Blog

Search Engines - The Frequently Asked Questions

Sunday, 09 May 2010 17:14

Every so often we get asked complicated questions about search engine submission conditions and how search engines decide what to index, and what to not. We decided to compile a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) article on some of the most common questions and practical answers. Here are the answers you may have been looking for:

Read more: Search Engines - The Frequently Asked Questions

Fighting Fit With New Client

Monday, 03 May 2010 20:59

We are very proud to promote our recent work with Ben Dunne Health and Fitness / Ben Dunne Gyms:

Ben Dunne Gyms - http://bendunnegyms.com/

It is a work in progress but certainly it is an excellent website for anyone looking for the latest information on Ben Dunne Gyms.

For More information of how to get your business online, contact us:

086 1780 743 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Google Adwords Scam Threatens All Google Users

Monday, 12 April 2010 16:44

Have you received this email?, check the URL of the links contained within, if they do not point exactly to http://www.google.com/ (and then followed by the relative link after the google.com) delete the email immediately or report it to Google if possible.

Do not visit the site, and do NOT login to your account at this or similar non http://www.google.com/ sites.

Read below to find out more about the risks.

 

Read more: Google Adwords Scam Threatens All Google Users

Smith and Wise SEO Results

Thursday, 25 March 2010 10:19

A few things have been happening recently from an SEO point of view for Smith and Wise.

NPPR.ie
Perhaps the most interesting is our recent blog article, on the NPPR website (http://www.smithandwise.com/website-design-and-development/npprie-a-roadmap-for-future-government-sites). We just noticed that our website review has outranked several government websites as well as consumer forums and financial advice sites. On 25th March 2010, our article ranked eight in Google.

Other Notable Results
Other search terms which are going quite well for us at the moment include:

• internet register ireland scam
• business start up package
• website design

How We Monitor Our Results
As we have always recommended to all of our clients, using Google Analytics is an easy way to monitor your websites traffic. It allows you to track how your website is doing, what browsers people are using or if certain search terms are popular.

You can talk to us by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call us on the go on 0861780743 to find out more about installing Google Analytics for your website.

Seven New Clients

Friday, 19 March 2010 00:14

Smith  and Wise are proud to announce that we are in the final stages of drafting online marketing and website development plans with seven new clients. We look forward to working with them. Although we do not disclose client details until services are fully delivered, we can provide the following information, our these new clients are in the following sectors.

• Tourism  (Partial Share Owned By Smith and Wise)
• Digital Media Advertising (Digital Partnership)
• Soft Drinks Manufacturer
• An Irish public persona
  
• An Irish news website
  
• Clothing retailer
  
• Aviation services firm
  

We look forward to reporting back with results over the coming months!

Currently Seeking Partners

Tuesday, 16 March 2010 00:22

Smith and Wise is proud to announce that we are currently seeking partnering suppliers throughout Ireland and UK to help us better manage our client base outside of Leinster. Below are details of suppliers and partners we are looking for. We guarantee high referral fees on all work, and a centralised credit control management system as well as expert support.

Website Design Partners

We are currently seeking localised website design partners for the following regions. Our set referral fee is 30% reciprocal for all contracts worth over €1,270. Supplying partners are required in the following areas:

• Belfast
• Cork
• Derry
• Galway
• Kerry
• Limerick
• Sligo/Donegal
• Waterford/Wexford
• * Midland – Several suppliers required.

Online Marketing / SEO

We are currently seeking localised website design partners for the following regions. Our set referral fee is 15% reciprocal for all contracts worth over €5,000. Supplying partners are required in the following areas:

• Belfast
• Cork
• Derry
• Galway
• Sligo

 

Legal and PR Professionals

We are currently seeking localised website design partners for the following regions. Our set referral fee is 15% reciprocal for all contracts worth over €5,000. Supplying partners are required in the following areas:

• Belfast
• Cork
• Derry
• Galway
• Sligo
• Waterford/Wexford
• * Midland – Several suppliers required.

 

Contact Smith and Wise

If you are interested in partnering with Smith and Wise please contact us:

Email:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

Phone: 086 1780 743 (Byron Smith, MD)

Smith and Wise Monitored Hosting

Smith and Wise announces monitored hosting packages with our preferred suppliers starting from as little as €225 all in.

Over the last few months we have noticed a worrying trend developing as far as website hosting and hosting billing services go. Many clients are allowing their hosting packages to expire or are unaware of what exactly is happening when something small and simple happens. What usually happens is that we will process an emergency support issue with our technicians who in turn talk to our hosting partners directly. This can be a timely, and ultimately a costly way of solving basic issues. Therefore we are offering a new service to all our clients on their next renewal. Our clients, current and future, are in no way obliged to take up on this offer, but we are sure it will save you money. See below for more information.

Standard Unmonitored Hosting

24 hour support by email direct from hosting supplier. You will need specific knowledge of hosting and website issues to self monitor issues which may occur, all additional time taken by Smith and Wise engineers to prepare reports for your hosting supplier cost €45 per hour, emergency work (carried out at weekends and weekdays between 6pm-9am) is billed at double time (€90) per hour.

Cost of hosting:
€80 approx.

Cost of issues:*
€420 approx.

Total Yearly Cost If Warnings / Bills Are Ignored:

€500 upwards.

*Based on careless, self caused issues, such as failing to pay bills on time, failure to remove illegal content in compliance with hosting company requests, and reactivation charges, etc. Your staff time wasted, calculated at €30 an hour, by five hours a year, our staff time, calculated at €45 an hour, by five hours a year.

Smith and Wise monitored Hosting

• Preferred supplier hosting for one year.
• 24 hour support by email, telephone support when available.
• If you notice any issues with your website, you can email Smith and Wise directly.
• Our engineers will then assess the incident or issue and will report directly to the hosting company to have the problem sorted.
• We will liaise with you over any immediate issues which need attention.
• In the case of billings, we will notify you of amount due as soon as we hear from your hosting supplier.
• In the case of late payments, Smith and Wise will allow you to pay within ten days, at no extra cost.

Cost of Yearly Package*:

• €250 first time clients
• €350 clients with more than five issues in previous year *
  
  
• €225 for clients with less than five issues in previous year

* Subject to terms and conditions, additional levies may be applied for websites or packages which are outdated or for systems which are regularly compromised due to client negligence. All overdue bills from invoices are paid by Smith and Wise, with client requesting to do so on their behalf by email, on the condition that the client agrees to a rate of 20% compound interest each five days after date of payment. Invoice will be generated immediately on payment to hosting supplier by Smith and Wise and payment must be made within five days to avoid compound interest being applied. Failure to pay overdue payment debts within a period of 30 days will result in further action. In extreme cases, Smith and Wise reserved the right to limit yearly engineer time spent on client project under this service agreement at 15 hours. * Clients with over 15 issues in the previous year will require an tailored monitored hosting package, please contact Smith and Wise directly. Quotation based on hosting packages valued between €40-85 a year including VAT only - all other packages, VPS, servers or any other solutions will require an individual quote. We reserve the right to withdraw this offer at any time, doing so will not remove your hosting provisions, just support by Smith and Wise. We reserve the right to withdraw this service for no greater than 21 days each year, you will be notified of such periods in advance. This is not legally, but is similar in purpose to an insurance offer, if a premium is not paid on time, cover will be withdrawn.

 

Signup For Monitored Hosting

To find out more, or to sign up to Smith and Wise Monitored Hosting, please contact us here:

T: 086 1780 743

E: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Revenue Ireland Email Scams

Friday, 12 March 2010 15:23

Reposted from: http://www.revenue.ie/en/spotlights/email-scam-warning.html

Warning: Further Email Scam

The Revenue Commissioners have today (10/03/10) warned of another fraudulent email purporting to come from Revenue seeking personal information from taxpayers in connection with a tax refund. This phishing email is headed "Revenue Irish Tax & Customs" advising recipients that "you are eligible to receive a tax refund of 734.21 euro" and links to a convincing reproduction of the www.revenue.ie website. This is a repeat of the phishing scam of 24/02/2010.

Recipients are asked to submit personal details including date of birth and debit/credit card details. This email, which is the latest in a succession of scams targeting Irish taxpayers, did not issue from Revenue.

The Revenue Commissioners never send emails which require customers to send personal information via email or pop-up windows.

Anyone who receives an email purporting to be from Revenue and suspects it to be fraudulent or a scam should simply delete it. Anyone who is actually awaiting a tax refund should contact their local Revenue Office to check its status.

Anyone who provided personal information in response to these fraudulent emails should contact their bank or credit card company immediately.

Please see our Security warning (http://www.revenue.ie/en/security.html) for further information.

 

Hosting - Avoid The First Timer Pitfalls

Wednesday, 10 March 2010 00:50

This week I was approached by a company that offered me hosting for an all in price of $10 a year. On the surface, their offer appeared to tick all the boxes. It offered the same bandwidth as my current supplier (which happens to be one of our two chosen client suppliers), twice the storage space and dedicated business hours support. Of course, nothing is ever that simple when it comes to a service. To help both our clients see the benefits of using our hosts, and also allow everything to avoid the potential pitfalls of hosting, that many hosting companies don't want you to know about, we have compiled our very own "Quick Start Guide" to the world of picking a hosting supplier.

 

You get what you pay for

If a company is offering you a basic hosting package for less than an hours work for an IT professional in Ireland (normally between €25-€75 an hour) you can probably guess the after sales service isn't up to much. The actual cost of powering a server, linking it to the World Wide Web and gradual replacement of redundant systems, might only be €5 a year per account, but administrating that account, adding on features and supporting that account, even if carried out in the far east, will at least cost the average hosting company between 1-10 hours a year in employee time. If that time isn't factored in, you won't get professional support, secure hosting, or good uptime of the server your hosting is based on. When you consider that, €40-€80 a year for hosting is virtually nothing.

 

Read the forums and blogs

If you look around enough online you will find bad press about every company. However if you post a topic on a forum for IT buffs or read around blogs of respected website designers and developers and they are saying "pick company X, don't pick company Y because..." they are generally being sincere. The last thing a website developer wants is to mislead someone who may later become a client. Also you may consider checking with some friends and colleagues to see what company they have used in the past. If worst comes to worst, you can always contact Smith and Wise directly as we are always more than happy to help.

 

Avoid Over the Top Promises

No company can give you everything for near on nothing. This is something many website developers discovered to their peril last year as a large Irish hosting company simply couldn't keep their servers online after severe cost cutting. Soon one of the largest hosting companies in Ireland became a trailing force in the market, all because they promised lots, for a low price, in a manner by which they could not deliver. Play cautious, if it looks to good to be true it probably is. Some examples of phrases to look out for, and ask a company to verify such claims against evidence (which under the Consumer Information Act 1978, they must do) may include: 99.9999% Uptime Guarantee (or similar), Lifetime Server Uptime Guarantee, Unlimited Bandwidth and/or Hosting Space (always read the small print), dedicated 24/7 phone support (try calling at midnight), etc.

 

Professionalsim

We all believe in the importance of supporting start-ups, however, the Hosting and Server solutions market has a very low entry cost. People do give up after short periods of time in the industry, or worse fail to deliver and leave customers out of pocket and without hosting and domains. If a hosting company has managed to achieve an IEDR Reseller badge or is authorised by ICANN it is normally a fairly good sign that that host knows what they are doing and have dealt with a reasonable number of customers previously. Other tell tale signs of professionalism in the hosting industry can be attributed to testimonials on their website from respectable or up and coming enterprises, the company being incorporated (e.g. an Ltd.) are just a few signs of professionalism. There is nothing worse than a customer building up a website, domain and then losing everything online, emails, domains and website content due to picking a budget, unprofessional supplier, it does happen, it has happened to some of our clients before they reached us, and it is very costly to start from scratch.

Irish Support Does Matter

Do you believe that buying Irish really matters with an IT product or service? Hopefully so, keeping in mind that business hours in India or San Francisco are sleeping hours in Ireland for most people. That means if you have a support issue, getting someone on the phone can be really costly. In one case I heard of, an Irish business owner was charged €6 a minute for support which was at 3am local time where his server was based, it took three hours to resolve the issue in full. Also, 24/7 support normally means by email and it is really rare, anywhere in the world, for anyone to answer emails in the morning shower, or before they go to bed - the hours an Irish business would be operating. In contrast, the argument against European solutions is far more a technical, rather than a practical issue.

 

UK, European Hosting

Providing language isn't a barrier and you have a credit card, generally using a UK or European supplier (or even African for that matter) isn't too much hassle. There are just a few points to note:

• You are not covered by Irish consumer / business law.
• Telephone support costs can and do add up over time.
• Cultural issues - few German companies understand why Irish people have below 5mb broadband.
• SEO - Irish servers and hosting packages do tend to perform better in Search Engines for geographical reasons.
• Your work hours may be similar and overlap, but keep in mind that rules and regulations do vary by country.

The Personal Factor

Whenever I pick a supplier for Smith and Wise or one of our clients, I always think of the personal factor. Does the supplier have a good personality, are they interested in a related field or have similar hobbies. Do they like socialising and attending events. When you build up a relationship with a supplier, whether it be legal service, a butchers, car servicing or in this case, website hosting, it is important to factor in how well you get on with your suppliers. A happy supplier, paid on time and wined and dined appropriately can become a valuable tool. In the past several of my suppliers have allowed me access to information which was commercially sensitive, and potentially could allow me to target them for reduced fees, but because there was mutual trust, I chose instead to use that information to judge how poorly their competition really performed, all things consider. The personal factor is paramount with hosting suppliers - they look after your company online, they don't like to disappoint people they know well. If they are the wrong types of people, you will see cracks start to show early within a relationship with their company and staff.

 

Conclusion

When picking a hosting company, you should consider the actual material value of work involved in effectively running a professional website hosting company in Ireland or Europe. You should also think about locating your server where you want to target your market, e.g. for US only customers, get US Based hosting for best results. Support will always be a key factor, even if you think you won't have problems, you certainly will, with emails, passwords, your website, online services, etc, make sure you know how well supported you will be before picking a supplier. Again find out what sort of people your hosting company are, if they are people you like and you feel are friendly, they will be easier to deal with in the long run. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, don't get fooled by gimmicks, underselling suppliers or over the top promises, if you are paying between €35-€160 for a package, depending on what you need, do the maths with labour costs at €25-€75 an hour - you won't get any decent level of service below cost. You wouldn't print your brouchures on crinkled old newspaper, don't host your website on crippled, overloaded or unsupported services.

 

Checklist For Choosing A Hosting Supplier

1. Understand the cost of labour when factoring in yearly hosting fees.
2. Shop around, read reviews, ask for advice from friends, or Smith and Wise.
   
   
3. Gimmicks, over the top promises or underselling means one thing - poor long term service.
   
   
4. Check for professionalism of the company you are choosing, achievements, testimonials.
   
   
5. Irish / European hosting means support during your office hours.
6. Evaluate whether UK / European providers really offer more after costs and cultural differences.
   
   
7. The Personal Factor - how well do you get on with a company's staff and support?
   
   
8. Add everything together, shortlist suppliers. It's not the price that counts, its the quality of service.
   
   

Things we recommend a good host should offer (the minimum standard Smith and Wise would expect):

• Regular, free backups of your hosting, databases and emails (at least once a day).
• At least 1gb storage space a month
• At least 10gb bandwidth per month
• Access to a control panel
• Ability to support: MySQL, PHP 5.0, phpMyAdmin, multiple databases.
• At least two addon domains
• At least ten email address accounts
• Full FTP Access (preferably multi accounts option)
• At least ten subdomains
• Real time logging system(s)

Smith and Wise recommended guide prices:

• Minimum $25 a year for a US based hosting package
• Minimum €45 a year for an Irish based hosting package
• Minimum €45/£30 a year for an European / UK based hosting package

If you are paying (or thinking about paying) over €140 a year for hosting, talk to Smith and Wise, we probably have a better package for you.

 

More Information

This article was written by Byron Smith, Operations Director of Smith and Wise. If you would like to contact him about this article, please do so by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or you can call him on 086 1780 743.

All information and advice in this article (as in all Smith and Wise blog articles) is provided as is, without liability and should be acted upon with caution

Hospitality Expo 2010

Tuesday, 09 March 2010 16:03

Today I went along to the Hospitality Expo 2010 in the RDS (http://www.hospitalityexpo.ie/). It is on again tomorrow (Wens) in case you are interested in going along.

There was some really interesting new products for managing hotel and bar/club experiences. From new booking systems to bulk text messaging systems, all for very reasonable rates, it is obvious that there is plenty of enterprising individuals out there.

Keeping this in mind, I talked to quite a few people about how they managed to cut costs, the technical sides of their enterprises and also how they envisaged money saving methods working over the coming year. I also talked to a few suppliers with a view of combining Smith and Wise services with their products and services which should hopefully allow both our current and future clients to save time and money.

I will report back if anything new develops, but I am very hopeful that taking a day off CRM and accounts was well worth the effort!

Byron Smith