Why Platinax Internet?

[Brian Turner]

A while ago I started on the idea of creating a cluster of specialist sites.

Each would deal with a specific topic area, and become a significant resource in that area.

Or so I planned. What I soon realised is that all I was doing was creating little splinter sites, that in themselves could never be properly competitive with other resources in the relevant area.

Business-talk became a prime example - as a business forum it was fine, but I wanted to add business resources, articles, and a business directory, to help flesh it out. The forums were in the root, and it made no room for the other material. Did I really want to create new small sites for each new section?

So the idea of a single resource site I could focus all of my development into, was born.

The first point is that it needed a unique name - something that could be branded, and cause no confusion with anything else. I liked the idea of "Platinix" - combining the words "platinum" and "unix" together.

But it had already been done. I had no intention of ploughing a lot of energy into separating the concept of "platinix" as a software application, and "platinix" as a business resource.

I thought of datacenters and NACs. Platinax.

The name worked for me.

So the idea of Platinax Internet was given life.

I built the template and started building the main frame of the site in august, then began copying files over properly in September. There was far far more work involved than I ever realised. Template editing, even with global editors like .edit, was still labour intensive - especially where many small changes needed to be made.

I had aimed for Platinax Internet to be up for around the 20th of September, then the 27th. Work commitments skewed that. I wanted to be launched by October 4th, but again I underestimated the amount of work involved.

Now the site is finally live on October 5th - but there are still a lot of issues to correct.

There are some CSS and general templating errors to address, advertising space isn't yet set up, there are still quite a few articles not yet set up (the first half of the main sections are fairly complete to start with - material not yet uploaded for the latter sections), plus the nav bars need editing to be topic specific. The directory hasn't yet been fully set-up with Paypal so no submissions can be made. The forums have only just been installed - and mod_rewritten to HTML as it always should have been - possiobly the biggest step of all.

I intend to get most of this all done and corrected for October 11th, when I intend to send out press releases - and especially stir up local interest - in this new business resource site.

After then - I plan to make this one of the major business resources of the internet.

Welcome to Platinax Internet.

[JamesSmith]

I'd be lying if I said I like it.

[Brian Turner]

Well, there's still a lot left to do and finish yet.

The CSS for the forums is still screwy - the left-hand nav isn't right and the whole body should have no margins.

Perhaps, when everything is straightened out, the place might grow on you a little more.

[JamesSmith]

Perhaps. I think you're right, it is simply the present layout problems that are putting me off.

[Postmaster]

I think its a great idea... As long as the forum is here we have nothing to worry about.. However it could effect your traffic in a positive point of view but have a feeling it might dip at first.. All that hard work getting your page rank for your other sites and all that linking to start from scratch, is it really a good move? Time will tell, I hope it is.. This site is Great

[Brian Turner]

Traffic wise - I certainly expect a dip. Because of Google Sandboxing, I might lose all prior rankings and not see "proper" traffic until the New Year. However, better to make fundamental changes sooner rather than later. Business talk traffic had started to really pick up, and hopefully quite a lot will flow seamlessly through the redirects I've set up. But if not, I'll be patient.

But, let's face it - if traffic doesn't pay, what is the actual loss? And that's an important factor about the new site - aside from trying to create a major resource hub, it should also offer a number of significant advertising and income options.

[Postmaster]

That’s true.. Well, all business is about risk, some succeed and some fail, however depending on how you have your vision in your mind will depend on the out come. I think its a great idea

[paulhiles]

Wow! all change here then, eh? Brian, have you changed the hosting for the site as well as the domain name? I think I recognise one datacenter image as belonging to one of my clients... I won't tell them if you don't! LOL!

[Brian Turner]

Hi Paul.

Actually, I used the Global 1 Datacenter image on the top left, as I was originally looking at going with ukdedicated. Lack of replies to my questions (1 sales, 1 support - both unanswered) means I've fast lost confidence in the 123reseller/ukdedicated/flump.net set-up.

So this site is now hosted with LiquidWeb, somewhere near Chicago, running on a Dual Opteron server, dual SCSI drives, and premium Verio bandwidth.

It's cost a lot in the short term, but I'm aiming at long-term investment and longevity.

[paulhiles]

A pity I wasn't aware of your difficulties Brian. My main point of contact with the company is their European Sales Manager. I believe most of the technical support is provided by KeyBridge, who incidentally are another of my clients!

Dedicated hosting is probably the way to go, if you have ambitious plans for expansion, and also the security aspect, which I guess is becoming increasingly a big issue these days.