Web Hosting

Interworx: Lightweight Yet Effective Control Panel

The control panel market offers many solutions for customers with varying needs. Whether you’re a small business owner or a CEO of a large corporation, you’re sure to find a web hosting control panel that will suit your needs. Many people have trouble finding out which control panel would be most suitable for their needs, however there are some control panels that can accommodate both large and small online businesses. One such control panel is the Interworx control panel.

InterWorx control panel is known as a cluster control panel, in other words it is capable of administrating several servers at once, although it can also be used to manage a single server as well.  InterWorx is also optimal for a dedicated server environment, and its multi-leveled user interface is simple to learn, yet very powerful. The software was originally designed to accommodate the administration needs of users with multiple servers, however over time the developers included simpler features for novice users. Both resellers and end-users can benefit equally from this software, as the server space allotted is not restricted on either end.  There are two main interfaces within the InterWorx software: the  SiteWorx (domain/reseller administration module),  and NodeWorx (server administration module)

Ease of Use

Although InterWorx is capable of handling complex administration tasks, it’s learning curve is relatively simple, even for novice users. It’s simplicity is compounded by the easy to use tool guide located in plain view on the main navigational page. In comparison to other control panels, InterWorx  is very easy to learn, and all of the features can be figured out by simply experimenting with the software.

Multiple Domains

Increasing web presence by owning multiple domains has become very popular in recent years, and InterWorxs realizes the demand for a control panel that can handle unlimited domains. In fact, InterWorks gives users the ability to build multiple websites from a single interface with the use of FTP, SSH and secure databases.  All of your domains receive email account administration and HTML directories. The only thing you need to worry about is the amount of disk space your web hosting provider offers.

Installation Application – ScriptWorx

InterWorx also includes an application called ScriptWorx, which allows you to install virtually any third party application with ease. These applications can greatly enhance the quality and functionality of your website by offering shopping carts, content, blogs, media galleries and more. Some of the applications will also greatly boost your marketing efforts, thereby increasing your business productivity. Since InterWorx is an open source software, developers can also use the integrated ScriptWorx tool to write their own scripts which can then be integrated into th software. This make InterWorx a very appealing control panel to programmers and developers.  Included in the software is an update utility which gives programmers regular updates on new programming languages and scripts.

Compact Yet Powerful

Since InterWorx is scripted in PHP and powered by MySQL, it is a very compact yet powerful program. In fact, the control panel uses less resources than a single Apache server.  InterWorx also includes a load balancing utility that allows the software to run quietly and efficiently in the background without disrupting any other functions on your operating system.

The Power of Branding: What’s in a Name?

Acquiring a good domain name nowadays can be very difficult, as it seems like all of the good names have been taken. In the beginning of the domain name game, you could acquire any name you wanted without failure, now as corporations buy domains by the thousands it has become nearly impossible to find a name that will suit your business perfectly. However, it is important not to give up on your search for the perfect domain name. The name of your website will be your online brand. Having a memorable and authoritative brand is very important because it will give you a presence in your niche.

Building an Online Reputation Through Branding

You may think that the name of your website does not matter, however this couldn’t be further from the truth. Even the best search engine optimization experts on the planet cannot give you what a good domain name can. The first thing people will mention when they talk about your website is the domain name. With countless millions of websites online, it is very important to have a name that is simple to remember.

Every domain name is completely unique, therefore it can be seen as your online fingerprint. The entire identity of your online business will be decided primarily by your domain name. Simply having a good domain name will make your site appear to be more credible, and it can even make the search engines favor your site more, depending upon what keywords your domain names contain.

Finding The Right Domain Name

Thousands of domains are purchased each day, and every moment you let pass without purchasing your dream domain, is another opportunity for your competition to purchase it first. Some individuals and companies purchase domain names by the hundreds just to turn around and sell them for ridiculous prices to people that need them in the future. If these companies can make a living off of finding good domain names, then surely you can find just one to represent your online business!

Finding the right name can be a very difficult process, but before you resort to paying an exuberant amount of cash to retrieve your desired domain name, you should consider your options. If you lack in the creativity department you could use a domain name generator software that will automatically generate concepts for you. You could also enlist the help of freelancers. There are many creative minds online in forum communities that would be willing to lend a helping hand for just a few extra dollars You could hold a contest in one of these forums and specify what you are looking for in a domain name. This is a good way to brainstorm with other people from all walks of life.

Don’t Hesitate

If you have an idea for a domain name now, then I would strongly suggest that you purchase it now before someone else does. You never know when the domain name will no longer be available.

Your domain name is a very important part of your online business, in fact without a memorable name your entire business could fail based on this factor alone! Remember this the next time someone asks you “What’s in a name?” Give them this answer: “Success!”

Using a CMS to Outsource Work

Building and maintaining a website is not exactly simple, especially when you’re trying to do it by yourself. Having a team of workers that you can collaborate with on a regular basis is the key to boosting your online business productivity. It is very rare that a successful website is built by a single individual without any help. The most successful websites are assembled by a team of professionals, working in conjunction with each other, each one carrying out a specific role in the operation. The problem is, this cannot be done confidently and securely without the help of an efficient content management system.

Saving Time By Granting Access

Even though you may have a team of writers, designers and programmers working with you full time on the project, uploading all of the content they provide can be a daunting task. In fact, you could spend hours of your own time just trying to incorporate the changes that you’re paying for. Instead of handling the situation manually yourself, why not let the employees upload the content to the site for you. You could easily save several hours a day by letting your employees upload their content personally. This would also give you a chance to work with the new improvements on a faster time scale. By the time you finish uploading all of the content provided, you’ll most likely have wasted half of the day, which could have otherwise been used to explore and organize all of the adjustments your employees could have made for you.

Deploying Your Employees

Once you have a team of reliable workers, you’ll need to know that they have access to certain areas of your site, in order to upload and incorporate their work into the design of your site. However, you do not want your employees to have access to all of the site, as this could present a security risk. Therefore, it is important that each employee be given privileges with which they can execute specific tasks with the permission of administrators only.  Using a good CMS will let you setup accounts for each employee and then set permissions for each account. For example, you can make it so your writers can only upload text to your site, or you can make it so the template designer can only add templates. These kind of restrictions will keep your employees from overstepping their boundaries.

Managing Workload With a CMS

Delegating duties to your employees is a very important part of keeping projects moving steadily. When an employee is confused about a certain issue, or the workload is not clearly stated, delays can result from poor communication. Administrators can communicate with their employees through an integrated messaging system. Each account is also given an email address at your domain, therefore each employee can also be contacted by external visitors of your site. This is especially useful for customer support employees. With the right CMS you can manage you entire staff with ease.

Search Engine Optimization: Keywords vs. Content

Most are familiar with the phrase “content is king.” However this cliche is not entirely true. There are many sites online that are packed with very informative content, yet they have very low page rankings. The truth is, without proper keyword placement and usage, even the most interesting and informative content will not receive the press it deserves. In order to reach the world with your content, you’ll need to understand balance between keyword density and informative content.

The Importance of Keywords

Keywords are the main focus in search engine optimization. When users type in a search query in their favorite search engine, they are actually typing in a keyword or phrase. The search engine then combs it’s database to find the most popular/useful site centered around that keyword. The search engines use a number of algorithms to calculate the usefulness and popularity of a website. It should be noted that popularity alone will not raise your page rankings, instead your site must be full of content that is useful and contains the proper keyword density.

Keyword Density

Keyword density is the percentage of words out of the total content that contain the keyword. An optimal keyword density would be about 3%-5%. To put this into perspective, you’ll want to include the targeted keyword about 3-5 times in a 500-1000 word article. The placement of the keyword is also very important as well. SEO experts note that your chances of success are greater if you include the keyword within the first 25 words of the article, and within the last 25 words of the article. You’ll also want to include the keyword at least once in the middle of the article. Keywords should also be placed in title tags,  and meta tags wherever possible.

Keyword Placement

Instead of mindlessly placing the keywords in a useless articles, it is optimal to include keywords in the same sentence as other key phrases. For this reason you may want to consider creating pages that focus on several keywords, with one main keyword being the primary focus. For example, if the main keyword is: “ keyword optimization,” then you might want to place that keyword in the same sentence with the keyword: “keyword density.” This way when a user searches for “keyword optimization and keyword density,” your site has a chance of appearing in the top results. Although this may not work 100% of the time, experimenting with practices like this are the best way to target specific search queries.

Conclusion

While keywords are important, there has to be substance within the content as well, and any clerical errors are indexed and will deduct from your total page ranking. For the best results, you’ll want your content to be useful to the reader. This will improve the overall popularity of your website, which will ultimately increase your page ranking as mentioned. Before uploading any content to your website, make sure it has been proofread and edited. It is also important to be consistent with your practices. It often takes weeks to see the results of your labor. If you give up on a specific method too soon, or if you change your methods regularly, then it will be difficult to find out what brings success.

The Most Prevalent PHP-Related Security Risks

PHP is thought to be most useful programming language around, by many web developers. For this reason PHP use is becoming increasingly popular in corporate programming and building independent applications. While PHP scripting has the ability to create just about anything you’d like with it, the programming framework is not without it’s security flaws. There are hackers that know how to take advantage of the loopholes in PHP scripting, and they do so everyday through simple web platforms such as WordPress and Drupal. To prevent this from happening to you, you’ll want to know what the most significant PHP security lapses are so you can take the proper security measures.

Code Exploits

Sometimes hackers can use certain lines of code to request and retrieve information from your website. For example, the “allow_url_fopen” option allows users to  request file functions such as “file_get_contents()”, which would in turn allow a perpetrator to retrieve sensitive data from your website via a remote FTP connection.  If you PHP is configured with default settings, then this this function is still enabled, and you will need to manually disable it to keep hackers from executing code exploits on your website. Disabling this function will not take away from the functionality of your website at all, as it is not commonly used. If you do need to use it personally in the future, you can simply enable it as you see fit.

Risky Functions

Just as in the above situation, every risky PHP function should be disabled to prevent a similar scenario. There are three functions in particular that pose especially dangerous threats, and those are the “EVAL” “shell_ exec” and the “passthru” functions.  Disabling these functions is simple, and can be done by making slight adjustments to the “disable_functions” values in the “php.ini” file. Disabling the EVAL function is actually vital, because it allows a user to request remote control of PHP coding on your website. If this is used in conjunction with another exploit, it can mean serious problems for you and your website. Before you disable these functions, it is a good idea to make sure they are not needed for any particular applications or plugins you are using on your website.

Unsafe Application Coding

The  flexibility of PHP is what usually makes it easy for a hacker to breach the security of a website or server. The problem is that the security gaps are most likely not your fault, but rather they lie within the content management system you are using. Many of the applications that people use to make their website management easier, also make it easier for hackers to infiltrate their administrative interface.    This is why it is important to make sure you are using only the most secure plugins and applications to manage your website. In all actuality, it is better to have less functionality than to have a severe security breach on your website. Try to keep the amount of plugins you use to a minimum, and make sure the plugins you use have very secure coding.

Responsible Programmers

Being a programmer is not a simple task, and there are many things to consider when creating an application.  The problem is, there is so much to know, and not every programmer is up to the task of making sure their applications are fool-proof. In fact most of them only want to make an application that will have enhanced functionality and will be popular in the e-community. However, if you are truly serious about maintaining the security of your website then you will use applications that are developed by responsible programmers. This is the primary reason why corporations hire their own private programmers.

Tips for Increasing Profits in E-commerce

Most customers will not even considering purchasing a product or service unless the shopping process is simple. You have to remember that you are trying to sell them something, not the other way around. Therefore the experience leading up to the sale has to be flawless, because customers will not hesitate to visit another website that is easier to use if they encounter any turbulence whatsoever.  Thus the enjoyment of their shopping experience will be directly decided by the design of your website. If your website is easy to navigate, then you will see success.

Make Shopping Simple

Asking too much of your customers can and will discourage them from shopping with you. Sometimes something as simple as asking for too much information at checkout can drive your customers right into the your competitor’s hands. This problem not only occurs at checkout, but also in the user registration process. In fact, it may be helpful to let shoppers buy products without registering at all! The problem is, most people don’t like providing the same information twice, and most of the time the information required at checkout is the same information required during registration. Obviously this kind of situation can become a nuisance to your customers rather quickly.

Make Your Products Visible

Making your products easy to browse through and find is a great way to increase your sales. One of the ways you can increase product visibility and site functionality is by adding a search function to your site.  If you do decide to add a search function, make sure it is a comprehensive one that gives the customer the ability to search based on several criteria such as price. The goal is to make any product in your online store accessible within a few short clicks.

Be Flexible

Make sure you are not limiting yourself to a few exclusive payment options. Offering payment platforms such as PayPal or AlertPay will noticeably increase your sales quickly. Another way to give your customers more options is to add a wish list option to the shopping cart. Providing a wish list function gives your customers the opportunity to return to your site at a later date and make the purchase then.

Describe Your Products Thoroughly

Many customers rightfully shy away from websites that do not do a thorough job of describing their products. An in-depth product description conveys an image of professionalism. Make sure your description of the product is very detailed and include at least one picture on the product page. You should also make sure you denote the quantity you have in stock on the product page, this way customers do not attempt to buy an out-of-stock product unknowingly.

Make the Experience Fast and Easy

Although you have an ever-expanding amount of fancy options that you can add to your website, sometimes it is best to keep the interface simple yet effective. Many times customers can become overwhelmed by flashy designs and unnecessary functions.  Remember that most of your customers are shopping online for convenience.

Parallel’s Plesk: Flexibility and Functionality

Plesk is quickly becoming recognized as a competitor to cPanel due to it’s compatibility and simplicity, being one of the only control panels compatible with both Windows and Linux. Plesk is also compatible with virtually any hosting environment, making it a suitable solution for many online business owners looking to expand in the near future. Learning to use a control panel efficiently can be difficult, so many users would rather stick with one control panel when they transfer to a new web host. Plesk gives users the ability to do so, saving them the time and frustration of learning to use a new control panel.  Due to this flexibility, Plesk is being adopted by many web hosts as their default control panel.

The Simplicity of Plesk

Plesk is  suitable solution for the shared hosting environment because it incorporates the functionality of a mutli-tiered administrative interface with the simplicity of a single module. Web hosts find these features particularly useful because they can manage the demands of infinite domains within a single  management interface. Even the most novice administrators can create and manage accounts on the server with ease, which decreases the need for customer service on behalf of the web hosting provider. Both the user and the host benefit from this simplicity, as the user can also perform administrative tasks without the aid of a server administrator. Plesk’s expandability and unlimited control make it a perfect solution for the shared hosting environment.

The Complexity of Plesk

A simple installation and segregated modular interface make Plesk an easy to use software that can be used form the start by users with absolutely no experience. With such an incredible design, one would assume that the price of Plesk would exceed the budget of most small businesses. However, the affordability of Plesk is another reason why it is suitable for users of the dedicated hosting environment. Dedicated hosting is typically more expensive than other hosting services, so it is relieving to find an affordable control panel that can accommodate the administrative needs of a dedicated server. Plesk also lets you put all of your server space to use, by giving you the ability to expand the software through the simple installation of unlimited third party applications. Although Plesk does not cost an exuberant amount, it does provide a plethora of features for high end users and large corporations.

The Flexibility of Plesk

Users of Virtual Private Servers also see Plesk as a viable solution because it is a compact software that doesn’t use a lot of system resources. Plesk also gives you the ability to change the design of the control panel itself with a software called Vitruozzo. This software lets users incorporate unlimited design templates into Plesk’s administrative interface, making the control panel completely customizable. Many users find that this visual adaptability decreases Plesk’s learning curve substantially.

It’s customizable nature, combined with it’s supreme compatibility with multiple operating systems and hosting environments, make Plesk a capable server management solution for almost any company.

Maintaining Website Security for Customer Satisfaction

There are many vengeful characters on the internet that would love nothing more than to deface your online business by hijacking your home page and placing inappropriate content there. If you are a successful business owner, then chances are you have plenty of people who are jealous of you. If one of these jealous individuals has the skills, they can possibly take control of your website temporarily and scare away some of your potential customers. Sometimes these individuals are your competition, but most of the time they are just annoying hackers that do it for fun.  On occasion opposing corporations will even pay hackers to deface websites in order to keep a stronghold on the market! Being the victim of one of these attacks can be embarrassing and financially detrimental.

How do Hacker’s Deface Websites?

Hackers employ a number of tools and methods to gain control of a website’s content. In most instances they will gain access to the server via a security lapse in the operating system, unsafe web site applications, or another flaw in the server’s security. If the hacker cannot access the server through a basic loophole, they may execute browser based attacks with remote code. Regardless of how the hacker gains access to your site, you should be prepared and secured against such an attack.

Preventing Defacement With Website Security

To prevent defacement, you will need to make sure your data is secured on both your server and your computer.  Website security should be a top priority any time you are looking for a web hosting provider. Make sure you ask about protection against website defacement when you are inquiring with the companies customer service rep. If you host a private server then you will want to make sure the server is in a safe place. Co-location hosting is an option for people who are looking or top-notch security without having their own warehouse or storage facility.

Preventing Defacement with Server Security

Having your server stored in a secure place will keep your hardware secure, but it will not fully secure the data stored on the hardware. In fact, most hackers don’t even consider stealing your hardware, they would rather access it remotely through a security lapse in an application stored on the server.  Keeping your operating system updated with the latest patches will make the hacker’s job much more difficult.  It is also a good idea to keep your web applications and any other software associated with your server updated and secure. Even after you have acquired all of the updates needed, it is still necessary to encrypt any data stored on, or sent through the server.

Preventing Defacement with Secure Applications

Quite often, hackers gain access to the server through a web application with weak security. In fact, most web applications have faults that can be easily exploited. For this reason you should only use web applications that you know are secure. If you have the resources, you may want to have your web applications designed by a personal team of developers who are aware of your security needs. If you cannot have this done then it is prudent to minimally research the possible security flaws that exist within the applications you are currently using.

Popular Free Control Panels – No Charge, Great Value

If you have just recently built a small website, and you are not sure whether or not you want to spend money on a control panel, then you may want to consider trying a free control panel first. Many webmasters do not need an expensive control panel to accomplish all of their daily website management tasks. If you are a novice webmaster and you are weary about spending money on a control panel, then you may find the information below to be quite useful.

SysCP

Although SysCP is a free control panel, it still carries all of the important functions of an expensive control panel, giving webmasters the ability to create CGI scripts, adjust DNS settings, create custom error messages/pages, view website statistics and so much more. You’ll also have access to turn-key control over third-party applications such as BIND, Apache, ProFTPD and Courier. SysCP comes with all of these features automatically integrated within the software, but even more impressive is the overwhelming amount of extensions available for download that will enhance your administrative capabilities even further. The features of this control panel are practically endless, and after a few hours of using it you will wonder why the developer’s are not charging an exuberant fee for it’s services. This free control panel makes it to the top of the list because of it’s ever expanding nature and it’s compatibility with almost every operating system.

Webmin

Webmin has been receiving a lot of attention lately from users with dedicated hosting packages. It’s administrative capabilities, combined with a sleek user-friendly interface make it a favorite amongst many novice users. Among other notable features, it comes fully integrated with modules for cron job management, BIND, bandwidth monitoring, firewall administration, and Apache.  Like other control panels, there are a wide variety of compatible extensions and plugins available that can enhance your server administration experience. One interesting feature of Webmin is that you have the option to create your own modules and extensions. Webmin is also amazing when it comes to compatibility, because it supports nearly every operating system on the market today. The primary reason why Webmin has become so successful is because it is an open-source software, allowing independent developers and programmers to improve the control panel continuously. These modifications have resulted in a truly superb control panel software.

GNUPanel

GNUPanel is a new Linux-based control panel that is scripted in PHP5 programming language.   Among the more notable features of this software are FTP/domain management, database administration and email management.  Like the other free control panels discussed in this article, with GNUPanle you’ll have the ability to control and install third-party applications such as phpBB, Joomla,  WordPress and osCommerce.  Even though this control panel is an open-source software, it is not compatible with many operating systems, which is why it is last on the list.

Search Engine Optimization – The Basics Explained

As the internet grows exponentially each day, it becomes harder to gain recognition as a small business owner. Having to compete with large corporations that possess seemingly infinite advertising funds is a difficult task to say the least. In fact, it would be literally impossible without a thorough knowledge in search engine optimization. Search engines are responsible for more than 80 percent of the traffic distributed on the internet. If your site does not rank highly in the search engines, then there is simply no way you can become a formidable presence in your niche. There are many secrets to be learned before you can master the art of search engine optimization, however learning the basics will give you the head start needed to compete with experts in the field.

Quality Content

When web surfers search for a phrase in a search engine, they are looking for an answer. The website that best solves this question, according to the search engine, will appear at the top of the search results. A search engine judges the usefulness of a website based on numerous factors. One of the ways search engines judge your site’s usefulness is the amount of time each visitor spends on each page. If your visitors only spend 30 seconds at your site before leaving, then the search engines will view your website’s content as relatively useless. Another way search engine’s judge the usefulness of your site is by calculating the number of links containing your website’s URL that exist on the internet. These links are called backlinks. The more backlinks in existence, the more useful your site appears to be. In order to boost your site’s search engine ranking, you’ll need to provide engaging content updated on a regular basis.

Keyword Optimization

Simply having useful content is not enough. You want your content to be based on keywords that will attract attention for your niche. Try to remember that you are targeting search engine queries, so you’ll want to include key phrases within the content of your website. Before you begin writing or buying content for your site, you’ll want to do some keyword research. Find out what the most popular current search phrases are in your niche. You’ll also want to choose a keyword that is not over-saturated with competition. You can find out all of this information by using keyword research tools provided by Google. You can even find out what the hottest keywords of the day are by using Google Hot Trends. Once you have decided upon your keyword, it is important to use the proper keyword density. Search engines frown upon spam content that is littered with over-used keywords. You want your content to have a keyword density of about 1-3%.  Make sure you place the keyword in the beginning, middle and end of each article on your website. It is also important to include keywords in the design of your website, within title tags, meta tags, and even anchor text.

Getting Indexed

Once you have created your website and filled it with useful content, you’ll need to get the attention of the search engine crawlers. To do this you can submit your sitemap to Google and a few other popular search engines. You can also submit your site to a few popular online directories and social bookmarking sites. As your popularity increases the search engine crawlers will begin to notice your site, and eventually your site will be fully indexed. It is best to have a site that is heavy in basic text, as search engine crawlers index this kind of information more efficiently.

Website Security: Avoiding Downtime That Results in Loss of Profit

Running an online business is not an easy task, and it can be very difficult to stay on top of all of the responsibilities that come with it. Customer satisfaction and safety is of the utmost importance when running an ecommerce site, and the only way to ensure the security of your website is by following strict security protocols on a regular basis. Hackers are constantly searching for security loopholes and lapses that they can exploit to gain access to sensitive information such as credit card numbers. Sometimes, even when they are not successful at retrieving this information, they can still cause your site to crash by consuming server resources.  When you site goes down, even for a few minutes, you could possibly lose several customers and thousands of dollars. To prevent yourself form losing business due to poor security measures, the following precautions should be exercised.

Serious Firewalls

Even though most web hosting providers employ firewalls by default, a lot of these firewalls are not properly configured and the restrictions can easily be circumvented by a knowledgeable hacker. If you want to ensure the security of your website(s), then you should inquire about he strength of the firewalls and it is important to have the capability to adjust firewalls to your specifications. If your web hosting company does not allow you to make changes to your site’s firewall, then you need to consider another service.

A good example of the need for firewall administration abilities, would be when a hacker is sending malicious traffic to your site form a certain IP. In this instance, it would be crucial to block this IP, and as a domain owner with a hosting account, you should have the right to do so.  The safest web hosting services offer IDS (Intrusion Detection Systems). Any breaches to your firewall can cause downtime and loss of business, therefore it is crucial to have the serious firewalls protecting your website a all times.

Protection from Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDoS)

Although a DDoS attack is a very basic and commonly used attack, it is also extremely difficult to prevent and treat. This simple yet effective attack can cause downtime in many websites by affecting the server functionality. This means that even users who are unrelated to the attack will suffer.  Therefore it is important to inquire about an Anti-DDoS feature before purchasing a web hosting plan.

Proper Data Encryption

If you plan on selling your services or products online, then data encryption is essential. All web hosting plans should include SSL encryption. SSL encryption will transform sensitive date from plain text into special code that make interception by a hacker very difficult. While most web hosting companies offer this feature by difficult. You may want find one that will give you the option to purchase a private certificate for added security benefits.