Category: Domain Related

June 22, 2015

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Not every small business has a website; and perhaps there are some types of businesses that might not require a website, but the rule of thumb remains - if you have a business it is a good idea to have website to help potential customers learn about your business and also most easily look your business up. The internet certainly is the new ‘yellow pages’. We presume you haven’t made that mistake, lol. But beyond that... if your business does compete for attention on the web alongside other businesses, how well does your website ‘rank’ on search engines, and hold your viewer’s attention? Simply speaking many small businesses have websites that are much less effective than others. Many businesses, usually small ones, make the same mistakes. Below we list the most common mistakes; Does your website have a clearly defined call to action? Let’s review your website. If you can, pretend that you are coming to your website for the very first time. Well, that is impossible, but the point is, a new visitor will be seeing your site for the very first time, so it is important to lead them along to what you would ultimately like them to do, which is to become your customer. Many small business websites are fine with letting visitors wander around rather aimlessly perhaps until they wander away and most likely never to return. About 1/3rd of websites are designed fairly well, and the rest could use some help in this regard. read_more Keep in mind cluttered website design, or one with poor navigation, is the most effective technique to encourage your visitors to click off your website as quickly as possible. Your small business will best be served by a simple, easy to read, easy to navigate, and clean website design. It is also of high importance to guide your website visitors by expressing to them what you want them to do. Every page of your website should have a specific purpose and desired response. The layout, text, and chosen graphics should work together in synergy to produce the desired response. Work towards that goal. It is important to get opinions from...

June 15, 2015

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

What is HTML5? HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Mark-up Language. The initial standard was developed in 1990 by the World Wide Web Consortium. HTML 5 is the latest update of this specification used to build websites. Many people are still unaware of many of the benefits of HTML5, so here we will describe some of its top attributes and benefits. HTML is a form of high level programming language used for structuring and presenting content on the Web consistently, across web browsers. HTML5 has been designed to meet the increasing demands presented by today’s rich media and mobile display requirements. Likewise it makes cross-platform mobile application development possible along with new styling options available in CSS3 (Cascading Style Sheets version 3). As HTML5/CSS3 it operates entirely within a web browser, as HTML5 does, it is not dependent on the underlying operating system, which frees applications from the significant development/support overhead to otherwise make it all compatible with Android, iOS, Blackberry, etc. HTML5 is already supported in the latest web browser versions on PCs and tablets; of which about a billion new compatible phone devices are being produced each year. It is quite important not to ignore the importance of HTML5 when considering your mobile site. CSS3: What is it? CSS stands for ‘Cascading Style Sheets’. It is the language of format and design of web pages. It provides website designers the power to site documents that are styled. CSS is compatible with all popular web browsers regardless of device and operating system. It separates the structure of a web page from the details of how elements are displayed. CSS can also be used to tailor a web page specific to a particular screen resolution or device/screen-size. In short, CSS is the language used for implementing front-end web design. read_more HTML5 & CSS Benefits: The most obvious benefit actually lies in its abstraction. As it is generally termed: Write once, run anywhere. HTML5 and CSS3 help businesses design and deploy web content and applications to create visually stunning and accurate web pages which operate across devices, operating systems and web browsers. Without these standards the vast variety of devices...

June 8, 2015

Domain Related, Hosting Related, SEO Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Being mobile friendly is the current ‘big thing’ going on in terms of search engine ranking for websites. If you are not just doing simple updates to your website, but rather replacing large portions of it in full, there are considerations to keep in mind. Maybe you are just handing your site redevelopment to a third party? There are several other things at play than what can be visually seen, replacing your site structure could bring down your site’s rankings causing it to drop in terms of SERPs (which are “search engine results pages”) So the following are some tips and guidelines to follow in order to keep your site safe from new Google penalties and to get your site maximum visibility in Google. Unfortunately, we all have to become Google conformists. Our society, our global culture as a whole, unfortunately believes in continuous centralization of power. Resistance is apparently futile. 1. Create a website map of your site The first step is understanding where everything is placed on your website. If you have implemented SEO methodology in the past, then most likely at least a few pages rank well SERPs, and you don’t want to lose those gains when your website structure changes. read_more Screaming Frog - http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ is a free online tool that details your current website’s map. You can then begin matching it up to your new site design. 2. Concerning Your Website’s Platform Different underlying technology for your website can have influence on your website’s ranking. Is your site straight HTML, HTML5, WordPress, or some other CMS? When you’re creating the new site, are you staying on the same platform, or are your changing it? The platform you or your web developer choose is an important consideration. SquareSpace, Wix, Weebly are easy to setup, but can be limiting for future SEO efforts. WordPress offers a full SEO experience due to the many choices of third party plugins, for example, “WordPress SEO” offered by Yoast. Most importantly, make sure your website/platform has the capability to use 301 redirects, which has the power to re-link the former page location on your old site to your new site (more...

May 26, 2015

Domain Related, Security, Security Related

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Click on image to see it full zize. Even before whistle blowing hero Edward Snowden revealed the deep penetration the US government has impinged on it’s citizens privacy as you use the internet, there were many reports of government institutions spying on citizens, and cellphone records have often been mentioned in those reports. In spite of this, we have as a whole ‘learned’ to accept it. Cell phone use records offer tremendous insight into any investigation, because of the sheer amount of detailed information about the individual suddenly under the microscope. Apart from basic contractual information like a subscriber’s name and address, lots of other data is also gathered and stored on file by mobile providers; such as everywhere you have been with your phone. This database of data includes who you phoned (and they have the same type of data warehoused on your friends too of course), who you received calls from, who you sms’d, what you said, who said what to you, your tweets and facebook activity, your photographs are up for grabs, videos, and again, everywhere you have been. There is not much left, as the above is already above most people’s imaginations. read_more Mobile operators also record all ip-addresses and even which websites users visited on the Internet. All this information is available to any government agent with a higher level of clearance than a police officer (or investigator). From the information which is gathered, mobile operators can apply algorithms to find out when you prefer to wake up, perhaps even how many times you tap snooze, when you went to sleep or other usage patterns. App downloading is recorded, and perhaps every-time, how often, you launch your favorite game. With the right surveillance order (or perhaps without one) a mobile operator can also relay information about who you associate with. Armed with a valid subpoena, police and other government agents can retrieve recordings of your calls and all your SMS’s; warehoused digitally for years. A 2013 CNN report exposed that US operators use this data, for marketing purposes in conjunction with third parties. While even though Americans are told that the...

May 19, 2015

Domain Related, Hosting Related, SEO Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

In this week's blog we wish to describe some marketing techniques to help you market your website for free. For free? Yes. The advent of the internet has given birth to marketing techniques now known as "inbound marketing" - that doesn't rely on funding traditional, often expensive, marketing campaigns. Inbound marketing is an overall technique that a company, or perhaps just your personal website as well, can use to market itself through blog posts, seo optimization, press releases, electronic newsletters, whitepapers, social media, article writing and other similar creative methods that you might come up with. That is a list of marketing tools that don't really require money upfront if you are willing to do the work to assemble and publish the materials. Inbound marketing is also commonly referred to as "content marketing" as well. Inbound marketing retains the benefit creating value from the very start of the interaction with prospective customers. In short, Inbound marketing is pretty much all about creating, publishing, and sharing content (also posted in a discoverable way typically through search engines) around the internet. read_more The other way to market your website is known as Outbound Marketing. Outbound marketing is basically purchasing attention for your website/business. That can include traditional print/radio advertising, telemarketing/flyers, spam (be careful though, aggressive spamming is now considered against the law in Canada), billboards, pay-per-click (PPC) search engine advertising (such as Google adwords) and perhaps even tv advertisements. In the days before the internet and search engines, outbound marketing was really the only way to bring customers in; but in today's world outbound marketing is being replaced, to ever higher degrees, with inbound methods. So inbound marketing is more preferable on tighter budgets, and can also be more effective too. If excess funds are available, a company could decide to even hire a marketing agency to do all the work for them. But inbound marketing techniques actually are lasting ways to bring more business in - as the content you produce for your website can be lastingly built into/onto your website. Inbound marketing is especially effective for small businesses that offer knowledge-based products; where prospects are prone to do prior research...

May 4, 2015

Domain Related, Hosting Related, SEO Related

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Small Smartphone screens count bigtime too! We could have entitled this article “The need for pleasing your website visitors who are using mobile device”, and perhaps that would be a better title. In any case the message of this article is to persuade you that it is basically critical to your business not only to have a website - but to also have a mobile website. So we urge you to consider the little investment in time and the little bit extra per month to develop a mobile friendly website. Would this mean that your website could require two domains? The answer to that is no. It is actually a better practice to use a single domain and then use an intelligent piece of javascript code on your website to determine if the viewing device is a smartphone or a larger device such as a laptop or a desktop PC or Mac. For example, if you go to Amazon.com on your mobile device, you will see a different layout than the larger pages you would see on a desktop monitor. If people were required to “pinch and zoom” on their small screens ( to read very small font, or to have to scroll left and right and up and down to read the site content ) - then Amazon would be losing out on many of their sales that come through iphones, and androids, windows phones, and other such devices. See for yourself if Google considers your website to be mobile friendly: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ Go ahead and try your website in the google tool above. Did your website pass the test? read_more We understand that the prospect of another website design sounds daunting to you.It is even to us. We didn’t pass this test either: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/?url=http%3A%2F%2F4goodhosting.com Text too small to read; Links too close together; Mobile viewport not set ;Content wider than screen... However, despite how busy we are, and how we have often thought people searching for web hosting wouldn’t be doing so from a mobile device - the simple fact is that google is considering it important and is making it a search engine ranking...

April 27, 2015

Domain Related

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Did you know that 87 percent of internet users are uncomfortable when visiting new generic top-level domains? Or that according to the latest research by the NCC Group, that 40 percent of web users in both the United States and United Kingdom now fell less secure with the release of the new gTLDs. In this survey, NCC Group surveyed 10,000 consumers on both sides of the Atlantic in collaboration with IDG Research Services. This survey saw its responses as part of the groups newest study released in April, the New Internet Study. Interestingly, those respondents in the United Kingdom were slightly more trustworthy, 14 percent, compared to their American counterparts at 12 percent when it comes to trusting a new gLTD. The respondents that were selected for this survey actively used the internet for transactional activities such as online banking, shopping or managing health care services. Thus, these respondents naturally would be more skeptical of these new gGLTs than those who are new to the internet. The NCC Groups Domain Abuse Monitoring service has seen respondents fear to be justified. The monitoring service has seen over 50 new gTLDs that have launched for the sole purpose of sending phising emails between April 2014 and February 2015. However, this is not the first studying dealing with the issues surrounding the launching of new gLTDs. In a 2014 study by Sedo, they found that there are a number of hindrances for the adoption of gTLDs. These include everything from confusion, awareness, security and naturally the cost associated with both setting up and marketing. This landmark study by NCC Groups was also backed up by a study by the Domain Name Association that echoed similar findings. They found that 14 percent of respondents within the United States preferred to shop with a retailer with a new gLTD, while across the Atlantic, those in the United Kingdom responded with 20 percent of a new gLTD as their preferred shopping choice. The NCC Groups CEO Rob Cotton warns that businesses need to start to reconsider how they approach brand reputation within the new internet landscape and here at 4GoodHosting we know what it takes to...

April 15, 2015

Domain Related

Reading Time: 3 minutes

In the 2014 Transparency Report, the Canadian telecom Rogers Communication has reported fewer customer information requests since the Supreme Court ruled that Internet Service Providers could not voluntarily disclose customer information to law enforcement officials than in previous years. In 2013, Rogers had 174,917 requests for customer information, including addresses, billing records and names, but in 2014 there were only 113,655. This is partly due to the Canadian Supreme Court ruling that barred ISP's, including Rogers, from disclosing names, addresses and phone numbers of their clients at the request of law enforcement officials without a warrant from a judge. This landmark decision has seen the number of requests drop significantly, but requests that had a judge warrant only dropped by roughly 3000, from 74,415 to 71, 501. As well, Rogers confirmed that they denied access to information, or were unable to return a customers information in 2,278 cases in 2014. Whether this was due to the changes, or simply due to not keeping long term records is unknown, but this also signifies a raise in denials. As per the ruling, the other major carriers such as Bell Communications and Telus Communications also have seen a similar drop in requests. We were unable to acquire concrete numbers from the other two of the big three, but have been told the requests for both non-warrant and warrant requests have dropped significantly. This trend in Canada has not been repeated in other parts of the world, and this is worrying to many within the data industry. Just south of the border, the United States has seen a sharp increase in requests to the major providers, and this has not only been limited to telecommunication companies. For instance, in 2013 Verizon and AT&T received more than 300,000 requests from law enforcement, both federal and state, which sees little to no change. With Verizon seeing 150,000 requests in the first six months of 2014 and 140,000 requests in the last half of the year, a drop of only 10,000 between the two years. On the other side AT&T received 115,925 requests in the first half in both civil and criminal proceedings, and 147,830, and these...

April 9, 2015

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Do you know if your hosting provider here in Canada is releasing your personal information to US and Canadian authorities without your knowledge? A new study released today by the policy researchers Andrew Clement of the Universtiy of Toronto, and Jonathon Obar of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, in coordination with the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy looks at this exact question. This study looked at the privacy practices of the top 43 Canadian internet service providers, and surprisingly finds that most of them will tell very little about what they do with your personal information. According to the study, many Canadian internet carriers are in violation of their legal responsibilities under Canadian Privacy Law. The researchers based the internet service providers on 10 criteria including Whether they inform customers when a third party requests their information Whether they inform customers the circumstances in which they agree to the requests and provide customers information to said third parties. Whether they tell customers the location that their personal information is stored and processed Whether they attempt to avoid routing customers personal information outside of Canada, where it is at risk at being intercepted by American authorities. The study reveals that a number of the top carriers in Canada in fact scored quite poorly on this scale. Our of the ten criteria, the average was two out of ten, which speaks to the issues around Canadian carriers. Of the top isp's in the country, the top scorer was the Ontario based Teksavvy with six stars. Telus received five stars for their services in Western Canada. While the other two members of the big three, Rogers and Bell, scored with scores of four and three stars respectively. Rounding out the major isp's Shaw and Videotron were within the average at two stars each. The researchers hope that this landmark study will lead to tougher Canadian privacy laws either through federal or provincial legislation. As well, they hope that carriers will become more transparent when it comes to providing customers information on how they handle their private data. The issue with the lack of ISP transparency here in Canada, is it...