Quite often, a company needs to manage several kinds of Web sites — usually an external Web site (Internet), one or several internal sites (intranet) and sometimes, sites (extranet). Within each of these Web domains, individual sites can be very different depending on their function and purpose. For example, it is common to see combinations of corporate sites, marketing, customer support, portals, knowledge bases, forums and online applications. In large international corporations, one can count hundreds of sites often managed by different teams. These teams deal with the following issues:sites (extranet). Within each of these Web domains, individual sites can be very different depending on their function and purpose. For example, it is common to see combinations of corporate sites, marketing, customer support, portals, knowledge bases, forums and online applications. In large international corporations, one can count hundreds of sites often managed by different teams. These teams deal with the following issues:sites (extranet). Within each of these Web domains, individual sites can be very different depending on their function and purpose. For example, it is common to see combinations of corporate sites, marketing, customer support, portals, knowledge bases, forums and online applications. In large international corporations, one can count hundreds of sites often managed by different teams. These teams deal with the following issues: sites (extranet). Within each of these Web domains, individual sites can be very different depending on their function and purpose. For example, it is common to see combinations of corporate sites, marketing, customer support, portals, knowledge bases, forums and online applications. In large international corporations, one can count hundreds of sites often managed by different teams. These teams deal with the following issues:

• corporate style guide (consistency in image and branding)
• content management (creation, publication, maintenance)
• design and development (methods, tools, in-house team work and/or agency management)
• information technology (support, technologies, infrastructure)

All companies are organized differently; in one company, the Webmaster role might be attached to the marketing/communication department; in another, the same role might be managed by the Information Technology (IT) department.

Code maintenance of a company’s Web site is a well-known issue for Webmasters and IT directors. In a more mature domain such as software development, the maintainability of code — the measure of ease and time required to maintain it — is a critical factor for success or failure. On the portals, where more people are involved and in more diverse ways that software development, communication between players’ different responsibilities (graphic design, programming, integration, content) are even more complex when their individual contributions end up within the same HTML pages. The regular turnover of staff is also an issue when previous developers have used personal, proprietary or undocumented methods. When a company needs to undergo a complete re-vamp of its Web sites, it has to juggle between two extremes: absolutely nothing, due to the lack of resources (how many intranets are full of outdated sites because of this?); or starting again from scratch for the nth time (we will avoid tackling the notion of return on investment or budget slippages on intranet projects).

We will encourage you to focus on the benefits of the  “Maintenance Services” dedicated to your company by Rhxo’s professionals or partners.

Services we offer for your project’s maintenance:

• Adding functionality or content.
• Removing functionality or content.
• Revising architecture.
• Changing interaction.
• Transforming edited content into web pages.
• Checking web page quality, accessibility and usability.
• Final proof-reading of text. Checking for broken links and valid code.
• Final checking that copyright clearances and other legal requirements are satisfied.
• Maintaining site/content inventory. Ensuring published content is current.
• Periodically auditing and mapping site content.
• Coordinating content review process.
• Coordinating creation and supply of fresh content.
• Acting as the first point of contact for content changes and feedback from web users.
• Analysis, design, development and testing of usable, accessible web applications.
• Developing and customizing web templates where required for use in web applications. (Excludes user interface design and graphic design.)
• Providing periodical site logs and suggestions
• Search Engine Submissions and Optimization Controls
• The type of traffic received. A site that receives 80% of the total traffic on its home page (the most common scenario on Internet sites and portals), the savings will be less than a site with more distributed traffic. This is because the presentation information (CSS) is only loaded once along with the first page. A company applying the same presentation to all its intranet sites would see a significant reduction in bandwidth and, consequently, in its network infrastructure costs
• Optimization of the initial code. (if apart from Rhxo’s work) The less the initial site was optimized (in terms of file size vs. percentage of useful content), the more significant the savings will be
• Writing technical and end-user documentation for web applications.
• Handing over web applications to client/user (e.g., documentation, installation and testing, integration with other systems, helpdesk services)
• Installing and maintaining web server hardware and system software. Ensuring server and site security. Guaranteeing server and site availability. Running regular backups and providing data recovery services.
• Configuring and maintaining the web server environment, eg assigning permissions and user groups, setting server-level redirects. Generating statistics and reports for sites and servers.
• System support: installing web applications and testing at both application and system levels. Integrating applications with non-local systems (eg for login authentication).