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Security, Tips & Tutorials

7 Foolproof Ways To Keep Your Online Data Secure

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Did you know that as many as 60 million Americans have been affected by identity theft at some point of time? As fraud and data compromising is more common, more and more people fear for the security of data.

With app use governing every day of our lives, it’s never been easier for hackers to steal our private information. Even though antivirus and antimalware softwares are more advanced, so is the number of smartphone users ignorant to the basics of internet security.

While people are skeptical about their data, companies aren’t. According to an online survey by Ponemon Institute, 69% of all CEOs believe their antivirus software is all they need. Despite this conviction, many startups falter due to damage from data theft. To prevent any security breaches, use these 7 tips to keep your online data safe. It’s much easier than you thought it would be.

1. Use strong passwords

It may sound weird when we emphasize this. Although many deem this tip as common knowledge, the majority isn’t aware of the importance of password efficiency. The main reason for this is that people afraid they will forget a more complex password.

To prevent themselves from forgetting (even though password storing software like 1Password exists), internet users resort to using simple numbers, rows of letter or simply – password. As a result, experts deem 86% of all passwords terrible.

The traditional advice for setting passwords includes using “random capitalization, numerals and a few symbols.” However, this form of password security has two distinct flaws:

– According to the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), using this mix of symbols is much easier for hackers to crack with various software. Since these passwords occur a lot, it’s easy to predict the diversity of symbols and then assess each one.

– It’s hard to remember. How often do you use “m7dSo0__2 #F@” every day? If the worst-case scenario comes, you will have to remember your password manually.

So, how does one set the perfect password? The NIST recently updated their guidelines. Nowadays, the best passwords are comprised of memorable long phrases, comprised of common English words.

Use them in odd combinations, such as “Potato comprehensible dock puddle.” By doing so, you make the password will be much harder to crack, as well as harder to forget.

Paint a vivid picture with words in your mind and pick the three or four representative terms to make a password.

2. Use a VPN

Even with stricter laws on data privacy, you can never know who is watching your browsing history and collecting your data. One of the most common countermeasures from data theft (both by thieves and the government) is installing a VPN on all devices that have internet access.

So, what is a VPN anyway? By definition, VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It’s a form of a private connection that “spoofs” ISP, government trackers and anyone else watching you. Your online address is seen by others as in another part of the world.

For example, you can select your virtual address to be in Serbia or Indonesia or Australia or just anywhere you want to. And you will be untraceable – something like a virtual ghost.

VPNs have become more than just a commodity for people who do illicit activities. Here are just some ways your online data is secure due to the use of a VPN:

– You can bypass possible tracking in your office/college/high school. Although it isn’t officially confirmed, some facilities disregard the privacy of their students and employees. With a VPN, you can bypass all the restrictions on office or school computers.

– Connect to public WiFi networks without fear. Many hackers with knowledge in internet architecture use the WiFi baiting method. They set up a fake open WiFi, and people connect to it, only to have hackers steal their data. VPN shields you from such attacks.

– If you’re a journalist or activist, VPN can save you from legal prosecution by a government or regime.

3. If you own a blog/website, use VPS hosting

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. It’s a new form of website hosting, much more different than traditional forms of hosting on physical servers. One of the main risks in the world of cybersecurity is using physical servers.

Why? Due to many websites sharing the same server, the attack on one can quickly lead to a breach within other websites, as well. To mitigate risks and be sure that your website is safe from DDoS attacks, pick a VPS service.

  • With VPS, you have full root access. This means you have total control over the server, making it much harder for anyone to steal your online data.
  • In shared hosting, a bad user can affect the performance of other websites. VPS hosting provides you with reliability. Even if an attack happens, you will know that there are no holes in the system for the attackers to enter through.
  • Even if the worst-case scenario happens, data recovery is easier with multi-network hosting. You will be registered on different domains and much less prone to successful takedowns.

4. Be careful of the websites you visit

Even if you take all the necessary precautions to protect your online data, it’s all in vain if you’re not careful. There are two types of unsecure websites:

– Websites which were purposely created to steal online data from internet users

– Cases where the owner doesn’t invest into security enough, leaving the website prone to exploitation

To know if a website is secure, look for these two apparent signs:

  1. Check if the website has a secure URL – https instead of http. The S means secure and is a sign that the site uses a different security certificate, the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). This is the best guarantee that the website doesn’t misuse your data.
  2. A green security address feature in the bar, usually accompanied with a lock icon is another sign of website security. Seeing this means that the website is using the highest validation level possible, the Extended Validation (EV).

5. Use cloud storage and avoid keeping your files on a physical drive

One of the most common ways hackers steal your online data is keeping it on a physical drive. This means that every piece of information has a constant source that can be reached at any time. Businesses often become victim of cyber attacks because they leave everything on a hard drive. There are two ways you can bypass these dangers and use the cloud:

1. Outsource important project plans, business reports, and whitepapers. Services such as Xpertwrtiers.com, Assignment Holic and College Paper can deliver the needed task to you, without the need to keep it on a company computer.

2. Use Google Drive. Even the most complex projects are not that difficult due to the many features of Google Docs. During project creation, Google will store every bit of information on Google Drive, its cloud service.

6. Analyze privacy policies and settings on every website you visit

In the world of cybersecurity, there are many practices which harm the user but aren’t illegal. Therefore, many websites encourages them. Of course, when you read them, it’s clear that they are detrimental to your privacy. To prevent visitors and customers from realizing this, most websites use a myriad of practices designed to make it seem less obvious.

Most countries have laws which require websites to state which data they collect from users. Although they have to state this, websites try to cover it up. They store it in sections of the website that are far to reach, the paraphrase or even don’t state everything.

Be meticulous and search the entire website. By doing so, you will be able to exit the website the moment you notice something fishy.

7. Avoid using real name and information unless necessary

This particular way of maintaining data security is easy, but many people disregard it. You would be surprised how much people can find out about you using your name, email, and date of birth.

The detail here draws the conclusion that perhaps the best ways of keeping online data secure is – not providing it! If you use Facebook and Instagram for personal connections, then feel free to put your real name.

Is there a reason you can’t use a fake name and email if you’re subscribing to a sports website or blog? No? Then it’s recommended to use your real name and verify your account with a phone number. The verification takes only a few minutes to create but can be your best defense against data theft.

Keeping your online data free is a process which involves planning and patience. Don’t provide any unnecessary data, cover your activity with a VPN. For your business, revert to VPS hosting and never leave any reports or other pieces of sensitive information on a physical drive. Be responsible and your data will be safe.

About the author: Scott Matthews is a software architect and SaaS marketing expert. His software consultancy and project reports helped sites like Paper Writing Pro and DoMyWriting become popular and more acclaimed. In his spare time, Scott loves diving and hiking, along with his childhood favorite sport – basketball.

Tips & Tutorials, Web Hosting

5 Things to Look For When Choosing Web Hosting for Your Magento Store

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Getting the right hosting is not as easy as you might think.

Magento is a demanding platform that needs an extremely robust infrastructure to function well. This is especially true for the most recent iterations, Magento 2.0.x and above.

Whether you are not happy with your current hosting provider or need a home for a brand new project, we’ll help you make the right decision.

And the first step to choosing the best web hoster is to ask the right questions.

#1 Get the Right Hosting Solution

Choosing the right Magento hosting provider starts with assessing your needs and understanding what exactly you are looking for.

There are 3 broad categories here that will determine how you will move forward from now on:

Shared hosting. Shared hosting is a popular choice for Magento store owners who are looking for a way to cut operational costs and do things on a budget. It is not necessarily a bad choice – especially early on.

Shared hosting is a decent option for startup Magento entrepreneurs who are only entering the market. They don’t know yet how many visitors will get or what their peak load will look like. And since they are so new, a shared hosting solution will work for them fine for the first few years.

Our only advice here is to not go for the cheapest option. Choose the next best option. More often than not it will give you enough horsepower to deal with the daily load and at the same time leave you around 20% of spare computing power to get some breathing room and manage occasional user spikes.

Dedicated server. This is the best choice when you know exactly what you are doing, how much visitors you will serve at once when your site has peaks and downtime. Basically, this is a smart solution when you know all the ins and outs of your store and are looking for new hardware to move to. Dedicated servers are rarely the first solution for an aspiring Magento merchant.

They are more common for merchants upgrading from shared hosting or moving from a cloud hosting platform in search for better customization and control over your hosting environment.

Cloud hosting. Cloud hosting is a great option for web stores that have uneven load periods. For example, if the load periods are heavily influenced by seasonality or certain events (Christmas gifts, music festivals, meetups, other one-time events).

Cloud hosting automatically upscales and downgrades the web store to meet this demand and then shrink back to normal. This will be extremely hard to achieve on any other platform since building up the infrastructure is both an expensive and time-consuming process.

#2 Ensure You’d Have a Strong Support Team

Magento is not easy to configure in the right way for smooth sailing. Choosing a hosting server that is specifically optimized for Magento hosting will spare you a lot of unnecessary headaches.

In addition to the right configuration, you’ll need a strong support team that knows their way around Magento. Whether you are using a shared hosting or a dedicated server, you’ll probably need to get the help of the support team to move forward, even if rarely.

When your hoster’s support team doesn’t have a clue how a website running Magento is different from other content management systems – you are in trouble. This situation invites all sorts of issues. From the inability to install specific server-side solutions to problems with server tweaking.

Not all hosting providers are created equal. This one is claiming 2 seconds TTFB (time to the first byte). Is this good? Not really. An optimal speed would be 200 ms –  which is 10 times lower! Always consult independent sources when you are doing your research. Google claims that TTFB must be 200 ms, not 2,000!

#3 Look for a Solid CDN and Caching Support

Once you understand what kind of hosting you need, it’s time to move on to additional features. We recommend you to set up CDN service right from the start. It’s not a huge expense overall. But the benefit of high website speeds for all your customers, no matter where they live, will be huge.

That’s one of the reasons we focused on Tip #2. If you choose a dedicated Magento hosting provider, you’ll have your website set up faster and get essential tools that most Magento stores need anyway.

CDN or Content Delivery Network is a service that works as an additional layer between your web server and the user. CDN uploads your static content (images, HTML pages, and documents) to a network of servers all over the world. This means that when a user from Asia enters your website, they will download all these files from the CDN server nearest to them, shaving valuable time off their wait.

Shopping online at a Magento store without a decent caching solution is painfully slow – so much so that Magento dev team strongly recommends you to use Redis and Vagrant for all stores in production.

Make sure your hoster fully supports all these options and if needed can offer you help in installing them.

#4 Find Out How Your Future Hoster Handles Backups

Backups are important for unexpected hardware meltdowns, hacker attacks, human error, and just for peace of mind. A good backup system serves as a guarantee to an uninterrupted business operation and good company image.

There’s no such thing as too few backups. And your new hoster should know that.

Find out:

– how often your hoster backs up your data

– whether they have an emergency plan if anything goes wrong

– how many backups are there

– when old backups get deleted

– how long will it take to restore your website from a backup

Ideally, there should be at least daily database backups which will allow you to restore your DB without losing too much data. As for media and Magento files, look into options that offer at least weekly backup schedule.

#5 Read Customer Reviews to See What Issues Your Potential Hoster Has

This should be the last stop on your journey to find a good hosting provider for your Magento store. Read what other people have to say about the service. Write down all the concerns they mention that are most important for you.

When you have the list ready, email your future provider and ask them whether the situation has improved, what was done to mitigate so-and-so, if they have new infrastructure and solutions in place to deal with all these challenges.

Even though a good support team can help you deal with most issues, you’ll still need at least a few dedicated Magento developers to tackle challenges that are out of scope of basic hoster-side maintenance.

Pro Tip: you can judge by the time they take to answer your email how much this hoster values customers and willing to tackle their concerns in an efficient manner.

About the author: Vasili Nikolaev likes his coffee black and your Magento stores fast. He works with Onilab to create a world where all websites load under 200 ms, as Google once envisioned.

Tips & Tutorials

How Speed Really Affects Your Website?

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Speed is essential.

In the wild wild web terms, the rabbit almost always beats the turtle.

Website load time statistics from numerous studies clearly show that if the average page load time exceeds 3 seconds, the abandonment rates go up. High bounce rates are sending info to search engines that visitors don’t find the website useful, which, of course, affects the ranking directly.

And if that wasn’t enough, the numbers clearly show that shoppers avoid returning to e-commerce sites with performance issues.

The marketing truism that there is no negative publicity doesn’t coincide with the digital reality of social media and interconnectivity. Nearly half of the users share negative experiences with their peers, spreading the word of heavy, unresponsive sites faster than said web pages load.

As the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy points out:

“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.”

But how precious is a single second online exactly?

– A website page that loads in 6 seconds have a 106% higher bounce rate probability compared to a page with a load time of 1 sec

– For web pages with a page load time of 10 seconds the bounce rate probability increases by 123%

– 39% of online visitors abandon a site if the images don’t load quickly

– 74% of mobile internet users leave a site that doesn’t load within 5 seconds

These are a few stats from the impacts of speed on website performance graphic which make it pretty clear that speed matters and slow loading speed equals to high bounce rate.

Internet users, both desktop and mobile ones, are not willing to waste time waiting for a site to open, even if it’s a high-quality one.

But why you should care about bounce rate?

For the record, bounce rate shows what percentage of your total site visitors leave your site without opening any other page than the one they land on.

High bounce rate is not good for your online business for many reasons, which we’ll discuss shortly. First, it is important that we underline one important fact: the term ‘high bounce rate’ can be deceptive at times.

This is because there’s no one fixed benchmark for all sites. A high bounce rate in one business niche might be perfectly acceptable in another.

That said, if your site’s bounce rate is higher than the average bounce rate in your business niche, you’ve got a problem in your hands.

High Bounce Rate is Not Good For Your Business

A high bounce rate, as you may guess, means a large portion of your website visitors are spending too little time on your site. This, in turn, implies you’ll have fewer opportunities to engage your visitors.  

After all, if visitors are abandoning your site quickly, how can you have a valuable conversation with them?

If you are a blogger, an increased bounce rate signifies that fewer people are actually reading your post, and perhaps even fewer are sharing them on social networking sites.

On the other hand, if you’re an owner of an e-store, a high bounce rate can mean fewer new customers. In addition to that, you may also have to live with fewer repeat customers because reports show that 79% of online shoppers are less inclined to shop again at a site whose performance is not up to the mark.

To make the matter worse, your loss is likely to prove to be your competitors’ gain. According to a survey, 43% of internet buyers will take their business to a competitor if their shopping experience was below par.

To sum it up, a high bounce rate can badly hurt your online business and you need to keep it below the average mark for your niche.

To do so, you might need some tweaks to improve your website technical performance, especially the loading speed and A/B tests on your website designs, especially the homepage to make the website content consumable.

Tips To Decrease Bounce Rate

The first and the most important of all tweaks to improve your loading speed is to find if your host has better response rates to serve your website resource on to clients browsers in time. If GTmetrix and Google page speed insights are showing that your website is loading slower than the global average, you might want to consider changing your host.

For the other half, you need to keep your page size below 1 MB, compress images, minify CSS, minify HTML,  use a CDN, use responsive images, reduce redirects and so on. Here is a detailed guide on how to optimize all the above factors to speed up your website.

To learn more about the impact of slow speed on bounce rate and the latter’s on an online business, check out this fact-packed infographic.

Security

7 Tips to Boost the Security of Your New WordPress Website

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Approximately 31.9% of all websites around the globe use WordPress as their content management system (CMS), and another 50,000 new sites appear every day on the Internet which also use WordPress. If that isn’t enough to convince you that WordPress is the dominant player in the CMS market, consider also that of the top 10,000 websites on the Internet, 3,845 of them are powered by WordPress. Obviously, all that is great for WordPress, but there’s a slight downside to having that kind of popularity – the CMS giant is also the most popular target for hackers who are trying to penetrate the security system of websites and networks.

Because of its worldwide popularity and overwhelming dominance as a content management system, it’s the one CMS which is constantly targeted by criminal-minded individuals seeking to hijack website data and hold it for ransom or to carry out other kinds of security threats. That doesn’t mean that WordPress has an inherently weak security system – just the opposite, in fact. But regardless of how robust its present security system is, prior versions of WordPress remain installed to a large extent, and those are the ones most vulnerable to attack. If you refer to this updated WordPress stats, of all WordPress sites which are hacked, 39.3% are versions prior to the most current one, simply because they don’t include the latest protections.

If you have a WordPress site, here are some things you should be optimizing to protect it:

1. Make sure that you are using the current version because that’s the one which will include all the most current security features

2. Keep all plugins current, because they are also subject to attack, especially to the newest cyber threats on the Internet

3. Follow some of the recommendations listed below, because these are proven techniques for discouraging cyber attacks.

Discourage brute force attacks

While it’s almost impossible for any human to guess a correct password and username to gain entry into your WordPress system, it’s much easier for a computer to guess it. This is particularly true of WordPress sites, because the system will allow you to keep guessing a password or username, even if you continue to enter wrong entries.

This is, of course, a default situation which you do have the capability to change, but many people are not aware that it can be changed, and they leave the default behavior in effect. That makes your WordPress site vulnerable to a brute force attack.

In order to prevent this from happening, you can use a simple plugin which blocks the IP address of any user attempting to gain access to your site after a specified number of incorrect entries. Once you’ve installed the Login Lockdown plugin, this vulnerability will be closed up, and brute force attacks will no longer be possible.

Rename your WP login URL

WordPress allows everyone by default to login simply by navigating to the wp-admin or the wp-login.php URL which is available on your website. Everyone, including hackers, are aware of this fact, so anyone with criminal intent will know exactly where the login page is situated, and that makes it vulnerable to various types of security threats.

However, if hackers don’t know where your login page is, they won’t be able to target your site with any of their attacks. The most effective way of hiding your login page and preventing cyber criminals from locating it is to simply rename the URL. You can use Login Lockdown (as suggested above) to rename your login page URL so that it has a custom string of your choosing. Once this plugin is activated, it will redirect all attempts to reach wp-admin back to your homepage.

There is a crude, yet effective way to change the name of your wp-login.php file. All you need is access to your site’s files and manually create a new login file. Here are the steps:

Create a new file

1. Copy the code from your wp-login.php, then paste it into your new file.

2. Replace each instance of wp-login.php with the new file name. You can use the shortcut key find and replace to help you.

3. Delete the old wp-login.php file.

Login through your new URL.

Use SSL protocol for your website

One of the defense lines you should be using for your WordPress website is to have a secure sockets layer (SSL) protocol installed because it guarantees that any connection between two websites is secure. Whenever two websites are connected, tons of information and much of that information would be considered sensitive.

There are various types of SSL you can get for your WordPress site. AltusHost offers you 3 types of SSL certificates that you can use for your WordPress site. You can easily install a SSL certificate from the cPanel by following the steps below:

1. Login to your cPanel.

2. Under ‘Security’ options, click on ‘SSL/TLS Manager’

3. Under ‘Install and manage SSL’, select ‘Manage SSL Sites’

4. Copy your certificate code including —–BEGIN CERTIFICATE—– and —–END CERTIFICATE—– and past it into the ‘Certificate: (CRT)’ field

5. Click ‘Autofill by Certificate’

6. Copy and paste the chain of intermediate certificates (CA Bundle) into the box under Certificate Authority Bundle (CABUNDLE)

7. Click ‘Install Certificate’

Without the SSL protocol installed, most of the information is sent back and forth in ordinary text. That means if it were to be intercepted by a hacker, it could easily be stolen. This can’t happen with the SSL protocol installed, because it uses an encryption algorithm which makes the data unreadable without having a key.

Implement two-factor authentication

Ordinarily, you can log onto a website simply by supplying a username and password, and this is known as single-factor authentication. To increase the difficulty of having anyone hack into your system, you can implement two-factor authentication, by requiring a secondary means of user identification.

Once a user correctly supplies username and password, you can then ask them for their mobile phone number so you can send a single-usage pin number to that phone. The pin number would then have to be entered on the screen in order to gain access. Alternatively, after entering a username and password correctly, you could ask the user to answer a secret security question, which they have previously provided the answer for. Two-factor authentication can be installed by using a free plugin already available.

Only allow logins by email

It’s much easier to guess someone’s username than it is to guess their email address, especially since email addresses tend to be much longer. You can improve your website’s security by forcing users to login with their email address rather than a username.

Any hacker who is trying to guess an email address would have to know the characters needed for the local portion of the address as well as the domain name, and the top level domain. This makes it much harder to guess, even when using a computer to stage a brute force attack. To prevent users from logging in with their username and to force the use of an email login instead, you can install the WP Email Login plugin.

Password protect your admin directory

You can add an additional security layer to your system by requiring a username and password before allowing anyone to access the wp-admin directory. This would force any criminal-minded person to guess two sets of usernames and passwords in order to gain entry to your system. The easiest way to implement this is if you are system is situated on an Apache Web server, because Apache makes it easy for you to password protect any directory whatsoever on your system. If your system is not supported by Apache servers, you can still do it manually by interacting with your operating system, or by installing the free plugin called AskApache Password Protect.

Disallow file editing

WordPress permits administrators to edit any plugin file and any theme within the system. Since this is true, if any of your admin accounts are hacked successfully by a cyber criminal, he/she would then be able to insert harmful or malicious code into your existing code. Worse than this, when such a penetration occurs, it’s virtually undetectable, so harmful activities can be carried out in the background without you ever being aware of it.

The only way to prevent this is to disallow file editing, and this can be accomplished by simply adding a line of code into your wp-config.php file. Here’s the line of code that you should add:

define(‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true);

Once you’ve inserted this simple line of code, it will have the effect of disallowing any kind of file editing from your WordPress dashboard, and you will have an extra layer of security in effect.

The tips above are simple yet useful to boost the security of a WordPress website especially when it’s a new one. If you want a customized environment for your WordPress site, it’s recommended to host it with a WordPress hosting. You will get the optimized performance, security and ease of use for your WordPress site.

About the author: Jason Chow is a fan of technology, WordPress, and entrepreneurship. He is an outreach manager for WHSR and WebRevenue.io. Jason is also a marketer – he likes to read news related to startups and Internet marketing

Web Hosting

Explained: Managed vs. Unmanaged Web Hosting

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We should all know this by far:

Web hosting is the literal foundation of your website. Therefore, it’s crucial to make the right choice (provider and web hosting package) from the start. However, if you’re having trouble with your hosting and you’d like to revisit your options this article will come in useful as well.

There are tons of web hosting solutions and with each type there are various subtypes and hosting plans.

Sounds complicated, we know.

But be honest, it really isn’t.

Yes, the whole process of making a decision can end up being very confusing for someone who is not at all familiar with the concept of web hosting.

Even though it is crucial to any web site’s existence in the first place.

It’s just like the air you breathe to live, but not every human being is fully aware of detailed chemistry of it. “It contains oxygen”, and for most people, that’s just about enough air knowledge they need.

Additionally, there are thousands upon thousands of hosting providers and choosing a good host is just as important as choosing the right hosting plan. A good host will help you run things smoothly and resolve any issues that may come up. Meanwhile, a troublesome host will actually create more issues than they are solving.

In this article we’ll try to explain some of the main differences between Managed and Unmanaged hosting to help you make an educated decision.

1. Managed Hosting

 

Managed hosting means that the task of maintaining the server is, by all means, the responsibility of a host. It usually comes with additional services such as performance monitoring, security sweeps, backups, malware removal, customer support and others. The server itself already comes with an installed operating system and software like cPanel, Plesk, WHM etc. The host will also handle OS updates and SSL installations.

So in short, it’s like having the technical side of setting up a server managed only for you. You just do you work and concentrate on business development side of the story.

A minor downside of managed hosting could be that it is more expensive than unmanaged, since you’re are actually paying to have all the management done for you.

It is also worth mentioning, that some providers offer hosting that has been specifically designed to run WordPress to make your website run faster and be more reliable.

Let’s have a closer look at the additional services that are typically offered.

Performance Monitoring

Well, this one is pretty self-explanatory. Your host will screen for any issues that may arise with your server and notify you before such issues actually happen, so you can contact tech support in time to fix them. For example, if your website is getting close to using up all the resources like bandwidth, CPU, RAM, storage you’ll be notified.

Security and Malware Protection

No one wants their website to become the victim of a malicious attack or get infected with malware, since it can throw all your hard work out the window.

Your host will perform frequent sweeps to detect any attacker or malware and prevent any harm that may come to your website. Of course, it’s impossible to guarantee absolute security and this service will largely depend on how good your host is.

Automated Backups

While it’s considered to be an obligatory practice to create your own backups, managed hosting also provides you with an automated backup option. You don’t want to suddenly lose all your data or have something go awry without any restore point to go back to. There are two important factors to keep in mind when choosing a managed hosting in this case.

First, make sure the backups are not stored on the same server as your website. What would be the point if the server goes down?

Second, the backup should contain your database. For example, in terms of WordPress, the configuration and theme can be recorded and reinstalled, but if you lose your database, you lose all your content.

Software Updates

OS and core software updates, including security patches are all handled by the host. Those are crucial to keep your server running smoothly and not be vulnerable to hackers. It takes a load off your shoulders, since you won’t have to bother with the installation of all the frequent updates that come out. Although, it’s not always recommended to install all the recent updates, since they might conflict with some applications. Unless you’re using WordPress, it’s something to be aware of.

Customer Support (24/7)

Whatever problems you run into, having someone help you solve them is always a relief, especially when it comes to the technical side of things. Usually this kind of help is included in your hosting plan.

While good customer support is not as important as hardware performance, and is one of the last things to factor in when choosing a web host, you should take this in your choosing formula. Customer Support is important and it speaks volumes about the company when they value their customers. At the end, we are humans who appreciate willingness to help, be tolerant, understanding and forthcoming.

2. Unmanaged Hosting

 

Unmanaged hosting is just what it say it is. Unmanaged web hosting.

It’s usually completely stripped of all the software, so you get an absolutely fresh and clean start. Although some servers might have an OS pre installed on them together with a control panel, that is rarely so.

It is completely up to you to tweak a server however you want, obviously requiring technical expertise on your part. A poorly managed server can result in a disaster. In case you’re not a tech savvy person, learning everything from scratch and maintaining the server may end up occupying all of your time, so instead of focusing on developing your website, its content and building visibility, you’ll be focusing on just plain keeping your website up and running.Now, you might wonder, why would anyone ever opt for unmanaged hosting if that is the case?

Some websites might need specific software run for them or be customized in a way that managed hosting simply doesn’t allow. Unmanaged hosting provides freedom and flexibility to do so. Plus, let’s be real for a moment here — it costs a lot less.

It’s typically an option for highly technical people, or tech enthusiasts who get a kick out of learning and doing everything themselves. However, it is best for businesses that have their own IT department or at least a person who is skilled to do it.

To sum it up, Managed hosting is for you if:

– you’re not a technical person

– you don’t want to hassle with software installation, security measures and your website doesn’t need any special software.

Unmanaged hosting is for you if:

– you’re a technical person or someone who’d like to learn how to administer a server

– your website needs to be built a certain way and run rare software.

 

About author:

Mari Koval is a content writer at WebHostingGeeks.com. She has written for various online publications and blogs. With an equal passion for both technology and educating people, she strives to produce content that is informative yet easy to understand.

Marketing

101 Domain Names Fun Facts You Probably Didn’t Know

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Your name is what defines you, in a way. Even though we may not be the ones who choose it, name speaks volumes about a person before he or she even says a single word.

It is actually completely the same with your website’s name. Its web address, “birth” certificate, domain name!

It’s been a wild ride since the first ever domain has registered. 32 years ago, on March 15, 1985, a computer systems company from Cambridge, Massachusetts, registered symbolics.com.

Since then, more than 330.6 million domain names has been registered. That’s right. And with the rise of national domains, new popular TLDs and even emoji domains, it’s not stopping there.

Just like one small country with not more with 1500 citizens, island Tokelau. This New Zealand’s remote colony, by all means, could easily be mistaken for paradise on Earth, but on the internet and its .tk domain, it has become the most dangerous one for netizens since it’s mostly used for “unwanted behavior”. Spam and phishing included. But now, that has changed, and the number of scams with .tk domain has significantly reduced, leaving .tk in top 10 registered domains worldwide.

Hop on, learn and grasp a few more fun facts about domain names in this infographic provided by Webmasters Jury.

News

AltusHost announces POP in Sofia, Bulgaria!

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Hello there!

Today we are so proud to announce something we’ve been cooking and setting up for the last couple of months. As you already know, AltusHost already has a few points-of-presence (POP) in Europe. One in the Netherlands and one in Sweden.

Now, we are opening a completely new data center location in Eastern Europe.  Starting from this month, AltusHost is ready to fully operate in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Together with our new peers in AltusHost’s Network, with new POP, we will be able to offer much better connection to sensitive business which demand excellent routing within this part of Europe. With new data center in Sofia, AltusHost brings a good value to all clients who need web hosting services (VPS, Dedicated Servers or Co-Location) in multiple locations across Europe.

It is also important to mention that AltusHost owns and manages all Network and Hardware Equipment. What does this means and how our clients benefit from this fact? This one is easy. But very important. This way, all of AltusHost’s customers are provided with great quality, stability and reliability of delivered service.

So, if you are looking for VPS, Dedicated Server(s) or Colocation in Sofia, Bulgaria, or in the Netherlands or Sweden, feel free to email AltusHost Sales at [email protected] or request Custom Quote directly.

 

You won’t be disappointed!

News

AltusHost wins BEST Customer Service 2017 Award!

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AltusHost - Great Customer Service Award from HostAdvice

Astonishing news came today from Host Advice crew!

The Best Customer Service Award 2017 has been announced, and AltusHost is extremely proud to, once again, say  – We Did It! Our award-winning Customer Support team is now double crowned with this badge of HostAdvice honor.

With whole world now being our global market, with more than 10 thousand international clients, we dedicated to be in their disposal 24/7 all year round.

And that being said, we truly enjoy doing it. As our very own COO said in HostAdvice interview, stability, reliable infrastructure and top-notch support are AltusHost’s core values from the beginning back in 2008. Now, we are even more motivated and inspired to give you the best possible care  and tech support!

Thank you all once again!