There's a new examiner.net

Over the course of the evening Tuesday, The Examiner’s Web site has changed. We’ve moved to a new online publishing platform, new Web site software and, most importantly, a better Web site.

As you may or may not know, The Examiner, along with 13 other newspapers, were sold by Morris Communications to GateHouse Media in late 2007. Morris, and its online division, Morris Digital Works, have helped develop The Examiner’s Web site and provided hosting for the site since it was launched in 1997.

With the sale comes change. GateHouse Media, which owns more than 500 newspapers throughout the United States, is focused on the suburban and community newspaper market. One of the first changes you’ll notice is the look of the site. We’re working to simplify the overall design, make it faster to load and easier to navigate.

We’re putting more stories out on the front page, making it quicker for you to find the content you want.

You’ll also notice that some things aren’t where they used to be. Saved links will not work, and for a short time, we will not have our archive available online. In the old days of simple Web design, we could simply copy files from one server to another, but design of our site for the past several years makes that impossible.

Will the process be seamless? No way. We’re going to find problems, bugs, and mistakes. Just give us time – our staff worked through the night on Tuesday and is continuing to work to find and fix problems.

While we make the move, you may see the old site or the new site. This all depends upon how fast some of the changes move out to all the various Internet service providers. We do know up front that there may be interruption in service for blogs and the Spotted photo galleries, as well as some problems with our online classifieds.

We’re going to be tackling every problem as fast as we can, and that we need to ask your patience as we make this huge change.

I think you’re gonna like what you see!