SEO Hosting Blog

Remember when people cared about Digg? I know, it’s been a while, but back when Digg was at its height, there was a phenomenon known as the Digg Effect. The Digg Effect occurred whenever a site would hit the front page of Digg, sending tons of traffic to the site and causing the servers to crash. Simply put, most websites just weren’t able to handle the traffic that came with hitting the front page of Digg, and as a result, marketers and site owners would end up missing out on opportunities to cash in on their content going viral.

While Digg might not get much love anymore, the Digg Effect is still very much a real thing. These days, content goes viral through Twitter ReTweets and Facebook shares or on sites like ReddIt. And just like back in Digg’s glory days, many websites still struggle to stay up when they have content that goes viral.

With all this in mind, it’s important to take a look at your own website. If you’re trying to drive traffic to your website, it’s important to make sure your website can actually handle that traffic if your marketing efforts are successful. If your website can’t handle a spike in traffic, you will:

• Disappoint visitors
• Lose visitors as many won’t come back if your website is down
• Fail to enjoy the benefits that can come with viral marketing success
• Look unprofessional in the eyes of your audience

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If you want to know how to get a dedicated IP address on a shared web hosting account, here is an easy and affordable way to do that. Before I reveal the solution, first I think it’s important to understand why a dedicated IP address is needed. If you have a website for sharing pictures with mom and dad, or just for random things, getting a dedicated IP address really isn’t needed. If you are creating multiple sites for profit and depend on traffic from search engines, it’s possible that getting a dedicated IP can help increase your rankings.

Please note: I can not prove this to be true. In fact, people from Google deny that having a dedicated IP makes a difference compared to hosting sites with shared IP addresses. But, in my opinion… why risk it when it’s not really too difficult or expensive to have a dedicated IP address?

I suspect that when a website shares the same IP address with other websites, it can suffer from not having the best search engine visibility compared to being hosted with a dedicated IP address. In other words, if your website shares the same IP address with a website that has questionable content, I suspect that search engines won’t exactly BLACKLIST the IP address, but instead adjustments will be made to prevent the site with questionable content from gaining excellent search engine visibility. In my opinion, this puts your site at risk because it’s very possible that the adjustments made are based on the IP address rather than the actual site (domain name) using the IP address. Again, Google denies this as being true, but once again… in my opinion, why take a chance?

The solution around this is to get a web hosting account that offers a dedicated IP address. That way, all of your websites are separated and unaffected from websites that you don’t own or control. The problem is finding a cheap web hosting plan that offers a dedicated IP address. Most upgraded plans such as VPS hosting offer this, but with an increased price. Again, we’re looking for cheap and affordable. Shared web hosting is the way to go!

But while shared hosting is simple and affordable, unfortunately it isn’t often that shared accounts come with a dedicated IP address option. Many shared web hosting plans include an option to order an additional IP address, but those addresses are also shared too. The solution is to look for a web hosting plan that offers the option to order a dedicated IP address and/or an affordable SSL option.

A great example is HostGator’s shared Business Plan. This plan has a low cost and it includes a free dedicated IP address and private SSL. If you don’t want to order or upgrade to the business plan, you can also order their standard plan and request a dedicated IP address for an additional but very small fee. Do some research, because other companies offer a dedicated IP address options too. Many have high prices though, so keep a close eye on what you’re ordering.

Another trick is to look closely at the features and see if a private SSL option is available. If the private SSL option happens to be cheaper than the annual cost of having a dedicated IP address, then order the private SSL. The reason is because in order to have a private SSL setup, a dedicated IP address needs to be established. If this doesn’t occur, then the information is misleading. Even if the cost is slightly higher, it’s still worth it because you get a private SSL and a dedicated IP for a price slightly higher than the individual cost for one.

Of course, if you’re looking for some IP addresses on multiple C Classes (diversified), you should check out the hosting plans offered here at SEO Hosting. At the time of writing this article, you can get a class C IP address plan for $35/month. In my opinion, that is well worth the money. Especially, if you’re serious about search engine optimization and keeping your sites hosted in a secure environment that you have total control over.

It doesn’t happen too often, but there are times when you will be faced with the task of transferring your website and content from one server to another. A few reasons why you would need to do this come to mind. Perhaps your current web hosting provider lacks in good service and support. Maybe the quality of your connection is terrible. Or, maybe you have found a better deal somewhere else.

There are many reasons why you could find yourself in need to transfer your website and if you don’t know how to do it, life can quickly become miserable. Transferring your website from one server to another isn’t actually too difficult. Once your know the steps to take and how to execute them, transferring your website will be breeze.

I suspect that many people have tried to transfer their website using FTP. This method does work, but it can take a really long time. The reason why it can take a long time is because you have to download your content to your own personal computer and then upload it all back to the new server. Also, if your site runs on a database, such as WordPress and MySQL, you can’t get a copy of your database via FTP.

A better and faster way to transfer your website from one server to another is to use Secure Shell (SSH). For starters, you rule out the middleman… that’s you! Instead of downloading the copy of your website to your personal computer and uploading it to the new server, using SSH, you can bypass that process and transfer direct from your old server to the new server. This is useful for many reasons.

One immediate reason the comes to mind is that the transfer will constantly run. If you make transfers via FTP, your computer has to stay connected. The moment you shut your computer down, the connection is lost. With SSH, once you initiate the transfer, the connection between the two servers isn’t dependent on the connection of your personal computer.

Step One: Enable Secure Shell (SSH) Access

The first thing you want to do is make sure both of your web hosting accounts offer Secure Shell access. If you use HostGator, go here to enabled SSH. For BlueHost customers, go here. GoDaddy customers can go here. For all others, simply contact your web hosting provider for specific instructions on how to enable Secure Shell access.

Step Two: Download CLI / SSH Client Software

Next you will need to download a SSH client. Don’t worry… the program you need is free. There’s quite a few to choose from. Some cost money, but most are free, and will fit your needs perfectly. These programs looks similar to DOS and require similar commands. I know that many people avoid coding and programming, but honestly… using a SSH client isn’t that hard to do. It’s just a matter of knowing the right commands. And honestly, most people don’t memorize commands, they bookmark them and copy & paste them into the console. I want to share that because that was one of the main reasons why I avoided using command line programs for many years.

I assumed that I would need to actually be a programmer, and I would have to be fluent with the command and language. Once I discovered that most people don’t actually memorize the different commands and languages, I started to gain a bigger picture on how SSH can be useful to me. In fact, transferring my website from one server to another was one of the first things I learned how to do using SSH. And that’s the reason why I posted this article. It’s only a guess, but I suspect that this is one of the main reasons why many people gain an interest in using command line interface programs.

For Windows users, I recommend Putty. You can get a copy here. Choose the first option. For Mac and Linux users, your operating system already includes a program that works fine. For Mac users, open Finder, go to Applications, scroll down to Utilities and open the folder, scroll down and look for Terminal and open it. For Linux users using Ubuntu, open the Applications Menu, then open the Accessories menu, and then open Terminal.

Step Three: Login Via SSH To Your Existing Web Hosting Account

Now it’s time to start the transfer. Once again, in order to do this, you need to make sure SSH has been enabled on both web hosting accounts. Login to your existing web hosting account. The basic command to do this is:

ssh username@domainname.com or ssh username@ipaddress

Be sure to check with your web hosting provider as the commands will vary. For example, if you’re a HostGator customer, you will need to use this command:

ssh -p 2222 username@ipaddress

If you need additional support, HostGator customers can go here to learn more. For BlueHost customers, go here. Godaddy customers, go here. For all others, check with your web hosting provider for specific instructions.

Step Four: Start The Transfer

Once you are logged into your existing web hosting account, you can start the transfer process. Before you can initiate the transfer though, you need to know where your content is located on the existing server, and where you want to put the content on the new server. In most cases everything will be located in the public_html folder. You will be making the transfer using the SCP command, which stands for Secure Copy.

Type: pwd to figure out where you’re at on the server:

[garrycon@gator674 ~]$ pwd
/home/garrycon

Type: dir to figure out what directories are on your server:

[garrycon@gator674 ~]$ dir
access-logs etc mail public_ftp ruby webdisk
cgi-bin logs php.ini public_html tmp www

Type: cd public_html to “change directory” to public_html:

[garrycon@gator674 ~]$ cd public_html
[garrycon@gator674 ~/public_html]$

Type: pwd again to verify your location on the server and to get the full address location:

[garrycon@gator674 ~/public_html]$ pwd
/home/garrycon/public_html

The address location will be needed when you enter the command to start the transfer. Verify the location you want to transfer your content to on your new server. In most cases, the location will be the same, public_html. To start the transfer use this command, but be sure to modify it to match your usernames, addresses, and locations for both servers:

scp -r folder/location/ username@serveraddress.com: /folder/

An example:

scp -r home/garrycon/public_html/ garryconn@74.53.87.195: /home/garryconn/

That’s it! This will immediately start the transfer of your content from your old web server to your new one. Let me explain what this code means and what it does.

scp -r = Secure copy a directory. scp can copy individual files. scp-r is used to copy entire directories.

folder/ = The full path on your existing server to the content you want to transfer to your new server. Example, using home/garrycon/public_html/ will transfer everything in the public_html directory to the new server. If you have an add-on domain that you would like to transfer by itself, the code would be home/garrycon/public_html/add-on_domain.com/ This command will transfer the contents in your add-on_domain.com/ folder only.

username@serveraddress.com: = This is the username and address of your new server that you will be transferring your content to. This will make a secure connection from your existing server to your new server. An example is garryconn@74.53.87.195:

/folder/location = This is the location where you want your content to go on the new server. In most cases this will match the existing location on your old server. public_html isn’t included is because doing so will result in your content being transfered to public_html/public_html.

This last part may be confusing, so I will explain it further. If your content is located on your existing server at /home/username/public_html and you want to transfer the public_html directory to your new server. The public_html directory should be located in your /home/username/ folder on your new server.

In other words, the entire code means this: With a secure connection, copy the directory that contains my content on the existing server. Login to my new server with a secure connection and paste the directory.

scp -r folder/ username@serveraddress.com:/folder/location

If you have any questions or need assistance, feel free to leave a comment. Keep an eye out for my next post while will explain how to transfer your MySQL database from one server to another.

I just came to a realization. This is the SEO Hosting blog, yet we almost never talk about web hosting. The truth is your web host plays a huge role in helping you build your online presence. If your website is always down, you could lose out on potential customers, and it could even cause the search engines to have problems crawling your content. Additionally, if your website loads slowly, it may possibly cause your search rankings to drop.

Simply put, you need to make sure you have a quality web host that can help you grow a successful online presence. Here are some signs of a bad web host. If your see these characteristics in your host, RUN!!!

1. Your website is down on a frequent basis. When your website is down, you can’t make sales online. It’s just that simple. Every minute your site is down is money that you could be losing. While a lot of hosting companies will promise a certain percentage of uptime, it’s hard to gauge which ones really live up to their claims. Your best bet is to find one that actually guarantees 99% or more uptime and that has a proven track record of satisfying their customers.

2. You can’t get in touch with customer service. You want to know how some companies are able to offer ridiculously cheap hosting? They do it by cutting their customer service. They either outsource their service or reduce the number of hours it’s available. Unfortunately, your website is a 24/7 store, and if it goes down, you need to get it back up no matter what time day or night it is. Make sure you choose a hosting company that offers 24/7 customer support.

3. Your website takes too long to load. Load time is important for a couple of key reasons. First, the average visitor gives a new website 8 seconds to grab his interest. If your website takes too long to load, visitors will back out before even seeing your content. Also, load time seems to play a role in determining your website’s search engine placement. A quality web host can help your site load faster.

4. Your website keeps getting hacked.Most people look at uptime and bandwidth when choosing their host. However, they overlook the importance of security. A web host with poor security could leave your website and personal information at risk. Make sure your hosting company uses the latest security technology to help keep your website safe.

Who is your web host? Are you happy with their services?