Here in this blog post I have come up with useful 16 tips and hacks to configure your web server.
As a configuration file .htaccess if a very powerful and a slight syntax error can result in a severe malfunction of your server. So to avoid that always try to keep a backup copies of all your files from the server before working with the .htaccess file.

1. Creating a custom error page with .htaccess on a linux apache is a very simple task. Using you a text editor like notepad you create an .htaccess files. Custom error pages give your website an professional look and catch those visitors who reach your website following a back link.

ErrorDocument 401 /error/401.php
ErrorDocument 403 /error/403.php
ErrorDocument 404 /error/404.php
ErrorDocument 500 /error/500.php

2. How to set the timezone on your server

SetEnv TZ America/Houston

3. Block IPs Using htaccess
Sometime you need to block certain IPs from accessing your entire site or directory. Its pretty simple task. All you have to do is inside the .htaccess file is put the following code.

allow from all
deny from 145.186.14.122
deny from 124.15

If you use the whole IP or a part of the IP to block and add the new ones in a new line.
When someone trying to access your site from the banned ip they will get a 403 error access forbidden message.

4. SEO Friendly 301 permanent redirects for bad/old links and moved links

Redirect 301 /d/file.html http://www.htaccesselite.com/r/file.html

5. Set the Email Address for the Server Administrator - Using this code you can specifying the default email address for the server administrator.

ServerSignature EMail
SetEnv SERVER_ADMIN default@domain.com

6. Hotlinking protection with .htaccess is very important because anyone can hot link to your images and eat up all your bandwith of your server. The following code will help you to prevent that.

Options +FollowSymlinks
# Protect Hotlinking
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?domainname\.com/ [nc]
RewriteRule .*\.(gif|jpg|png)$ http://domainname.com/img/hotlink_f_o.png [nc]

7. Block all requests from user agent - by creating a perfect .htaccess ban list, you can block all of unwanted user agents that will keep your server load down. Also Check out this interesting thread on webmaster world about the 228 user agents ban list.

## .htaccess Code :: BEGIN
## Block Bad Bots by user-Agent
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^FrontPage [NC,OR]
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^Java.* [NC,OR]
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^Microsoft.URL [NC,OR]
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^MSFrontPage [NC,OR]
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^Offline.Explorer [NC,OR]
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^[Ww]eb[Bb]andit [NC,OR]
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^Zeus [NC]

Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=bad_bot

## .htaccess Code :: END

8. Redirect everyone to different site except few IP -If you want to redirect all the visitors to a different IP. Also give access to certain few IPs. You can use the code below

ErrorDocument 403 http://www.youdomain.com
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 124.34.48.165
Allow from 102.54.68.123

9. Don’t want to display download request - Usually when you try to download something from a web server you get a request asking whether you want to save the file or open it.
To avoid that you can use the below code on your .htaccess file.

AddType application/octet-stream .pdf
AddType application/octet-stream .zip
AddType application/octet-stream .mov

10. Change the file type - Make any file be a certain kind of file type Makes image.jpg, index.html, default.cgi all act as php

ForceType application/x-httpd-php
SetHandler application/x-httpd-php

11. Block access to your .htaccess file - By adding he following code to your htaccess file will prevent attempts to access your htaccess file. This extra layer of security protects your htaccess file by displaying a 403 error message on the browser.

# secure htaccess file

order allow,deny
deny from all

12. Protect access to certain specific file on your server - this can be done by adding the below mentioned code. For example you want to block with the file name default.jpg This will prevent the viewing of this file.

# prevent access of a certain file

order allow,deny
deny from all

13. Prevent access to unauthorized browsing - Protecting specific directory browsing can be done by intructing the server to serve a Forbidden and Authorization required message while anyone requests to view that particular directory. Usually if you site doesn’t have a default index page any files within that directory is accessible to the visitors. To avoid that use the following code in the .htaccess file.

# disable directory browsing
Options All -Indexes

14. Setting the default page - You can set the default page of a directory to any page you like. For example in this code the default page is set as about.html instead of index.html

# serve alternate default index page
DirectoryIndex about.html

15. Password protect your directories and files - You can create authentication for certain files and directories from being access. The code has examples of both password protection for a single file and password protection for a entire directory.

# to protect a file

AuthType Basic
AuthName “Prompt”
AuthUserFile /home/path/.htpasswd
Require valid-user

# password-protect a directory
resides
AuthType basic
AuthName “This directory is protected”
AuthUserFile /home/path/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
Require valid-user

16. Redirect an old domain to a new domain - Using htaccess file you can redirect a old domain name to a new domain by adding the following code into the htaccess file. Basically what it does is it will remap the old domain to the new one.

# redirect from old domain to new domain
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

As htaccess files are very powerful, even a slightest syntax error can cause sever malfunction of your server. So it is crucial to take the backup copies of everything before you try the hacks and tricks on your hypertext access files. Post your thoughts with a comment.

So, how do you build an effective website? Read on ….

Intended Audience
WHO are you building the site for? If you are building a site which is selling or promoting new vehicles, what is your target audience?
Any website needs to have a focus area or group as there are countless websites on the internet today and website visitors who may “land” on your particular site, WILL only take a number of seconds to decide whether your site has what THEY are looking for or not, before they move on to the next site (perhaps your competitors’). Therefore, the saying “First impressions…” make the difference between a “conversion” or a “bounce”!
How to ensure your site does not bounce a visitor? Well, ensure you maintain a clear focus, again, on the intended audience, and the very first few lines delivers in a nutshell, WHAT you are trying to do, at a level which the VISITOR is going to appreciate and easily understand.

The easiest way to understand what makes a site “tick” is to use the internet search engines - type in your question, keyword, or phrase relating to the type of product / service which you intend on marketing or selling through your website, and let the search engine do the work for you. Looking at the search engines’ returned results, would give you a good idea of what makes a site listed at position 1 more attractive to visitors, compared to a site listed at position 20 (or even lower)!

Tired of doing all the work - why not have a site professionally designed? Get a FREE, NO-Obligation quote today!

Early findings from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform’s 2008 Information Security Breaches survey (ISBS) found that, while most companies back up their systems and data, 28 per cent still have no disaster recovery plan in place.

The survey, which is conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, also reported that half of the companies with security plans failed to test them, raising concerns for the security measures in place.

This is despite the fact that 58 per cent of the businesses polled felt that they would suffer ’significant business disruption’ if they lost a day on their IT systems.

PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Chris Potter said: ‘The number of companies with a disaster recovery plan has gone up. However, experience shows that plans are only effective if regularly tested.’

He added that, while it was encouraging to see the majority of companies making backups off-site, it should not take an incident to raise awareness.

The full results of the ISBS will be announced on April 22nd.

Published in: BCS 7th April 2008

Now, imagine losing all your important files - everything from business files, to family photos, to your tax returns - permanently. Although many of us prefer to adhere to the mantra of “it’ll never happen to me”, the truth is, it could. And as computers continue to become the principle way in which many people conduct important transactions, this type of thinking is becoming increasingly risky.

What’s worse, the modern computer is ever more vulnerable to the imminent threats multiplying on the Internet - everything from adware, to spyware, to viruses. In fact, in 2003 alone, the number of computer viruses increased by 11%.

Do I Need to Backup All of my Computer Data?
The short answer to this question is no, you do not need to back up all of the files on your computer. However, there are certain files you should definitely backup, so that in the event your computer decides it’s time is up, you won’t be at a total loss.

So just what files should you be backing up? Although the choice is ultimately a personal one, here are some suggestions:

Information and files relating to banking or other financial transactions
Digital photos
Purchased/downloaded music from the Internet
Purchased/downloaded software from the Internet
Important work/school projects
Email contact list
Internet browser bookmarks

Where is the Safest Place to Store My Important Computer Data?
Depending on what backup software you use, some will limit the locations from which your data will be stored. For example, they may only backup data found in the following locations on your PC.

\My Documents and subdirectories on any drive, except for My Videos, My Pictures, and My Music
C:\Documents and settings and subdirectories
C:\Windows\favorites
C:\Windows\profiles
Outlook Personal Folders (pst files)

For this reason, it is generally recommended that you store your most important files in your “My Documents” folder.

Although our work, family, and social obligations often fill our days, the excuse of not having sufficient time to backup your computer is simply not a worthy one. With the backup software currently available, it has never been easier or faster to ensure your files are safe and secure. Thats why, an online (offsite) backup solution is the most prefered method of faster, safer and secure backups being used today.

Online or sometimes referred to as “offsite” as the data is backed up to a remote location, is the up and coming trend, with data hosting costs reducing, and bandwidth costs reducing with the coming of high speed internet connections (Fibre, ADSL, SDSL, Dedicated ISDN, etc), secure offsite backup is on the rise. But, be careful on the provider you choose!

Very few providers can actually “guarantee” your data or it’s safety! With the enforcement of various data protection legislations, the privacy and security of your data should be the utmost in the minds of your online backup provider. DataVault (UK), part of USDataVault provides just that! Visit their website for more information, or to sign-up for your FREE, NO-Obligation, and NO Payment information, FREE 30 DAY Online Backup Trial!

Where are we at?

Search usage is continuing to rise among consumers and professionals, who use search engines like Google and Yahoo to find what they’re looking for.

So what’s the big challenge?

Tapping into the searching behaviours of your audience and figuring out which keywords you need to focus on requires great tenacity. Not to mention securing top rankings for your chosen keywords. If you have tried SEO you’ll know how tricky this can be.

Constant innovations from the rival search engines, coupled with increased activity from your competitors, means that you have to identify the right approaches and deploy the right resources to rank well.

And the risks…?

You are probably aware about the risks of SEM. Since most search engine traffic typically originates from one source (typically ‘The big G’, aka Google) there is a significant risk that algorithm changes can seriously dent your traffic.

We’ve all heard the horror stories, about being top one day and nowhere the next, but how do you ensure this doesn’t happen to you?

On top of all that you also need to manage the risks of pages not being included in the search engine, or of being barred completely for infringing its guidelines.

Where do I start?

You’ve already started. We created this guide to provide a super-comprehensive, hype-free compilation of best practice in SEM. Digest it in chunks, then act accordingly. And remember to educate agencies and colleagues along the way (no file-sharing though…!).

Most of this guide is aimed at helping you perform well in the organic search results, although there is some crossover with paid-search (which we will deal with in greater detail in a separate report).

By reading this guide you can maximise your opportunities from SEM while minimising your risks. Shall we continue…?

Why is search marketing so important?
Web users love to search. They use the main search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN Search and Ask to find one thing only – information.

What sort of information are they looking for?

Clearly this depends on the individual. They might be looking for entertainment news, or hunting for product reviews, or trying to compare vendors and services, or seeking their soulmate, or buying a second-hand car. All these goals can start with a simple search query.

The use of keywords or keyphrases (combining several keywords) helps users find exactly what they want. Modern search engines are generally great at delivering relevant results to users.

Relevance is the mantra of all search engine engineers.

A word from our resident lexicologist…

Understanding keyphrases enables marketers at companies to target users showing intent or interest in their products.

Notice that we say ‘keyphrase’ (short for ‘keyword phrase’) rather than ‘keyword’. This is because search engines such as Google attribute more relevance when there is an exact phrase match on a web page (a phrase that matches the user’s search term).

Search engines also assess other occurrences of the keywords and synonyms on the page, and also those websites / pages linking to a page. We’ll get onto that in due course…

So how big is search?

The number of searches by people trying to find information is still growing dramatically. Nielsen//NetRatings reported that there were 5.7 billion searches in the US in January 2006, a 39% year-on-year increase from 4.1 billion in January 2005 . Furthermore, the number of searches in the US is more than 183 million per day.

Examples:

Look at the examples in Table 1 to see the volume of monthly searches in the UK for some generic keywords.

The numbers in Table 1 are huge in any country, but it gets better; most users narrow their searches using phrases like ‘free online banking’, ‘cuba holidays’ and ‘ski jackets’.

Table 1 Volume of searches for single keywords in a single month
Keyword UK daily clicks Total estimated UK searches on Google Overture UK searches
Online banking 120 72,000 142,324
HSBC 730 438,000 197,577
Holidays 12,000 720,0000 1,041,441 *
Thomas Cook 230 138,000 67,228
Clothing 6,600 3,960,000 327,988
Debenhams 100 60,000 292,839
CRM 79 47,400 17,562
Oracle 270 162,000 6,476

Notes:
1. Google estimates from Google Traffic Estimator available through Google Adwords for UK, January 2006. Total Google searches based on assuming that on average Position 1 ad slot receives 5% clickthrough rate, so total searches 20 times this (actual clickthrough will vary by keyphrase, e.g. highest for brands).

2. Overture UK search advertising network main search sources included Yahoo!, MSN and Wanadoo favoured by consumers rather than business people which results in different values for CRM and Oracle. Includes both singular and plural. * Includes singular version of word.

3. Both include non-human, software generated searches from link tracking, rank checking and click fraud.tools so overestimate actual searches by people.

Marketers are increasingly investing in search engine marketing as a result of the changes in consumer behaviour indicated by Table 1, with billions of dollars spent annually on search engine marketing.

Apple and Sony could be enlisted by home secretary John Reid in a bid to boost security features in electronic devices, according to reports.

A spokesman for the Home Office indicated that Mr Reid is set to approach the two firms in the next few weeks to join a summit that already includes a number of mobile phone manufacturers, reports Reuters.

Items such as mp3 players and mobile phones could feature more anti-theft specifications as a result of these relationships between the Home Office and manufacturers.

‘During the coming week we’ll be drawing up a list of other manufacturers who will be the best companies to include for the summit,’ the spokesman commented.

Mr Reid told the BBC’s Sunday AM radio show last week that criminals tend to ‘move on’ when it comes to stealing electronic gadgets, with security advances in one area often leading thieves to target other items, he said.

What about Data Security? We have the solution! SecureStix Biometric Flash Drives

Intellitech I.T. Solutions Ltd. - “Your Total InfoTech Provider”

The UK’s data centres are suffering from a lack of capacity to cope with increasing IT demand, according to new research.

About 43 per cent of data centres are seeing their physical space dwindle while power density is rising to a record high, the study by the Aperture Research Institute has revealed.

Over a third of the managers surveyed said their average rack uses between seven and 18 kilowatts or more, with the majority of respondents stating that at least three-quarters of data centre space is already reserved for IT hardware.

In addition, the various issues surrounding the use of blade servers mean that human error is increasingly leading to outages, the report warned.

‘There’s a gap between IT and data centre facilities that’s resulting in a rapid increase in high density equipment without thinking about the ability of a data centre to reliably support that capacity,’ commented Steve Yellen, vice president of marketing at Aperture.

Consultancy firm BroadGroup recently issued research findings suggesting that service revenues across European data centres are set to surpass the €3 billion (£2 billion) mark over the next two years.

Intellitech I.T. Solutions Ltd. - “Your Total InfoTech Provider”

Hackers are increasingly attempting to trick consumers into buying software that they believe to be genuine anti-spyware applications, according to one firm.

There are currently four fake protection applications on the market for every one genuine product, download site Snapfiles told Vnunet.com.

This fake software can appear to be genuine to users while providing false scan results, failing to clean the system of existing spyware and occasionally installing malware onto the user’s PC itself.

According to Harvard Business School assistant professor and spyware researcher Ben Edelman, fake anti-spyware software is ‘a huge problem’, with another download site, Tucows, also telling Vnunet.com that it believes the bulk of security software to be fake.

Statistics from the Federation Against Software Theft, which was founded in 1984, show that British firms have paid more than £1.8 million in fines for using unlicensed applications to the Business Software Alliance.

Intellitech I.T. Solutions Ltd. - “Your Total InfoTech Provider”

Research reveals that a significant percentage of company websites are not in compliance with some important regulatory demands, subsequently leaving firms at risk of facing cash fines.

In a survey of 106 businesses carried out by ClearPeople 70 were found to be in breach of company law, failing to disclose information such as company number and registered office details, for instance.

In total, only 37 companies polled were in direct compliance with current rules, suggesting that more needs to be done to bring the majority of companies up to speed. It is recommended that companies achieve this by displaying the relevant information on their websites.

‘The majority of companies had neglected to include company registration number while only a few (less than ten) had left out a valid email address or the physical address to the registered office,’ explained Thomas Hageman of ClearPeople to Freelance UK.

‘I would expect the larger listed UK companies to be more compliant and small to mid-sized companies to be, possibly, even less compliant.’

Intellitech I.T. Solutions Ltd. - “Your Total InfoTech Provider”

Why Should You Use Google Sitemaps?

Until Google Sitemaps was released in the summer of 2005, optimising a site for Google was a guessing game at best. A website’s page might be deleted from the index, and the Webmaster had no idea why. Alternatively, a site’s content could be scanned, but because of the peculiarities of the algorithm, the only pages that would rank well might be the “About Us” page, or the company’s press releases.

As webmasters we were at the whim of Googlebot, the seemingly arbitrary algorithmic kingmaker that could make or break a website overnight through shifts in search engine positioning. There was no way to communicate with Google about a website - either to understand what was wrong with it, or to tell Google when something had been updated.

That all changed about a year ago when Google released Sitemaps, but the program really became useful in February of 2006 when Google updated it with a couple new tools.

So, what exactly is the Google Sitemaps program, and how can you use it to improve the position of your website? Well, there are essentially two reasons to use Google Sitemaps:

1. Sitemaps provide you with a way to tell Google valuable information about your website.

2. You can use Sitemaps to learn what Google thinks about your website.

What You Can Tell Google About Your Site

Believe it or not, Google is concerned about making sure webmasters have a way of communicating information that is important about their sites. Although Googlebot does a pretty decent job of finding and cataloging web pages, it has very little ability to rate the relative importance of one page versus another. After all, many important pages on the Internet are not properly “optimised”, and many of the people who couldn’t care less about spending their time on linking campaigns create some of the best content.

Therefore, Google gives you the ability to tell them on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0 how important a given page is relative to all the others. Using this system, you might tell Google that your home page is a 1.0, each of your product sections is a 0.8, and each of your individual product pages is a 0.5. Pages like your company’s address and contact information might only rate a 0.2.

You can also tell Google how often your pages are updated and the date that each page was last modified. For example your home page might be updated every day, while a particular product page might only be updated on an annual basis.

What Google Can Tell You About Your Site

Having the ability to tell Google all this information is important, but you don’t even need to create a sitemap file in order to enjoy some of the perks of having a Google Sitemaps account.

That’s because even without a Sitemap file, you can still learn about any errors that Googlebot has found on your website. As you probably know, your site doesn’t have to be “broken” for a robot to have trouble crawling it’s pages. Google Sitemaps will tell you about pages it was unable to crawl and links it was unable to follow. Therefore, you can see where these problems are and fix them before your pages get deleted from the index.

You can also get information on the types of searches people are using to find your website. Of course, most website analytics tools will give this information to you anyway, but if the tool you use doesn’t have this feature, then it’s always nice to get it for free from Google.

But the best part of the Sitemaps program is the Page analysis section that was added in February of 2006. This page gives you two lists of words. The first list contains the words that Googlebot associates with your website based on content on your site. The second list contains words that Googlebot has found linking to your site!

Unfortunately, Google limits the number of words in each list to 20. As a consequence, the inbound links column is partly wasted by words such as “http”, “www”, and “com” - terms that apply equally to all websites (hey Google, how about suppressing those terms from the report?). That said, this list does provide you with a way to judge the effectiveness of your offsite optimisation efforts.

When you compare these two lists, you can get an understanding of what Google thinks your website is about. If the words on your Site Content column are not really what you want Googlebot to think about your site, then you know you need to tweak your website’s copy to make it more focused on your core competency.

If, on the other hand your inbound links don’t contain any keywords that you want to rank well for, then perhaps you should focus your efforts in that direction.

Above all else, you really want these two lists to agree. You want your inbound linked words to match up to the site content words. This means that Google has a clear understanding of the focus of your website.

Additional Benefits of the Sitemaps Program

Google has even started notifying Sitemaps-participating Webmasters if they are breaking any of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This can be very valuable information if your site suddenly becomes de-listed on Google and you don’t know why.

Only Sitemaps participants can get this information, and it is only provided at Google’s discretion. In fact, Google will NOT notify you if you are creating worthless websites that offer no original content, or if you are creating thousands of doorway pages that are redirecting to other web sites. Google doesn’t want to give the sp@ammers any clues as to how to improve their techniques.

How Do You Get Started with Google Site Maps?

The first thing you must do is obtain a Google Account. If you already have a Gmail, Adsense, or Adwords account, then you are all set. If not, you can register an account by visiting the Google Accounts page.

You can also use an SEO company to optimise and manage your sitemaps.

Building your sitemap file is pretty easy to do if you are familiar with XML, and if you aren’t you can always use a third-party tool such as the ones that are listed on Google’s website. Google also has a “Sitemap Generator” that you can download and install on your server, but unless you are fairly adept at managing Python scripts, you should probably stick to the third-party tools.

At any rate, once you have your Google Account and your Sitemap file built, the rest is very easy. All you have to do is:

1. Log into your account

2. Type your website’s URL into the “Add Site” box and click on “OK”

3. Click on the Manage Sites link for the website you are adding, and add your sitemap file to your account.

Google Sitemaps - An Excellent SEO Tool

Google Sitemaps help Googlebot quickly find new content on your website. They allow you to tell Google what’s important, what’s new, and what changes often. The tools provided to webmasters through the program can play a vital role in helping you understand how the search engines (especially Google) view your website.

Using this information you can dramatically improve the position of your website and quickly clear up any issues Google finds. You can also use the tools provided by Google to gauge the effectiveness of your off-site optimisation efforts so you can better focus your time and energy on activities that bring you the most success.