. For the most up-to-date details on SiteMaker status, please visit our SiteMaker Service Status site and subscribe to the RSS feed for this service.

RESOLVED: Service Disruption 16:40 BST (GMT +1) 07 Apr 2009

Walt — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 23:48:00 +0100

RESOLVED: Service Disruption - Please see entries below for more details on the disruptions and on essential maintenance be carried out...

RESOLVED: Service Disruption 14:34 BST (GMT +1) 04 Apr 2009

DETAIL: On April 4 a section of our system went read-only. This currently affects 20% of our customers and has an impact on file uploads, new site building, form submissions and forum posts. The other 80% of our customers are completely unaffected.

RESPONSE: Our technical team are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.

UPDATE: We are working on repairing the file system for the affected customers. Current estimate for completion is 2 - 4 hours.

UPDATE: 13:40 BST - We will be taking the service off-line for 10 minutes at approximately 13:55 to reconfigure the file system as part of our recovery actions.

UPDATE: 14:04 BST - The file system reconfiguration was successful and enabled us to restore full service to half of the affected customers. We expect to restore the service fully to the remaining 10 % of customers (the remaining half affected by this issue) within the next couple of hours.

RESOLVED: 15:02 BST

DETAIL: Full service has now been restored to all customers.

RECOVERY: We failed over to our backup file server and performed consistency checks to ensure that the data was not corrupted.

FOLLOW UP: We will run background consistency checks on all our data over the next few days to ensure that no further problems occur. Visitors may possibly experience slower page loads while these checks take place. We will also conduct an investigation into the cause of this event and take steps to mitigate a repeat of this incident.

RESOLVED: Service Disruption 16:40 BST (GMT +1) 07 Apr 2009

DETAIL: On April 7 a section of our system went read-only. This currently affects only 10% of our customers and has an impact on file uploads, new site building, form submissions and forum posts. The other 90% of our customers are completely unaffected by this event.

RESPONSE: Our technical team are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and should have it resolved shortly.

We apologise for any inconvenience that this causes any of our customers. Updates will follow.

UPDATE: 01:45 BST - All affected systems have now been fully restored. We will continue to monitor the situation and post more details later in the morning.

Essential Maintenance: 11:20 BST (GMT +1) 09 Apr 2009

REASON: Our investigations into the recent service disruptions indicated that by running consistency checks on the affected data, the file system was stabilised. To be certain that the data is secure we will be running consistency checks on the remaining data in a controlled manor.

PLANNED DURATION: 40 minutes per site

NOTES: Those communities not already affected by the recent disruptions will go Read-Only for about 40 minutes. This will only affect file uploads, new site building, forum posts and saving of data. All sites will remain on view to visitors and owners. There will be six periods of 40 minutes during which 10% of sites will be affected.

UPDATE: This has now been completed. The consistency checks have been successful.

From domain to email in just a few simple steps. No Joke!!!

Walt — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:00:00 +0100

Well, more half a dozen simple steps than just a few. But it is fairly simple.

Once your domain order is complete, you can associate your domain with your website. You can also create up to five individual mailboxes with your domain. Within each mailbox you will also be able to create as many unique aliases as you wish. Alternatively you can also forward your addresses to external email accounts like GoogleMail, Yahoo and Hotmail, which you already own or have access to.

For a quick introduction on how to set up your email just read the instructions below...

Creating your first email address

First things first!

You can either forward to an external email address eg, Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail, or you can set up your own mailboxes, but you cannot do both.

If you use forwarding you can set up aliases that will forward all mail to your chosen external account. However, if you set up mailboxes (maximum of five), then you can assign each mailbox its own password access plus give each one an unlimited number of aliases. Additionally, you can also choose how to access your mailboxes: through webmail online, or through an email client like Outlook, Thunderbird or Mac Mail etc.

To begin with:

Log in to the portal eg, moonfruit.com or log in to your site
Go to the ‘Domains’ section on either the portal toolbar or your website toolbar
Go to ’Manage’
Locate your domain - If you haven’t already you can assign your domain name to a website in your account
Click on the ‘Email & Settings’ link
Decide whether you wish to forward your emails to an external email address or you wish to create one or more mailboxes.

Forwarding your emails to another address

If you are going to forward your emails to an existing address you need to decide the aliases you want use and then enter the external email address you want all your mail to forward to. We provide a number of preset aliases ie, admin, support, info, but you can replace, remove or simply add to this list of addresses.

NB. If you set up your email to forward to an external account, you will not be able to set up access to that address through a client eg, Outlook or Mac Mail. You need a mailbox to do this, so when you forward your emails a mailbox just simply doesn't exist! Forwarding emails just passes the email onto another address.

Setting up a Mailbox

If on the other hand you want your address to be a mailbox where you can send and receive mail, then you can set up one to five mailboxes e.g admin@mysite.com, support@mysite.com, info@mysite.com.

The mailbox names should all be simple, understandable and as short as possible. You do not need mysite.com@mysite.com. You are better creating something that is easy for users to remember or type.

Each mailbox has its own password so that you can, if you wish set up each mailbox independently, to make it secure eg, one for the sales team, one for support, one for admin, one for management. Each mailbox password is separate from your website login, so please ensure you remember, store or save the details.

Once you set up a mailbox you can set up aliases eg, The sales@mysite.com mailbox could have john@mysite.com, suzi@mysite.com, imran@mysite.com – the Sales team - as aliases. Each team member could use the password to access the sales mailbox.

NB. A word of warning though. All aliases MUST be unique, that is they must not be duplicated under another mailbox or in fact match another mailbox. Any duplication will cause incoming mail to those addresses to fail as the system will not know which mailbox to deliver the mail to.

Each mailbox is pre-populated with four aliases which can be used or removed. These are: mail, info, support, admin.

Now What?

Use the ‘Open my webmail’ button to access your email account online. And make note of the URL in the browser address bar for direct access to your mail online. For more details on Webmail you can read an article we published on the Lounge.

If you prefer to use an email client then we have another article on how to set this up with the likes of Outlook, Mail etc.

Use the ‘Change my settings’ link to change your password.

And that, as they say, is that. Good luck and enjoy using your email.

Transferring your domain to SiteMaker - Lock, Tag and two smoking emails

Walt — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:38:00 +0000

Transferring your domain name from your current domain name provider to SiteMaker should be easy. But the process can be as complicated as an East End heist gone wrong in a Guy Ritchie film. And what makes matters worse is that it differs between registries, the organisations who have overall control of the specific TLDs (top level domains) e.g. .com, .uk, .eu, .name, .biz, .info. The registries are the domain wholesalers.

Then there are the registrars, who are the domain retailers, better known as domain name providers who have their own rules of engagement. And still the plot thickens. Add to this tags versus auth codes, automatic domain locking, a small matter of confirmation emails and you have the dark underworld of domain name transfer.

But there is a happy ending! Read on and hopefully we'll be able to straighten out the twists and turns of the transfer process...

The Main Issues

So what can delay a domain transfer from being processed? Frankly, lots!

Domain locking - Firstly you cannot transfer a domain if it is locked. Some providers do this automatically so they need to be asked to unlock the domain.
Sixty days - When a domain is first created all registrars block transfer out in the first sixty days. Some registrars also apply this restriction within sixty days of expiry. So you may wish to check 1. what rules your domain name provider (registrar) have around transfers out, and 2. creation and expiry dates.
Wrong Email Address - When you request a domain transfer a confirmation email is sent to the email address you originally registered against your domain name (unless you updated it). This ensures, for legal reasons, that the correct owner of the domain confirms that they have requested the transfer. The trouble is many people change email addresses and forget to update this very important contact point so they don't get the confirmation email. If the email isn't replied to or isn't done exactly as described in the email then the transfer will fail. In the case of our transfer confirmation email it must be replied to with only the transfer code left in the body - but full instructions are given in the email.
Supply the correct 'TAG' - A tag is created for each registrar by Nominet (the registry that controls .uk domains). Initiating a .uk transfer requires the domain owner to supply a 'tag' to their current domain name provider (registrar). This is what is known as a 'push' process so by supplying your current provider with the tag e.g. 'GANDI', your domain will be 'pushed' towards the new domain name provider, in this case us. If this tag is not supplied or it is incorrect then the 'push' will not be initiated and the transfer will fail, so just remember to supply your current provider with the tag 'GANDI'.
Getting an 'Auth' code - The bulk of the other domain transfers, e.g. .com, .net, .biz, .org, use what is known as a 'pull' process. Unlike .uk transfers, the owner of the domain must go to their current domain name provider and request an authorisation code or 'Auth' code. This is then provided to the receiving provider during the transfer process. Most donating providers put a time limit on the Auth code so if action isn't taken quickly then the Auth code can expire and the transfer fail. The other bigger trap is transcribing (reading and retyping) the Auth code. It is not uncommon for users to mistake l (L) and I (i) or 0 (zero) and O (letter o). So the surest way to not make a mistake is to copy and paste where possible.
Contact Details - When setting up the transfer any missing or incorrect address details will cause the transfer to stall. Check that full and accurate address and postcode details are provided and that the phone number format is correct. Also ensure you use exactly the same name you provided to your current provider as any minor difference will delay the process.
Country Restrictions - Finally, some registries (the guys that have overall control of the TLDs) set rules over domain ownership. For example if you wish to own a .eu domain, then you MUST provide an address with the EU. This is more noticeable when buying a domain but some domain owners move countries and this may cause a transfer to fail.

Transferring .uk Domains

Want to know how to make your .uk domain transfer flow smoothly? Just follow the steps below:

Unlock - check with your current provider that the domain is unlocked and available for transfer
Email access - also check with your current provider what email address is registered against your domain. If necessary, change it.
Tag - supply your current domain name provider with the new tag, 'GANDI'
Contact Details - ensure that the contact details you provide in our domains module match those held by your current provider
Email action - Once you receive the confirmation email from Gandi you must take action - reply to the email, in plain text, changing only the body of the email i.e. removing everything in the email body except the transfer code (code.../ACCEPT)
Have patience - Transfers can sometimes take days, sometimes weeks. This often depends on how quickly you respond, the accuracy of your tag or contact details and how quick your current provider take action to release your domain from their service. While this is the Internet, the process is not instant!

Transferring Other Domains e.g. .com, .net, .org

To ensure a pain free transfer of your .com (or .net, .org, .name, etc etc) please just follow the steps below:

Unlock - check with your current provider that the domain is unlocked and available for transfer
Email access - also check with your current provider what email address is registered against your domain. If necessary, change it.
Auth Code - request an Auth code (authorisation code) from your current domain name provider. You must get this before starting the process as you will be asked for this during the transfer process. And try to copy and paste it to ensure there are no 'typos'
Contact Details - ensure that the contact details you provide in our domains module match those held by your current provider
Email action - Once you receive the confirmation email from Gandi you must take action - reply to the email, in plain text, changing only the body of the email i.e. removing everything in the email body except the transfer code (code.../ACCEPT)
Have patience - Transfers can sometimes take days, sometimes weeks. This often depends on how quickly you respond, the accuracy of your Auth code and contact details and how quick your current provider takes action to release your domain from their service. While this is the Internet, this process is not instant!

What about my emails?

If you value your emails and wish to transfer your domain name into us you should be aware of a few things:

If you use webmail then your emails will be stored on your current domain name provider's mail servers. If you transfer your domain across to us then you will lose ALL your emails as they will remain, and no doubt be deleted from, the mail servers of your current provider. If this is important to you then please see the next point.
If you use an email client e.g. Outlook, (Mac) Mail, Thunderbird, then you will need to store copies of your emails locally (on your computer) to ensure you save copies. Most email clients will provide an option to do this. Make sure you save copies of your emails before you initiate the transfer to ensure you have full access to your mail while you still have access.
If you wish to set up a client so that you can save copies of your emails then please refer to our article on this subject: Getting Connected: Setting up your email client

Jargon Buster

Registries: The controlling organisations which include three of the main registries: Nominet, who control .uk domains; Verisign who control .com and .net; Public Interest Registry, who control .org.

Registrars: Your domain name provider.

Auth Code: Authorisation Code, supplied by your current domain name provider (registrar) to transfer your .com, .net, .org, .biz, .mobi etc. This must be supplied to your new domain name provider so that they can request or 'pull' the domain across. This is usually a string of letters, numbers of combination of both, and often in mixed upper lower case letters.

Tag: A "TAG" is a handle or label specific to each registrar. This is only important when you wish to transfer a .uk domain. It is usually obtained from your new or receiving domain name provider (registrar) . It must be supplied to your existing or donating provider so that they can release or 'push' your domain over to the new provider. It usually consists of your new provider's name, so when transferring a .uk domain to us you would use our domain partner's name: GANDI

Locking: A lock placed on your domain by your current provider to stop it being transferred. Some providers automatically lock it, so you must request it to be unlocked for the transfer to take place.

Confirmation email: You will be sent an email asking you to confirm that you requested the domain name transfer. Two key points: 1. It will be sent to the email address you currently have registered against that domain e.g. when you first set it up, and 2. you must follow the 'acceptance' instructions in the email exactly for your confirmation to be accepted. This email generally requires a response within 5 days.

60 day rule: This is the minimum period of time required between the original domain creation date and the time after which transfers are permitted. This delay does apply to all registrars.

Patience: A quality required in ample amounts when transferring. It usually takes between one and six weeks for a transfer to complete although it has been known to take as little as a few days. If domains are locked, auth codes are wrong (or tags not supplied), emails aren't answered then it could take six weeks (worst case).

HTML widget - what have you found?

Joe — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:40:00 +0000

So, it's been a month or so since we released the alpha (early testing) version of the HTML widget. We've had nearly 250 people download and try out the widget in our website builder from our site labs.moonfruit.com, so we know you've been using it. But the thing we want to know is what have you been using it for?

We're working away on getting the widget ready for a beta release (slightly more robust), which we will distribute more widely. And once we've done that we can start to produce specific versions for the things you want to use it for.

But firstly and update on the bugs. You might remember that currently the HTML widget only works correctly if you view the site using Internet Explorer 6 or above, with Flash Player 10. So for Firefox users, it displays the HTML content below the site so they can still see it, but its not ideal.

We've had some exciting news from Firefox that the bug that prevents the HTML widget correctly displaying in your site for Firefox users will be fixed in the 3.1 release of the browser, due sometime in the next couple of months (hopefully). This is great, as this bug was something we couldn't fix ourselves.

The main bug that we're looking at on our side is why some HTML snippets don't load correctly, which seems to be mainly those that use external JavaScript files in the HTML, e.g. Google AdSense or any Google Gadgets widget. Hopefully we'll be able to fix that too and open the net wider.

Once the HTML widget is fully robust we hope to be able to offer many different pre-configured flavours of it. There will always be the generic 'paste in any HTML' widget, but we'll also do some that are focused on particular services. For example a Youtube multi-video player (http://www.youtube.com/custom_player), or a twitter widget (http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/twidget). Both of these work with the current HTML alpha widget.

So which ones have you found that you like? Which HTML widgets do you think we should make available as pre-configured choices? Let us know and we'll add them to the list. Can you add a link to the widget you are using so we can see it?

As our customers you have the best idea about the things you really want to use yourselves, so if we can add them we will. Thanks for your help.

Getting Connected: Setting up your email client

Walt — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:05:00 +0000

So you've bought a domain name through Moonfruit, or maybe you've transferred your domain in to us. You want to know how to set it up with Outlook? Or perhaps Mac Mail or even Thunderbird. Any email client (application) that supports POP3 or IMAP (and SMTP) will permit you to set up an account to send and receive emails.

It's fairly straightforward (although using Webmail is even easier) but there are a couple of things you have to watch for. You may find you can't send emails (although receiving is OK) or you find you're sending emails OK but you just don't see them turning up in your Inbox. So, if you need some help, have a problem to solve or you're just curious please read on...

Email on your computer system

Email clients are applications or software that enable you to read, send and often save emails on your computer (as well as some mobile devices like iPhones and Blackberrys). The most commonly known and used clients are MS Outlook, Mac Mail, Eudora, Mozilla Thunderbird which all support POP and IMAP - essential protocols for setting up your email accounts.

Generally, setting up your email is quite a similar process for all clients. So where to start?

Once you have your domain set up, for example, sitemaker.com, you need to create your mailbox through the Moonfruit portal i.e. www.moonfruit.com which you can access through your website. The Domains module is where you can manage your domains, renewals, hide your Whois contact details, check your billing and manage your mailboxes.

We'll use Outlook as the example for setting up your email client due to it currently being the most popular client available. Just remember that Mac Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird etc will vary only a little with settings. So...

Setting Up - E-mail Accounts

The easiest way to set up your account is using POP3 or simply POP (IMAP works just as well and will be similar to set up)
Your name could be anything from Admin, John Smith, Johno987 - this is what your recipients will see in the 'From' section of your email
Email address is the full email (mailbox) address you set up with your domain name - the Mailbox name not any aliases
Your username will be your FULL mailbox address e.g. admin@sitemaker.com (not just "admin")
The password will be your mailbox password, NOT your SiteMaker (website) login
The format you use for your incoming (to receive mail) server will be, for example: pop.sitemaker.com
The format for your outgoing (to send mail) server will be, for example: smtp.sitemaker.com

NB. Click on the images to see a larger version with more detail.

So, is that it then?

Well, not quite. The final steps you need to complete setting up email are to be found in 'More Settings' on the main panel. Click this and a new panel will appear containing four tabs.

More Settings (the forgotten step)

The first tab in 'More Settings' is the 'General' tab. You only need confirm that the 'Email Account' matches your POP or incoming server address e.g. pop.sitemaker.com

The next tab is the 'Outgoing' tab. You need to check or select the 'My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication' option.

Please note that the most important step is to ensure that you select 'Use same settings as my incoming mail server'. This will match the username and password between incoming and outgoing servers and ensure you can easily send and receive mail.

The 'Connection' tab settings are down to you and how you connect to the Internet but should normally be left alone using the defaults provided.

The same can be said of the 'Advanced' tab which controls the ports used. The defaults for the ports should normally be left alone also.

Once you have saved your settings, your email should now be ready to test and use.

NB. If you get an incoming/receiving error please double check your username matches your email address (mailbox name) and that the password is correct for your email account. If you get an outgoing/sending error please do check the 'Outgoing' tab and the same settings are used as your incoming mail server.

Additional Settings (should they be required)

The following 'Settings' are given using 'sitemaker.com' as an example should they be required beyond the default values:

User Name: your full email address i.e. support@sitemaker.com
Email type: POP3
Incoming mail server: pop.sitemaker.com
Incoming mail server port: leave as default - normally 110 (143 for POP SSL)
Outgoing mail server: smtp.sitemaker.com
Outgoing mail server port: 25 (465 or 587 for SMTP SSL)
Password: What was created when mail box created
Access Point: Choose own setting e.g. WIFI, 3G (whatever you use to access the web)

FAQ

Q. Why am I getting an error when I try to log in?

A. The usual causes are incorrect password or using the wrong mailbox name. If you use an alias rather than the mailbox name the login will fail. To check this, just login to moonfruit.com, go to the Manage Domains section and click the 'Email & Settings' link beside your domain. The name of your mailbox or mailboxes will be listed. These are the ones you must use to login.

Q. Why am I not receiving my emails?

A1. The most common problem is creating an alias that conflicts with one of your mailboxes. For example if you have mailboxes named Admin, Support and Sales and the Sales mail box also has an alias called Admin then an email sent to admin@mydomain.com may fail. The system won't know which mailbox to deliver it to, Admin or Sales (which has the alias Admin) so it is likely to fail. Please just check the aliases in all your mailboxes and remove all that conflict.

A2. Sometimes when testing emails you may try sending an email to yourself i.e. the from and to addresses are the same. This is never guaranteed to work as some email systems view emails being sent back to themselves as redundant and delete or block their return. If you wish to test your email address use another external account to test with e.g. Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo.

Q. Why can't I send any emails?

A. The most common problem is not setting up the SMTP server correctly. Normally the main settings will be set up with correct username, password and server but the user forgets to set them up correctly on the Outgoing element of the account. The simplest way to correct this is to enable SMTP authentication, if provided, by selecting the "Use the same settings as my incoming mail server" option.

Q. How much space do I get to store my emails?

A. With our webmail you get 1GB

Q. If I transfer my domain name to you, will my email be transferred as well?

A. If you are transferring your domain name to us, all your mail will be stored on your current provider's servers, so once the transfer completes your mail will be lost. We suggest using an email client (like Outlook, Mail, Thunderbird) to back up your mailbox locally onto your computer before you begin transferring your domain name.

Q. How do I set up IMAP?

A. Set up IMAP the same as you would set up POP. The only difference will be that the incoming mail servers will use IMAP instead of POP. So on the Main panel the incoming server would be for example: imap.sitemaker.com. You would also need to ensure this is configured on the General tab through More Settings.

Q. Can I view my emails on my mobile phone?

A. If your mobile phone supports POP3 or IMAP then you should be able to set up your email just as simply as we have explained above. Please read your mobile phone User Guide for more detail should you need help settings up your mobile device.

Q. So how do I actually set up my email now that I have a domain?

A. This can be done quite simple through the Domains module. Locate your domain and click on the Email & Settings link. You can then either forward your email address to an external account or you can create up to five mailboxes. More details on creating your email addresses is available in another article: "From domain to email in just a few simple steps."

Q. I need to access my mail remotely while I'm travelling. Can I do this online?

A. Yes you can. You only need the webmail URL for your email account, the username (the full mailbox address) and the password for that mailbox. More details on how to access your webmail can be found in another article: " Getting Connected: Setting up your webmail "

Jargon Buster

POP Or POP3 is the most common way to receive mail. Will be used with SMTP to send mail.

IMAP An suitable alternate to POP for receiving mail. Still uses SMTP for outgoing.

SMTP This is the outgoing server responsible for sending mail. SMTP will be used regardless of incoming choice (POP or IMAP). The simplest process is to use the same settings as the Incoming server by using the 'Requires Authentication' option.

Username This is the full mailbox address e.g. john987@mysite.com (not just 'john987').

.tld This is short for top level domain and simply refers to the extension after your actual domain e.g. .com, .net, .uk, .eu, .us

Mailbox: This is an account you create using your domain name and has a prefix like admin or sales or mail e.g admin@mydomain.com. The mailbox name (the full address) must be used as the username to login to it.

Alias: Alternative names you can give to a specific mailbox to provide more flexibility with your service. For example under the sales@mydomain.com mailbox you could have the names of your sales team e.g. john@, susi@, josh@ all of which would redirect to Sales. Be warned though that 'all' addresses must be unique and aliases cannot be used to access your mail only the mailbox name can.

What a nice thing to say

Joe — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:04:00 +0000

This one made me laugh, so I thought I'd publish it here too. I especially like the point about Jelly Tots, a much underrated confectionary if you ask me!

"what can you get for under £50 these days ?mmmmm..." other than the Moonfruit website builder of course!

hire out a washing machine man for one hour
24 decent curries from waitrose (that's without pilau rice)
2 drum lessons
a train ticket from bristol to chelthnam (that's not far)
2000 jelly tots (without the packaging)
2 days worth of petrol (that's if you drive like Michael Schumacher - I try)
2 pots of Clinique moisturising cream
a night out on the town with the chicks (this is a tame night by the way)
18 cups of grande lattes from starbucks
A YEARS WORTH OF THE BEST SITE BUILDING PACKAGE THIS SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE FOR UNDER £50 FROM MOONFRUIT! Which includes, emails, storage space, 247 support, advert free, ecommerce tools, membership tools, hosting, video players, picture galleries, mp3 jukebox, widget library, forums, the ability to move everything about in a moment, (wow) all this and more along with the ability to BUILD A PROFESSIONAL GROOVY SITE THAT CAN HELP GENERATE YOU AN INCOME! Of course everything has hiccups, but concentrating on the rightness in people will generate more rightness , these guys and gals from moonfruit have put together an amazing package, it is cost efficient ,and makes it easy for everyone to get creative, with the potential of earning a living from it. Moonfruit has been my best investment to date. Thanks!"

- Alison

A good point, well made ;-). Any ideas for other good things for £50?

Joe

Remember we said HTML was impossible - well maybe not completely impossible...

Joe — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:09:00 +0000

Joe: Here is a true account from the development team of what happens when you leave them by themselves for a week, as told by Adam (one of our dev guys). Perhaps we should leave them alone more often...

Adam: So there we were, back from our Christmas holidays and nary a manager in sight. 'Organise yourselves this week' they said, giving the tech team free reign to work together and see what we could come up with. And what a week it turned out to be.

As some of you may know, we've been using scrum to manage SiteMaker development for some time now, so we're used to splitting projects down into week-long chunks of work. But what should we work on for a week? Better back-end services? Finish off the internal media manager?

Being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after our break, one suggestion shone out like a beacon above all the others:

"Why don't we do the HTML widget when no-one's looking?"

The fact was that over the months and years while we've been repeatedly fending off requests with the simple response "sorry, it's not possible!", the browser landscape had been changing. CSS, IFrames, DOM manipulation had all made their way into the mainstream, so it looked like the scene was set. Deliver something that you lot had been asking for for years, work as a tight-knit team on something cool and give management a huge surprise all in one!

Not so fast

OK, so we hit a (pretty big) wall - there are still unresolved browser issues which mean that it isn't ready for general release.

The problem is that in order to float HTML content over a SiteMaker site, we need to enable a special Flash rendering mode (wmode opaque, for those really interested) if the HTML were to display properly on all our supported browsers. Initially we thought that there would be a huge performance hit associated with this mode, so there was some resistance to the idea, but testing soon showed that our fears were unfounded. We worked on the editing interface, the JavaScript code, the back-end support and the non-Flash accessible version as a team, aiming at a commonly agreed goal for the end of the week. We were on course to get the whole thing done and dusted and released on the unsuspecting world, on spec and on time...

However, there was a more sinister bug hiding in the wings that only reared its head in the wee hours of Friday morning. Bizarrely, if we use the special rendering mode, Flash sees your keyboard as a US keyboard. So for us Brits, " (shift-2) and @ (shift-') are swapped. But there's a whole world out there using SiteMaker and unfortunately breaking it for everyone outside of the USA is not really an option. We can't really tell everyone in France to stop using accented characters, or everyone in Greece or Russia to start using the Latin alphabet.

The future looks brighter

More encouragingly, we found that recent versions of the Flash Player work properly in IE, and that it looks like Firefox should have it fixed 'soon' (the bug was reported in December 2004(!) and appears to have been fixed in December 2008).

So, while we wait for the world to catch up and get this bugfix released and deployed to everyone's computers, we thought that we'd at least let you see our new widget in action, and then see what you think. You can now try out the effect that the wmode setting has on your own computer and see for yourself that, while we're *nearly* there, we have to wait for everyone to upgrade to flash player 10 and for Firefox 3.2 to be released.

The Moonfruit lab

So, while this week has been one of elation tinged with sadness, it did give us the opportunity to start on labs.moonfruit.com - where we hope to share more in-development work with you and hopefully get some feedback.

Please pay us a visit - and see the mythical HTML Snippet widget in action :-)

We will offer some of you the chance to download and use the widget for yourselves, though you have to bear in mind that it doesn't work in all cases yet (only IE 6 or above with Flash player 10). You can apply to join the alpha test on the Moonfruit labs site. See you there."

Joe: So there you have it. Perhaps next time we leave them alone they'll create a perpetual motion machine!

2,000,000th website competition winner!

Joe — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:10:00 +0000

Well, the results are in! We passed the 2,000,000 site mark on Jan 12th 2009, so it was a great start to the year. We then froze the competition at that point and looked back at all the sites that were created from the day the competition started (28 Nov 2008) to create our lucky list. And the winner is....

...wait for it...

....http://papercocktail.moonfruit.com/ !!!

Once we had our list of about 35,000 sites that qualified for entry we picked a random number and Paper Cocktail turned up. And what a great site it is. It's a new business starting out in the world of wedding stationery and we're very happy to be able to support new businesses especially in the current climate.

Paper Cocktail describes themselves as "a stationery specialist with a stunning collection of wedding stationery, that blends beautiful handmade papers with our contemporary design philosophy. We recognise the importance of the wedding invitation in terms of introducing the style of our clients wedding to their family and friends and we believe in creating a first impression that will last forever!". So you can see that this kind of designer eye lends itself well to Moonfruit's visual design tools.

When I wrote a note to Mary, the owner of the site, to tell her that she had won, it proved more difficult than I thought. If you've ever tried writing an email with "You've won £1000", you'll suddenly notice that it sounds a bit spammy (or is that scammy?) and a little suspect. So I had to fill it with "this is genuine", "I really am the MD of Moonfruit", "please give me a call if you want to", etc. Gratefully, Mary did believe me and was kind enough to tell us what she thought about Moonfruit.

"As a company Paper Cocktail has a strong design ethic and it was very important to us that our website mirrored our contemporary design philosophy while showcasing our collection in a user friendly manner. Having tried (and failed!) to build a website with a number of the other website builders and tools available online, we were delighted to discover SiteMaker. As we have no web publishing experience, we were pleasantly surprised at Site Maker’s ease of use, flexibility in terms of design options and the number of tools and widgets available. We believe that SiteMaker will allow us to develop an effective web presence at an exceptionally low cost, which again is advantageous to our growing organisation. We are still developing our website and we are looking forward to including a few more items from SiteMaker's “box of tricks” to further enhance our visitors web experience!"

Gosh, it made me blush.

So there you have it, www.papercocktail.moonfruit.com is the winner and we wish them every success in their new business venture!

And thanks to all of you who entered and helped us reach our 2m site goal. Onwards to 3,000,000!

Moonfruit SME SEO article

Joe — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:52:00 +0000

Yes I know that's too many acronyms, but hey, sometimes it happens. Being regular moonfruitlougers, it's probably nothing you don't know, but thought it might still be worth a read. Here you go;

http://www.smallbizpod.co.uk/sevens/2009/01/7-practical-tips-on-marketing-your-small-business-website/

We were also selected as website of the day by these guys!

http://m.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/20671/21695/design-build-host-great-websites.phtml

SiteMaker and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - Part VII - Taxi Royal

Walt — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:21:00 +0000

Another year, another Rambo movie (yawn), another Pixar movie - Wall-E (nice), and another Batman movie (yeah!!!). So what else is 'same, same but different', as they say in Thailand, this year? A year on and it was time to revisit our favourite taxi company - Joe's West London Taxis - and see how it was doing in the Search Engine rankings.

December 12

"West London Taxi" - number 1, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (Google.com)
"West London Taxi" - number 1, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (Yahoo.com)
"West London Taxi" - number 6, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (msn.com)

So, what have we done? Well, to be honest, nothing. But this does go to show you that with some solid groundwork in the early stages of your journey to the dark side of SEO you can actually get your site or sites into a very good position on the page rankings of the major search engines. However, if you resubmit your domain name (URL), keep your content fresh and get some incoming links from popular sites then you can ensure your site has a much better chance of achieving and maintaining a top ranking.

A reminder

Just to highlight the steps Joe took all those months ago, remember that search engines do look for consistency and relevancy in a number of different areas of your in-page content and referral links. These include:

The URL (or address) of your site (or specific pages on your site), e.g. www.joeslondontaxis.com, or www.joeslondontaxis.com/taxibooking, etc.
Your site name or title (and page titles) being published in the HTML, e.g. "London taxi company", or "London taxi bookings page"
Your site and page keywords meta data published in the HTML, e.g. "London taxis, London taxi, Joes taxis, West London taxi, etc."
Your site and page description meta data published in the HTML, e.g. "London taxi company provides taxi services..."
Your page content, e.g. the text that is on your page and relevant to your site name, keywords and description
Links on your page, including the anchor text, e.g. the text on which the link is set, e.g. "Book a west London taxi" links to http://www.joeslondontaxis.com/taxibooking
Images on your page, including the name of the image file (or Alt text)
Referral links to your site or specific pages on your site, e.g. a link on another site (incoming links) referring to your site

Points 1-7 are easily within your control as they all relate to the contents of your site and all can be easily managed through your SiteMaker site. Point 8 requires linking to your site from other external sites, which is less easy to achieve, though there are a number of ways in which you can go about doing this.

If you haven't yet had a read of Joe's articles and you are interested in getting your site listed or improving the rankings of your site, then the easiest way to find the articles is just enter "SEO" in the Moonfruit Lounge search.

Finally

Just remember, as Joe has already mentioned, SEO isn't everything. It certainly plays a big part in marketing your website but traditional off-line publishing methods still play a crucial part in the overall marketing strategy of any site. Good luck, persist with your search engine optimisation, and be patient. It doesn't happen overnight but if you follow our guidelines it will happen.

Did We Really Do All That? 2008 - Not a Bad Vintage

Walt — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:15:00 +0000

Wow, what a year it's been. When we sat down and looked back at what he had done this year we were quite surprised. So we thought we'd give you a summary of all the changes and improvements we made to SiteMaker during 2008, as we'd even forgotten about a few of them ourselves!

Here they are in the order they arrived. My haven't we been busy...

8 Feb 2008 - First Release of the Year!

Updating page URLs and bookmarking
Undo/redo (for moves and scales)
SEO improvements (page title changes)
Forum improvements

March 19 - New Showhome Sites

25 March - The One with the SEO Guide

New SEO guide added to the moonfruit.com portal
'Viewport' added to make sure the Editor is always available onscreen
Improvements to W3C compliance and some tidy up
Making Title tags more prominent in the HTML
'Show Homes' page and links added to moonfruit.com
Addition of 10 new templates
Improvements to multiple selection with changes to using the Control or Shift keys

28th March - Changes to the Way HTML is Generated

H1 tag - The first Title text box on a page is now rendered as an H1 tag
H3 tags - Text boxes with only bold text and less than 120 characters will be converted to an H3 tag
No more boxes around text - The HTML now ignores text box dimensions
New "View HTML Version" on the Page Settings panel

2 April 2008 - Bug Fixes and Site Updates

Blurry thumbnails for the pop-up gallery, slide show and image effects fixed
Editor (File Manager and other panels) no longer hides in the top-left corner
Users can now set up Google Analytics with the new tracking code - the 'ga.js' tracking code
New SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) guide added to the moonfruit.com site

1st May - The Big One

Domain name module

Register and manage domain names through Moonfruit.com (good prices!)
Free domain name vouchers bundled with SiteMaker Standard, Plus and Max accounts

New File manager!

Larger, clearer and easier to use interface
User folders - create folders and organise your files
Integrated multiple file uploader (no more Javascript popup window or Java applet)
Native support for PNGs & GIFs (including preserving transparency)
Rename files and folders
Multiple select, delete and move
Improvements to SEO (HTML) version of sites (viewable from Edit->Page Settings->View HTML version)
Nested navigation list now mimics the Flash Version
Better grouping of elements, preserving things like tabular layout and sidebars

AdSense revenue share for SiteMaker Free users

Users of SiteMakerFree can sign up with Google to share ad revenue generated by their site
For each click on a ad on your Free site, you get 50% of the money
So now you get a free site AND free money!

Other stuff:

New design templates
New backgrounds
We've added new PayPal currencies: CZK, DKK, HUF, NZD, NOK, PLN, SGD, SEK, CHF

08 July - Our Summer Release

Free email accounts on Moonfruit domain names

Up to 5 mailboxes can be set up on each domain name you order with Moonfruit (purchases & vouchers)
Mailboxes can be accessed via webmail or using POP3 or IMAP
Each mailbox can have an unlimited number of aliases, e.g. names that go to the same mailbox
Or you can set up email forwarding to another email address you already have e.g. gmail, hotmail etc
Free Google AdWords vouchers for every subscriber
Get up to £50 pounds worth of Google AdWords vouchers with your subscription
Use the AdWords voucher to pay for ads on Google to direct traffic to your site
See www.moonfruit.com/adwords.html for details

Improved alternative HTML version (how the search engines see your site)

The HTML alternative for your site is now much prettier and better organised
Go to ('Edit' ->) 'View' -> 'HTML version' in the SiteMaker toolbar to see your HTML pages and navigate through them
You can then 'View source' on each of these pages to see your keywords and other meta data in the HTML

Advanced form improvements

You can now add a file upload field to your form so users can submit files
Files are uploaded to a specific folder of your choice in the file manager

15 September - The One with Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking widgets allow visitors to quickly bookmark the site to services like Digg, De.licio.us, and facebook - see the 'social bookmarking' folder in the File Manger to add one
Domain transfers - customers can now transfer domain names to moonfruit.com for use with their SiteMaker site and to benefit from the free webmail
New fonts - 20 new fonts added to the graphic fonts selection to enable further customisation of your site
The Comments widget now provides 'pages' so that the widget is more responsive when it contains lots of comments
Thumbnail images are now larger (144 x144px, up from 100 x100px) - which should improve quality on screen

13 October - Preferred Site Address

Addition of the preferred site address allowing choice of one domain name to take priority

20 October - The Small One

.co.uk transfers available

11 November - Moonfruit Resellers - a case study

Improvements to the reseller products
Now even easier to become a Moonfruit/SiteMaker reseller

18 December - Christmas present

Google maps integration
Add a Google map interface to your site so customers can find you!

So the eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that despite releasing a lot of stuff this year, we released more in the first 9 months than we did in the last 3. Never fear, this is not a sign of things to come, nor related to the credit crunch (feature crunch?) , but simply a result of the things we've been working on.

As you will remember we've been promising improvements to the membership and e-Commerce features for some time. Work on both these areas has started and been ongoing for a number of months, but due to the size and complexity of these projects it has and is taking us quite some time to get them ready for you. Like everything in SiteMaker we want to make them powerful and easy, which are usually in opposition to each other as objective!

But bear with us, membership improvements will come in early 2009 as a platform for e-Commerce changes due early Q2.

The SiteMaker Team would like to take the opportunity to thank all our customers for their continued support and wish you a fantastic 2009!