The New Layout

Unless you have tried to run a web site of your own, you are probably unaware of some of the difficulties we have to face. Web sites that generate an income are able to pay for their hosting on fast high quality servers, but since we don't, we are left to find web hosts who offer free space. Obviously our 'adult' content causes a problem for many of these hosts, and we have been kicked off several for that reason alone.

So, having found a host who is happy with our content, the next problem we face is our popularity. As we become ranked better in the major search engines, more and more people come to visit. For every page a visitor reads, it invloves downloading the page design elements, the page content, and any graphics present. More visitors and page reads equate to ever increasing bandwidth, and suddenly there is a whole new reason for the site host to get upset with us.

Having found a welcoming home on Freespeech, where we lived happily for several years, our bandwidth slowly inceased to beyond the level they were prepared to tolerate. Without warning they dumped us. Our remaining server, which hosted our domain name "www.saxon-web.co.uk", also had a bandwidth limit which we immediately burst (by a factor of x2) as soon as we transferred the bulk of the site to their server. As an emergency measure we moved the Fiction section onto the same free host who carries the picture Galleries. Unfortunately, this meant that our pages had to be decorated with the host's porn advertising, which is what funds their servers and bandwidth.

It was apparent that we were going to have to do something to reduce our overall bandwidth usage, but without reducing the quality of our web. Hence a complete redesign, from the ground up. The content remains basically the same, but we have cut out many of the superfluous graphics which are bandwidth hungry. Changes to the site navigation will hopefully result in visitors being able to find their way around more efficiently. Please tell us if you have any complaints or suggestions.

In order to reduce the overall bandwith we have taken a number of steps:

Why we have started carrying advertising

This is not going to be a plea for you to run off and buy stuff, just to keep this web site afloat!

In order to try to establish a permanent and reliable service, we aim to pay for our professional quality web hosting. Obviously this costs money, and we have to find ways to raise that money without resorting to paid membership

Click-through advertising is the least painful way to achieve this. But we earn nothing from carrying these adverts unless you, our readers, buy goods as a result of clicking on one of our adverts. No, don't rush off and buy stuff you don't really want [as if ;) ]. All we ask is, if you are going to make a purchase, then please make a point of clicking through our adverts to get to the merchant's web site.

We are trying to be selective about which advertising we carry, choosing merchants who supply goods that our readership may actually be interested in. And if you have a favourite supplier, please get in touch with us and we will make efforts to display their advertising banners too.