To clarify for those not familiar with it, the wp-login.php page is the back-end administration page that gives WordPress users access to the settings and full control of their WordPress installation.

In an attempt to provide the highest amount of security for our users and also ensure that servers are free from network congestion due to this attack we have implemented server wide .htaccess password protection to the wp-login.php filename on our servers. What this means is we have required a username and password be entered at the server level before the wp-login.php page loads. We understand this can cause confusion as most users are use to typing in a username and password before they enter the administration area of WordPress and may inadvertently type in that username and password in the login box that appears.

It is important to type in the Server ID number for the username and password to be able to proceed to your WordPress login screen.

The Linux servers are numbered 1 through 8. The username and passwords are the same and would be formatted as shown below:

Username: linux2
Password: linux2

If you are not sure what your server number is you can login to your user account and click on the FTP icon and you will see the server name in the hostname section of the website in a format similar to linux2.weberz.com. The exception to this is if you are on linux1, which may make your hostname display as linux.weberz.com. Your username and password in this scenario would be linux1 and the password would also be linux1.

Again, we understand this may be a bit confusing and are here to help. If you have questions submit a support ticket to support@weberz.com by including your domain name and contact information so we can assist you in resolving this.

Thank you again for your continued support of Weberz.

Regards,

Charlie Stanley
Weberz Hosting
Operations Manager

About Microsoft Exchange Server

Exchange Server is the enterprise class email and collaboration software available from Microsoft. Exchange Server unlocks the full power of Microsoft Outlook by activating additional outlook features such as:

• Server Side Email Rules
• Out of Office/Vacation Messages
• Free/Busy Calendar Information
• Item Sharing Between Organizational Members

In addition to these Outlook features, Microsoft Exchange Server configures Outlook to store all of its data on the server.  This provides users the ability to access their Microsoft Outlook data items from anywhere using Outlook Web Access, mobile devices, or other Outlook installations. This data includes the user’s Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, as well as Email.

Exchange Server Hosting At Weberz

Hosting your Microsoft Exchange services with Weberz could not be easier.  For one low price Weberz Exchange users get access to all the features that Exchange Server has to offer without any of the hassles. Weberz takes care of all the server management, backups, and licensing leaving you to focus on the important tasks of running your business.

The Weberz Exchange Services are available to our Exchange users without the need for complicated setups such as VPN’s.  Users can access the Exchange Services using:

• Microsoft Outlook
• iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch
• Apple Mail
• or any Web Browser!

Weberz also offers Microsoft Outlook licenses for Windows and Mac clients for an additional charge. This works great for customers who don’t want the upfront expense of purchasing expensive Microsoft software.

For more information about Weberz’s shared Microsoft Exchange services please visit our Exchange Hosting page. As always our technical support and sales staff can answer any questions you might have about our services; please feel free to send us a sales/support ticket.

Understanding The Error

Before we can recover any lost traffic we need to understand what each error means. Each of these errors is returned by the server using a numerical status code. These are more commonly referred to as the HTTP Response Codes. Here’s a list of the most common error codes and what causes the error to display:

• Unauthorized – Error Code: 401 – The information the visitor is looking for has been password protected on the server and the user failed to authenticate successfully.
• Forbidden – Error Code: 403 – The information that the visitor requested is specifically denied due to the server configuration. This most commonly happens when a visitor tries to view a directory listing of files on the server and the web server is configured not to send one out.
• Not Found – Error Code: 404 – The page or file that the visitor requested could not be found on the website. This is the error code for “Page not found” and “Page cannot be displayed” errors.
• Internal Error – Error Code: 500 – Most commonly seen as “Internal Server Error”. Officially this error means the server was unable to fulfill the request for an unknown reason. On most websites it’s typically caused by the scripting language such as PHP, Perl, or ASP having an error or taking too long to execute.
• Service Unavailable – Error Code: 503 – The 503 error is caused by a temporary overload on the server or unavailability of the server due to maintenance. The difference between the 503 and 500 errors is that the 503 error is supposed to be temporary and will be corrected after some time.

Now that the technical stuff is out of the way, let’s add some new pages to the site to use as error documents.

Making an Error Document

The first thing we need to do to make a successful error document is to decide what type of page is needed. Most web developers and site owners would like to use programming languages such as PHP, ASP, or ASP.net for their error documents; however, this may not be the best choice in the case of the 500 or 503 error codes. Static HTML files are typically your best bet to ensure maximum compatibility with all of the error codes. This is due to static HTML files which only rely on the web server software to function properly rather than 3rd party programs such as programming languages.

Once you have selected the document type you want to use, create a basic HTML layout for your error document pages. Ideally all of the error pages will have the same look and feel as the rest of your website. If this isn’t possible,  make sure all of the error documents have the same look and feel. Now that the basic layout is done, you can save the file as “error-code-template.html”.

What you have now should be used as the basic template for making all of your error documents. Simply make a copy of that file and customize it for each error code you want to target. When making a copy of the file, change the file name to the error code you are trying to target such as “error-code-401.html” and then add content to the page specific to that error code.  Here are some examples:

• 401 Errors – Inform the user that their authentication has failed. Perhaps offer a link to where the user can register or recover their lost passwords.
• 403 Forbidden – The server isn’t configured to perform the request that the browser made, try offering links to alternative content that the user might be looking for.
• 404 Not Found – This is likely the most common of the errors. Provide links to other sections of the site where the user might find what they are looking for.
• 500 or 503 Errors – These are caused by server problems.  Explain to the user that the server is having an issue and to try again later. Offer a suggestion that they bookmark the page to try again later or try to direct them to a different page on the site. As an alternative, you could always try to blame the error on the user and state that they broke your web server.  Try to have fun with it.

One thing you should always do is add your website stats or analytics data to the page so you can track how many times these pages load.  For example with Google Analytics you can add the following code to your 404 error document:

<script type=’text/javascript’>
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push([‘_setAccount’, ‘UA-XXXXX-N’]);
_gaq.push([‘_trackEvent’, ‘Error’, ‘404‘, ‘page: ‘ + document.location.pathname + document.location.search + ‘ ref: ‘ + document.referrer ]);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true;
ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
</script>

Just place the UA account number with your websites real Google Analytics information and you should be all set. For the other types of error codes you should change the text in bold to match the correct error code number.

Now save the file and upload it to the server for use. Once the files are created and uploaded we just have to configure the server to use the files when serving the error codes.

Error Document Server Configuration

Configuring your server to use the error documents depends on the hosting platform you use. Users using Linux web hosting can create a .htaccess file in their domain folder with the following contents:

ErrorDocument 404 /error-code-404.html

Just repeat that line and change the error code and file name for each error document you want to create. Under Windows hosting using IIS, users will need to have administrative access to the server to implement the error documents. This is done in the IIS Manager by right clicking on your website instance and choosing “Properties”. Once the properties page has loaded, click the “Custom Errors” tab and click edit after highlighting the error you want to change.

Of course for most users you will not have administrative access to your web server. This means you will have to implement the error codes using your web hosting provider’s control panel system.  Since we use the H-Sphere control panel here at Weberz, users can perform the following instructions:

• Log in to your control panel at http://cp.weberz.com
• Click the “Web Options” icon under the “Main” section of the page after you log in
• If you have multiple domains, click the domain name to which you wish to add the Error Documents
• Scroll down the page until you find the “Error” section and click the “Add Error Document” icon
• Choose the Error code for the document in the drop down menu
• Enter the path to the error page in the URL box e.g. “/error-document-404.html”
• Finally, choose “Redirect” as the type and click save

There you have it.  Everything you need to create custom error pages to potentially save your lost web traffic due to website errors. As an example, Weberz has implemented a custom 404 page on our site; you can get a 404 error by clicking here. If you have any helpful ideas for others to use on their error pages, please share them in the comments below. Also, if you have any fun or interesting error pages that you have seen around on the internet, share them below as well!

The Death of H-Sphere

H-Sphere is the control panel and billing system used by Weberz to manage our shared hosting and reseller hosting accounts. Over the last couple of years Weberz staff have noticed a lack of new features and technologies being added to the H-Sphere system. In March we started evaluating replacement systems for H-Sphere and ultimately decided on the Plesk control panel. Over the next few months Weberz will be setting up our Plesk servers and will begin offering new features such as IPv6 shared hosting along with updated software versions of ASP.net and PHP. More on this will be available in the coming months.

New Partnership with Parallels Inc.

Weberz recently signed a partnership agreement with Parallels to allow us to bundle the Plesk control panel and other Parallels software with our dedicated servers. All new dedicated servers now come with the option of receiving Plesk pre-installed at no additional cost. More information regarding our new dedicated server offerings with Plesk can be found in this blog announcement.

Linux Virtual Servers Now Available

In addition to updating our dedicated server offerings, Weberz has launched a new service to provide Linux virtual servers. Linux virtual servers provide users with their own Linux operating system installation using hardware that is shared with other virtual server users. These virtual servers are ideal for customers who are looking to customize their server configuration and software without the higher costs of a dedicated server. More information on Linux virtual servers can be found on our blog.

Network Growth Requires More Bandwidth

Due to growth of the Weberz customer base and the increased popularity of your websites, Weberz has taken precautionary measures to ensure we don’t run out of available bandwidth. Back in August we reviewed our network  configuration and implemented some changes to increase the efficiency of our network. At the same time we also signed new agreements with our service providers to double the amount of bandwidth in the data center. By the end of the year new fiber lines will be installed in the data center and the increased amount of available bandwidth will be activated.

Anyone Want an iPad?

I have this iPad sitting on my desk and it’s time to get rid of it. Honestly it’s just because I am tired of looking at the shiny box that I don’t get to open… So we’re going to have a contest! You can enter to win the iPad by following Weberz on Twitter and/or liking the Weberz Facebook page. We’ll give you an additional entry to win the iPad for writing Weberz a recommendation on our Facebook page or mentioning @weberz in one of your tweets. All entries will be entered into a drawing and the winner will be selected on November 5th, 2012.

That’s going to sum it up for this month, we have many more exciting things we are working on for the future and look forward to sharing those with you in due course. Thanks for your continued support, and I wish you the very best with your online business.

Thanks,
Robert Rolfe
Weberz Hosting

Click Here to sign up for the Weberz Newsletter and receive the monthly newsletter in your email!

Just so that everyone is on the same page, let’s start by defining these two technologies…

What is a dedicated server?

A dedicated server, or dedicated server hosting, is when a customer is renting a physical machine from a dedicated server hosting provider like Weberz. Depending on the hosting providers plans, the customer is normally able to customize the server hardware to meet their specific needs. This is allowed since they are the only user of the hardware and it’s entirely allocated to that one customer.

What is a virtual server?

Virtual servers are slightly more complex than dedicated servers.  A virtual server is an operating system installation that shares the physical hardware of the server with other operating system installations. This is done by using different virtualization technologies that are available for the physical server’s primary operating system. Virtual servers are often referred to by many different names including virtual private servers or VPS.

Depending on the technology used to perform the virtualization the virtual servers can also have different features such as:

• Shared or dedicated RAM allocations
• Shared or dedicated hard drive allocations
• Shared system files

The virtual server hosting plans available from Weberz come with dedicated RAM allocations and dedicated hard drive space with its own operating system installation. There are no shared files. These plans are basically as close to a dedicated server as you can get without renting your own hardware.

Now that we have covered definitions, let’s look at the aspects that are the same on both virtual server and dedicated server systems:

• Dedicated RAM Allocations
  Though you do get more RAM choices on dedicated servers (see below)
• Dedicated Hard Drive Allocations
  Same thing, there are more choices on dedicated servers (below)
• Root Level Access
  You get full admin access to the server installation. You can choose what software gets installed and modify configuration options/files as needed.
• Dedicated IP Address
• IPv6 IP Addresses
  Weberz offers IPv6 IP’s on both dedicated servers and virtual servers
• Plesk Control Panel
  Weberz virtual server plans and dedicated server plans both have management control panels available.
• Dedicated Firewall Configuration
  Control your own firewall configuration for your server.

So what are the differences between virtual servers and dedicated servers?  When choosing between the two services it really comes down to the following 4 categories…

1. Operating System Choices

Dedicated servers and virtual servers both come with Linux available, so if Linux is your server operating system of choice, then you can jump to the next section.

Microsoft Windows is a different story. Windows is not currently available on virtual servers from Weberz; however, other VPS providers may offer it as a choice. Weberz has found that the Microsoft Windows Server operating system does not perform well unless it has 2GB of dedicated RAM. Given today’s VPS prices for that much RAM you might as well rent a dedicated server and get the added benefits of having your own dedicated hardware.

2. System Memory aka RAM

Both dedicated servers and virtual servers from Weberz give you dedicated RAM memory, so the RAM that you are paying for is always available for you, and nobody else, to use. The options for RAM on a virtual server are lower and limited compared to a dedicated server. As mentioned above, the dedicated server allows you to customize your hardware options so you can add as much RAM as you want. So if you need large amounts of dedicated memory for your server, then you’ll be better off with a dedicated server.

3. Hard Drive Space

Hard drive space is similar to RAM in that virtual servers have access to dedicated hard drive space; however, it’s in predetermined sizes specified in each plans. If you need a large amount of hard drive space for your server storage, then you’re once again better off with a dedicated server. Most server operators don’t need a large amount of space unless they are storing online video, archiving files, or have extremely large databases.

4. Hard Drive I/O Speed

The speed of the hard drive is normally the determining factor for the server operator. The read/write speed for files on a virtual server is slower than on a dedicated server. At Weberz this is due to using a shared storage system that connects the virtual server hard drives over the network. However, if Weberz wasn’t using a shared storage system the hard drive access speed would still be slower on virtual servers due to multiple systems trying to access the drives simultaneously.

Dedicated servers don’t have this speed problem because the hard drives are connected directly inside the physical machine and only one system is trying to access them at a time.

Normally the hard drive access speed becomes a factor when the server operator wants to perform I/O intensive activities. Tasks such as running large amounts of databases, websites, or email through the server would cause more I/O activity than a virtual server would handle well, especially if those databases were of significant size (over 1GB). The virtual machine hard drive performs best if 10 or less moderately busy sites are being hosted.

As far as features go, that about sums up the differences. The other primary difference between virtual servers and dedicated servers is cost. If you’re interested in viewing the Weberz Hosting virtual server plans you can click here. Anyone who wants more information regarding dedicated server hosting from Weberz can find it here.

So which technology is right for you? After reading the differences which type of server are you more likely to use? Most importantly, why are you choosing one over the other? Let us know in the comments below; we are interested in hearing from you!

About Virtual Servers

Virtual Servers, Virtual Private Servers, or VPS (It’s really your preference on terminology)  is the practice of running multiple operating system installations on a single physical machine. Each virtualized server is provided its own operating system installation to allow for customization of system services and server configuration files.

Virtual servers can also be provided shared and dedicated memory allocations and disk space depending on the technology used to provide the virtualized server instance.

Weberz Virtual Servers

Weberz virtual servers are built on KVM virtualization technology which is built into all new versions of the Linux kernel. It’s one of the only technologies that doesn’t require modifying the Linux kernel or adding modules to the kernel to make the virtualization work. Each of our VPS’s are allocated dedicated memory and disk space as well as their own IPv4 and IPv6 IP addresses.

Weberz has dedicated physical servers allocated to host virtual machines. All of our dedicated physical servers are built with enough memory and disk space that we do not need to oversell our virtual hosting servers; this ensures that the memory and disk space included in your virtual server hosting plan will be available to your server when you need it.

Virtual server offerings from Weberz are also available with the Plesk hosting control panel to ease the management and configuration of your virtual machine.  Plesk provides an interface for setting up and managing your Websites, DNS, Email, and MySQL Databases via any standard web browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Google Chrome.

Find out more about virtual servers provided from Weberz by visiting our Virtual Server Hosting Plans page.

Parallels Plesk is a web-based control panel interface for managing your server resources. Plesk provides the ability for our dedicated server customers to do all of the following:

• Start/Stop System Services  – Apache, MySQL, and IIS
• Setup Customizable Security Policies – Minimum password requirements for user accounts
• Easily Setup New Users and Websites
• Limit Website Server Resources – Disk space, bandwidth, or programming languages
• Create & Manage Email Accounts, Forwards, Mailing Lists, and Auto-Responders

Plesk is now available for both Microsoft Windows and Linux dedicated servers. All customers will still be provided the option of purchasing their server with out a control panel interface. Servers are also being offered with the ability to choose from the following operating systems:

• Microsoft Windows 2008 Web Edition
• Microsoft Windows 2008 Standard Edition
• CentOS 6.x
• Whiteboard Linux 6.x

Dedicated Server IPv6 Connectivity

Plesk is also IPv6 ready which allows our dedicated server customers to host their websites and email on the IPv6 network. All dedicated servers provided by Weberz are issued IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity.

New Hardware Specs

Weberz has also updated our dedicated server plans to include new hardware specifications. Our dedicated servers now start with a Intel Xeon CPU, 3GB DDR3 Memory, and a 250GB Hard Drive. All of the servers ordered from Weberz are custom built, allowing the user to customize the server to meet their needs. New server orders are typically delivered within 24 hours of purchase.

There are many more options and features available for Dedicated Servers from Weberz, to find our more visit our dedicated servers page.

Whiteboard Linux is built and maintained by Weberz Hosting using open source packages available to the public. Whiteboard Linux is open source and being released under the GNU Public License version 2.

“We are very excited to be releasing this project to the public” said Robert Rolfe, Weberz Hosting’s System Administrator. “Whiteboard Linux has been providing us with a stable server platform for almost a year now and we hope that organizations can take advantage of that as well.”

According to the project’s website, Whiteboard Linux was started due to complications Weberz was having with their current Linux vendor. “We had lost our faith in their ability to provide us with a stable platform reliably” Rolfe said. “The only way to prevent that in the future was to compile and build our own distribution going forward.”

The current release of Whiteboard Linux, version 6.2, is available for free download on the project’s website at http://www.whiteboardlinux.com.

About Weberz Hosting

Weberz Hosting, http://www.weberz.com, is an online service provider of website hosting and domain registration services including shared hosting, reseller hosting, and dedicated servers since 2002. Weberz focuses on building long lasting relationships with their customers by providing quality services and support. Two thousand twelve marks Weberz Hosting’s 10th year in business.

The above screenshot from the Weberz’s Google Analytics shows that we had 28 visitors from Google organic search results, however now we have no way of knowing which phrase they typed in to find us. This makes it impossible to find out what keywords the users typed into the search results to find your site. Probably more important than that, it makes it impossible to figure out which important keywords or phrases your website might not be ranking for. 

What happened? Why the change?
A few weeks ago Google changed their services to providing secure, via SSL/HTTPs, search results to their users who are logged in to Google services. When making that change from non-secure to secure browsing for each results for those users, they also made the decision to remove this keyword data from the search results presumably to provide more privacy to those logged in users. Many website owners would argue that those users wouldn’t care about that data, or even know what it is, but Google is determined not to share the information.

So why did Google make this change? It comes down to two reasons.  The first is obvious, by adding secure browsing to search results Google can claim that they are providing a better, more secure, service to those users. They certainly are. The second reason is so Google can keep that data and only share it with businesses, and website owners, who participate in their advertising programs. That’s right, Google still shares this information with their advertisers. If Google really wants to be protecting their user’s privacy, they wouldn’t be sharing the information with their advertisers.. but that’s a different story for a different article.

So where do we go from here? How do we monitor this data?
As site owners we will need to figure out how to work around this problem to continue getting the information we need to make our sites better. To track whether or not our keywords and phrases are ranking well we’re going to have to go back to using tools that check the search results pages for links to our site.  Tools like SeoMoz Pro Tools and the SEO Book Rank Checker check the Google result pages to find out where you rank for keywords you provide.

Otherwise we will have to do exactly what Google suggests website owner do… Create and optimize our websites for visitors and let GoogleBot, Google’s search engine spider, rank us based on how good our site is. The idea is that if you optimize your site for visitors, and not GoogleBot, then you will provide a better user experience, higher conversion ratio, and more people will like and link to your site.  All of these should cause you to get better search engine rankings and result in more website traffic.

Conclusion
Mainly the purpose of this post is to inform our web hosting users of why they are seeing this lack of data in their stats programs now, however this change has caused quite the uproar among webmasters and SEO professionals. So I guess the real question of the day is.. Does it really matter that this data is missing?

Leave us a comment below and let us know what you think about Google taking away the keyword data!

The official Changlog for version 1.1 includes:

• Removed PHP Short tags
• Changed from print() to echo
• Fixed invalid use of _e function
• Generally cleaned up code

The plugin can be downloaded from the WordPress plugin repository at: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/comment-link-manager/ 
More information about the plugin can be found on the Comment Link Manager page of our site.