Okay I'm having a CSS problem with my site, I have a bar with links in "block", at the moment the blocks are aligned on the left. How do I go about centering them in the middle?

Thanks in advanced :)


#block {
float:left;
clear:both;
background-color: #DEDECE;
width: 768px;
height:26px;
border-left: #A5A5A5 solid 1px;
border-right: #A5A5A5 solid 1px;
border-bottom: #A5A5A5 solid 1px;
}

#block a {
text-align: center;
width: 90px;
text-decoration: none;
line-height: 26px;
display: block;
float: left;
}

#block a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}

#block span {
float: left;
line-height: 25px;
}

____________________

<div id="block">
<a href="test.html" class="pagelink">Page1</a><span>|</span>
<a href="test.html" class="pagelink">Page2</a><span>|</span>
<a href="test.html" class="pagelink">Page3</a><span>|</span>
<a href="test.html" class="pagelink">Page4</a>
</div>



Okay I bought the domains :) thank you both for the advice and suggestions. I'm sure it'll be worth the investment and brings me a little bit closer to sucess.

A host outside the UK and closer to my target audience I thought would benefit me more. Especially if 95% of my visitors are likely to be from outside the UK.

I'm not going to have a clone for the UK site as that would be silly having two sites, and having a uk domain won't work. So I went with the option of having a Learn The Language UK site page, that I can promote things that are more important to UK visitors, for instance the languages that people learn in the UK and the top holiday destinations like Spain etc.

However all the links will direct to my .com site.

I thought this might be a better option than just having the .com site.

Garin wrote:
> Hmmm... wrote:
> That's why I said:
> "The sites I was looking at don't have any content, but
> when you get round to adding some, Freeola would help
> you
> on the Search Engine front. The sites I looked at were all
> hosted
> in Germany, so any user clicking 'pages from the UK
> only'
> in Google etc. wouldn't find your sites! You don't get this
> problem with Freeola" ;¬)
>
> Let me phrase it another way then. :)
> Your suggested strategy doesnt make any sense to me. Hes got 3
> options:
> 1. Registers the .co.uk and just points it at the .com. As we
> both stated, this doesnt guarantee him recognition as a uk site
> because of the physical location of the host.
> 2. (this is what you suggested) Registers the .co.uk and
> maintains a separate site hosted in the uk. So now he has to
> maintain 2 sites. He has to care about duplicate content (again
> as you already mentioned) and hes also effectively competing
> against himself in search engine rankings. In bound links are
> going to be split between 2 sites and his own content is going
> to be ranked against his content on another site. And if he
> just maintains a skeleton .co.uk that points towards the .com so
> he has to do little to maintain it then he'll have an inherently
> low ranking anyway so probably not worth caring about his UK
> identity.
> 3. He hosts the .com in the UK. He has his UK identity and
> whatever ranking his .com has reflects well in his UK rankings.
> Registering the .co.uk is an entirely optional exercise.
>
> Option 3 is the only one that makes any sense to me. If he
> wanted to maintain distinct presenses in different regions then
> option 2 might make sense. Otherwise its alot of work for
> little reward.

Yep. That's why I questioned his original choice of host...

Hmmm... wrote:
> I see you once called your personal site Learn The
> Language.com even though you didn't use that domain.

Yes that's my language site domain. As mentioned all my work is offline so I didn't think I should put anything on them yet incase the search bots come and start sending people over to an incomplete site.

> Your anime domain name wouldn't be my first choice for a
> language site, if people see the name in the search results they
> may not initially associate the name with learning a language.
> Also the domain name counts towards your SE placement. Having
> language, learn, tuition, etc. in the name would help you.

The anime domain is for another project, I'm just saving the domain for now. Yes Learn the language contains, 2 key words that I thought would be good for SE, but if you can think of any more good domains I might use then perhaps I'll regist them too. The 300 subdomains are for the languages. for instance. http://japanese.learn-the-langage.com will contain 3 important keywords and will take people to the Japanese part of my site :)

> Unless you expect 10's of millions of page impressions (which
> would be hard to achieve starting from scratch) then I'm afraid
> you won't be able to make a living off the site using Adwords
> etc...

Adsense is just 1 of I think it's 50, sources of revenue for me. My girlfriend has a site, it gets about 300 visitors a day and only generates £100 a month. My site is hopefully going to get into the 10,000s a day.

> I currently have a client who is in the language tuition
> business, so once your site has launched I may possibly be able
> to interest him in it. Have you got any time scales?

Oh that great, yes I should be done beginning of september. I was hoping end of august but unfortunately some of the problems I've listed in this thread have taken several days to fix and some still have problems or gone unanswered so it might take longer. I might try go on some other forums to seek some more advice/help with the coding to help speed things up.

Hmmm... wrote:
> That's why I said:
> "The sites I was looking at don't have any content, but
> when you get round to adding some, Freeola would help you
> on the Search Engine front. The sites I looked at were all hosted
> in Germany, so any user clicking 'pages from the UK only'
> in Google etc. wouldn't find your sites! You don't get this
> problem with Freeola" ;¬)

Let me phrase it another way then. :)
Your suggested strategy doesnt make any sense to me. Hes got 3 options:
1. Registers the .co.uk and just points it at the .com. As we both stated, this doesnt guarantee him recognition as a uk site because of the physical location of the host.
2. (this is what you suggested) Registers the .co.uk and maintains a separate site hosted in the uk. So now he has to maintain 2 sites. He has to care about duplicate content (again as you already mentioned) and hes also effectively competing against himself in search engine rankings. In bound links are going to be split between 2 sites and his own content is going to be ranked against his content on another site. And if he just maintains a skeleton .co.uk that points towards the .com so he has to do little to maintain it then he'll have an inherently low ranking anyway so probably not worth caring about his UK identity.
3. He hosts the .com in the UK. He has his UK identity and whatever ranking his .com has reflects well in his UK rankings. Registering the .co.uk is an entirely optional exercise.

Option 3 is the only one that makes any sense to me. If he wanted to maintain distinct presenses in different regions then option 2 might make sense. Otherwise its alot of work for little reward.

Machie wrote:
> Just incase you're getting confused with the anime domain, the
> site is about languages, learning languages to be precise. I'm
> catering for everyone though, the anime fans wanting to learn
> Japanese and the UK couple who want to retire to Spain. Oh and
> of course the tourists...

I see you once called your personal site Learn The Language.com even though you didn't use that domain.

Your anime domain name wouldn't be my first choice for a language site, if people see the name in the search results they may not initially associate the name with learning a language. Also the domain name counts towards your SE placement. Having language, learn, tuition, etc. in the name would help you.

Unless you expect 10's of millions of page impressions (which would be hard to achieve starting from scratch) then I'm afraid you won't be able to make a living off the site using Adwords etc...

I currently have a client who is in the language tuition business, so once your site has launched I may possibly be able to interest him in it. Have you got any time scales?

Hmmm... wrote:
> To explain myself a bit more. Most Search Engines work out the
> physical location (geolocation) using the IP address. So even if
> you have a co.uk hosted with your current providers you would
> struggle to get that site well placed for UK only results (if at
> all) - if you use a co.uk that physically resides in the UK you
> won't have the same problem.
>
> I am happy to report that the Freeola co.uk domains work very
> nicely with all the major SE's.

In that case I'll go puchase my Freeola domain now :) Thank you for telling me about this. And I'm sure Freeola are grateful too :D

Garin wrote:
> A UK domain wont guarantee you recognition as a UK site. Some
> search engines are quite interested in the physical location of
> your host too. But other for reasons Hmmm... mentioned you're
> better owning the uk version of your domain than not.

So would I be okay with a UK version front page (that's a little different, perhaps more targeted towards the UK) but would link to pages on my european/global site? Hmm but then I guess it would only pick up information for that page and not the 100s of others. *sigh*

> And if search engines are going to be your main source of
> traffic, then I'd think about it now in respect of your design.
> As where you position content and how close it is to the top of
> the page are all relevant.

I actually thought about this the other day. As I think I remember reading about it somewhere, also about using the

tags as they tend to look/read them. I have the list of languages at the top at the moment, perhaps I should put a paragraph about my website there first.

Hmmm... wrote:
> Sounds interesting. What do you see as the main income generator
> from the site? Are you going to sell a product or rely of
> advertising? To produce a 'real' income you've hopefully got
> some good ideas...

Won't be selling anything at the moment, but I will have my own banners, google ads and quite a few affiliate programs offering different (and not competiting) products and services.

Just incase you're getting confused with the anime domain, the site is about languages, learning languages to be precise. I'm catering for everyone though, the anime fans wanting to learn Japanese and the UK couple who want to retire to Spain. Oh and of course the tourists, so as well as all the languages with learning tips and lessons I have a section on all 193 countries in the world. Listing their public holidays, popular destinations etc.

It helps that my next business after this is travel photography where I'll be visiting a number of countries, that I'll be able to add my experiences to the website as well as some amazing photographs. Plus another source of income selling prints.

> Don't forget my cut for the ticker and Garin's for the code
> help! ;¬)

Not to worry, the site won't make me rich but of course when I start earning some money I'll insist on paying back those who helped me. So far Garin has been the biggest help, I'm suprised he hasn't won a GAD too, for being a good source for information on Freeola.

Garin wrote:
> A UK domain wont guarantee you recognition as a UK site. Some
> search engines are quite interested in the physical location of
> your host too. But other for reasons Hmmm... mentioned you're
> better owning the uk version of your domain than not.

That's why I said:
"The sites I was looking at don't have any content, but when you get round to adding some, Freeola would help you on the Search Engine front. The sites I looked at were all hosted in Germany, so any user clicking 'pages from the UK only' in Google etc. wouldn't find your sites! You don't get this problem with Freeola" ;¬)

To explain myself a bit more. Most Search Engines work out the physical location (geolocation) using the IP address. So even if you have a co.uk hosted with your current providers you would struggle to get that site well placed for UK only results (if at all) - if you use a co.uk that physically resides in the UK you won't have the same problem.

I am happy to report that the Freeola co.uk domains work very nicely with all the major SE's.