Rick - please don't do anything of the kind! We need your input - If we're doing something that can be improved, we need to know that - and if we have improved something but haven't done a good job of telling people about it, we need to know that, too!Originally Posted by wyoranch
Hal Bryan
EAA Lifetime 638979
Vintage 714005 | Warbirds 553527
Managing Editor
EAA—The Spirit of Aviation
The new EAA sites are a great idea but like some other chapters, our chapter (EAA 2) has a great website and we would like to bypass the EAA site. I logged into out Webs.com hosting but could not find a way to setup a redirect. I have set up several websites with several different hosts and this is the first time I've seen hosting that didn't contain a redirect option in the control panel. Any reason that can't be added? I think that would easily address the issue for those chapters that already have nice sites. That way the EAA directory can still point to http://www.2.eaachapter.org/ but when clicked, the link will auto-redirect to http://www.eaa2.org. This is a standard practice on the web.
or include eaa2.org in an iframe ?
First class site builder! If your chapter site is more functional than you have an amazing I.T. Manager and you should be very proud of it. If you are keeping it just because it took a lot of time to create and you dont want to upset the builder then you should rethink your decision and give this new FREE service a try. Our new site, www.1364.eaachapter.org has already increased our membership and I am meeting with a local un-affiliated aviation club that wants to join our chapter because they like the info and member input on the site.
I finally got access to our chapter's "new" website and was able to add instructions to redirect to our actual web site. But this is still a kludge and really I would like to see better. Is there really some reason why EAA's national database cannot be updated to point to the actual web site for the many chapters that have chosen not to use this new program because they already have perfectly good web sites? At the very least, please make it possible to install an automatic redirect so we don't lose people who don't click through.
--Nels Anderson
www.flightsim.com
Well, I gotta say that when I looked for my current chapter I looked at the EAA official site first - and oddly enough had to then back up once I found the chapter number and then google for it to get the "real" website.
Clicking a link on the "official" EAA placeholder is a heckuvalot less cumbersome.
The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.
I thought it best I jump in with a little more information to add to the thread.
By the way, thanks Frank. You’ve found another way to use the locator I hadn’t considered!
While I understand that this solution will not cover every chapter, we feel it is a good program that raises the bar for all chapters. We knew going into the project that there are chapters that have thriving, dynamic web sites and that they would not want to change over to the Webs.com templates. Nels, I can see from your site that transferring the vast information you have compiled on your “official” site would be time consuming and your site is already well arranged.
However, there are many chapters that don’t have someone with your expertise available to them. Many either do not have a site or have a site that is out of date. The Webs program will be of most benefit to them. Web sites can go stale quickly. In fact, I ran across a chapter site a few weeks ago that had not been updated since 2005. The unfortunate part is the chapter is active (I have read their newsletters and I know they fly Young Eagles), but if you judged them by their site, you would think they are an inactive chapter.
There is another audience we are serving, the EAA member who is looking for a quick reference to their local EAA Chapter. For the most part they just want the basic chapter contact information. By the way, this is also useful for our Membership Services Representatives who can quickly locate chapter contact information for members on the phone. The information presented on the Webs landing page will direct interested members to you.
In order to ensure that we have consistent contact information across all of our chapters, we are asking that those chapters with thriving sites that don’t want a Webs.com site to do a couple of things once. 1) Log into the Webs.com site and add your “official” web site link. 2) leave the contact information block intact as it pulls directly from our master database and is updated daily and 3) leave the events block on the landing page (if you are using the EAA Calendar for your events. That’s it. That is all we ask. I know people have to make an additional click to find your site, but I am confident that anyone who is interested enough to search for a chapter will click through to your “official” site.
EAA Chapter 104 has a nice example of a re-direct. www.104.eaachapter.org
Thanks for your consideration and as Hal said earlier, we are always interested in your ideas and feedback.
Steve Buss
EAA Chapters
Hmm, I see my previous response in this thread was deleted. I understand now there's no point in discussing this. However, I do want to point out that you need to do a much better job of informing chapters that participation in this program is mandatory. I checked all the EAA chapters in my area. All have their own web sites, and have for a long time, and none of them have participated in this new program so none of these chapters are currently findable using the chapter finder. I suspect most of these chapters did just as I did and ignored the original announcement about the new hosted web sites because it was not needed and did not realize that we had to participate.
--Nels Anderson
www.flightsim.com
Point taken. We can always do a better job of getting the word out on this project and will follow up with the webmasters list.
Steve
I agree! The site builder is easy to use and we were able to set up a nice site in minutes...our first website.
EAA hit a home run with this move!
http://677.eaachapter.org/
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