Web Hosting

SSL vs. TLS: Which Provides the Best Protection?

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and TLS (Transport Layer Security) are two security protocols that provide encryption and authentication between applications where data travels over an insecure network such as the internet.  While the terms are often used interchangeably, one is actually the successor to the other.  In fact, SSL 3.0 laid the foundation for the first version of TLS, which is why it is sometimes called SSL 3.1.  Let’s take a closer look at these protocols to see if we can determine if one is better than the other.

Similarities and Differences

SSL and TLS differ in such a way that they are actually inoperable with one another.  However, they are essentially equal in terms of the level of security they provide.  For instance, both can ensure that your data is protected with reliable encryption when traveling over the internet.  They also make sure the server you are communicating with is the one you intended to contact and not a middle man eavesdropping on your transactions.  This is because any server with SSL or TLS installed must also be equipped with certificates issued by a third-party CA (Certificate Authority) such as Thawte or Verisign.  These certificates essentially verify that the website actually belongs to the domain name owner and server.

The main difference between these two protocols is that an SSL connection starts out by applying security and then proceeds into secured communications while a TLS connection does not.  TLS actually begins with an insecure “hello” to the server.  It only proceeds into secured communications after a successful handshake between the client and server.  Should the handshake fail for any reason, TLS will not create a connection of any sort.  Despite this significant difference, SSL and TLS both make fine options for security.  You really can’t go wrong with either.

The TLS Advantage

There are reasons to choose TLS over SSL, and the most significant relates to how it was developed.  TLS is based on open community standards, which makes it far more extensible and more likely to be supported in the future.  Perhaps the most unique advantage of TLS is that it is backwards compatible, which basically means that it can be scaled to secure client side connections that only support SSL.  Another distinct benefit is that TLS permits secure and insecure connections over a single port, while SSL designates one port for secure connections only.  Even this factor does not make either any more or less secure than the other.

When it comes to SSL or TLS, what you need to know is that by not using either, the communications between you and another server can become the party line for eavesdroppers and cyber criminals.  The data contained in your email, login screens and even financial transactions will be delivered across the net in plaintext for all to see.  In addition, there will be no way to ensure that the server you connect with is valid and not just an interloper or middle man setting you up for the fall.  Therefore, it would be wise to adopt either of these protocols to keep your communications private.

The Importance of SEO Article Writing

The web is littered with articles that are not worth the word processor they were written on.  After a second glance, you will notice that they are horribly composed and stuffed with keywords, immediately recognizing that they were written for the sole purpose of trying to boost the ranking of a particular web page.  This is not a bad thing, just the wrong approach.  When incorporating articles into your SEO campaign, there are three things you need to focus on:

1. Providing valuable information.

2. Increasing link popularity.

3. Increasing search engine rankings.

All of this is difficult accomplish when your articles are badly written and stuffed with keywords.

The Power of Articles

So why would you want to consider articles for enhancing your SEO efforts?  Well, although having optimized content on your site is very effective in the eyes of the search engine, you must also make sure that content serves a purpose for your visitors as well.  Many of the successful search engine marketing gurus agree with this and stress the importance of delivering useful information.  If the content on your website is not helpful or useful in any way, visitors will have little motivation in reading it to learn more about what you have to offer.  Sure, you may be able to get a higher ranking in Google and possibly even bring in considerably more traffic.  Unfortunately, if visitors simply take one look at your articles and then leave, those high rankings you achieved in the search engines would mean noting at all.

Articles also make a great way to establish link popularity.  However, if you plan to distribute them across the web and have not taken the time to make sure they have an acceptable level of quality, it is very unlikely that someone else will want to publish your article on their site.   Point blank – if your articles are poorly written and do not give useful information to the reader, they will be very ineffective at helping your build good links.

Writing Articles for Search Engines

Once you have a handle on writing good content that makes sense and delivers solid information, you can then embark on producing articles for SEO.  Keep in mind that writing for the search engines calls for a good balance so there are a few things you want to avoid.

- Never sacrifice the reader experience just to achieve higher rankings.

- Never repeat the same words and phrases to the point of extreme.

- Never overstuff keywords into text because it is more likely to backfire.

The Keys to Success

You will have a much better chance of succeeding with SEO article writing by establishing some discipline within yourself.  This can be as simple as studying your niche and coming to understand your target audience.  Once you have done this, keep your articles specifically focused on their needs or interest.  Also pay attention to your content and make sure it contains concrete knowledge that is useful to the reader.  If you can accept that your audience should come before the search engines, you will be become a better article writer and everything else will fall in place from there.

Authentication Hacking: Is Your Site Vulnerable?

Authentication plays an important part in securing a website and its applications.  It works by authenticating and verifying a user’s identity and then either denying or providing them with specific privileges to a system based on the username and password they enter against the established credentials.  Though it adds an extra layer of protection, authentication is quite vulnerable to exploitation.  In most cases, this type of attack does not originate from a security hole in the web server or operating system software.  It actually targets weak passwords and vulnerable areas of the network itself.

By successfully hacking the authentication session, an attacker can log into the system as a known and valid user, which provides them with whatever privileges the victimized user has been assigned by the administrator.  This means that the intruder could only have access to certain information, or global access across the entire system, the latter of which could possibly give them control of the application or website itself.  At this point, the attacker can stir up a lot of trouble.

Tools of the Trade

Most attackers attempt to gain access via the application’s login screen that requests a username and password to enter the system.  This calls for them to match the correct login credentials that application recognizes as valid and hopefully has the highest level of privileges in the system.  While this is not the most sophisticated attack, password cracking can prove to be one of the most effective methods a hacker uses to cripple an authentication scheme.  This common technique can be executed manually or automatically with special software, which makes guessing the password much easier.

If the attacker has no success at password guessing, their next step usually involves automated tools such as Brutus and WebCracker, which unfortunately, are widely available on the web.  These custom applications are designed to defeat authentication and penetrate the target system using a list of predefined usernames and passwords.  However, they are best known for employing dictionary attacks and brute force.  Hence the name, a dictionary attack utilizes a pre-formulated list of common words in a dictionary to compromise web applications, trying thousands of combinations to determine the correct username and password.  Brute force is a technique used to break a cryptographic scheme by consistently trying a large number and  sometimes all, possible keys to decrypt an encrypted password.  Both have proven to be very effective at guessing weak passwords and bypassing authentication.

Prevention and Protection

Stopping an authentication attack can be very difficult.  Especially when factoring in all the sophisticated hacking techniques and tools on the black market.  Fortunately, there is a way to test the strength and overall effectiveness of your authentication methods.  One of the most reliable is authentication testing, a feature commonly found in web vulnerability scanners.  These applications are generally easy to use and configure for automatically testing all the applications within your site that require authentication.  Furthermore, most also scan for other common exploits such as SQL injection, cross site scripting and cross site forgery.

Seven Innovative Approaches to Link Building

Establishing link popularity can be very time consuming, especially when it comes to sending out requests.  However, this is a critically important aspect of SEO and something that must be done if you truly want to maximize your potential.  While you never want to just sit back and do nothing, asking people to link up with you is not always the best idea.  Instead of spending time asking for links, sometimes it pays to think outside the box and use more innovative approaches to reach your goals.  Here are a few tips that will make your link building campaign much easier:

1. Get Active - You can learn a lot by playing an active role in the online forums and groups relative to your niche.  If you become popular in these communities, people will seek your advice and want to link to you.

2. Article Submission – One of the most effective ways to create quality links is publishing articles on a large variety of websites.  This could be information sites, social media sites, ezines or even article directories.  Try to focus on sites that service your market, make yourself familiar with the type of content that is published, and modify the style of your articles accordingly.

3. Publish a Newsletter – You can also use a newsletter to build good links to your website.  You can encourage readers to link by letting them know if they enjoyed the newsletter, they can link to the permanent version of the content located on your site.  Do forget to include the URL.

4. Publish Great Content – This is not necessarily new, however it works just as well as any of them.  By publishing great content on your website, people will be more likely to want to link to you.  Great content is well written and most importantly, delivers excellent value to your visitors.

5. Award Sites - An innovative way to get yourself some quality links is to submit your website to award sites. You would be delighted at the number of people who have had success with this method.

6. Get in Good with Online Directories - There are several online directories that accept volunteer editors.  This will allow you to submit your own personalized reviews of many sites, as well as your own. This also gives you the chance to better understand your market.

Securing FTP Connections

File Transfer Protocol or simply FTP, is a feature that has become very popular on the web hosting market.  FTP offers capabilities the email system can’t touch, allowing you to transfer large files over the internet from one computer to another.  Regardless of the size or file type, as long as you have access to an FTP server and client, you can upload your files to the web and share it with others.  Although FTP is more efficient and secure than HTTP, it is quite vulnerable in its purest form.  However, there are a few security protocols that exist to make sure this is not the case.  Here is a brief overview:

SSL

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) has become a critical security tool due to the prevalence of e-commerce and online business.  Designed to ensure privacy for communications made over the internet, SSL can provide excellent security for an FTP connection.  Secure Sockets Layer is a protocol that utilizes symmetric cryptography to facilitate data encryption and maintain the utmost privacy.  All messages transferred over the internet are sent in ciphertext, which is essentially unreadable characters that prevent unauthorized parties from viewing the contents of the file.  One of the best qualities of SSL is that it offers a extensible framework that allows you to incorporate other encryption schemes for an added layer of protection.

TLS

TLS (Transport Layer Security) is another encryption-based security protocol used to ensure data integrity and privacy between two computers communicating over the internet.  This protocol consists of two components: TLS Record Protocol and TLS Handshake Protocol, both of which ensure privacy during internet-based communications in their own unique way.  Just like SSL, it is highly extensible and supports the incorporation of new encryption methods in the framework.  However, TLS is the successor to SSL and thus often considered to be slightly more secure.

SSH

SSH (Secure Shell) is a security protocol and method that provides encrypted channels for internet communications.  This mechanism is often used to provide protection when executing commands on a remote computer, making it perfect for FTP.  With SSH, you can create an encrypted tunnel between you and your users’ computers and protect that information from unauthorized third-parties.  Due to its efficiency and dependability, many FTP hosting service providers use SSH to provide customers with the maximum protection for their file transfer needs.

If you are someone who would like to benefit from all that File Transfer Protocol has to offer, keep in mind that FTP alone does not protect the files you transfer over the internet.  FTP itself does not have any encryption features, therefore provides little to no security at all.  For this reason, you should strongly consider a solution that offers SFTP or secure FTP.  While this type of service is normally coupled with protection by way of SSH, it offers the best of all the security solutions mentioned in this article.  That is strong digital encryption designed to keep sensitive information from prying eyes.

Carbon Offsetting Versus True Green Hosting

It can be quite tricky when attempting to determine the difference between a web hosting company that touts itself as being 100% eco-friendly and a web hosting company that offers true green hosting.  What is the difference?  One purchases carbon offset credits in the equivalent of what they produce in carbon emissions while the other uses renewable energy sources to power their equipment, data centers and offices.

The eco-friendly group

One of the easiest ways for a web hosting company to proclaim its self as an ecologically friendly hosting company is by carbon offsetting.  Carbon offsetting can be done in several ways: reforestation efforts, purchase of carbon credits in the amount equivalent to one’s carbon emissions, or even the purchase of green tags (also known as Renewable Energy Certificates).

There are several web hosting companies online that currently participate in a larger reforestation effort.  The damage caused by wildfires each summer has a devastating yearly effect on the world’s eco-system.  Hosting companies like CR8change.org – for every new hosting plan started, this company will plant one tree for every month a customer hosts with them.

Many more web hosting companies are opting to go the route of purchasing carbon credits.  The purpose of carbon offsetting is as a financial way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Web hosting companies that participate in this practice find out how much in emissions they produce yearly and then, at a minimum, purchase carbon credits in an amount equal to their production.  These carbon credits then go to projects that are working toward creating cleaner energy sources.

Green tags, or Renewable Energy Certificates, are (according to Wikipedia) “tradable, non-tangible energy commodities” that show that 1 Mwh of electricity was generated from a renewable energy resource.  This renewable energy resource needs to be of a qualifying technology – solar, wind, geothermal, low impact hydropower, biofuels or fuel cells.

The green group

The number of web hosting companies either starting out or converting to green hosting is growing each day.  One needs to do a bit of research first to determine which are actually using green technology for their web hosting services.

Those hosting companies that are actually using green technology will proudly proclaim this on the front page of their web sites.  ThinkHost is one of these companies.  This web hosting company is powered 100% by wind and solar power.  AISO.Net is another truly green web hosting company powered by solar energy and that also uses wind and water to further maximize their total “greenness”.  Another great green web hosting company is Solar Energy Host – powered entirely by the sun.

Conclusion

The terms eco-friendly and green are easily tossed about by many web hosting companies these days.  While all of these companies are doing their part to give back to the environment, it’s important to realize the difference between the two terms.

If one is looking to place their business with a truly green web hosting company, it’s imperative to dig a bit deeper into the web hosting company’s claims and ensure that green technology is actually being used.

CMS Made Simple Content Management System

A man who gave up working in his father’s metal shop to building a good, solid content management system, Ted Kulp has been actively developing and tweaking CMS Made Simple for over five years.  Since its early beginnings, CMS Made Simple has grown from one man to a team of over ten developers who’s passion shows in their commitment to this product.  While not showing as a top open source CMS program contender, this piece of software has a lot to offer and is slowly growing in popularity.

Features

CMS Made Simple offers quite a few features.  SEO friendly URLs is at the top of the list and is a refreshing change from the standard CMS URLs that require a bit of fancy programming or modification to work with the major search engines.

There are a number of integrated features making this product an excellent choice – help, file manager with upload capabilities and an audit log.  User and group management are included as well as a group-based permission system.

CMS Made Simple allows for a unique web site design with the ability to change templates with ease.  The included admin panel is not only available in English but supports many other languages as well.  The program also boasts several extra features available with add-on modules – WYSIWYG, polls, blogging and calendar add-ons are just a few offered.

Support

The CMS Made Simple web site offers several avenues for support should the need arise.  Full documentation is available online as well as an FAQ, user forum, mailing list and an IRC chat channel.  If this isn’t enough, the company also offers a direct e-mail connection to a developer to have support issues handled when all other support routes fail to garner a user the answer they need.

The development side of this company’s web site allows users to report bugs and request features – a nice addition for regular uses of this CMS program.  This area also shows current releases and a roadmap to future developments of the software.

Beyond software

Going beyond simply producing and offering a CMS solution, CMS Made Simple also offers professional services for developers needing more assistance or something more than just what the program offers.  Among these services are support contracts purchased on a per-site basis, software development to help with solutions outside the standard program and the ability to contract one of the company’s developers for large projects.

Testimonials

As with any open source CMS program that may not be as popular as the biggies on the market, knowing that the product is stable and used by others is important.  The CMS Made Simple web site lists out many satisfied customers with complete testimonials regarding the product.  This web page shows the product is easy to use and is well-liked by many web professionals and business owners.

Final Thoughts

It definitely isn’t one of the more well-known open source content management systems out on the web but it is slowly growing in popularity.  CMS Made Simple is exactly that – an easy to use open source content management system.  This CMS program is worth checking out.

Locate the Perfect SEO Expert

Having a fantastic web site available on the web will do nothing for one’s business if no one can find it.  Once built, an essential part of having a web site is optimizing it so that search engines can easily locate it.  This requires a bit of expertise with regard to keywords and phrases, good content copy that reflects the chosen keywords and even knowing which page URLs will work or not with search engine spidering.

Don’t do it yourself

Instead of attempting to do this on one’s own, it is prudent and recommended to seek out and hire an SEO consultant.  A professional SEO consultant will be able to determine which services are needed to make one’s business web site optimized for search engines and how to incorporate SEO marketing.

There are dozens of specific tasks and elements that go into good SEO and going the “do-it-yourself” route may end with one’s web site not showing at all in the major search engines.

Check their previous work

The first thing to ask for when looking for the perfect SEO expert is previous examples of SEO content as well as web sites they have helped optimize in the past.  Check the rankings of these web sites with the major search engines – Google and Yahoo are perfect examples – and use the Alexa web site to view overall rankings.  Alexa is a free web traffic metric analyzer that will give one a good overview of how well a web site or company is doing over time.

A good showing with increased rankings over time is an indication of how effective an SEO consultant can be.  Rankings that are dropping or maintaining an unchanged level would indicate locating another SEO expert would be in order.

Look at rates

Check the rates of the SEO consultants one is considering.  Very low rates can mean the person in question is just starting out and is trying to build up their portfolio.  Very high rates but with a less than stellar portfolio can also indicate a novice in the SEO field or one that isn’t terribly good at what they do.

Alternatively, as the world economy has taken a beating lately, many professionals have dropped their rates accordingly.  This is an important factor to keep in mind when researching rates.  Check to see if the SEO professional in question has recently dropped their hourly or project rates – one may get a bargain out of this.

Cheaper isn’t better

Don’t attempt to take the cheapest route.  While initially it may seem like a good idea and cost effective, a low rate SEO consultant can mean poor work produced for one’s business web site.  This, in turn, will mean ineffective search engine optimization, low rankings (if at all) within the major search engines and pretty much a loss of money overall.

Careful research should be done when looking to hire an SEO consultant.  Look at their previous results, experience and rates.  Remember that great search engine optimization can mean more customers and hiring a professional to do it correctly can only bring about a return on one’s investment.

How Complete is Your E-commerce Solution?

Once upon a time, the budding entrepreneur was often stopped in their tracks due to the lack of financial resources needed to invest in the traditional brick and mortar store.  This no longer has to be the case as both the internet and e-commerce are in full swing, providing companies of all sizes with an opportunity to move up several notches on the competitive ladder.  However, finding the right e-commerce solution is never as easy as it sounds.  A countless number of companies claim to have exactly what you need, but the harsh truth is that you can never be certain until giving it a try for yourself.  Unfortunately, the trial and error approach can turn out to be very risky, especially if you are trying to establish a business online.  To help in your search efforts, we have a compiled a list of some features that must be present in order to make up a complete e-commerce solution.

Compatibility with Existing Systems - Launching an e-commerce site is a tremendous process.  Therefore, you should not make it even more complex by setting yourself up to encounter technical problems.  Whether it is a shopping cart or payment gateway, make sure any e-commerce component you plan to integrate is compatible with your existing hardware, operating system and applications.

Ability to Support Existing Data – An ideal e-commerce solution is one that allows you to easily import data from one location to another.  This becomes a must for large stores that maintain databases in environments where it could be complex and costly to manually transfer large amounts of data into a new system.  Keep in mind that this feature is usually included in high-end enterprise solutions but may not be included in cheaper, entry-level systems.

APIs with Linking Support – Integrating inventory management and finance systems is one of the most challenging aspects of e-commerce.  If this is something you wish to do, you may want to look for a solution that offers flexible APIs.  Short for application programming interfaces, these APIs enable developers to write code that will connect your legacy system to your e-commerce server.

Functional Shopping Cart - The shopping cart is the most obvious and important feature of any e-commerce solution.  You need to put special emphasis on this application as it will allow visitors to browse your store and purchase the items they want to purchase.

Diverse Payment Systems – Most consumers prefer to shop online with credit cards or third-party services such as PayPal.  On the other hand, a complete e-commerce solution goes that extra mile and supports additional payment options.  This will give you the opportunity to maximize your profits by catering to a broader range of customers.

The features listed in this article are just a few that must be obtained to form a complete e-commerce solution.  This means you need to keep your eyes peeled for several more qualities.  Despite how insignificant some of these features may seem, each is equally critical as they will determine the failure or success of your venture with e-commerce.

Can You Handle a Dedicated Server?

There are many advantages to purchasing a dedicated hosting plan.  This arrangement is perfect for customers who require a higher degree of flexibility, security, reliability and a website that gives out an enterprise-grade performance.  Although you are actually leasing the hardware from the hosting company, you are still provided with a great deal of flexibility and control that allows you to customize the server based on your specific needs.  So even though you do not really own the server, this can actually turn out to be a good thing, especially if your organization does not have the manpower to handle the various maintenance tasks that must be performed on a day to day basis.

The Experience Factor

While some customers have the experience needed to maintain a dedicated server, others do not.  If you have a capable in-house team, you should be able to thrive just fine in this more complex environment.  For the more technically inclined user, managing an entire web server is usually no problem at all.  For those that have no experience or knowledgeable administrator, a managed solution may be the best option for their dedicated server.  With a managed service, the hosting provider handles the bulk of the maintenance and is often responsible for making sure the server stays up and running.  This generally includes taking care of the operating system, web server, applications and the hardware itself.  While an unmanaged server is usually the cheaper route, managed hosting is often the best way to go if you lack the knowledge and experience needed to maintain the system.

Is it the Right Move for You?

Whether or not you have the resources needed to manage a dedicated server is a critical factor to determining if this type of hosting is right for you.  If you are have the budget to take on the cost associated with leasing the hardware and feel that the hosting firm can provide you with an acceptable level of support, this could be the best move.  Regardless of where you stand in terms of experience, it is critical to first determine whether your website or business demands the power of a dedicated server.  If not, you could taking on an unnecessary expense and complexity that makes it more difficult for you to succeed.  As long as you warrant the need, a dedicated server can be a viable option whether you possess the technical abilities or not.  With the market for managed hosting services growing rapidly, you do not have to let the lack of experience deter your plans because solutions are widely available.

In today’s internet driven world, the website often reflects on the credibility of the company behind it.  A dedicated server can help you a establish and maintain a credible online presence while providing your business with the best possible chance to succeed.  If you are not sure of how to proceed, reach out to a few service providers for a little guidance.  This way, you can gather the information you need and perhaps find yourself a good partner in the process.

The Benefits of Country-Specific Domains

When going to register a domain name, you probably look for something with a .com TLD or decide to settle on .net if your first choice is not available.  This is very understandable being that both of them add more professionalism and credibility to your web presence.  While neither of these extensions make a bad choice, there are several reasons why you may want to consider registering a country-specific domain instead.

SEO Benefits

There are many cases when the major search engines will provide higher search engine rankings for web pages that have country-specific TLDs.  For example, if an internet user from Canada is searching for software consulting services in that specific country, the site at mysoftware.ca may rank higher than another website with a .com extension selling the same product.  This type of domain can also help increase your visibility through directories commonly referenced by local web surfers.  Directories make a great way to enhance search engine rankings and build qualities links that lead to more traffic to your website.

Boost Customer Confidence

Having a country-specific domain can help increase confidence in customers as many of them feel more comfortable purchasing from local merchants.  For them, it makes it much easier to track their sales and follow up with any questions or concerns regarding the product.  Even though business is conducted across international borders everyday, some customers would just like to know that they are dealing with someone residing in the same country rather than one operating in a foreign locality.

Better Identify Your Audience

Another benefit to country-specific domain names is that you are better to identify where your customers are actually located.  This makes things more convenient for both you and the customer.  You can easily display products and services targeted at shoppers in that particular region and customers do not have to worry about choosing the geographic area they are located in.  Again, this gives your site that local feel and instills the confidence the customer needs to feel safer doing business with you.

Maximize Your Potential

When factoring in their distinct advantages, you may want to consider registering both a country-specific TLD and a traditional extension such as .com or .net.  This is a simple but strategic move that makes your business appealing to both international and national audiences.  You should never overlook the potential sales and business that can be reaped from a domain name and all it takes is another small investment for an additional name that could result in huge benefits.

Conclusion

There are many domain name extensions available and the ICANN seems to be adding new ones on a regular basis.  The country-specific variation represents a very broad category and as you can see, offers a wealth of benefits.  While you have a vast selection to choose from, you should always keep yourself open to such an excellent opportunity that could help you attract other markets and extend your reach online.