Monthly Archives: April 2009

This is something that all webmasters know, but may not always think about, especially if they run a blog or a small website: backups are important, and you can never have too many.

Although your site may automatically be backed up if you’re on a shared account, and although you may have a script that automatically backs your site up and stores it elsewhere on your server, you need redundancy. So, it’s important to back your site up manually several times a week.

Servers fail, and anything can happen. If you have a “local backup”, or a complete copy of your site or blog (including backups of SQL databases), then you have one extra weapon in your arsenal to prevent a total loss of your site.

Suppose that you run a blog, or use a blog platform as a content management system. This means that your site is stored in an SQL database, and as such, it could be a rather large database.

If you need to completely reinstall your website, it will be a big task, because you can only upload SQL databases that are up to 2 MB, right? Wrong. Using a program such as Big Dump, you can upload your entire database, whether it is your site, blog, or message boards, all in one pass. This makes recovering your website quicker and easier than if you had to split your database manually, and upload several passes.

The key thing to remember is that in addition to whatever manual processes you have in place, it’s imperative that you manually back up your site several times a week. By doing this, you ensure that your site or blog doesn’t skip a beat.

If you have a website, you may want to allow your users to interact with one another. A message board (also referred to as a “forum”) is a great idea! But which software to use? If you want to go the free route, there are several choices. Perhaps the most popular is PhpBB, which is powerful, but basic. It will allow you to have different categories, and subforums within those categories. You can also ban users, and allow access only to those who register.

Another free option is Simple Machines Forum, which is also a basic forum package. With it, you can set up categories and forums, and you also have the ability to easily censor words and links. It also offers strong user management and permissions administration. Among its many other features, it also allows you to ban users for as little or as long as you need.

Another choice is vBulletin, which is strictly pay software. There is no trial version, and the license is currently $100 a year, while an owned license is $180. With the leased version, you have access to all upgrades for that year. For the owned version, you have access to upgrades for a year, and if you want to continue to get those updates, you’d have to pay either $40, or $60, depending on when you purchase the extension.

vBulletin definitely gives you your money’s worth. You have powerful tools at your disposal, which includes the ability to moderate a new user’s posts until they satisfy certain criteria, which you can establish, based on posts, reputation, and days registered. You can also control which users can see which forums, and you can turn registration on and off at will, not to mention the fact that you can also manually moderate new users, to help weed out the trolls.

All of these packages are fine in their own right, and as for which one is right for you, that depends on your needs and budget. No matter which one you choose, you will need access to the SQL administration (easily found in Cpanel), and the ability to set up a new database, which is remarkably easy with Cpanel.

By setting up forums, you can add a whole new level of interactivity to your website, and that will keep visitors coming back for more.

One service that numerous registrars offer is “private registration” of your domain. What this means is that they substitute their contact information for yours. Of course, you still maintain ownership of the domain, but they act as a proxy for your domain.

But is it worth it? Many registrars charge for this service, after all.

One concern that many domain owners have is the publication of their home address and private phone number, all of which would be available to anyone who looked up their domain in the WHOIS database. The solution to this is simple: get a post office box, and purchase a voice mail number from a service such as Evoice, who offers voice mail numbers for as little as $4.95 a month.

With the problem of privacy resolved, you can then be assured that you, as the domain owner, get important information about your domain. While it is true that spammers love to harvest information for their evil deeds, you should also make yourself available should any legal issues arise regarding your domain. Simply create a separate e-mail address for the WHOIS database, and you will be sure to immediately know about any potential problems with your domain, allowing you to quickly resolve those problems, and avoiding the possibility of losing your domain because you didn’t respond.

Of course, if you run a website that is of a controversial nature, then you indeed may wish to consider private registration, but for the most part, private registration causes more problems than it solves.

Your website is important to you, and so is the uptime. If your website goes down for any reason, of course you want to know. But if you’re not sitting in front of the computer all the time, how do you know if your site goes down? With monitoring services, such as Alertra.

What this service does is it monitors your website by pinging it from different locations around the world. If a problem is encountered, you are notified by phone, SMS, e-mail, pager, or instant message, depending on your preference. If you have a shared account, by the time you’re alerted, we’re probably already fixing it. But if you have a dedicated server, a service such as Alertra can prove to be quite invaluable.

How much you pay per month depends upon how often you want your website pinged, and how many methods of notification you choose. But regardless of how you go about it, it’s a priceless service, because you can be notified of downtime very quickly, which in turn will allow for a quick resolution to the problem.

Alertra is not the only company to offer such a service; other companies such as SiteUpTime, and Uptrends are two of the many companies to offer this sort of service. When it comes to uptime, knowledge is power, and knowing when your site is down, whether it’s the server itself, DNS, or only e-mail, you probably would want to know right away. Companies such as Alertra give you that knowledge, and that peace of mind.