Frequently Asked Questions - Web Development

At this time, no. Our programmers primarily use PHP for programming websites.

Yes, the content management system we use supports any number of languages and translations. The cost for the site still would depend on the various functions you want on your site. A breakdown of pricing can be found here: http://www.newspaperwebdesign.com/packages

The hosting is a special we are currently running for newspapers by providing the service for free. Normally hosting for our newspaper websites costs in the range of $200-$300 per year (depending on bandwidth and space needs), which includes e-mail accounts in the package.

Right now, this is included in the package prices. However, each of our packages do not need to be stand-alone, so if there are services you do not need from a specific package, we can adjust the price accordingly.

No. There are no limitations for languages on the sites we build. Both regular content and the administration pages can be built for Spanish and many other languages, including right-to-left page, text and site rendering.

CMS is short for Content Management System, which allows users with the proper permissions (or roles) to control every aspect of their website, from the articles, layout positioning, images and interactive content.

For our newspaper CMS, we have customized each aspect of the system to run smoothly with the demands editors and publishers need in launching and managing daily and weekly newspapers.

Each site we create for newspapers (or other media), is created using content provided from each individual news source. Any design, programming and graphics created by Maine Web FX is copyrighted by Maine Web FX until the final payment on the site is made, at which time the copyright switches over to the newspaper.

Copyright for content is the sole ownership of the newspaper and its affiliates and is bound by outside sources terms of service, such as (but not limited to), Associated Press articles.

The copyright for design and programming does not extend to any part of the site that uses open source code, which is governed by its own General Licensing Policy.

This is a matter of opinion, but we believe they can benefit your site both in readership numbers and advertising revenue. See item: RSS: good or bad for newspapers? for more about this issue.

Search engine optimization is the process of implementing several key factors into your website to increase your search rankings in the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo.

No one thing is search engine optimization, and no magic bullet exists to get the top spot. However, Maine Web FX uses state of the art monitoring tools and procedures to help you achieve very high rankings. Our techniques have resulted in top 10 placement for each newspaper website we have designed and developed thus far.

Yes and no. Any website can be viewed on an iPhone. But if you are referring to a regular, web-enabled cell phone, some modifications need to be done to your site to make it readable. Please see PDAs, cell phones and iPhones for more information about this; and check out our web packages for pricing and implementation information.

The time frame for the website is really dependent on your needs. To be thorough, we would like to have a solid four weeks to get a full evaluation of your newspaper complete and enough time to properly program and design it.

However, if you come prepared with your needs and wants, a week could be shaved off the timeframe: 3 weeks.

The rule of thumb that you should generally go by is this. (Which was actually taken from another Website, but summed up everything really well): If you have the technical know-how to construct an email with an attachment, create a formatted document with Microsoft Word, and navigate through a web site, you have the skills needed for content management. It really is that easy, provided you have the right content management software.