WhoIsHostingThis

Keeping a site going for a long period of time can be very difficult; getting it shut down can be all too easy.

Though most Web hosts, especially ones you pay for, are going to do what they can to keep you on as a customer, there are many ways that you can earn yourself an early termination.

None of these are “good” ideas. In fact, many will get you in legal trouble well beyond violating your host’s TOS. Neither are these methods a good way to get a refund on a long-term contract because most hosts will refuse refunds when a client breaks the rules.

But, if you’re wondering about the kind of behaviour that will cause your host to kick you to the curb, here are five of the common. Break any of these rules and you’ll most likely be looking for new hosting in no time at all. Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent blog post, Google announced that it has made several improvements to Google Webmaster Tools (GWT), Google’s tool suite for site administrators.

Though the changes might not be enough to help webmasters unlock the Da Vinci Code that is Google, it can certainly help them track and understand what is working and what needs to change when building their site. It may also be a great motivator for those who haven’t signed up and verified for GWT to do so, lest they miss out on critical information that they quite literally can’t get anywhere else. Read the rest of this entry »

Cryptome, a site dedicated to whistle-blowing and leaking sensitive documents on the Web, was hacked this week. Its front page was defaced (there’s a NSFW image here) and, according to the site’s administrators, some 7GB of data was deleted from the server, including all of the leaked files.

According to reports, at least two different versions of the home page were uploaded during the defacing, one credited a hacker named “Trainreq” for the attack and the other credited a “RuxPin”. They both made reference to hackers “EBK” and “Defiant”, both of whom were convicted for vandalizing Comcast’s site in 2008.

Cryptome’s other accounts were unaffected by this attack as were other accounts at its host, Network Solutions. Cryptome was able to restore the site from off-site backups and get it back up and running. However, according to Cryptome, the hack points out just how insecure the Web is.

“Blocking attacks is nearly impossible due to the purposefully weak security of the Internet. Nearly all security methods are bogus. A competent hacker or spy, or the two working together, can penetrate easily.”

So are there lessons in this hack that other webmasters should take into consideration? Definitely. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve talked before about how a host/client relationship is a partnership. As customers, we spend a lot of time dreaming up ways our hosts could treat us better (faster, more reliable hosting with good service and fair pricing), but have you ever spared a second to consider what your host thinks of you, the customer?

Just like you, hosts have an opinion on the perfect provider/consumer relationship. But, unlike you, they rarely take the time to communicate those expectations.

So, in homage to hosts everywhere, I’ve done it for them. If you follow these five guidelines, it’ll be the equivalent of sending your host a big bunch of flowers. Read the rest of this entry »

An .xxx top level domain (TLD) is on its way according to ICM Registry, a domain registrar similar to GoDaddy or Tucows. Earlier this summer, after several rejections, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), approved the new TLD. ICM say they’ll be selling domains with the “.xxx” extension sometime in early 2011, barring any problems with technical and financial qualifications.

Assuming that .xxx gets approval and that ICM wins the final contract, this could open up the door for yet another Internet gold rush as millions try and register domains with the extension.

However, two things have happened that indicate ICM isn’t interested in that kind of domain scramble: i) over 180,000 domains have been pre-registered with ICM – where’s the fun in that? And ii) ICM have hired an ad agency, M&C Saatchi, to ‘pimp’ the launch of the XXX domains.

In other words, ICM has a plan and, if they managed to pull it off, here’s what you can expect with the impending XXX domain rush. Read the rest of this entry »

Anti-piracy advocates tend to attract a lot of ire from a very tech-savvy audience. A group of users at the famous forum site 4Chan has been targeting various pro-copyright groups with denial of service attacks.

Typically, denial of service attacks are annoying but little more. They work by overloading a server or firewall with too many requests until legitimate requests get turned away. This can pull the site down for a few hours, but is easily solved by moving the site to a new server.

And that is pretty much what happened to most of the sites on 4Chan’s hit list, including the RIAA, MPAA and other organizations across the globe.

However, one company, a UK law firm named ACS:Law has suffered much more dire consequences. When its server came back online, it accidentally published thousands of confidential emails that were immediately downloaded and placed on file sharing sites. Disaster!

Now, piracy advocates are having a field day going through the emails, sharing financial information about the company and sharing personal emails from the owner.

It’s a reminder just how easily our digital private lives can become public and why we, as webmasters and hosting customers need to understand just how sensitive much of our digital information is. Read the rest of this entry »

Digg, while still a popular site, seems to have “dugg” itself quite a hole. Not only is site traffic down some 34% after a controversial redesign of the site, but content creators who get their work promoted to the coveted front page are seeing only 60-70 percent of the traffic they used to get.

There was a time in which the Digg effect struck fear into the hearts of webmasters; though a coveted prize it was known for crashing servers and, as well as traffic spikes like it, spawned alternatives to shared hosting, such as grid and cloud hosting, as well as caching systems such as WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache.

With the slayer of shared hosting accounts now less lethal, and likely to become even less dangerous as time passes, the question is whether (and how) the downfall of Digg will change hosting. The answer isn’t very straightforward but it will, almost certainly, have some impact. Read the rest of this entry »

In the hosting industry, Mike Witty (right – picture via blog.servint.net/) has one of the more varied jobs imagineable. As Director of Network Compliance at Servint, a VPS host that powers this site and many others, Mike is responsible for handling abuse complaints, overseeing security and making sure that the company complies with all relevant laws, most prominently the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Mike, with his team of 4-5 people, which includes lawyers to aid with the legal matters, work to keep the network secure and, well, compliant. He works hard to keep spam, phishing, malware and other security threats off of his network, which includes thousands of physical machines spread across two datacenters, and has seen just about every kind of security threat and hack that you can imagine.

So what advice does Mike have to help you keep your hosting account safe? I sat down with him and asked him about the security threats he’s seen and what everyday hosting customers can do to ensure their account doesn’t show up on his radar and what will happen if they do. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone who has ever had a bad hosting account knows that it is a rough ride. No one likes being uncertain whether their site is up or down or wondering how long it will take to load.

However, many wonder what the big deal is, especially for sites that aren’t particularly well-trafficked. A few hours or downtime per month and a slightly-slower response time doesn’t seem that important. After all, there is much more to running a website than having the fastest or most reliable one around.

But while it is true that a good site can survive bad hosting, a bad hosting account is an anchor that can keep good sites from soaring and drown more average ones before they can improve.

If you think bad hosting is no big deal, here’s five good reasons to reconsider your position. Read the rest of this entry »

Moving just about anything, be it yourself to a new house or your site to a new server, can be a tremendous pain. We’re always looking for a little bit of help when it comes to moving and whether its moving companies that specialize in transporting your belongings or site migration services provided by new hosts, they can be a great value.

But trusting a site migration service can seem like a risky thing to do. After all, your data is valuable and turning over the keys to someone else to port your content over to someone who you barely know can be intimidating, even if they will be hosting your site completely in a few days.

So should you take your new host up on its offer to migrate your site? The answer is a resounding “Yes!” Not only is the service free, usually at least, but it is the fasted, most reliable way to port your new site over from your old server.

If you need reasons for this, here are some very good ones to consider it. Read the rest of this entry »