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Question

Is paid web design a fraud, or not?

by Jul 31, 2014 1:16AM PDT

It is, widely, known that there area a great many web-sites, which take peoples money, while promising goods, or services, which are never delivered.

As a result of my personal, and complete, failure, to understand the bizarre "language", of computer programmers, including those who offer free set up, and design, of web-sites, and paid blogs, my question comes down to this:

How likely would I be, to be defrauded, of my money, IF I were to offer to pay a "Professional Design Team", such as "Web Pro", to create my web-site, for me?

I can provide the creators, of my web-site, with basic information, such as my photo, proposed site name, authors information, and site content. None of this is the issue.

What prevents me from setting up my own web-site, myself, is such "alien" terms as "platform", "url", "network connections", etc.

IF I were to use such a web-design service, to set up my web-site, would Web Pro be the best choice, or are there better, more economical, wen-design, sites.

How can a NON-computer programmer know the difference between a good company, and a fraud?

What is the best way to pay for, and RECEIVE, the product that I am looking to create?

Suggestions?

Discussion is locked

9 Posts
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Answer
You might consider a change in wording
by Jul 31, 2014 9:29PM PDT

Your premise has some issues here;

"...the difference between a good company, and a fraud?"

I'd think the range should be either good to bad or honest to dishonest.

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Answer
Everyday folk create web sites all the time.
by Forum moderator Aug 1, 2014 1:21AM PDT

There are numerous examples where people do this with WordPress for example. However you didn't reveal enough detail for me to see if it's just a web site or something more like a retail site where you are selling your book.
Bob

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this person never comes back to a thread
by James Denison Aug 1, 2014 3:25AM PDT

I'm permanently taking this user off my reply to list. I just did a search on comments and forum posts and almost all of them are computer basing, program bashing, and when advice is given, the person is never heard from again in that thread. Just take a look for yourself.

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Answer
Did you get lost from this earlier thread?
by Aug 1, 2014 1:37AM PDT
http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6121_102-624079/very-disappointed-with-internet/?messageId=5600142#message5600142

Earlier Thread by Novelist

You have any children in jr or sr high school? If so, almost any of them would know some other kid at their school who can do simple web page design and happily for a little spending money. Do you use email and "insert" images and use backgrounds for it? If so, then you already have done some web design and don't even realize it. See the short video I made for you on the previous thread. There are also other ways to make your own webpage in software like Office or Word, where you design the page as you want it and then save for use on the web instead of as a doc file. For instance since I use Linux operating system which comes with Libre Office software (all free) I can create document pages with images, backgrounds, text, just the way I want it. I can clk on the images and move exactly where I want and have the text wrap around automatically. I then save as an html file instead of some doc or docx file and it's ready to upload to a server somewhere as a webpage, usually the html file and all the images in a subfolder which are linked into the html page.

A little practice using Word in windows computers in creating such and then saving as an html page and you will see how easy it can be. Surely you can do that fairly easily and quickly.

Your learning curve would be in placing that onto a server and publishing it for display, but that's not a really deep subject either. Learn about FTP (file transport protocol) and use something that has that ability (in linux I use my file manager program, in windows IE used to do that) to place it on a server.

I rent server "hosting" space for $5-6 a month, I have a domain name I paid $10 for (actually I have several), so having your own domain and having it hosted so you can upload pages to it isn't that difficult, not even for a beginner after about a week of study.
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you might consider
by Aug 1, 2014 2:05AM PDT

Getting a domain, a hosted account and then uploading wordpress or some other web authoring software provided by the server.

Here's an example, but other providers are available too.

"
Free domain with annual plan"

Basically your year's cost pays for the domain and hosting and gives you access to the wordpress online software for webpage creation.

Or use Wordpress directly "for free". At least you can see if it's for you. I ran part way through to see what the catch is and it's $18 per year for the website address and you use their software for free. Look around the site, see if it's what you might be interested in. I can tell you a huge number of blogs and webpages out there are done in wordpress.

https://wordpress.com/


Here's another major provider you could start with too.

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why?
by Aug 1, 2014 3:26AM PDT

why do you start thread and never come back to them, wasting people's time helping you when they could have spent it better elsewhere helping someone who actually needed and would use it?

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There is nothing different from a business that creates
by Aug 6, 2014 3:49AM PDT

websites or any other business. How do you know the air conditioning company will fix your air conditioner and make ir last for years. The difference between a good company and a fraud is the good company will show you lots of examples of their work. Just like any business if they can show you the work they've done is a good indicator of how they will do for you.

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Well first of all hopefully the
by Aug 10, 2014 10:42PM PDT

company has examples of web site to show you. How do you know if a auto repair place is honest? Well mostly by getting multiple quotes. There are people out there trying to take advantage of you in every kind of business in the world.

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Good vs Bad
by Oct 27, 2014 1:30AM PDT

I think that there is validity in paying someone to host and/or design a web site for you. Web sight designers have insights on how a web page should be laid out to make it user friendly and also know the ins and outs of e-commerce, if that is something of interest to you. A good reputatble company will direct you to customers web sites that they have designed, which on the bottom of the web-site, they should have endorsed the making of it/ maintenance of it. If a company is unable to provide you with any prior experience, I would go elsewhere.

There is a lot of "do-it-yourself" software out there for designing web-sites, but to get the most out of your site, a web-designer would be the way to go.

If you look through previously created sites, you can get a feel for how you want your site to look and a good web-site designer will be more than willing to incorporate your suggestions to give it a unique feel and not a generic one.

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