Tips to help Secure Your Hosting Account
I cannot stress enough how important security is when is comes to your web hosting account. There are a few proactive ways to help ensure that your web hosting account is safe and secure. Hopefully, preventing your data or clients data being compromised. The first step to security is to ALWAYS keep a backup of your website an or any important files you have on the server. Backup anytime a critical change is made and store the backup on your home computer, USB key or even an external hard drive. I cannot stress enough how important it is to backup your website as disasters can happen at any time. To create a full backup of your account, login to your cPanel and click on the Backup Wizard icon. Follow the steps to create a FULL account backup. The server will generate a backup and provide you with a download so you can store it on your computer or any other means of backup. For detailed instructions on how to backup your website through cPanel click here.
The next step to securing your website is your cpanel password. Many people change their password to something very simple but with today’s technology a combination of only letters and numbers is not secure enough. First off, don’t change your password just because the one we provided was ‘too hard to remember’. There is a reason it’s hard to remember! The following are a few tips that you can take in regards to password security:
- Never use the same password for more than one purpose or account online.
- If your password is short or easy to remember, it’s most likely insecure.
- Always try to include a mix of Upper and Lower case letters as well as numbers and special characters.
- Make sure you do not tell anyone your password, even the person designing your website should not have your main cpanel password.
- Use the ‘Generate password’ option in cpanel if you are having difficulty choosing a password.
Moving on, security is not only based on a secure password. Updating your website script is a key factor in web hosting security. As a hosting customer it is your responsibility to make sure your website is up to date and running the latest secure version of your software. Whether you use a forum, blog, image gallery or shopping cart script, make sure you check for updates and run the latest version of the software. I have seen many people run an old version of Joomla or Wordpress or even OsCommerce and get compromised. In most cases where a client may report an account having been exploited, the incident that took place was a result of a lack of proper attention to the script installed within that individuals hosting account. Outdated web applications and scripts can easily allow an individual to gain full access to your hosting account without the need for any login information. If you have or are planing on installing any script to your account the following tip should help!
- Use strong passwords and cycle your passwords regularly (every 2 - 4 weeks)
- Subscribe to the scripts mailing list or whatever alert system they make available. These lists are generally are only updated when a new update is made available for the script.
- Backup and Update your account regularly!
- Don’t forget to secure your database authentication data! You are most likely leaving this data within a regular text file. Make sure the file is permissioned securely and is not visible or available to anyone on the web.
- Delete any install files or chmod 777 files that give global access to your directories.
- Ask us for help! We can give you advice and in most cases help you make the right decision in terms of security.
In the end keeping your website secure is just as important as keeping the bad guys out of your home. You have to be proactive and keep up to date. It can happen to anyone and taking preventive measures is a great way to maintain your account. At HostUpon we want our customers to understand that the Internet is never going to be 100% secure and each hosting account needs to be well maintained, monitored and backed up by the account owner.
If you have any questions regarding the security of your website please do not hesistate to contact us anytime.
Social Community Hosting and Social Network Hosting
It’s amazing how many different social networking and community software is out there! We are all familiar with Myspace and Facebook but I’ve been noticing quite a few sites appearing as people want to start their own community. You can find social networks on almost every topic these days from pet lovers to dating sites to music networks and the list goes on and on.
Hosting plays a big part for these types of sites, whether it be hosting for dating software or hosting for social networks. These types of sites require more power but they main thing to keep in mind is growth.
Let’s take a dating script for example; Your site will get popular and populated with pictures, videos and maybe even a chat feature. As the site grows you’ll easily noticed that shared hosting is not right for you. You have to account for memory, CPU, disk I/O and the overall performance of your website. You might be able to get away with hosting on a shared platform but your end-users will be the ones who suffer and may not return because the site takes an extra few seconds to load pages.
Many people resort to a dedicated server but lack the skills to run one. A dedicated server can run upwards of $100 and this is for an unmanaged service. This means you have to update kernels, Apache, PHP and secure the server yourself. For many people this is something they don’t want to worry about and that is why HostUpon’s Private Hosting was designed. As I mentioned in my last post Private Hosting has MANY advantages over other hosting solutions. Private Hosting can host your dating site or dating script, social network, social community and other social engines that require more power!
Here are a few examples:
Dating Script Hosting
Dating Software Hosting
Community Environment Hosting
Social Network Hosting
Social Community Hosting
Youtube Script Hosting
Media Streaming Hosting
Blog Hosting
Photo Gallery Hosting
Multimedia Hosting
The above examples are the different situations where a private hosting service would be beneficial. When choosing the right plan at HostUpon factor in your requirements in the present and for future growth. Factor in if your site is static or dynamic, how many users you have or will have, how much traffic you will get, how much content and media you have specifically. If you are unsure as most people are, don’t be afriad to speak with one of our Hosting experts on our Live Chat. We will always try to find you the best hosting solution.
Private Hosting for scripts that require power!
Shared hosting is designed for scripts such as Wordpress, OsCommerce, Joomla and pretty much everything else in Fantastico. Of course you can use other scripts but one thing to consider is the expected growth of your website. For example, if you have a dating script or a social networking script shared hosting may not be the best solution for you.
At HostUpon we have privatized hosting solutions designed to let people with such scripts find a solid hosting foundation that they won’t need to upgrade or move out of when their sites grow and get tons and tons of traffic. Resource intensive scripts with streaming videos and music, social networks and dating scripts are bound to grow over time and when we created our private hosting plans we kept all this in mind when designing these custom hosting plans.
Hosting for community software and scripts is something our private hosting is specialized for. You get the space and bandwidth you’ll need with the power of of a private server and it’s all managed by HostUpon. You don’t have to worry about updating kernels or apache or any other fancy stuff. You simply host your site on our premium private hosting plans and enjoy the security benefits at the same time.
Our private hosting starts at $49.95 a month (currently on sale!) and is definitely affordable for someone looking for powerful hosting without worrying about managing the server.
You can visit our website for more information or speak with a Live Chat Sales Rep at anytime!
Tips On How To Get More Traffic To Your Website
Everyone wants, loves and need traffic! (no, not on the road of course)
Having a website that looks fabulous is wonderful but generating awareness and traffic play a big factor in the success of your website. Search Engine Optimization seems to be getting more and more popular however being on the first page of Google is not an easy task. We thought we would share some of our ideas on how to get more traffic to your website without spending much or anything at all!
StumbleUpon is actually a really cool concept that is getting a lot of hype. You can signup for free for a Stumble toolbar and then you choose the categories that interest you. For example let’s say you add Web Hosting to your favorite categories, you can then click on the Stumble! button on your toolbar and it will take you to a random page on the internet related to Web Hosting. Simple enough eh? The idea behind it is that people vote on the pages, so if you like the page you landed on you click on the thumbs up icon and someone else may stumble on that page. The idea is to share great websites that interest you.
In terms of advertising you can cost effectively advertise your site with Stumble Ads and pay a mere 5cents per click. It’s a great way to generate a chunk of traffic at a very low cost. You can also add your web pages to the Stumble network for free in hopes that others will share it….this is also a great way to get free traffic.
Blog Blog and Blog!
If you have a website then you need a blog. You may not be the best of writers but you can simply use a blog to pass promotions, information and news to your visitors. The reason I recommend using a blog is because of how Google loves fresh content. Google loves blogs, plain and simple. You can update the blog 2-3 times a week and make sure your content is unique. Fresh content is like gold on the net. While on the topic, HostUpon does offer the best blog hosting 
Search Engine Submission
The simplest and most common way to get website traffic is to submit your site to as many search engines as possible. Be smart and use relevant keywords when submitting your website. Just remember traffic from search engines is not instant but it’s essential to submit your sites. At HostUpon we offer FREE search engine submission with our Business Hosting plan.
Pay-Per-Click
Yes you do have to spend some hard earned money! Google Adwords is one of the most popular pay per click services. If you have yet to try it, give it a shot. You basically create your ad, choose your target audience and bid on specific keywords. Adwords can be costly so try different techniques and campaigns to find a suitable median for your site. You can also try Yahoo’s and Microsoft’s pay per click services but from my experience Google is the most powerful.
Backlinks Galore
A Backlink is a link to a page on your website from someone else’s website. The more popular the site that links to you, the better for you. The more websites that point to your website, the better for you. Get my drift?
In order to get people to link to your website you must have something interesting or relevant to their audience. Many people tell me that their website is great but they don’t think people will link to the site itself. A great way to overcome this is to start a blog as mentioned earlier. This way you have new fresh content and maybe something you post will be insightful to a reader and eventually they will link to your site. Never doubt the possibilities, as they are possible.
I hope the above gives you a simple yet broad view on what options you have in terms of getting traffic. If you have any ideas do share!
New Dedicated Servers at HostUpon
I have some great news to share and I’m sure by reading the title you’re all well aware that we’re now offering a new line of dedicated servers.
As every successful company grows their offerings and product lines expand. At HostUpon we’ve been working to bring the best in shared, reseller and private web hosting services. As of today we have a new line of dedicated servers for our customers to choose from. As always we only use the best hardware and our dedicated servers take no backseat. We’re offering Xeon 3000 and Xeon 7000 series servers.
What makes HostUpon’s dedicated servers different than any other?
Glad you asked! Customers can choose the data center that they prefer as we have the ability to place you in either Seattle- Washington, Dallas- Texas or Washington- D.C.
With Multiple Internet Backbone Connections you can not only choose the server that suits you best but the network location. This is a superb advantage as any real estate mogul will tell you ‘location, location, location!’. Each data center is equipped with Cisco Systems 10G Network, Cisco Guard DDOS Protection, Tipping Point IPS/IDS Protection and Gigabit Speeds from Server to Internet. If you plan on hosting multiple servers we provide Free Server to Server Cross Connects and Gigabit Speeds from Server to Server.
Dedicated hosting at HostUpon is designed for websites and businesses that require their own server for their web operations. You can view our current servers at: http://www.HostUpon.com/dedicated-servers.html
All of our servers have an upgradeable path and you also get to choose the Operating System that suits you best. Our servers come with a minimum of 1Gb of RAM and 250GB SATA II Hard drives. You can purchase additional IP addresses, cPanel/WHM licenses and unlike other providers you can also add McAfee Total Protection for Linux.
If you’re looking for a new dedicated server check out our offers as our Network speaks for itself.
You can speak with a live chat rep at anytime to answer any questions you may have!
Keep in mind that you’ll also receive a credit to your account (free hosting) for referrals at any time with any of our services.
Best Joomla Hosting
Joomla has really changed the face of web design and CMS projects. The script allows you to create a professional looking website with minimal to no coding knowledge.
HostUpon customers love the script (and how easy it is to install, free with all our plans). I’ve spoken to many customers who consider Joomla to be one of the best CMS scripts on the net. Above all, it is free and open source. Hosting Joomla on our servers allows customers to create a website, create email accounts and use Unlimited space and Bandwidth. It’s a great solution for someone looking to start a website and have the ability to control the content through the Joomla admin panel.
Content management systems such as Joomla! give you full control of your website. You can literally update your site from anywhere in the world. You can add pictures, change themes and colors and create a beautiful site with simple yet advanced features. We’re quite proud to host such a vast array of Joomla! sites!
The developers of Joomla! are always working hard to fix minor bugs and security fixes plsu at HostUpon updating your site to the latest version is literally a few clicks. You can be confident that your site is safe and secure at HostUpon. Updates are done through the Fantastico area of our cPanel control panel.
If you ever have questions about the open source scripts we offer (Wordpress, Joomla!, Mambo, Gallery, B2Evolution and more) just send us a message or come speak with us on Live Chat. Hosting should be simple and giving customers the ability to have a website they can customize after they sign-up is an added bonus.
New Updated Affiliate Banners!
Well we’ve got a new set of banners and creatives ready for use! The new HostUpon banners have updated pricing featuring our new $4.95 pricing as well as our Unlimited space and Bandwidth plan info.
The new banners are available at: http://hostupon.com/affiliate_banners.html
You can also download the banners and the image code from within your Affiliate Program Management area. Our affiliates can use these banners immediately and start promoting our new unlimited plans!
If you need any specific banners designed to display on your website just let us know and we can have them designed for your website.
If you have any questions just ask! Now start promoting our new full featured hosting plans!
Unlimited Hosting, The Battle is Over.
As far as I can remember the hosting industry has been battling in terms of web space and bandwidth offerings. With some hosts increasing these specs on an almost monthly basis it’s difficult for consumers to grasp what the main difference between certain hosts are. For the longest time customers have been choosing a host based on these two specific quotas. This was an issue because novice or newbie hosting clients did not factor is some of the more important features such as support, uptime and plan features. A Host could easily offer double the space and bandwidth of their competition and gain a client however limiting the client to the resources and or features they may actually require.
At HostUpon we started with one offering, 700Gb of space and 7000GB of bandwidth. We have never changed our plan structure until now. As of today HostUpon provides Unlimited Web Hosting with no space or bandwidth limitations. As you can understand this is a significant change to the end-user however going unlimited was just a matter of time. We have the support and infrastructure to support the Unlimited offerings. The main reason for this upgrade per say was to deter the focus from space and bandwidth values that really had no meaning. We don’t want to confuse potential clients with numbers and values and would like them to look deeper in to the plans we offer to find their needs as apposed to their wants.
We are now offering two feature rich plans with unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth. The plans both have unlimited addon domains as well unlimited databases. Practically all features are unlimited on both the Starter Unlimited and Business Unlimited plans. The only difference between the two is that the Business Unlimited plan includes a dedicated IP Address and free Search Engine Submission by our staff.
Unlimited Hosting is now a reality and HostUpon is building a solid foundation where customers can host their websites without limits or strings attached. We continually evaluate the market, the current offerings and what would be best for your current clients and potential clients.
So what really does unlimited hosting mean?
In regards to disk space customers can create websites as large as they like in terms of space with as many pages and public content as they like. There is no penalization for space usage that is used for their website specifically. Keeping in mind this is a shared hosting environment and growing a website very large too fast can impact the stability and performance of the server. Shared hosting has it’s own server limitations as does any shared service but the space you can consume is scalable and as long as you are not affecting other customers in terms of server resource usage you are well within your allowance. HostUpon will closely monitor activity to make sure the shared environment is not at risk by any specific user. Our objective is to provide an unlimited amount of space and bandwidth while at the same time providing a service that is fast and stable for all users on the server.
Bandwidth is also Unlimited and aside from server processor usage there are no limitations. A user can use as much bandwidth as they need without impeding the allowed CPU usage. The bandwidth is monitored closely as well and abuse with not be tolerated of course. We are here to allow customers to host and grow their websites in a hosting community and if they require more resources we offer various other services such as dedicated servers and private web hosting.
Overall we are thrilled to provide Unlimited Hosting for as low as $4.95/month! By next week we will have a new set of banners and creatives for all of our customers and affiliates to use. We’ll post an update when they are ready.
Going unlimited was a big decisions but it was the right decision. With unlimited space and bandwidth our customers can focus on other requirements and make a more accurate decision on their web hosting needs.
HostUpon 100% Uptime, 230 days and counting…
Our uptime is listed as 99.9% on our website and we’ve proved that we can surely maintain this with 100% uptime. We’re definitely proud to be able to provide our clients with confidence and reliability in regards to our Hosting services. The last server reboot was 230days ago and even this was for a mere 6 minutes due to an update.
Keeping clients happy and confident consists of various things but a key factor is server uptime and stability. Making sure services are online and limited to zero downtime is a value to both clients and ourselves. Any host can list 99% uptime but to come back and prove even better is a great feeling.
We’ll stop gloating here but we do rock when it comes to Web Hosting!
B2Evolution Blog Hosting
HostUpon is proud to be listed as a fast and reliable hosting provider for B2Evolution users! We love to provide our customers with free open source scripts and B2Evolution is one of our favorites. This powerful free script is available on all of our shared hosting, private hosting and reseller hosting plans. The B2Evolution script is available through Fantastico and can be installed within minutes.
B2Evolution has grown immensely over the years and much to it’s success is the development team who has put a great amount of time perfecting the script. If you’ve been looking for blogging software and are unsure of which to use I can definitely recommend B2Evolution. The script functions as a full fledged blog system but also allows you to add various plugins and change the look and feel of the site with a variety of themes. One of the features I really like is the ability to run multiple blogs with one install. This means you can provide a system similar to www.blogger.com.
Starting a website can seem overwhelming but with free open source script this task can be overcome and may even work out for the best. Using a script allows you to get your website online and running much quicker. B2Evolution has an awesome backend administration panel which allows you to edit your blog, post your blog, control plugins, change theme and a ton of other features at your finger tips. Another great advantage with this software is that it caters to both newbies and advanced users. B2Evolution allows you to run a blog on your own domain as apposed yo using a third party site to post your blog. You technically do not even have to use it specifically as a blogging tool which makes it totally customizable.
HostUpon is listed on B2Evolution as a fast hosting company and with our amazing network infrastructure and backbone we are really thrilled to support this great script. We will install the script at no additional cost to any and all of our customers, new or old. If you currently use B2Evolution at HostUpon.com we would be thrilled if you could leave a comment on their website with your personal experience with our B2Evolution Hosting.
We’ve been working on a lot of great things for our customers and are soon going to implement an amazing backup system to provide our customers with an even more robust backup system. Backing up your website is a must on your end and ours of course. I’ll be writing a new blog post on our backup system and the development progress in the coming days. Whether you use a script such as B2Evolution or have your own site design our backup system will work for you.
On another note our 15% coupon at HostUpon will soon expire and we will have another oh so sweet promotion so keep an eye out!