Category: Critical Web Solutions

A question we get asked sometimes is what is the purpose of google analytics on our website. The answer is simply to know who the heck your site visitors are and to get more of them! It only takes one line of code – which we can add for you – to connect you to everybody that lands on your site.

Knowing who you’re users are and what they’re interested in or not allows you to improve things. It also gives you the ability to find possible errors and blindspots on your website. If you have a WordPress site, there are two ways of adding Google Analytics. It can be done through a plugin like Monster Insights or with Google Tag Manager (our preferred method).

The reason we like Google Tag Manager is it allows you to insert what is like a container on your site. It can easily be added in the footer of your site regardless of what CMS you are using. Once you have that container loaded, you can add anything you want through the Google Tag Manager interface.

If you want to setup goals and see how many people have clicked on a link or an ad, you can easily get that info. If you want to see where visitors spend the most time or where they drop off, you can strategize accordingly. Have an e-commerce store and want to know the revenue and transactions compared to last week? That can easily be setup to give you valuable information to help your business go to the next level.

We have added the service to setup Google Analytics on your site as part of our SEO products. Click below if you’d like us to setup Google Analytics on your site & make sure to check for any discounts.

A lot of people have asked for details about the dedicated servers that we provide. Everyone has different reasons to use them and get the power and specialized hosting that is needed. Reasons range from uploading motion graphics, video gaming, audio composition or music production. But all expect their dedicated server to deliver the same reliable and scalable power with absolute physical security; our goal is to provide just that. Lets find out exactly what the hell it is that these machines have in them.

ALL OUR SERVERS HAVE:

Dual Interlock Dry Pipe Fire Suppression
SOC-1 / SSAE-16 Type II Audited
N, N2 Generator Power
N+1 Cooling
High Energy Efficient Centralized UPS System
Private VLAN
1000 Mbps Uplink Port
4 Useable IPs for Free
Premium Bandwidth with more than one upstream
Intel Virtualization Technology
Demand Based Switching
Intel 64 Technology
Execute Disable Bit capability
Intel I/O Acceleration Technology

We know that each server has different hard drive sizes and memory so lets focus on one. The Intel® Xeon® L5420 is our most popular server with its high benchmark performance using all of its cores. It provides enough juice for your resource hungry needs without a problem. You already know that the server has 500GB Sata Storage Space, 10TB Bandwidth and 16GB Memory. But lets get some more details on this bad boy.

THE L5420
Cores – Four
Processor Base Frequency – 2.50 GHz
Cache – 12 MB L2
Bus Speed – 1333 MHz FSB
TDP – 50 W
VID Voltage Range – 0.850V-1.3500V
Processing Die Size – 214 mm2
# of Processing Die Transistors – 820 million (damn that’s alot)

Additionally, if you want info on the other dedicated servers we have, feel free to contact us. Our team will be glad to help inform you with what you are getting.

There are a lot of things that anyone can do to improve the security of their WordPress site. Yet there are some that are essential and simple steps that can be taken and I’ll show you what they are.

1- Username/Password
I have found many sites still using the name admin as a username and this is a big no-no. Hackers know that the default WordPress username will be admin so this makes their brute force attack jobs easier. This should be changed to anything, preferably something that is different than the name of your website. A password should also be set that has a combo of numbers and letters; of course you already knew that.

2- Disable Editor
WordPress allows users to edit their plugin and theme files in the admin interface by default. This is a simple security risk that many non-developers are unaware of or don’t consider. To see if you have this access, hover over Appearance and you will see Editor at the bottom. If its not there, then you’re developer knows his shit.

The goal is to protect intruders from getting into the admin area of the site. In case that fails, then at least we should prevent them from changing files on our server. File changes should be done via FTP on your server where you would need login access to it. To remove this access in the admin, you will need to FTP into your server and in your wp-config.php file add the following line in it:

define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true);

3- iThemes Security
If step 2 is complicated or you don’t want to mess with your server; no problemo amigo. There is a plugin that can you let you do the work in the admin area. I recommend everyone use this plugin for security and it’s iThemes Security. It gives you options to protect you from local and network brute force attacks. It allows you to block users who run into a lot of 404 pages; the default setting is twenty 404 pages. If someone lands on that many 404 errors, it typically means they’re scanning for a vulnerability on your site. You have the option to ban their IP address and never have to worry about that person again. If you’re really serious about protection, you can change the login url from the basic yoursite.com/wp-admin. The way to do that is to go the advanced options in the settings and click on Hide Backend settings. There will you have the option to change the login url to yoursite.com/badmuthatrucka or whatever you like.

There are even more things you can do to keep your site safe, but I think these steps are what everyone should at least take. Feel free to contact us to take care of your website security needs.