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How to Make HTML Pages Recognize PHP

Sep/13 in All Posts, Web Hosting Tutorials, Web Hosting Tutorials

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 123!

I love using PHP code and scripts. They can come in handy a lot of different ways in a lot of different places. In most cases people learn that if you want to run PHP scripts or execute PHP code your pages need to be in the .php format. What if all of your pages are already .html, .htm, or dot something else?

You are not left in the dark – I promise.

For an example, lets say Chuck has a large web site that is all done with .html pages. It was setup a long time ago, he didn’t know about any of the new web technologies out there, and he was happy with his simple static site. Now his friend Billy tells him he could add a few more dynamic things if he used some PHP code here and there.

The problem is Chuck doesn’t want to turn all his .html pages to .php pages.

What Chuck needs to do is add a few simple lines to his .htaccess file:

RemoveHandler .html .htm
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .htm .html

After that, all of Chuck’s .html pages will be pushed through the server as .php pages. So this way he can keep his .html extension but use PHP. Now I know that isn’t the most technical way of putting things, but it is a way that we can all understand. The important thing is now Chuck can now execute PHP scripts in .html files.

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Protect Yourself from Domain Slamming

Sep/12 in All Posts, Web Hosting Tutorials, Web Hosting Tutorials

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 123!

Stop Popup AdsHave you ever gotten one of those letters in the mail from places like the Domain Registry of America? They are nice enough to send you a letter to let you know your domain name is unprotected, about to expire, is going to die a horrible horrible death – but they will save you. They will renew your domain name for you as long as you send them that check back in the mail.

Now many of us know to toss out this crap, because all it is – is an advertisement. Other folks though I am sorry to say are still falling for it hook, line and sinker. Now it isn’t the user’s fault. Nobody told them they would have to watch out for these types of scams. The name for this practice is domain slamming – and it is something everybody needs to be aware of. Continue Reading →

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3 Quick Tips – Hide Folder Content

Aug/21 in All Posts, Web Hosting Tutorials, Web Hosting Tutorials

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 119!

Turning off “Index of”Want to hide the content of that folder you just uploaded? Here are three ways of doing just that.

When you view a folder on the web that does not have any sort of index file in it, such as your standard web page or anything else of that nature, most server setups show an index of the files and folders inside of that folder. It shows everything that is in there and gives it a slightly pretty way of doing so.

Create a Blank Index File

What if you don’t want this folder content to be seen though? One quick way around it would be to create a blank index.html file, upload it to the folder in question, and your done.

Do it Via a .htaccess Edit

Another way of getting the same thing done is to navigate to the folder where you want to hide the default index, then create or edit your .htaccess file. You want to add this line to the top of it.

options -indexes

That will turn off the default index for that folder.

Hide That Folder via Your Control Panel

Most control panels also have this feature built in too, just in case you are looking for an easier solution. Via cPanel’s File Manager v3 (in cPanel 11) you can right click on a folder, select “Manage Indices” and get to the options for that folder that way. A few check mark boxes later you should be good to go.

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Opening the Hosting Mail Bag

Aug/09 in All Posts, Web Hosting Tutorials, Web Hosting Tutorials

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 118!

Ask Me About Web Hosting!Every time I get an e-mail with a hosting question in it, I do my best to get it answered for the folks that ask me stuff. I don’t get paid for it – but hey, I’m a guy who likes to help out where I can. Here are some of the best random questions on and about web hosting that I’ve been asked about this week.

Question – You’ve talked about a lot of file backup web hosting solutions here lately. I have been doing all of my off site backup storage with Carbonite. Do you like them as a choice?

Answer – Yes, the folks at Carbonite do a really good job and the whole online backup solution. Now the reason you might want to go with a solution like this instead of just backing it up to DVD or external hard drive is simple. What if you house explodes, or an army of un-dead midget warriors attack? Your computer would more than likely bite the dust. With your files backup somewhere else though – at least your files will make it out alive.

Question – I want to get into the web site business. Is it better to host a web site with a lot of topics on one domain name or setup different domain names for each topic?

Answer – I would say try to find a niche domain name for each type of web site you wish to host. The “all in one” web sites are really hard to manage and make popular. People want to learn about or deal with places that are based around one topic of discussion.

Question – Why does my server web statistics not match up with my online web statistics when tracking my visitors?

Answer – When using something like Webalizer compared with Google Analytics, the server side solution is going to be looking at everything, robot crawls, people and more as all one thing – traffic. With a off-site web stats solution like Google Analytics, it can’t see (or gain access to) that information, so it’s tracking numbers are based more off of real people.

Do you have a question? Feel free to send it my way and I’ll do my best to help you out too! Who knows, your question might even make it to the podcast too.

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Submitting Yourself to Search Engines

Jul/26 in All Posts, Web Hosting Tutorials, Web Hosting Tutorials

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 116!

Submit to the Search Engines!It is an age old question, how should you submit yourself to the search engines. Should you not do anything at all and hope they find you? Should you go out and use one of those “all in one” search submit services? Should you go to each search engine and submit yourself by hand?

Step 1 – Go to the “Big Boys” in the Searching World!

The first thing you want to do is get yourself submitted to the big boys in the search engine world. This would be Google, Yahoo and MSN (or Live Search). Here are a few links to help you with that process:

Step 2 – Sit Back and Wait, and Work, and Wait!

Don’t get yourself stressed out if your not in Google within the next hour. Getting listed can sometimes take days or weeks. During this “downtime” you can try your best to get more folks to link to you as well. The more incoming links you have the better the chances are that a search engine spider will travel from somebody else’s web site to your very own.

The spiders are the little bots that crawl through web sites link to link figuring out what content you have and if it is any good or not.

Now I left out the all in one submitting solutions for a reason. Some of these places are frowned upon by the major search engines out there. These services that could be very useful have been taken over by greedy folks that want to charge you and impatient folks who hit submit every five minutes to every search engine out there.

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Setting Up Google Webmaster Tools Guide

Jul/25 in All Posts, Web Hosting Tutorials, Web Hosting Tutorials

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 116!

Google loves webmasters, and I proved that last weeks with out guide to Google Analytics. Have you tried Google’s specific tools for webmasters though? If you have not you might be missing out on a lot of good information on and about your web site.

Why Do I Need the Webmaster Tools?

Google Webmaster Tools Love YouBy using this series and set of tools you can see all kinds of information about what keywords are bringing people in from Google, the Google crawl rate, the last time your page was indexed plus around two dozen more cool tools and interesting resources. If your a webmaster who hasn’t done this your missing out on a free set of very helpful tools right from the folks at Google.

Create and Submit Your Site Map

To see what I am talking about visit the Google Webmaster Tools web site. Here you can submit your site map to Google so that have a better and easier way of crawling your information. It never hurts to give Google everything it needs, so best to play nice with them if you want to see yourself in the search results for your favorite keywords.

Got Sitemap?There are a number of tools out there to help you learn about how to create this special sitemap for Google to index. Here are just a few suggestions to help you get started:

Also if you are using a content management program (like Joomla, WordPress and others) you might be able to find a plugin that does all the hard work for you and spits out the sitemap.xml file for you.

Once the sitemap has been generated, go in and submit your domain too the Google Webmaster Tools page and then go to the Sitemap tab and then click “Add a Sitemap”.

Verify You Own Your Web Site

After you get your domain and your site map in the system then you must verify that you are the owner of the web site. You can do this either by adding some code to your index’s header information or by uploading a file with a funny name. I would say go with the second one as it is the easiest one to do.

Create your file with the funny name on your desktop, upload it to your “public_html” folder and then check to make sure it is there. Then you can go back to the Google Webmaster Tools web site and tell Google to check for verification. Once they do you are all set!

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Setting up Google Analytics Guide

Jul/20 in All Posts, Online Tools, Web Hosting Tutorials, Web Hosting Tutorials

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 115!

Google AnalyticsWhat is one of the best free solutions for tracking statistical information on your web site? Personally I like Google Analytics. It has just as many tracking and stats options as any of the expensive big boys out there but it is totally free for anybody to use. Free plus good equals a winner in my book.

The question is, how do you get it up and running on your own web site? I have seen a number of folks have trouble with this – so I figured I would go through the steps and tell you how to get it done, one on one.

Step 1 – Go to the Google Analytics web site and sign up for an account or login with your Google login information. After you login, click on the “setup” button to get started.

Step 2 – Next you load up a screen that wants you to put in some information about your web site. Type in your domain name, account name and set your time preferences. The account name will be the group name for the series of web sites you use Google Analytics on. Not really important at this time – so you could really jut call it “Charlie” if you wanted to.

Step 3 – The next page wants you to put in your contact information. If you don’t want to do this – just select your country and you should be good to go to the next step.

Step 4 – One of the last pages you will see is Google’s terms of service and legal agreement. Skim through it, read it if you want to. I know your probably not going to though. Click the “I agree” check mark box and move on.

Step 5 – The last step gives you a ‘bit of javascript to cut and paste onto all of your web pages that you want to track. Just copy it from there and paste it into your web site. Get past that step and your done! You have successfully setup Google Analytics.

If you did all of that correctly, in a few days you should have a lot of new statistical information to view. Google Analytics is an awesome free tool so there is no reason why everybody with a web site shouldn’t be using it. Have any other questions, comments or concerns? Shoot them over my way at mitch@mitchkeeler.com and I will be more than happy to help you out.

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What is a Landing Page?

Jun/19 in All Posts, Web Hosting Tutorials, Web Hosting Tutorials

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 111!

When you talk about online marketing, a phrase you hear a lot about is landing pages and creating effective landing pages. If your new to the online advertising or marketing game, this phrase might be a new one for you so let me break it down.

QuestionLanding Pages 101

A landing page would be a special page (or series of pages) that you create on your web site for a certain audience or set of visitors.

Lets say I started an advertising campaign with Web Hosting Talk. Now I could have them all come to my index, just type in WebHostingShow.com but that wouldn’t give me a chance to sell myself to them or to see how effective this advertising deal really was.

Instead I would create a landing page with maybe some of my most popular podcasts, some of the best interviews and sell myself a little more than I would on the other pages. I would want to make people feel like, “hey, I’ve found a good deal here and I’m coming back!”.

Reference and Transactional Landing Pages

For the most part there are two types of landing pages out there. A reference landing page would be like the one I described above. You highlight some of the best, sell yourself and hopefully you’ll hook a few new visitors or clients. The second kind is transactional landing pages. The transactional landing page is created to help you complete a step of some kind. From that page I want you to complete a transaction, such as going through a sale of a product.

For an example, for web hosts you could put your hottest plan on your transactional landing page, have the form there to put in the domain, client information and more and then to move on to step two all they have to do is hit that “order now!” button.

So hopefully that now gives you a better handle on what landing pages are and why you might want to look into setting a few up for your next advertising campaign.

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Quick Answers for Hosting Questions

Jun/07 in All Posts, Web Hosting Tutorials, Web Hosting Tutorials

FAQWell since I had a little more time in between show this week, I figured I could quickly go through a few questions that were E-mailed to me while I was away.

The first one comes from Jim.

To Copy Protect or Not To Copy Protect?

I want to sell my music Online, but I want to put up samples of the songs that people can’t download without paying for, what should I do?

Jim, I say stay away from any type of script or service that promises you copy protection. As soon as you put those tunes Online in any way, shape or form – chances are they will be stolen.

What I would do is just release them all for free (might get better results this way – popularity wise). If you really want to earn a few bucks though you could always upload 30 second samples of the songs to play for folks when they want to hear what it sounds like.

This next question comes from JulieG.

Free FTP Program Suggestions

Hi Mitch, I am tried of my current FTP program, is there a super program out there or anything better that what I am using? I’m just looking for a few quality suggestions. Thanks!

Well, I was in the same boat recently and I had a few programs suggested for me to try out. Give Filezilla and xplorer2 lite a shot.

Our last question comes from Mark.

Podcast for a Podcast Guide

Any chance of you creating a “how to podcast” audio guide, like you have done with ecommerce and blogging? Thanks for putting on a great podcast too. I listen every week!

Never say never, and I’d say that sounds like a pretty good idea. I’ve written a few ghetto guides to podcasting, but I’ll see what I can come up with and if I can get something recorded on the topic, you can bet it will find its way here.

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 109!

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Configure Your Freshly Installed WordPress

May/25 in All Posts, Web Hosting Tutorials, Web Hosting Tutorials

Alright we got WordPress up and running but you are not ready to blog just yet. I have a few tips and tricks to hope you get the most out of your WordPress experience. Here are some of the first things that I do after installing WordPress for the very first time.

Edit the Default User – Login to WordPress and then click on the “User” Tab. After that you should be brought to a page that has the default “Admin” user. You need to go into here and customize it for you. Set your own password, your name, your link, your nickname and more. This way when you post something it won’t show up as “admin” it will show up with your own name.

Make SEO Friendly URLs – From inside of WordPress click on “Options” and then “Permalinks”. By default WordPress has a pretty crappy way of setting up your links. You want to use something that is a little more search engine friendly. Click on the radio box for “Date and name based” and then hit the “Update Permalink Structure” button. You might have to set your .htacess inside of your WordPress install. You must chmod the .htaccess file to 666 to allow WordPress to write its rules to it automatically. If not, then you can download or create the .htaccess file by hand and do it yourself.

Check the Other Options – After getting into the “Options” tab inside of WordPress you might check each tab under that section to make sure things are configured the way you want them to be. You might have to use WordPress for a while before you start noticing little things you’d like to change here or there. Click each sub-tab under your options to get familiar with where to find what also. This way you won’t be left hunting for a half hour to figure out how to change one little configuration.

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 108!

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