Good-Bye X-Site Pro
A little while back, I made a blog entry wondering whether I should stay with X-Site Pro or not. The main issue I mentioned at the time was with updating the site with multiple people working on it. I got some great suggestions on how to work around this, but all the suggestions were cumbersome, added to work and required that we actually REMEMBER to keep things up-to-date at all times.
I also mentioned the problem with the program handling larger sites. It takes too long to save, to publish and so forth. A program that once saved time, ends up being a slow-poke once the site grows.
I've also had trouble with text formatting in text area tags being lost when I re-opened pages, which is very frustrating when I set up my affiliate center in X-Site Pro.
I've never been able to import the X-Site Pro files required to make changes to a site you're working on with multiple computers/users. I've contacted support, reinstalled the program and tried installing on other computers to no avail. Of course, other people don't have this problem, so I didn't think it worth mentioning.
But in discussions with others, I've found they have all kinds of quirky things happen with the program too and are unable to come to a resolution. Some report files becoming corrupted, no longer being able to open the program and other seemingly isolated things. It seems to me, and I am NOT a software expert - just a lowly software user - that the program can easily conflict with other programs/settings you have on your computer.
I am not trying to bad-mouth the software, but provide a different perspective. The software enjoys a lot of good press in the Internet marketing community and most often nobody mentions the potential problems. I just want to provide a more balanced view.
Overall, everyone has their own preference and TONS of people continue to use X-Site Pro every day in their business. It's just not the tool for me anymore. I am no longer building new sites with it and will eventually remove my current sites from the program.
If you're on the fence and thinking about X-Site Pro, here's my humble opinion on why you might want it:
- For small sites that you don't update or add to often.
- For sites you throw up very quickly and move on.
- For sites where you don't want to vary the template from page to page (ex. make different targeted offers in the margins, marketing-maximized thank you pages, etc).
If you think you want it because you don't know how to build websites, I'd say there's plenty of WYSIWG software that is worth the SLIGHTLY longer learning curve. Look at FrontPage (yes, forget what coding geeks say about it), Dreamweaver or other options.
I'm open to a discussion about the software and would love to hear your comments. It would be great to know what kind of sites you're putting up and how you're working on them. We don't need to know what niches you're working, if you want to protect that. It's just helpful to have a good idea on how you're using the software.
I also mentioned the problem with the program handling larger sites. It takes too long to save, to publish and so forth. A program that once saved time, ends up being a slow-poke once the site grows.
I've also had trouble with text formatting in text area tags being lost when I re-opened pages, which is very frustrating when I set up my affiliate center in X-Site Pro.
I've never been able to import the X-Site Pro files required to make changes to a site you're working on with multiple computers/users. I've contacted support, reinstalled the program and tried installing on other computers to no avail. Of course, other people don't have this problem, so I didn't think it worth mentioning.
But in discussions with others, I've found they have all kinds of quirky things happen with the program too and are unable to come to a resolution. Some report files becoming corrupted, no longer being able to open the program and other seemingly isolated things. It seems to me, and I am NOT a software expert - just a lowly software user - that the program can easily conflict with other programs/settings you have on your computer.
I am not trying to bad-mouth the software, but provide a different perspective. The software enjoys a lot of good press in the Internet marketing community and most often nobody mentions the potential problems. I just want to provide a more balanced view.
Overall, everyone has their own preference and TONS of people continue to use X-Site Pro every day in their business. It's just not the tool for me anymore. I am no longer building new sites with it and will eventually remove my current sites from the program.
If you're on the fence and thinking about X-Site Pro, here's my humble opinion on why you might want it:
- For small sites that you don't update or add to often.
- For sites you throw up very quickly and move on.
- For sites where you don't want to vary the template from page to page (ex. make different targeted offers in the margins, marketing-maximized thank you pages, etc).
If you think you want it because you don't know how to build websites, I'd say there's plenty of WYSIWG software that is worth the SLIGHTLY longer learning curve. Look at FrontPage (yes, forget what coding geeks say about it), Dreamweaver or other options.
I'm open to a discussion about the software and would love to hear your comments. It would be great to know what kind of sites you're putting up and how you're working on them. We don't need to know what niches you're working, if you want to protect that. It's just helpful to have a good idea on how you're using the software.
17 Comments:
*sigh* I feel the honeymoon period is over. It's like a good relationship gone bad.
I absolutely loved Xsitepro at the beginning and little by little it's just irritating me more and more.
I've had to redo one whole site b/c the code got corrupted and the program keeps freezing on me on my other sites.
I know some people haven't had these issues but I'm just curious as to what the developers are going to do about it.
Alice,
how are ya.. nice pic of your son there.. ;)
My youngest started secondry,(high sch).. scary eh..
Well your topic here is a good one.
I had thought about the x site pro.. not buying it, just thinking of how so many are using it.. and thought it must be ok, and quick.
I have recently been trying to use wp for blogging but have endless problems from the start.. cant get to the bottom of it.
I will use bloggers for now as I have for last few years , onto own domain much like you do.
Blogger is simply easy to use, very straightforward.
It is better than some give credit for.
I have also used Front page and again it is easy to get to grips with..anyopne could learn with fp in my opinion.
I know the techy's say fp is not great due to "bloated code" but for a starter being "perfect" is not the important bit.. the important bit is to START.
It will teach alot as you use it, then you can "clean up" any code you see as you learn.
Then maybe move onto something better...or use a seperate ftp program, run webpages through a cleaner htnl editor, ftp to server.
I am now learning with dreamweaver and will use that once got to grips with it.
It is important to find what works for YOU, not what works for others.
Great post Alice.
Take care.
Rob.
P.s Alice do you still use fp?
I agree with you, Alice.
For small sites, it is worth using. Larger sites (over 200 pages) -- I'm getting frustrated with.
P.s.s
Have you used the new blogger.beta ? It is great.. even easier and faster to use.
Looking forward to blogger moving the old dashboard to the new one... the sign ups will go up... ;)
take care.
Rob
I haven't had the problems that others have with Xsitepro. Only once did I have an issue and it was all my fault (publishing setting). I'm no longer building huge sites though, just small (opt ins or sales pages) to medium sites and I find that I look forward to working with it and dread working on sites that use Frontpage or another site builder.
So I guess I'm Xsitepro's perfect target market? ;)
Honestly I'm still a fan, but I do see your point on large sites. I'm like Carrie - I am building smaller sites and opt in's so it doesn't bother me.
I love XSitePro! But recently, I too have had some pretty quirky things going on. Thank you for posting this information because I thought it was just something on my computer. Now I know it's XP.
I'm also very disappointed that more of the special requests have not been implemented. Support used to be awesome, until my favorite guy moved on. Now it seems, nothing new or improved is occurring.
Why would you recommend FrontPage when it will be replaced by a much improved product, Expression Web Designer in 2 or 3 months? Why should your readers ignore the concerns of "coding geeks?" These people practice web design as a craft, and they understand the ramifications of invalid, bloated, and inaccessible markup.
Anonymous, thank you for your feedback. I recommend FrontPage because my audience is marketers, rather than designers. If people want to make money online, clean code has little to do with it - but a user-friendly website with a good marketing message does.
Getting hung up on coding takes people away from their original plan - to make money.
birdman,
A large site is an authority site that contains hundreds of pages of articles. Put that into XSitePro and it will eventually choke.
I have a mix of around 30 small and medium sites in XSitePro.
Support recently replied to my ticket on how much XSitePro could hold. They told me it was unlimited. But, recently I've been having some strange things happen while inside the software and a few crashes, but luckily have not encountered any corruption.
Hope this helps.
Oh no! Alice is going to ignore me, boo hoo ;)
Back to XSP, the sites I use them on right now aren't that big so maybe I'm still in the honeymoon period :)
My larger sites are almost always dynamically built. Just my 2 cents, any site whether FP, XSP or Dreamweaver or whatever, once it's grown to hundreds and hundreds of pages it's just too unwieldly. While FP can handle the size I really hate the long list of pages.
I was going to suggest a tool that will automate the XSP files so both you and your assistant will always have the same files synchronized but oh well... guess that won't be needed now.
What...ignore you, Lynette? What are you talking about?
Thanks for the handy tech tool, but there are other problems with XSP I just can't keep working with.
Oh duh...Lynette you're a coding geek. :-) But you're a different kind of coding geek!
LOL I couldn't help myself.
I found this page while searching for X-Site Pro in Google as it was recommended to me. It sounds like X-Site Pro has had its day.
Now I'm wondering what I should be using instead!
Hey Alice,
If you're already an XSitePro user, then you'll know that V2 is right of the cusp of release.
If you're not already an XSitePro user, if you purchase V1 now, you get a free upgrade to V2! :o)
I'm an affiliate of XSP as you can probably tell, (www.xsitepro-seo.com) but still - I can't help but recommend that you don't write XSitePro off. I've SEEN V2 in it's beta - and it's AWESOME!
Anyway, that's just my two-cents!
J-Six.
Thanks for the input J-Six. I have long dropped XSP and whether or not this version fixes all the problems of previous versions - it's too little too late for me. So many limitations and so many quirks did not make it worth sticking around for.
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