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discussion group to their site. They want to count the visitors with a counter, and they want a way that people can refer their site to a friend.
Finally, they realize that they need to take orders, and that requires an order taking system or shopping cart. When they are faced with all of this, a beginning web marketer’s first reaction is to panic! They realize they don’t know how to do all of these things, because 1) they either don’t have the knowledge and when they look at the task it is frightening, or, 2) they are really busy setting up their business operation and they don’t have the time.
That presents an opportunity for you! You can become what I call a “CGI installer for hire!”
Most of all these features I’ve mentioned are simplistic little programs called CGI programs or CGI scripts. CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface.
In simple terms, it just means these are small programs which you add to a particular location on the server. They run on the server doing all the things that I just covered. CGI programs do everything from count the visitors to operate shopping carts.
Even though these programs are simple, though, they can be a nightmare to install, because they use terms that most people are not familiar with. It involves
config files, setting permissions, and people get really paranoid when they run into all of these terms and situations - particularly new owners!
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