Frequently Asked Questions
There are many moving parts to your website, and you probably have some questions. Here you can find our most frequently asked questions regarding FareHarbor Sites, answered by our trained experts.
FareHarbor Sites
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Domains:
You are responsible for purchasing and maintaining ownership of your domain. To take a FareHarbor site live, we’ll either need the login for your domain registrar (which you can find by searching the domain at who.is — examples include GoDaddy, NameCheap, etc.) in order to change the nameservers, or we’ll need you to change the nameservers to point the domain to our host server.
Note: If you plan to change your own nameservers, we will need to closely coordinate the timing to ensure that everything is configured properly, and we may request a listing of your DNS records before you make the switch.
Website Hosting:
We host FareHarbor Sites with WordPress VIP to offer secure, high-speed hosting. We offer this hosting service to our clients for free. Once your new site is live, you are free to download a backup of your old website files and cancel your old web host (just be sure you aren’t also cancelling email hosting if that’s something you’d like to keep with your previous host provider).
Email:
We do not offer email hosting (email@yourdomain.com). If you already have this set up through another host, we’ll be sure to properly configure the MX records on our end so that emails route correctly. If you are concerned and want to be sure, go ahead and send us over your MX records or email host login and we’ll cross-check everything. If you don’t currently have email hosting at your domain, we generally recommend Google’s GSuite tools, but we can configure your site for any email host of your choice as long as you provide the MX records.
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When you go live on a FareHarbor Site, we simply point your domain to the new site on our server instead of to your old site’s host server. This means that we do not delete or modify your old site in any way.
If you’d like to retain files or information from your old site, you will need to backup the files from your old server. They will remain hosted on your old server until you cancel that host.
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As long as your hosting is not tied to your email, you can end your contract with your current hosting provider. As mentioned in the previous question, if you would like to retain files or information from your old site, you will need to backup the files from your old server.
If your hosting is tied to your email, you will need to continue paying for hosting or migrate your email to another platform.
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FareHarbor Sites are built on a proprietary theme that our team of developers has custom built. While this theme is versatile, there are limitations that your Project Coordinator will discuss with you.
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Due to the way we maintain and secure our websites through our content delivery network, Cloudflare, we suggest that you point your nameservers to FareHarbor’s. If updating your nameservers is not a possibility, we can adjust your DNS records within your domain registrar or CDN to point to your FareHarbor website.
Note: If your domain is managed through a third party such as an IT department or web developer and you are unable to give FareHarbor access to your domain, you will need to confirm that changing the nameservers or DNS records will not be a problem before we build your website.
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Content & Brand Materials
You retain all copyright and ownership of the content and brand materials on the website we build for you. This includes—but isn’t limited to—your logo, photos, text, and any graphics you provide us.
Domain & Email
Since you are responsible for maintaining your domain and email accounts, you retain all ownership of these items.
FareHarbor Templates
Because our templates are developed in-house for the purpose of providing optimized websites to our FareHarbor clients, we retain ownership of the template itself. This means that if for any reason you leave FareHarbor, your content and brand materials can go with you, but not the templated site.
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No. The content (text, images, graphics) of your website and your domain belongs to you, and FareHarbor does not hold any rights over that. The site itself and the WordPress theme that it is built on are the property of FareHarbor and will not be transferred if you decide to end your relationship with FareHarbor.
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Our project coordinators are our subject matter experts when it comes to FareHarbor Websites. It’s their job to collect all the necessary information for your website and ensure that the website process is smooth and timely.
Once you submit your submission form, you will be assigned a project coordinator. They will be your primary contact for anything concerning the website until it is live. Any questions regarding your Dashboard should still be directed to your account manager or our support team.
Once your website goes live, our support team or your account manager will assist with any ongoing website needs.
Domains
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A domain name registrar is a company that manages the reservation of Internet domain names. It is typically the company you purchased your domain from. Some common registrars include GoDaddy, Namecheap, and Squarespace. If you’re not sure where your domain is registered, start by checking who.is.
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DNS or Domain Name System is how your domain communicates with the different services that it utilizes, such as your website or your email. FareHarbor manages our websites’ DNS through our content delivery network, CloudFlare. Our team will query and copy any current DNS records on your domain prior to launching your website to ensure any services you are currently utilizing continue to function after the website has launched.
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FareHarbor is not an email provider and does not host email. If your email is currently attached to your domain you will need to continue paying your email host after you FareHarbor site goes live to ensure the email remains active. If you are interested in setting up an email address that incorporates your domain we recommend Google Workspace.
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FareHarbor will take over as your website hosting provider and be available to help maintain your website.
We don’t know the intricacies of what services the third party offers you, so be sure to get clarity on this before you end your contract with them.
Images, Videos, and Other FareHarbor Sites Specifications
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Images, videos, call-out banners, header/full row images: 1600 x 900 pixels (or bigger), landscape or panorama orientation
Other images: 1000 x 800 pixels minimum recommended
The larger and higher quality the image, the better it will look on the site. We can always decrease the size of an image, but making it larger or stretching it to fit a full-width section will distort the image and cause it to become blurry.
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Full-width video rows and video blocks must be hosted on YouTube or Vimeo. We can also embed Facebook or Instagram videos if you provide us with an embed code.
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We can use any photos defined under a creative commons license. Creative commons photos are great for general subjects such as “sunset” or “boat,” but they’re typically not available for specific subjects such as “sunset over Coco Beach” or “Sundance 320 boat.” If you require photos of specific subjects, you will need to supply those.
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Yes! Call-out banners are used to highlight important information and promotions then link to another page or section.
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These are adjustable for each page. Our SEO and content team will update these according to their keyword research before the site goes live.
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Yes, our WordPress theme has a couple of Instagram feed options.
One option just requires adding your Instagram profile URL but has limitations with customization. The other option requires you to have an Instagram business account. We will request those login details and link that to the website. This option allows for more customization on the layout and posts shown in the feed.
Wordpress Theme Limitations and Restrictions
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No, FareHarbor Sites are not fully customizable. While our in-house WordPress theme is versatile and meant to optimize websites for online online booking conversions for tours, activities, and attractions, it does have certain limitations when it comes to layout and functionality. For this reason there may be certain requests that we are unable to fulfill. To get an idea of our theme’s capabilities, we recommend checking out our collection of demo sites.
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No. Our WordPress theme does NOT use any third-party plugins or widgets from the general WordPress environment. This is to protect all FareHarbor Websites clients from insecure or outdated plugins that can affect overall site security or create glitches on your website. Our developers actively monitor and implement updates to our theme on a routine basis to keep our sites secure. Since we do not offer plugins, we can install certain scripts to your website’s code if you provide them.
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While we do not use Yoast SEO, our custom-built SEO tool operates similarly to Yoast. Our in-house team of SEO experts will help implement and manage your ongoing SEO work, depending on your package.
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Our WordPress theme has easy integration options for Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, AdRoll, Bing, Alexa, Pinterest, MixPanel, Optimizely, and more. We can also implement third-party marketing scripts into your website’s code for other methods of tracking site performance.
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Yes! We have a functioning blog element that has basic customizations. Though our blog feature does allow some customization, it is not FareHarbor’s primary focus and therefore has its limitations. To see an example of a blog page, click here.
Blog Limitations:
- Set layout/view of blog posts on the main blog page
- Cannot add additional elements/features that are applicable for the rest of the website
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We do not have built-in functionality for pop-ups because user experience and SEO best practices highly recommend not using pop-ups on websites, as they can affect bounce rates and increase user confusion during a session. But we can add a pop-up script from a third-party platform to your website if needed.
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We ONLY use Google Fonts. These are the most accessible fonts for users around the globe on any browsing device, and they are the most secure fonts available. To browse all Google Fonts, click here. Our website theme can accommodate one heading font and one body font.
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No. Currently, we do not have a built-in e-commerce feature. We recommend that clients who have e-commerce or online retail operations use an external link to a store/shop platform that exists outside the WordPress environment. Some common options for this are Shopify and Ecwid. We do not offer integration with WooCommerce or any other e-commerce plugin.
In some cases (if retail inventory is minimal), we can host your products on your FareHarbor Dashboard and sell products directly through FareHarbor. FareHarbor does not have the ability to track complex inventory like a traditional e-commerce platform, so this option only works for smaller retail shops.
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No, you will not be able to access the WordPress source code or core theme files as our team maintains full control over this.
What to Expect After Your Site is Live
This information exclusively applies to operators subscribed to the Web Core package.
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Yes! Once the website is living on your domain, we set you up with your own personal login and password with full administrative access to the backend of your website. You are able to log in and make changes or updates to your site at will.
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Because your business is constantly evolving we understand that your website needs to be able to as well. If you are on Web Core, once your website is live our Live Sites Support team is available to help with update requests and website maintenance. If you’d rather maintain the website yourself we will provide you and your team with full admin access to the WordPress dashboard and access to a number of resources for getting familiar with the WordPress theme.
If assigned one, your account manager will remain your primary contact. In certain cases, they can help answer questions regarding Google Analytics and assist with monitoring the performance of your website.
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We don’t currently offer one-on-one training, but we do have a number of guides and videos to help you get started in working with the backend of the website. Browse our training videos. Please note you must be logged into FareHarbor to view these resources.
SEO
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For SEO reasons, we strongly suggest keeping your website on your current domain. Changing domains can severely impact your rankings, traffic to your website, and domain authority. Google will crawl the new domain and essentially view the website as a brand new operation, which will negate all your previous SEO rankings. The only time we take a website live on a different domain is when you have lost ownership of your current domain.
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Due to the way search engines work, there’s always the possibility of a temporary dip in rankings while your site is re-crawled and indexed. However, these dips are not permanent and we do our best to minimize them. Learn more here.
Dormant Mode
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Dormant Mode allows you to switch your websites to an off-season state, informing potential customers that the business is currently not offering activities. During this time, visitors are shown curated in-season activities by FareHarbor.
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- You stop paying the monthly fee for web offerings.
- FH helps promote other in-season tours and activities on your dormant homepage. This will give you the opportunity to potentially earn passive income as an affiliate through the FH Distribution Network.
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- You will not be able to make requests to our Live Sites Support team.
- You will not have back-end access to your website to make changes yourself.
- You cannot currently be offering tours or activities while your site is in Dormant Mode. Dormant Mode is available while you’re in your off-season.
Translations
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FareHarbor Sites currently supports the following languages:
- Catalan
- Chinese (Simplified) & Chinese (Traditional)
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- Finish
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hungarian
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Russian
- Slovenian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Welsh
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FH Sites template supports 23 languages, and we are able to offer multi-language sites. Your site is always approved in English and in the business local language. However, it is also possible to add other languages once there is a demand.
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Translating your dashboard is also mandatory while hosting a multi-language site. The translations can be added to the site before or after going live. This will be agreed between the client and the project coordinator.
Timelines
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While there are a number of factors that can affect the timeline, we generally aim to have sites built and live within between 1-2 months of the initial submission. Timelines will vary based on the complexity of the new website build. To expedite this timeline as much as possible, be prepared to share visual content (pictures and images), written content, and website objectives prior to the project starting.
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While we can’t make any promises before having all the details, our team is happy to accommodate you, when we can. Please reach out to your project coordinator (or account manager if you have not been assigned one yet) to discuss this.
Miscellaneous
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It is FareHarbor’s business model to make every activity or item easily bookable online. While there are certain exceptions to this rule, we generally require your activities to be bookable online as a condition of FareHarbor hosting and managing your website.
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FareHarbor does not write website content or blog posts for clients. However, our copywriters will check any content provided for grammar and best practices. If you want to begin writing a blog or creating your own content, we have a number of great resources on Compass.
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FareHarbor does not create brand assets for clients. You will need to provide any graphics, logos, etc. for your website.