Miscellaneous Free Webmaster Resources
In this category, you'll find a selection of miscellaneous Webmaster resources that are available on the Net. If you happen to stumble across an outdated link, we'd very much appreciate it if you could report it
Response-O-MaticResponse-O-Matic "free" edition lets you create online feedback forms quickly and easily (and you needn't have any HTML knowledge whatsoever). In around 8 minutes, you'll have a fully functioning contact form that you can cut and paste into your Web site. Submissions are e-mailed to you every time a visitor submits a form, and they can also be customised with your own message, check boxes and radio buttons.
> Response-O-Matic has a built-in spam blocker that helps to prevent form-based spam from entering your inbox.
> You may ask your visitors as many questions as you like in whatever style you like. Once set up, your form will handle an unlimited number of submissions.
> Once a visitor has submitted a form they can be forwarded to a Web page of your choice (i.e. a "thank you" page). The "free" package displays an advert each time your form is submitted, but this can be removed by upgrading to a commercial one.
AddPoll.com
If you want to add a poll, quiz or online survey to your Web site or blog, try AddPoll.com. The service is customisable to the look and feel of your brand identity via HTML and CSS. Detailed reports are available so you can see how the survey is progressing. Integration and sharing options with social networking sites are also included. Data can be exported at any time into spreadsheet format.
Mon.itor.Us
A free Web site monitoring service that checks much more than just availability. Mon.itor.Us will also monitor your server's general health and speed. Registration is very simple and takes approximately 5 minutes. The service presents stats in a variety of graphs and tables for easy viewing. Features include: unlimited number of monitors, real-time charts, mobile application, and more.
Apica WebPerformance
If you own a Web business, it is important to ensure your hosting provider is generating sufficient uptime. This free Web monitoring service has the ability to monitor site uptime for 2 URLs and will test availability every 10 minutes. A variety of easy-to-use reporting options are also available, so you can see trends over specific periods. Registering is fast and easy.
Cloud Contact Forms
This free service is useful if you wish to add a feedback form onto your Web site, Content Management System, social networking page, or blog. Cloud Contact Forms provides the ability to set-up and maintain a variety of different forms and access the data in one convenient location. No programming is required and there's a quick sign-up process.
Captcha Genie
If you have a Web site and wish to collect feedback from visitors, you'll probably need some form of contact form script, ideally with spam protection build-in as standard. Step forward Captcha Genie, an easy-to-use PHP form service. This free script generates a unique "Captcha" code each time a visitor views your form. It functions on all hosting solutions and is simple to install, even if you have limited technical knowledge.
Form Champ
Are you a Web site owner? If you require a feedback form installed the quick and easy way, give Form Champ a try. This free service offers fully functional feedback forms, plus surveys, online polls, invitations and more. Installation is straight-forward and just a case of copying and pasting a few lines of code. It even blocks 100% of spam and allows you to export collected data into a spreadsheet readable format!
123ContactForm
The "free" package at 123ContactForm allows webmasters to set up fully functional feedback forms with ease. Better still, anti-spam protection is built-in as standard. Please note: the free version contains a small "Powered by 123ContactForm" link beneath each form, but this can be removed by upgrading. Other perks of the service include: unlimited messages, customer "thank you" pages, HTML templates, a form creation wizard, fully customisable forms, and more.
Feedzilla
If you run your own Web site, try this free widget to add scrolling news feeds to your pages. It'll keep your visitors coming back for the latest updates! You are able to hand-pick which type of content the widget delivers, from world news and business to music and sports coverage. A small "Feedzilla.com" link is added to the bottom of each feed, since this is a free service.
ShareThis
A great freebie widget for Webmasters. By using the "ShareThis" button, visitors will be able to quickly share your link with a variety of social and bookmarking sites. A number of ShareThis widget designs are available to entice users to click, and you needn't be a technical genius to implement them either!
SkinPress Free Wordpress Themes
A fine selection of themes for users of the popular blogging platform, Wordpress. SkinPress has dozens of high quality themes that are sure to give your blog that professional edge. Commercial themes are also available.
Uptime Dog
A straight-forward (and free) Web site monitoring service that aims to check your site every 2 minutes for possible downtime. In order to use the service, you are required to provide a link back to their site.
sIFR Font Maker
This free tool from CoffeeCup allows Web designers to convert font files to Flash format within seconds. This used to be quite a tricky process for the uninitiated, but thankfully it's now rather painless. The benefits of using sIFR is that everyone, regardless of the types of fonts on their system, will be able to view the text as intended.
Montastic"The free website monitoring service that doesn't suck", or at least that's the claim! Thankfully Montastic does exactly what it says on the tin. Register and you'll receive an e-mail when your site goes down and another courtesy e-mail when it's up and running again. You can even add a little logo to your site if you find the service particularly useful.
Browsershots
If you are a Web designer, ensuring your site loads correctly in the popular browsers is crucial. Browsershots displays screenshots of your pages in numerous browser versions, including IE5, IE6, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Konqueror, Chrome, and also lesser-known applications (and even those based on Linux and Apple Mac).
Wix.comA simple, free and surprisingly effective Flash site builder. If you're a fan of Flash-based sites and wish to establish a quick Web presence, whether that be for personal or business use, be sure to try Wix (over 700,000 users can't be wrong!). Their drag and drop editor requires no technical expertise and you can select from hundreds of ready made templates, or create one from scratch.
LiveZillaHave you ever wanted to add a live chat support service to your site? LiveZilla is not only free - it's freeware, meaning there are no restrictions on the free version. Numerous features are offered here, some of which include: real-time visitor monitoring, offline messages, ratings/feedback form, webcam support, security filter, customisation and branding, and more.
pForm Free HTML Form Builder
This free and simplistic form builder service allows you to create an online HTML form within minutes, whether that's to process e-mails or gather opinion from visitors. pForm includes three easy stages: select your form colour scheme (25 to choose from), design/customise your form with fields, buttons and drop down boxes, and then download the HTML ready to paste into your Web site.
ConduitHave you ever wanted to offer your own browser toolbar to your Web site visitors? Conduit provides a simple and free method to create a customised toolbar with various features, including: RSS feeds, radio player, alerts, various gadgets, temperature, and even company logo. XML feeds can be used to integrate the bar with a database (their API is able to assist with advanced features such as this).
> No advertisements appear on the toolbar. Instead, the service is funded by the integrated search box: "Conduit earns revenue by monetizing the search box on the community toolbar. This revenue funds our operation and lets us provide an excellent service with no setup or maintenance fees."
Polls are a great method to gauge opinion and if you would like to implement one for free on your own site, check out Pollverize, a service that provides easy-to-use polls in an instant. Simply register for your account, create a question and then add the answers. You can create multiple polls and track the number of responses. They add a small "get a free poll at polverize" tag to each poll.
SiteUptimeWeb site hosts can be notoriously unreliable at times. If you have little downtime, count yourself lucky! To assist you in monitoring periods where your site may be offline or unresponsive, visit SiteUptime, a Web monitoring service. Their "free" package allows you to monitor one domain with 30 and 60 minute checks, which e-mail you in event of any downtime. Excellent commercial upgrades are available.
CSS Generator WizardA well-designed site, offering a free CSS code generator wizard for Webmasters. The free generator is available online but if you prefer, you can also download it to your desktop. The wizard allows you to quickly create CSS style definitions, which can be used to determine the presentation of your pages. They also include some free articles related to the topic of CSS.
Free Web MonitoringThis monitoring service will alert you via e-mail in the event that your Web site goes offline. Once your site is live again, you will receive another e-mail notifying you that this is so. Although not quite as robust as similar commercial services, Free Web Monitoring is adequate for even some larger businesses. Your designated site will be tested every 60 minutes, and you can even add multiple URLs to your account.
Sparklit Web PollOffers a fine Web poll that can be customised with your own questions, colours and designs. It's ideal for gaining feedback from visitors and increasing your site's interactivity. You can implement up to 25 different questions, choose from 12 different designs and play around with more features than any other service. You will also find a variety of other Webmaster services here.
> Sparklit's free survey service, Mini Survey, is also a great way to gain valuable feedback from visitors. Mini Survey is both fast and effective.
> Other Webmaster services available include a free counter, message board, guest book and newsletter.
A free Web site form service that allows you to create, customise and then implement feedback forms on your site. FormSmarts, with its neat and user-friendly interface, allows users to create a fully functioning form within minutes thanks to their online form builder. You needn't have great technical knowledge and spam (junk mail) protection is available as standard.
BravenetThe immensely popular Bravenet offers all the free Webmaster services you're likely to need in one convenient location. They provide dozens of free services to help build, promote, enhance and monetize Web sites, many of which are remotely hosted. A free help centre is always available to help you with any of your Webmaster questions, plus you can customise many of their services to your specification.
> Bravenet provides a number of services to help promote your site, including a free blog service, hit counter, guestbook, horoscope generator, headline boxes, online calendar, URL re-direction, etc.
> Additionally, they also provide a range of service to help enhance your site: tell a friend service, Web ring, free links directory, traffic exchange, site search and Web cartoons.
> They also provide free tools for interesting with guests: chat rooms, feedback forms and Web polls.
> Bravenet's affiliate program pays $1.00 for each person you refer to their network.
Use InternetSeer's "free" package to monitor your Web site's uptime (or downtime!) on an hourly basis. The service will probe your site and check for any problems that might prevent visitors from viewing your pages. If a problem is found (such as a connection refused error), they will automatically send you an e-mail and monitor progress until your site is back online. They also offer commercial versions of the service, which provide more frequent monitoring.
BpathHere's a high quality and reliable Webmaster resources site, providing a great mixture of free and commercial services. Bpath offers free online polls, message boards, banner exchanges, guestbooks, hit counters, mail forms and lots more besides. As well as this, they provide a number of free tools to help you promote your Web site, such as the "tell a friend" site announcement service.
Easy HoroscopeHere's a completely free service for Webmasters. With Easy Horoscope, you can enhance your pages with a Flash daily horoscope and then customise the design of it to match your Web site's style. It's also very simple to implement - you simply copy the HTML code they provide and paste it into your page. Note: you'll need the Macromedia Flash plug-in to access this Web site.
NE1.netThis site provides a free URL re-direction service for Web site's with lengthy, confusing URLs. If you're a Webmaster and wish to increase your site's visitor count, a short Web address is an excellent way to generate repeat visits (in fact it's bordering on crucial). NE1.net allows you to choose from two sub-domains: "yoursite.ne1.net" and "yoursite.r8.org". The "free" version of this service is advert supported.
Zap Zone NetworkThis service has continued to thrive over a number of years and today offers free, co-branded e-mail accounts that Webmasters can use to add extra functionality and loyalty to their site. Basically, ZapZone acts as the middleman to provide your very own e-mail service to visitors and handles the storage and hosting of the pages for e-mail addresses resembling " anything@yoursite.zzn.com".
Alxnet.comOne of our favourite Web sites for providing a whole plateful of Webmaster goodies. Alxnet.com offers a free guestbook service, Web poll, news feeder, traffic booster and an Internet quiz that will keep your visitors entertained. Their site is easy to navigate and contains lots of detailed information about their free services. Note: English, Norwegian and Swedish translations.