There are a number of services that offer to check the HTML coding on a page, monitor a company's server or provide other similar services. Following are links to some of these services, the results, the costs and an evaluation of the value. All sites Accessed December 03, 2001.

Once the program got beyond this, it produced an outline of the page based on my use of Heading tags. It informed that a level 1 and a level 3 heading is missing. I do not often used the H1 tag because it produces a very large font and the difference between H2 and H3 is so very small that I usually skip that heading and go to an H4 tag.

Site Management Services

Questions asked in this assignment are: Which one did you try? · What did you find out? · Did the service seem valuable to you? · What does the service offer for clients who purchase its services? · How much would professional level services cost?

NetMechanic offers tools to Monitor your server, another to assist in promoting your site (most valuable for those involved in selling on the web), and online software to analyze and repair web pages. The tool I am most impressed by is their HTML Toolbox which checks an entire website for several items and fixes the problems by generating a copy of the web page that you can download and then install to your website. If your site (single URL) has less than 100 pages / frames, the cost is only $50 per year. The program is fully configurable for what you want to check and how often including allowing you to test on demand at no additional charge.

If I am hired to maintain a major site or to do a makeover, I will definitely include the use of this service to make an evaluation and in the re-creation of the site. A site with 101 to 400 pages or frames is $200 per URL and they also offer a Web Designer Special. They offer the use of a robot to count the number of pages on a site for you. As a consultant, I would pass the cost of this service on to the company. If they decide to use my services, the first thing I would do is upload the repaired pages to their site so that they could witness an immediate improvement.

The value in these services is that they will make your site easily accessible by more users. This is done by increasing download time, making sure that links go somewhere, that spelling is correct, and that the code works well without producing annoying error messages. In short, the tools help you make a good impression on the visitor to your site regardless of the Web Browser they are using or their connection speed.

Links for HTML Validation

Yahoo's HTML Validation category
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Data_Formats/HTML/Validation_and_Checkers

W3C's Validation Service
http://validator.w3.org/

Bobby
http://www.cast.org/bobby/

NetMechanic
http://www.netmechanic.com