01 June
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In General
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Google Sitemaps   Google Sitemaps are XML files that list the URLs available on a site. The aim is to help site owners notify search engines about the URLs on a website that are available for indexing.   Webmasters can include information about each URL, such as when it was last updated and its importance in the context of the site.   A site map (or sitemap) is a list of pages of a web site accessible to crawlers or users. It can be either a document in any form used as a planning tool for web design, or a web page that lists theRead More →

31 May
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In Password Sentry
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Sitelok Plugin   The Password Sentry Sitelok Plugin is a great case example of how easy it is to integrate Password Sentry into third party applications. Sitelok is a powerful PHP / MySQL based membership software script that allows you to password protect pages to create members only areas on your website. We partnered with Sitelok in 2015 in a cross-promotional partnership. Password Sentry is an excellent fit for Sitelok to protect their password protected members areas from password sharing.   Sitelok was quick to develop a plugin: Password Sentry Plugin. It is a FREE plugin for Sitelok end-users: although one requires a purchased PasswordRead More →

30 May
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In Password Protection, Password Sentry, Security
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Password Sharing Password sharing is a problem with any website which allows users (members) to login. It is especially true with paysites where users purchase access. Adult websites, in particular, are prone to password sharing which can be very expensive in terms of bandwidth and lost sales. Sharing of passwords usually results from two actions:   An existing member shares, trades, or sells his password to other person(s). Less common and less a problem since they typically share their password to a select small group of people like friends. Nevertheless, it which results in lost sales.   A second method is used by individuals (hackers)Read More →

29 May
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In Security
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Captcha Form Protection   What is Captcha? Captcha is a backronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”. It is is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human. The purpose of Captcha is to deter hackers, spammers, etc. from using software to auto-submit forms. For example, to spam message boards, blogs, etc. The person is presented with a challenge to which the person must respond correctly. For example, in its earliest and simplest implementation, a graphic is displayed which contains a random selection of letters and numbers. The person mustRead More →

28 May
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In Traffic Building
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Social Media Traffic Building   In an earlier Blog article, I discussed traffic building in terms of building a better website. Now that you have built a better website, you need to get it on people’s radar. Word of mouth advertising is great and often underestimated. However, you need to first get a crowd forming around your website. You could purchase advertising, but there is a free alternative: social media traffic building.   Social media is great venue for promoting your website: on your Facebook wall and Facebook page, YouTube Channel, Twitter Feed, LinkedIn Profile and Feed, Blogger blog, etc. There are so many. YouRead More →

27 May
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In General, Security
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Secure Form Validation   It is of critical importance to ensure that your forms are secure and safe. Secure in that surfers cannot enter data which can harm or exploit your server. There are two levels of security: client-side and server-side. Let’s first discuss client-side.   In the case of client-side, you use the browser (using client-side JavaScript) to catch simple failures like mandatory fields that are empty, or catch invalid input (e.g., non-numeric input when you are collecting numeric data). You can find an abundant number of examples just by Googling ‘jquery form validation’. This is your first line of defense. These client-side securityRead More →

26 May
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In HTML
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Optimize Alt Text   One area where web designers and search engine optimization (SEO) professionals usually butt heads is over the use of images as text instead of actual plain text, usually done in the navigation or other important elements of a website. This can cripple an SEO implementation by limiting the effectiveness of elements that could have been textually based, as text is much more effective for interlinking. This is just one area where image alt text can be very useful.   Alt text — which are found in the “alt” portion of image tag — allows you to add a short descriptor ofRead More →

25 May
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In Webmaster Apps
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Block Hotlinking   What is hotlinking? Hotlinking (= bandwidth and intellectual property theft) refers to direct linking to a website’s files (images, video, etc.). An example would be using an <img> HTML tag to display an image you found on someone else’s webpage so it will appear on your own website, blog, forum message, etc. The most common solution is to add Rewrite lines to .htaccess file in images directory to check Referer. Only display images if referrer is from certain domains. Old school, ineffective, and easy to cheat. For one, it is common for browsers to not pass referrer (for example, under certain browserRead More →

24 May
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In Password Protection
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Website Password Protection   The typical and most common method to password protect a website directory is Basic Authentication. What is Basic Authentication? It is the more common method to password protect a directory. HTTP Basic Authentication (BA) implementation is the simplest technique for enforcing access controls to web resources because it doesn’t require cookies, sessions, or login pages. Rather, HTTP Basic Authentication uses standard fields passed by the browser. You authenticate via browser popup, and then the same credentials are automatically passed to the web server every time you request a resource (image, video, web page, etc.) in the password protected directory.   ThereRead More →

23 May
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In General, Password Sentry
With 0 Comments

Block Bulk Downloading to Protect Your Bandwidth, Web Server, Content, and Sales   Block bulk downloading is an advantage which applies if you use the optional PHP Authentication Plugin. An added feature of the Plugin is it, by design, effectively works to Block Bulk Downloading. One of our competitors refers to this as “Anti-Slurping”. So, what is bulk downloading? It is an automated process by an application which spiders a website (like a search engine spider), fetches all the content, and downloads it. These apps will follow links within the site. Content can be just be anything which can be viewed from the web viaRead More →