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Computer & Internet Support Services
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These questions and answers reflect the policies, practices and opinions of the staff at Rank1st Technology Services. More than an educational resource for search engine optimization this information is designed to help you in choosing us as a service provider. Where appropriate we will refer you to other resources that cover these questions more fully.

Do you use mirror, doorway or pointer pages?

We believe that anything worth saying is worth integrating into your site and we help you integrate that into your site. As part of many of our projects we do construct new pages containing content that talks about a specific subject or idea that people are searching for and integrate these into your site. Done correctly and ethically, these pages provide additional information about your products and services that will help you get additional customers and are not considered spam by search engines.

Do you use cloaking or other technologies to hide text from visitors?

No this is generally considered by search engines to be unethical. In highly competitive situations we will take additional measures to insure that source code which reflects our work (and yours) is not viewable by others. Modifications to the actual page are only a small part of the actual work required to optimize and position a web site in search engines.

Do you work with sites containing flash content?

Yes, we work with a variety of Internet technologies including Macromedia Flash in search engine optimization projects. These technologies include all variety of flash, html, coldfusion, PHP, ASP and other technologies.

Do you work with sites that have frames?

We are not afraid of frames, sometimes in fact they are our best friends.

Do you provide pay-per-click management?

Yes, Rank1st provides complete pay-per-click management services, on all of the major pay-per-click sites.

Will I get lots of spam e-mail when you submit our site as part of the project?

No, as part of all of our projects we hide e-mail addresses so that your e-mail addresses can not be read from by spam bots or e-mail harvesters. You can get a copy of this code here. In the course of search engine submission we always use valid e-mail addresses within the Rank1st domain space.

What payment terms do you accept?

Rank1st Technology Services provides Net 30 terms to its clients. Invoices are sent over the period of the project, the first coming at proposal acceptance, the second six months into the project and the final invoice coming at 9 months into the project.

Do you program web sites or do work on web pages?

We specialize in optimization and we frequently work with web designers and we know quite a few really good ones. We find that they are best at what they do and we are best at what we do. Rank1st believes in doing a few specialized technology functions well, we don't try to do it all. During search optimization projects we will additional content pages for some sites. In these cases we most often use the original designers page for our template or if large numbers of changes are required we often involve the original designer as part of our project team.

Will you consult in the design of a new web site?

Yes, we often work with both web-designers and copy writers in the process of creating a new site. This process helps create a site that positions easily and receives large numbers of visitors quickly. We can join your team at any point in the design process, but it is a good idea to pull an SEO into the project up front to help your copy writer in the creative process.

What software, programs, technologies and environments are you familiar with?

We have worked on a variety of sites containing numerous technologies. (Most of us have been around for awhile.) We work with on a regular basis all manner of sites created in html, using server side include technology, database driven content, Javascript, Perl, Active Server Pages and Cold Fusion. We have touched many other technologies as well.

Will you be working directly on my production web-site?

No, Rank1st has a full Internet test environment in our offices that includes the ability to run database driven sites, sites deployed on IIS, Apache or IIS. We can duplicate the environment contained within most ISP's so that we can fully update and test your site prior to placing it live on the Internet. Each client project area also has the capability of holding updates of client pages for approval prior to placement on a live web site.

What software and programs do you use as part of the course of your work?

Many, most of our web development takes place in Macromedia Dreamweaver, we also use and are familiar with the entire site of Macromedia design tools including Flash, Fireworks, Cold Fusion. We are also well versed in Adobe and Microsoft editing programs, and as a fallback we use a plain old text editor. We also use position reporting software, keyword density analyzers, Word Tracker and many others to assist in the choosing of keywords and phrases, perform analysis and submit web sites.

Rank1st Technology Services • 30762 Tern Avenue • Shafer, MN • 55074