Search engine optimisation is a key factor for all commercial sites. Having your potential customers being able to find you via the most popular search engines is crucial. Being high on these search engines can also give you an advantage over your competitors. It is found that those who are on the first 2 pages of search engine results for key words will get more clicks then the sites on all the other pages (3 and above) put together.

If you are moving your site, renaming it or changing the URL structure, you run a risk of losing your search engine position. Having a 301 redirect is the most efficient and search engine friendly method for webpage redirection from your old site to your new one. Below are a few methods to implement URL redirection.

IIS Redirect

In Internet Services Manager, right click on the domain (or file or folder) you wish to redirect
Select “a redirection to a URL”
Enter the redirection address
Check “The exact URL entered above” and “A permanent redirection for this resource”
Click on “Apply”
ColdFusion Redirect

<.cfheader statuscode="301" statustext="Moved permanently">
<.cfheader name="Location" value="http://www.new-url.com">

PHP Redirect

Header(“HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently”);
Header(“Location: http://new-url.com”);
?>

ASP Redirect

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status=”301 Moved Permanently”
Response.AddHeader “Location”, “http://new-url.com”
%>

ASP .NET Redirection

JSP (Java) Redirection

<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader(“Location”, “http://new-url.com”);
response.setHeader(“Connection”, “close”);
%>

CGI Perl Redirection

$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect(“http://new-url.com”);

Ruby on Rails Redirect

def old_action
headers["Status"] = “301 Moved Permanently”
redirect_to “http://new-url.com”
end

Linux .htaccess Redirect

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://new-url.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Why be anything other than passionate about your business? You want to do well, make money and expand – otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. As your business grows, your web presence also needs to develop; to grow and expand alongside your real-world expansion. This means that you will need to innovate, find new ways of displaying information and interacting with clients and customers, while providing a cutting-edge commerce-enabled site that looks good. All this takes time, and time is money.

Using new technology can sometimes entail a sharp learning-curve. Developing web applications and creating dynamic, good looking and powerful websites is a lot easier if you can liaise with knowledgeable staff who know what they are doing and can solve common problems quickly. You need people who can provide solutions to aid in your development.

It makes a great deal of sense to use a web hosting, virtual or dedicated server provider who are as passionate about their business as you are about yours. This means having staff who are skilled in the provision of solutions to your developer problems, who can iron-out hiccups and keep your web site or server running smoothly and efficiently.

Here at CWCS we are proud to call ourselves a developer solutions provider. Our support staff are not only friendly, but also passionate about web hosting and server provision. This means that you can spend more time being passionate about what you do well, secure in the knowledge our passion will keep you online and productive.

Having an on-line presence is an essential requirement for mostly all types of businesses. Reaching out to the largest and most varied market available, being on-line with a company website can be very rewarding to your business. It also faces security risks just like with any office premises in the real world.

Security should never be overlooked; it is quite easy to sometimes ignore proper security practises to save time and effort. Although ignoring essential security practises could severely affect your business later on, as more web traffic is driven to your website and your user base grows.

Forms and scripts could enable users to interact with back-end databases in a typical dedicated server setup. Securing these forms to ensure any invalid characters are removed during the processing stage is an important step to think about during the website development even before the website is deployed onto the dedicated hosting server. Any elements of the website that allow the user to interact with the dedicated server should be tested and researched for proper security practises.

Another important security measure to think about is directory and file permissions, file permissions is often overlooked when deploying applications that run on a dedicated server. Developers can be easily be drawn to overlook applying the correct permissions to ensure the application works without any access problems with files on the server. Correct permissions is very important as any users that have some form of access to the server could potentially execute, read, and write to a file they are not suppose to. Be aware of 777 permission, as this would leave a file to be accessed by anyone and is never recommended.

The operating system on a dedicated server should always be updated to ensure is has the latest updates of the operating system. The foundation of any dedicated server is the operating system and hackers are constantly finding new methods to gain unauthorised access. This could be through exploiting software installed on the dedicated server or additional software added that opens ports to communicate with external users.

An additional level of security is also an essential requirement for any business which relies on its web presence. There are systems such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, port monitoring services, and anti-virus/spam software which helps detect and remove any possible threats.

Physical security to the data centre is also important and should not be overlooked.

CWCS has perimeter firewalls, its dedicated servers includes annual server security audits and data centres are physically secure. For more information please contact us.

Modern web hosting plans do more than just serve up web pages. They are powerful business tools which can add considerable value to your online business presence. The control panel which comes as part of your web hosting plan can be used for day-to-day management of your site, but also to do things like set up and administer e-mail accounts, enable FTP access for staff and customers, automate regular tasks, add MySQL databases and users and automatically respond to emails to certain addresses.

There are a variety of control panel applications around – but the industry is dominated by one name which has become the de facto standard: Plesk. The Plesk control panel is used by web hosting companies world wide and is very powerful whilst remaining easy to use.

Managing your web hosting plan is now not just a job for experts. The web-based control panel has an interface which is easy to learn and allows for complex tasks to be handled with a few mouse clicks. Want to add a blog to your site and allow customers and staff to comment on your goods or services? This can be done easily and quickly using the control panel application. You can also set up forwarding for e-mail addresses or arrange new e-mail accounts with the minimum amount of bother.

At CWCS, our web hosting plans allow you to control your online business. We can arrange for upgrade paths between plans without loss of data or service. We use the Plesk web-based control panel to allow you, the customer, to have the maximum amount of control over the service you are paying for.

Databases are by far the best way to store and access data dynamically using fairly easy to work out SQL commands, however it is important to ensure that sensitive data is encrypted so it cannot be accessed maliciously. There have been too many instances where data has been leaked to criminals or the general public via insecure database storage or transmission.

Firstly its crucial to work out what data needs to be encrypted and what data does not. If your data would cause financial or physical damage to an individual, institution or business then its important to secure it properly, this includes things like credit card details, bank details, sensitive contact details etc.

Secondly you need to know at which point to encrypt your data. If you have your database on the same physical server all connections to it, then you need to only encrypt the stored data. Its preferable to use 1 way encryption, but sometimes that is impractical so you should try to use a complex encryption algorithm that is not well known. If however you are downloading this data via a website interface you need to also encrypt your interfaces connection and ensure you always connect over https rather than http.

In some cases your database will be on a separate machine to your web site (usually to improve performance or for clusters/clouds) in which case you should ideally also encrypt your SQL connections from your website. This is usually the hardest thing to achieve. CWCS Managed Hosting can provide this service for you if required.

Virtual dedicated servers hosting is very popular because it is a cost-effective solution to a potentially expensive problem. A single piece of hardware (the managed hosting company’s server) is partitioned into multiple virtual servers, all capable of running a variety of operating systems and software. One server can then be allocated to several customers – but because the hardware is shared, the costs of running a server dedicated to your web presence are minimised.

Small and medium sized websites which have reasonable bandwidth needs and do not expect a very large amount of traffic will benefit from the savings – and will be able to have full root access to the operating system, allowing them to install the software they need to make their web sites productive.

When looking for a virtual dedicated servers provider, it makes sense to choose a company that has specialist knowledge and experience in making these package work effectively for you – and have technically competent support staff to ensure that your site stays up and running for the longest possible time.

It is no accident that VDS hosting is used by the majority of customer websites all over the world. Virtual server hosting technology is a robust and affordable way of taking more control of your web hosting environment, without the expense of providing your own hardware and infrastructure.

At CWCS we are specialists in providing virtual dedicated servers. Our support staff are experts in their field and fully trained to assist you with queries or solve technical problems. Our virtual servers come with full root access and you can choose from a variety of Linux distributions to fully customise your server environment.

When you’re just starting on the road to a web-based business presence you might be a little confused about which managed hosting plan is right for you. Do you go for the cheapest, or do you need one with a few more bells and whistles? Then there are things like PHP5 and MySQL. Do you really need them? What do they do?

If you have a simple website, then a starter package is affordable and will probably cover your needs. However, if you would like to develop your site, commerce enable it and make it easier to manage, then you should think about a plan that includes access to PHP5 and MySQL.

PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, a powerful scripting language that can create dynamic content and can be embedded within standard HTML code. This means, for example, that the content of a text file can be read and inserted into a web page, providing a very easy way of changing and updating content or blog entries. If you’ve ever looked at websites like Facebook or YouTube you will have seen the power of PHP in action.

MySQL (My Structured Query Language) is a relational database management system that allows for the display of database queries on web pages. For example, a database containing information about products, prices, discounts and stock levels displayed in an online catalogue, allowing customers to browse through goods and make informed purchasing decisions.

Here at CWCS managed hosting we provide a variety of affordable and powerful plans for all levels of e-commerce and web site development. If you are unsure of which managed hosting plan is right for you, please call one of our friendly customer service representatives.

There’s an old saying about short-sighted business people: “They know the cost of everything, but the value of nothing”. When you are making the decision to use a web hosting service, or deciding on a dedicated server or virtual server solution, then cost is, of course, important as you will want to minimise your outlay. However, don’t lose sight of the value that is added to your web hosting or server plan by other very important factors.

Technical support is something you don’t miss until you need it – and if the company you are using does not give you guaranteed uptime and friendly and efficient technical support whenever you need it, you will end up paying more than just a financial cost. The damage to your business may impact adversely on your profitability and your image.

Having a provider offering web hosting in the UK, in a UK based data-centre with 24/7 technical support via telephone and e-mail is just as important as saving money on your web hosting or server plan – and sometimes more so! If your website is critical to the success of your business, ensuring that your plan includes a dedicated in-house project manager can add incredible value to your day-to-day operations.

CWCS web hosting and dedicated and virtual server plans include a variety of options which allow your site to remain productive. Our state-of-the-art UK based data centres have features which add value to any of the plans you select. If you need to speak to a real, live person in order to get a problem resolved quickly, our support staff are both efficient and approachable. Mission critical hosting includes a dedicated, in-house project manager to help out. The cost is affordable: the value is superb.

Deciding to take the plunge and purchasing your own dedicated server hardware gives you more control over your internet presence. Getting your own dedicated servers is relatively easy – you can make the comparisons you need to source the exact specification to suit the development of your site. Once you’ve done that, you need to sort out the connectivity, access, security and support. That can be harder – and if you are going it alone, very expensive.

Colocation dedicated servers offer a great solution – you can keep your very own server hardware in a secure data storage location that offers a variety of bandwidth options, and also allows you to choose other important details like the number of IP addresses your business requires, switchable port requirements and the amount of power your server will need.

CWCS colocation offers plans to suit a variety of business sizes. We already have the infrastructure that can provide your business with everything you need for a successful web presence – your hardware just plugs in and we look after the rest. You also get physical and virtual access to your hardware 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our data centres are secure and protected from man-made and natural disasters, ensuring that your data is safe and your web site stays up.

Colocation dedicated servers provide you with the best of both worlds – your own hardware, configured the way you want, running the software you need – tied into the unparalleled infrastructure of an existing secure and modern data centre. This is an affordable and efficient method of expanding your business operations.

Is it time for your business to start to take advantage of the plethora of available customers out there in cyberspace? The decision to commerce enable your website should not be taken lightly, and there are some pitfalls you should try your hardest to avoid. Choosing a web hosting plan from a company with a reputation for reliability and excellent support can minimise the chances of things going horribly wrong.

Your e-commerce platform is only going to be as reliable as the web hosting company you use, so look for both experience and an infrastructure that will support your needs. You should choose your web hosting plan wisely – there is nothing more off-putting to prospective customers than pages loading slowly due to insufficient bandwidth, or transactions taking too long to process because your payment processing package is inadequate. The worst thing of all is when your site goes down and everything grinds to a halt.

Good design can make your site easy to use – but try to get the balance right when providing information: too much can be off-putting, too little can make your site seem lightweight. The more professional your site looks and the easier it is to use, the more sales you will achieve.

CWCS web hosting plans offer 99.9% guaranteed uptime, a variety of bandwidth options to suit your needs and all plans include friendly, fast and reliable technical support. Running a commerce enabled site can provide your business with huge benefits. Start in the right direction by using a web hosting provider that has a proven track record where it matters most.