Troubleshooting

If you're new to website design and publishing, there are many things that can go wrong to keep people from gaining access your site properly. Perhaps you've published your site, only to find out that your links are broken or your images are missing. Don't panic, in fact expect a few problems to come up - it happens to even the most experienced web designers. Here is a guide to fixing some common glitches that you might encounter after you publish your site.

Troubleshooting: Common Problems and Solutions

Your Links Don't Work

There are three main reasons for why links don't work:

You rename a web page.
You moved a page to a different folder.
Your page doesn't properly upload to your server.

The solution to restoring corrupted links is to relink the pages again. For example, if you've renamed or moved a page, go to the original link page and relink your pages. Publish this page and also the page that it was linked to.

You can also use the LinkChecking tool at Seven Twenty Four. LinkChecking can do a daily check of internal and external links for the first 500 pages of your site. The LinkChecking tool is currently offered as a one month free trial service.

Your Images Are Missing

Links to corrupted images usually display an "X" and are contained inside a blank box. Here are a list of possible reasons for why your images are missing.

You rename your images.
You've moved your images to a different folder.
The images were not properly uploaded to your server.
The image may be linked and uploaded correctly, but it's format is corrupted, or it is saved in a file format that cannot be displayed by a web browser.

Firstly, check that the image is correctly linked to the folder where the image is stored. Always make sure that your pictures are saved in any one of the popular image formats - GIF, JPEG or PNG (see Preparing Images for more information about image format and compression). Once you save the image in it's correct format, relink the images again.

Your Site Isn't Online

After creating your website and publishing it to your web server, make sure that you navigate your website to see that all your pages are online. There are two common reasons for why a website isn't online:

There was a problem uploading your web pages to your the remote web hosting server.
The problem is with your web hosting server.

Before you call up your web host, check that the problem is not on your end. The problem may have occurred when you where transferring files from your local computer to the remote server. Check that your login information and password to connect to the remote server is correct. There may also be a problem with your internet connection. Check that all your files have been successfully uploaded to the remote servers folder.

Your Site Is Too Slow

If your site is too slow to be quickly downloaded and viewed, your visitors will simply go to the next website rather than wait for your pages to download. Here are some common problems associated with a slow site:

Your images are too big.
You have large media files, such as streaming video, that is downloading.

If your image is too large, you might want to consider using small thumbnail images. Thumbnail images are images that can be linked to their full size format. Make sure that you compress your images into smaller file sizes before you start placing them on your web pages. Use photo editing software, such as Google's image editing software, to help you edit and resize your photographs. . For more information on picture compression see Preparing Pictures or for help with choosing an imaging tool, see the guide to choosing an Image Editing Software.

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