Category: Essentials

Do you have a backup of your website? We can provide you one for FREE

Previously we wrote about the importance of backups in our post Backups are for sissies, right? but what about your website backups, are they important?

You might reason this is your web hosting providers responsibility, but what if they are not taking regular backups, or what if their backup system fails? What if your website is compromised and all data deleted?

To put it bluntly, as a website owner you should also have a backup of your website in the unlikely event your web hosting provider doesn’t or even worse still, goes out of business. Things happen, even a reliable web hosting provider can have issues at times.

That is why, starting today we are making available to all XYZulu Web Hosting customers a new FREE service that will provide you a backup of your website delivered automatically each week to a location of your choosing (Google Drive, Dropbox etc). To have this setup for you, please contact us via our Customer Portal and we’ll get it setup for you.

The backup will be in a .zip file and contain all your files as well as any databases.

Just another way we’re looking after you and your business.

Don’t miss out! Be sure to check out the helpful tips in these previous articles that have benefited so many already:

3 FREE features for you! Domain, Privacy, Email forwarding

4 Reasons you need your own Cloud Server

Overwhelmed with passwords?

Just because it says: Secure..

We all know that the internet is filled with plenty of bad guys trying to steal our money. So, imagine this scenario: You click a link in an email that appears to be legitimate and as the webpage loads in your browser you see the green word “secure” light up. Does this mean it’s safe to login to this site?

No. Why? The green padlock or the word “secure” does show your connection to the site is secure but it doesn’t mean the site is legitimate. It may be a site setup simply to steal your credentials. Read what Google says about these secure indicators here.

How do you know if it’s really safe? Here are 3 things to take note of:

1. Don’t rely on links in emails or other webpages to go to a login page, it could be fake. Instead, type the address into your browser or use a bookmark you setup yourself.

2. Examine carefully the website address of the page you are visiting. Just because it contains, for example, the word ‘PayPal’ doesn’t mean you are on the official PayPal website.

3. Use good security habits to avoid being caught. If, for example, you have 2FA (See – Why do I need 2FA?) enabled on your internet accounts, even if your login is stolen, the bad guys still will not be able to login to your account.

We want you to be safe so have written extensively on this subject. Please review these articles:

Do you SSL/HTTPS? You should. Find out why

Has your password been stolen?
Overwhelmed with passwords?

3 Ways to keep your website working

Imagine you have had a great new website developed. What can you do to ensure it stays up and running, is not compromised/hacked and continues to keep showing up in Google and other search engines?

Here are 3 simple tips:

1. Keep software and components/plugins up to date

Your website most likely runs on some software, perhaps Joomla, WordPress or something similar. This software is only secure if it is kept up to date. You’ll find keeping your website software up to date fairly simple these days. Simply login to the administration section and update any components that are out of date.

This will possibly reduce the likelihood of your website being compromised by 95% or more.

2. Enable SSL/HTTPS

We have written about this before, but some of our valued clients are still not sure how important it is. Unless your website is running via SSL/HTTPS (green padlock in the browser when you visit) you are at risk of being penalised by search engines. Read more about this here: Do you SSL/HTTPS? You should. Find out why

3. Host with XYZulu Web Hosting

At XYZulu Web Hosting we run up to date server software and even allow you to choose, for example, the version of php you want to run. See more on this here: Does your web host offer multiple versions of php?

The server that hosts your website needs to be kept up to date. Failure to do this could be similar to rarely updating your own computer software which will greatly increase the risk of having information stolen, or worse still, your computer being hijacked and used to attack others.

Don’t take the risk

While you may not give internet and website security the highest priority, taking these 3 simple steps will GREATLY reduce the risk of your website being compromised and/or losing credibility with your own customers.

We are here to help and are ready to answer your questions related to website security, please leave your comments below.