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Adding free, interactive features to your site
Many services offer free features that you can add to your site.
Some of these features include:
- Live newsfeeds:
- Moreover.
Update: Moreover has switched to a pay service.
- Headliner used to be good but seems to be
either being rebuilt or shut down.
- Messageboards and chat:
- Site search tools at Atomz
and Google's free search tool.
- Visitor polls at Alx Free Web Polls (no advertising
with this service) and Bravenet.
- Changedetection:
Allows you to monitor a webpage for changes. This is a very powerful
service that you can use to get an email whenever any website
changes.
- Translate your site:
- Guestmap:
interesting map where guests to your site can show where they
are from, and also make comments. Students Eri
and Kanami
have both used it on their websites.
- Response-o-matic:
free CGI service that delivers responses to your forms right to
your e-mail box.
- Paypal:
great solution for creating a secure online sales site.
Advantages of using these features on your site include:
- Many are free.
- They add interactivity.
- They don’t have to be maintained.
Disadvantages include:
- Takes time to find a service that you like.
- Takes time to customize.
- You might get junk mail from some that you
sign up with. Use a fake email address or one you have created
just to sign up to these services.
- Advertising may be included.
- Services may stop at any time.
How to use these services
All of these services work basically the same way: you sign up
for them, choose the features you want, and then copy and paste
the code they give you into your webpage. You will find it easier
to paste their code into an empty table so you can control the position
of the code more easily. It’s also a good idea to paste a
backup copy into a your practice page and save it. (I make a separate
folder that I call "Pages Working On" for this.)
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