O.K. so how do I join and what's involved ?
Simply complete a form and you will be entered in our database. The information we require is:
your email address
your site URL ( the address of your site - for example http://www.smallwonder.org/index.html)
your site title (maximum 75 characters)
your site description (maximum 300 characters)
your banner URL (if you have a banner - the address where it can be found)
your banner height and width in pixels should not be more than 60 x 468
your reciprocal link back to the Lancashire Top 100
Your reciprocal link MUST be an address of one of YOUR pages, and will be the page where the surfer 'clicks' on a text link or button/banner to be sent to the Lancashire Top 100
your username
your password
The form contains some fields which are not currently used."Category", "Field One", "Field Two" and "Field Three" should be left blank.
After you have clicked 'submit', you will get a screen which tells you your unique bit of HTML code which you need to save and place in the HTML code of your webpage. Incidentally, the code looks similar to this:
"http://odin.prohosting.com/best100/cgi-bin/lancs/rankem.cgi?id=modinw"
(Your linking code will look like this bit of code except that the 'modinw' (at the very end of the code) will be substituted by the unique account name which you chose during sign up.)
where 'modinw' (at the very end of the code) represents a unique account name. Your code should go in the page which you entered as 'Reciprocal Link'. A text link is acceptable, although a nice link via a Lancashire symbol or picture of your own devising would be greatly appreciated. We hope to offer some small linking images fairly soon.
And then what happens ? What's the benefit to me ?
When visitors click on your link (or banner) on the Lancashire Top 100 they are taken to your website and a counter on our server records the outward 'hit'. Conversely, when someone clicks on the reciprocal link on your page they are taken to the Lancashire Top 100 where they can select one of the many interesting sites created by or for Lancashire people. An inward 'hit' is then recorded against your website, and it is these inward 'hits' which cause your site to be ranked - the more inward 'hits' the higher up the rankings you will go. As the topsites list grows, so more and more traffic flows around our sites.
The competitive element of the list is to see how high or low your fortunes have fallen in the Lancashire Top 100.
Facts
The list reranks ever 6 hours thus taking account of the latest inward and outward 'hits'. It completely resets itself weekly. To get listed in any one week you need at least one click on your link to the Lancashire Top 100 list. Currently the list can accommodate banners for the top35 sites.
The site will always be child friendly, in otherwords, no site will be allowed to join which would not be acceptable viewing for children and adults alike. Obviously I can't look at everything so I can't ensure that there is not a link somewhere on one or more of our sites which might appear to contravene this best intention.
Anyway, please enjoy Lancashire Top 100 !
