Home Page for Custom Knives by A.T. Barr

You are currently viewing an archived page, nothing here is for sale.
BladeHQ.com has purchased this website and is working on a new design.
In the meantime, please feel free to browse the Custom Knives section at www.bladehq.com.

(A.T. Barr's new website can be found at www.custom-knives.com).

Are you interested in a website, with a link page that costs only $70.00 a year? I'm A.T. Barr, and I'm a full time maker of custom knives. I am also a member of the Knifemakers' Guild. I started this web-hosting site for anyone that makes, sells, or just loves Custom Knives. I have been managing my website and posting new pictures for years. In January of ‘97 I was lucky enough to register a very good name for my website, customknives.com. Please check out my website and you can see my webmaster work. As you see, my site loads fast and is easy to navigate.

Here are the main benefits of using customknives.com to host your website:

1) Your web address will be e.g. http://www.customknives.com/joe.knifemaker, Isn't this so much more professional than this example http://www.somewhere.com/~somehow/knifemaking/joe.knifemaker?

4) No aggregating pop ups, that your viewers have to close on each page they view.

5) I register your website with http://www.knifeseek.com/, the only search engine exclusively for knives.

(6 My prices are less than half of the big boys. Why pay for a secure site, shopping cart, or 50 mB of memory, if you don't need it?

What I am offering is a site for all knifemakers, from hobbyist to full time maker, or a purveyor of Custom Knives. If you engrave or scrimshaw knives you may also display your work on this site. If you have any additional questions, please email me at questions@bladehq.com (Remove SPAM from address) or give me a call at 859.887.5400.

What I am offering is a site for anything that cuts. Here is a partial list. Is there something else I should add? Email me.

1)     All knifemakers, from full time maker to hobbyist. If you purchase pre-ground blades from a knife supply
         house, you are also welcome to show your work, but you MUST state right up front that the blade was
         not ground by you.
2)     Purveyor of Custom Knives.
3)    You Engrave Custom Knives.
4)     You Scrimshaw Custom Knives.
5)    You make sheaths for Custom Knives.
6)    You photograph Custom Knives.
7)     You can post your knives for sale and then put a notice on several websites (bladeforums.com,
         knifeforums.com, rec.knives, ect.) This is a lot less expensive than using eBay.

Did you know there are more than 21 million websites today? There is only one real search engine for knives http://www.knifeseek.com. The other search engines send out what is called spiders. They search those 21 million sites and send the information back to the search engines. If your lucky, they will find your site. You don't want to rely on luck. You can go to the search engines and register your site. That helps some. You also can pay these search engines to list your site. But, absolutely the best way to help people find your site is through linking your site with others. They put your URL on their link page, and I will put their URL on the Master Link page, that is linked to your site. All you will need to do, is send an email to the people you know, asking them to post your URL. If they are not already on the Master Link page, I will add them. Once each month, you can send me 5 URL's and I will place them on the Master Link page for no additional charge. The more links on that page, the more visitors each of us will have.

You just can't rely on Search Engines to send you traffic. Search engines send out what is called spiders. They search over 21 million sites on the internet and send the information back to the search engines. If your lucky, they will find your site. You don't want to rely on luck. You can go to the search engines and register your site. That helps some. You also can pay these search engines to list your site. But, absolutely the best way to help people find your site is through linking your site with others.

We've all seen websites that a have a URL something like this: http://www.somewhere.com/~somehow/knifemaking/joe.knifemaker. Why not have an address that will help the search engines find your site? The name says it all....Custom Knives. That's what we make, sell, engrave, scrim, photograph, or just love. http://www.customknives.com/joe.knifemaker looks much more professional.

My website http://www.customknives.com will cost you less. Check out my prices for several options. There are other places that can host your website. First you have to click on their URL, wait for all those banners to load, find the link for the link page, click on the link page, wait on those banners to load, then finally click on the name of the maker you are looking for. Now is that a pain or not? When I host your website, they will click on your URL http://www.customknives.com/joe.knifemaker, and go directly to that website. No banners, no ads, just your site. Simple is better. A professional webmaster will charge you at least $400.00 to design and publish a fairly simple website. Then you will need a Internet Service Provider (ISP) that will host your site. They charge a minimum of $20.00 a month to host a website. That’s more than $600.00 the first year. After the first year, you will save 50% or more using customknives.com for hosting your website.

You can go to netsol.com and register you name if it is available. The fee is $35.00 each year. Then you will need a ISP (Internet Service Provider) to host your site. That will run between $14.95 to $24.95 a month. My ISP is atlantavirtual. I used another one for years, but AtlantaVirtual Customer Service is very, very good. You call them 24 hours a day and talk to a person. Of course you will also have to learn how to design your website or pay a Webmaster to do it. If you presently have a website and need a Webmaster, then I can save you some money. And for sure, I know knifemaking and will design a website you will be proud of.

Have you clicked on a website and it took forever to load? Some websites have an enormous amount of pictures on the 1st page. I get impatient and will go somewhere else if it takes more than a minute to see all the pictures on a page. The length of each page, will print on approximately an 11" to 14" sheet of paper or about using page down, one time. I will work with you on this. For a basic one-page site, I suggest a few words about yourself and then a few photos (with descriptions) of your knives. You can have 4 or 5 photos on this page, but your page will take longer to load and the photos will be smaller. The choice is yours.

When you and I reach agreement, I will call you and ask for your credit card number. I will not charge your credit card until the day I actually start designing your website. If you have an idea how you want your website to look, then sketch it out and fax it to me. My fax number is 859.887.5400. To have pictures of your knives on your site, you will need to send either jpg files of your photos or I will scan them for $10.00 each, your choice. If you don't have email, you can show your mailing address and phone number. You can start out with only one page and then expand as you wish. The URL (address) of your website will be http://www.customknives.com/your.name. For example http://www.customknives.com/john.smith or almost any name you choose.

I have published two sample websites. One has one page and the other is two pages. The two page web site will cover the needs of 75% of Knifemakers, Engraver's, and Scrimshaw artists. Check out these two sites.

Here is a one page website. Here is a two page website. You can also check out these sites:

http://www.customknives.com/arthur.soppera/

http://www.customknives.com/lvcks/

http://www.customknives.com/a.t.barr/

I don't have a standard format, I can and will adjust your website to suite your needs. There will not be any frames or background colors. When I'm surfing, I don't want to wait for some graphic to load. All I want to see is the knives. These sites are simple and easy to navigate.

My website including the makers I am hosting have about 100 pictures. Yet, I have not reached 15mb of memory. The bottom line is most ISP's offer a lot of bells and whistles. Most of us do not need 30 or 50mB of storage, inventory control, 24 hr order taking, or a secure (for taking credit cards) site. The only reason to pay 100% or more each month to be hosted, is if you have a retail store. Then those services will be used and the extra cost justified.

I offer payment by Mastercard and Visa. Do not email me your card number. You can fax it to me at 859.887.5400 or give it to me over the phone.