MySQL provides cluserting but not fail over for end user. So here at JaguarPC Web Hosting labs we tested MySQL fail over cluserting. To setup MySQL clustering a minimum of 3 computers are required. However recommended number is 4 or more. And to setup a failover mysql cluster, we add one more machine making it 5. There are 3 parts in a MySQL Cluster:

Data: 2 or more nodes act as data. In MySQL 5.0, the data sits in memory, while in 5.1 data can go on disk as well (5.1 is release candidate). For our testing we use 2 data nodes. When one of the node dies, the other will serve the data.

Management: One machine is used for cluster management. Once the cluster is started and this machine goes down, the cluster can continue to work. So this is not critical for our fail over setup.

SQL:: 2 test machines were setup as SQL nodes in failover with a single “floating IP”. When one died, the “floating IP” moved to the second machine using arp spoofing. MySQL client would connect to SQL node using that floating IP, so for the client MySQL Server remains up and running when one of the SQL nodes die. This part of the setup is JaguarPC’s own making and is available through Dedicated Server Hosting offer.

The rough diagram for this whole setup is as follows:

MySQL client -> [ 2 SQL nodes fail-over ] -> [ 2 data nodes ]

RAM Requirement for Data Node: Since MySQL 5.0 uses RAM to hold the data in data nodes, you can use the following formula for obtaining a rough estimate of how much RAM is needed for each data node in the cluster:

(SizeofDatabase × NumberOfReplicas × 1.1 ) / NumberOfDataNodes

Say our database size is 10 GB, and we make 2 replicas and host it on 4 nodes, then we need about 6GB RAM in each node. If we store our 10GB with 2 replicas in 6 nodes, then we need 4GB RAM in each node. You get the idea.

More will be posted later about this topic.

My website was working for years on the old host but now it does not work on new host. Why? This is one of annoyances that come up because some people fail to realize that there are just too many variables at function here. For a website to operate, there are many building blocks, e.g. Web Server, Scripting Language, Database. And not only that, there are zillions of verions of these tools. If your site code was designed in the last century, it is possible that it will not work in the 21st century. No wait, if it was designed last year with the tool that was developed 5 years ago, it may not work today. Confused?

A static website that is composed of HTML/css/js is served by a web server as it is to the browser which renders and displays it to the client. However if your site is dynamic and is coded in a certain language (e.g. php or perl) that code has to run on the server to make web pages. That code may be written in a certain version of langauge which may be a mismatch between your old host and new host (or your old server and new server). As a responsible website owner you should be aware of what are the pre-requisites of your site code. Not only that, you need to regularly update the code to newest version of tools and make it compatible with them. If your site code has not changed since years, chances are that you are risking your entire hosting account and site, as many bugs that were unknown before may have been released in public. And those known exploits can used by script kiddies to hack your site remotely.

In short, a website owner needs to keep his code upto-date so that (1) it works on newest technologies and server tools (2) it is not open for remote exploits and abuse.

As a starting point, for a Linux Shared Hosting, you should be aware that PHP4 is phasing out and PHP5 is the future. MySQL4 database is also being replaced with MySQL5. So you need to learn how to update the code or get in touch with the developer/vendor of your web application to make it compatible.

There is often some confusion about what all comes with a web hosting package. Usually the misconceptions are based on the type of support that is offered when purchasing a web hosting plan.

Web hosting providers are a lot like property or apartment managers.

Lets compare. First, I’ll start with shared hosting.

Do you remember when GeoCities first came out? In order to get a free web site, you first had to pick your neighborhood based on your site’s content. For example, if you had a site about technology, you’d choose the neighborhood silicon valley. From there you’d choose a house. Each house was assigned a number and your website URL would then be geocities.com/siliconvalley/[housenumber]. GeoCities long ago did away with that format, and web hosting has come a long way since those days but the concept of shared web hosting is mostly the same.

When you purchase a shared hosting plan, you’re essentially renting space on a web server that is shared by several other web site owners all hoping to host a web site on a budget. The server space will come fully ready for you to ‘move in to’. Essentially, the electricity will be turned on, the fridge will be present for you to store your perishables, and water will run. The property managers (web host provider) will make sure you have a clean space to move your stuff into. It is then up to you you to move your furniture in and organize it however you want.

Web hosting providers generally do not provide support for coding, scripting, development, or design. Just as apartment managers generally don’t tell you where to hang your pictures, which furniture to use or where to put your things.

What if something breaks?

“Your analogy doesn’t work. My property manager will fix the stove if it breaks.”

If something that comes with your shared hosting plan breaks, lets say cPanel in this example, we will certainly fix it for you. But we aren’t going to cook your dinner for you and neither will your property manager.

“What about all the cool programs you offer for me to install? Like Wordpress? Do you support that?”

We can host a Wordpress site and we even offer an easy way for you to install it. Wordpress is a third party product. Think of Wordpress as the refrigerator in your apartment. It may come with the apartment but your apartment managers didn’t create it. You can put whatever you want in it. But your property managers aren’t going to keep it clean for your nor throw out the food that goes bad. That’s your job. The concept is the same with hosting a Wordpress site. You need to keep it clean and updated to the latest secure version. This actually applies to any software, script, or program you install on your website.

This doesn’t mean you’re completely on your own. Your ‘property managers’ are going to keep an eye on things (servers) and make sure your ‘neighbors’ (other customers) aren’t making life miserable. Kind of like a gated community: We’ll attempt to block intruders and abusive ‘renters’ who continually have a detrimental effect on their neighbors will be asked to ‘move out’.

“What about VPS. You do everything, right?”

Purchasing a VPS hosting plan is like purchasing a condominium. It’s still shared with others, but you’ll have more control over what happens in your ‘space’. Your hosting provider will provide you with the basics, and you can purchase addons such as a control panel, extra RAM, etc, but the concept of the apartment is still the same. What you do from there with your site space is up to you. Your web hosting provider will still keep an eye on things and make sure your neighbors are all playing nice, but the space you’re renting is yours to maintain and keep up to date.

“I get it. But what about a dedicated server? Surely you’ll do anything I want?”

Not quite. When you purchase a dedicated server plan it’s like renting a house. It’s bigger than an apartment, and you have all the control to do whatever you wish with the space. You can even invite your friends over for a party! But it’s totally yours to maintain and operate on your own.

Lets say you want maid service, lawn care, and extra security. You’d pay extra for these if renting a house, right? The same holds true for dedicated web hosting. You can purchase Managed Services of different levels depending on your needs and we’ll take care of things for you. I warn you though, we don’t do windows. (Get it??) (OK. OK. I lied. You can actually add on Windows OS for just $35 more on our dedicated hosting plans.)

“I only need an apartment (shared hosting). Can I at least pay you to help me out with some things?”

Sure. We can do script installations and even upgrades of third party products if you wish. There is a fee attached, but this type of support does not come standard with a non-managed hosting account.

In a nutshell, Web Hosting and renting an apartment is pretty similar. We’ll provide you fresh clean space to work with, and we’ll keep things running smoothly. We’ll even offer a few tools and perks to keep your new place shiny and sparkly, but it’s ultimately up to you to decide what you want on your site, where you’ll put things, and how.

As I continue my series on changes in Google that smashed some sites or techniques based on this blog article by Brett Borders, today I’m dealing with the 5th technique in regard to Sponsored blog post networks.

Sponsored blog post may have been around for longer than I realize but I think they became used to a large degree in 2007. 2007 was when I first became of them. It appears that Google has taken action against them in 2007.
As I understand “Sponsored Blot Post” , basically you are paying someone to write a review of your site, or perhaps a particular product you sell on their blog.

If I understand “sponsored blog post” correctly from Google’s point of view they are just another paid link.

I do not agree with Google on their present position in regard to paid links. I think I agree with them in regard to paying someone to write a review of your site or product. I know very few people that would give an honest opinion when being paid to write a review. Unfortunately most of the people I know who would participate as a writer for this type of review would say nothing but good.

Those who would provide an honest opinion will not get hired. From the webmasters point of view the only reason I can see to pay some one for a review would be hoping for SE benefit.
Why are people paying for this type of review. It is for a link. Even if the review is an honest review it will not likely result in much traffic.

IMO the concept of the “Sponsored Blog Post” is nothing more than another scheme to build links that probably will not benefit your site anyway. This is one instance of Google’s stance on paid links that I agree with.

If your interested in my previous articles in regard to the changes that Google made in 2007 that did smash some sites here they are:

Links
Supplemental Pages
Directory links
Open link brokers and link networks

I haven’t provided a lot of reference links in this article. You will find them in previous articles. If there is any discussion, I will not only provide them, but I might provide some additional references.

The title attribute is something you can add to any link. When used correctly the title attribute will on mouseover provide a little more information to the user about the link destination. The text displayed on mouse over is referred to as a “tool tip”.

If your using IE you will see something similar for images. What IE is doing is displaying the “alt attribute”. IE is not all that compliant with W3C standards, and the “alt attribute” should not, and is not displayed on mouseover of images with standard compliant browsers like FireFox.

The “alt attribute” should only be displayed if for some reason the image is not displayed.

On the other hand the “title attribute” should be displayed for any link that is using the “title attribute”. On mouseover you should see a too tip for any site I have linked to from this article.

A question that often comes up in SEO related forums like IHY relate to the SE value of the “title attribute”. In fact this just came up. The specific question was Adding Css Tooltips to Hyperlinks.

Personally I have not seen any evidence that using the “title attribute” helps with SE ranking. At this time I do not know of any credible SEO that thinks the “title attribute” is used.

I do think the “title attribute” should be used. Why? Because it will help your visitors. I am slowly adding the attribute to my sites. I try to use it in blog post. In regard to blog articles I could probably provide a better description of the link destination. Even with my quickly written “title attributes” I think they give you a better idea where the link will lead you to.

Regardless of how SEs treat the “title attribute” at this time, they may sart considering it in the future.

If you design web pages to benefit your visitors,  it will always help you one way or another.   If you only think about SEs what you do may or may not help.  Unfortunately some things you do only for SEs could end up hurting your site in the long run.

Use the “title attribute”.  Use the attribute as intended.  Think of your visitors and not the SEs.

A few weeks ago I started a series of articles based on this Blog Article written by Brett Borders. The title of the article was 7 SEO Techniques That Google Smashed in 2007.

This is my 4th article based on what Brett originally wrote about.

I agree with Brett that Google really started targeting paid links in 2007. However they started giving indiactios about paid links as far back as 2005. At leas according to Matt Cutts. f you don’t know who Matt Cutts is, he is in charge of the Google “Spam Team”, or to say that another way he is in charge of the “Quality Control Team”. In other words the department that Matt Cutts heads is concerned about the quality of the search results that Google returns.

Though I agree with Brett there is evidence that Google is trying to target paid links, I would disagree that they are targeting the brokers that profit by selling paid links. At this time I do not think they are very successful in their attempt to target paid links.

IMHO if Google was really serious about paid link brokers they would stop Adwords advertising for this industry. Look at this search for “paid link brokers“. The 3 coveted positions at the top of the page for Adwords are all text link brokers.

Google knows who the text link brokers are. Simply stop taking advertising money from them, and take their sites out of the index.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out who is selling links for the search engines and who if offering links for sale for advertising purposes IMHO.

It appears to me on the paid link issue that Google is trying to snip of bad branches rather than dealing with the root of the problem.

If your interested in seeing my previous comments on this issue:

2007 Changes in Google Regarding Links

2007 Changes in Google Regarding Supplemental Pages

2007 Changes in Google Regarding Directory Links

For the most part I think the Can Spam Act has been a failure.

When a email spammer inserts outright fraud into the mix, the Feds are going to take another look and possibly go the extra mile to prosecute.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal grand jury in Detroit has indicted a Michigan man dubbed the “spam king,” and 10 others, in an international illegal bulk e-mailing and stock fraud scheme, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.
Under the scheme, the group sent spam touting thinly traded Chinese penny stocks, drove up their stock price, and reaped profits by selling the stock at artificially inflated prices, the statement said.

Read the Article published in Yahoo News.

Brett pointed out in his original article 7 SEO Techniques That Google Smashed in 2007 that Google had smashed Directories that charged a pay for review fee.

In regard to Directory links Google did smash a lot of low quality Directories. I’ sure there were some paid for review Dirctories that got hit. I think that was done to Directories that were obviously built to help webmasters game Google. In reality Directories of that type only had two purposes.

They generally promoted links, pagerank, and obtaining links to get better rankings in Google. I think the other thing that stood out about these directories was the fact it was obvious the Adsense adds were more important than the directory listings.

IMHO Google did not smash paid for review directories. In fact I think Google has made it clear that they do not consider a pay for review directory as a paid link as long as the directory does not include every site that pays for a review.

For further reading:

How To Report Paid Links

Hidden Links

Text Links and PageRank

If you want to read my other post in this series:

2007 Changes in Google Regarding Links

2007 Changes in Google Regarding Supplemental Pages

I guess the first thing is to explain what supplemental results were. In laymen terms supplemental results are pages that Google keeps in a separate index. They were identified in the SERPS as supplemental when those pages came up in a search. I’m sure Yahoo, MSN, and Ask have something similar. The difference is they are not as open with webmasters as Google is trying to be.

To me it was no big deal to have pages show as supplemental. In fact I have seen pages that were listed as supplemental out rank my pages which were were not supplemental. To those involved in the Search Engine Optimization Industry it was a big deal. Those people did not like having pages in the supplemental results. SEO’s saw the supplemental results as a road map telling them which pages on their site needed more work.

I’m not sure when Google started showing supplemental results. I think it was sometime in 2006. However, as Brett pointed out in his article 7 SEO Techniques That Google Smashed in 2007 Google has quit showing supplemental results in 2007. Man that caused an uproar.

At some point someone discovered a operator which they believed would show only supplemental pages. Brett mentions that in his article. The operator was “site: * -sljktf” command (to show the supplemental index results).

Some people thought you could still discover supplemental pages with the operator, even after Google stopped showing supplemental results . Personally I don’t think the operator was broke. I don’t think it was ever accurate.

2007 saw a lot of changes in the way Google does things. Some of the changes are directly related to the way Google ranks websites. Some are related to the way they are displaying the SERPs, and a few were made in regard to the information provided to webmasters who use webmaster tools.

Though I have been aware of these changes I never really thought about writing an article about them or even a series of articles until I came across this blog article today by Brett Borders in a article titled 7 SEO Techniques That Google Smashed in 2007. I have no idea who Bret is. As far as I can remember this is the first time I have heard of him. His article is not exhaustive, but it deals with a few major changes that are important to webmasters. In this article I will only deal with Reciprocal links (link exchanges) and paid links. Based on the 7 changes Brett mentioned, I will do a series over the next few days, including some changes that he did not mention.

If you want a preview of what is to come I suggest you read his article.

1: Reciprocal links. in this case Brett uses the Real Estate Industry as an example.

Though Reciprocal and paid links existed before Google, there is a reason they have become concerned about Reciprocal links (link exchanges), and paid links.

In the early days a lot of Google’s algorithm was based on links. A link was regarded as a vote. It became easy for webmasters to game Google and get top listings in the SERPS based solely on links. Coincidentally my last article on this blog was about about link exchanges. The same is true for paid links.

There is nothing wrong link exchanges or paid links when the link exchange is done with your visitor in mind, or the paid link is simply a means of advertising.

Unfortunately webmasters used links as a means to increase their ranking and that is against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. As a result Google is reacting.

Read this statement from Google’s Guidelines under Quality guidelines – basic principles. In fact they list a few things that webmaster should and should not do under Quality guidelines.

• Make pages for users, not for search engines
• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings
• Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
• Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc

I hope you notice in particular that Google not only advises that you avoid anything they might consider a link scheme, Google may also hold you responsible for who you link to. What does Google mean by a link scheme? I think they mean any link you acquire for the intended purpose if increasing your PR, or ranking.

Google has become very open with webmasters in trying to communicate what they expect if you want free traffic from them.  Yahoo, MSN, and Ask are not so open, but I suspect they are looking for the same thing that Google is looking for.

Search Engines want to display relevant results to their searchers.  They do not want those results manipulated.