Posts Tagged ‘protection’

This guest blog comes to us from Distil.it, a featured member of the SoftLayer Technology Partners Marketplace. Distil is the first content protection network that helps companies identify and block malicious content scraping and data theft. In this video we talk to Distil CEO Rami Essaid about how the company developed, their participation in the TechStars program and most importantly, how they can help you!

When Google’s “Panda” Algorithm Collides with Duplicate Content

If you’re a Webmaster, it’s likely you’ve heard about the Google latest search algorithm — “Panda” — and all the benefits and implications of this update. Today, we wanted highlight what happens when Google Panda collides online with duplicate content. There have been plenty of opinions written about Google Panda and duplicate content, but we want to provide some background and examples to help you better understand how Panda and duplicate content might affect you.

What is Duplicate Content?

Duplicate content is a term used in the field of search engine optimization to describe content that appears on more than one web page, within the same web site. When multiple pages within a web site contain essentially the same content, search engines such as Google can penalize/not display that site in any relevant search results.

Should you be Concerned?

When Google released Panda, there was a significant outcry from legitimate business and publishers who were either downgraded overnight in their search engine page rank or dropped all together. For many of the businesses, the Panda algorithm reduced SEO rank and decreased visitors, site revenue and online market awareness. Some websites even experienced damage to their brand, as their customers and prospects questioned whether they were still in business.

We’ve spoken with Cult of Mac, Digital Trends and several Fortune 1000 businesses, and they’ve all said the same thing: They were penalized and downgraded as a result of the Panda release as a result of unauthorized duplication of their content. They had done everything to comply with Google in optimizing their SEO configurations, but the third-party websites scraping and duplicating their content (outside of their control) caused their page ranks to fall.

Read the rest of Distil’s blog about content scrapers and Google’s Panda update »

This is a guest blog from ServerOrigin’s Kevin Hatfield about ethProxy. ethProxy is perfect for any company that wishes to secure its web presence against DDoS attacks and intrusion-based hacking attempts. Its filtering was built to provide enterprise-grade technology and uptime while still remaining below the cost of the competition.

DDoS Protection: Do you need it?

In the last couple of years, you’ve probably seen a references to denial-of-service attacks in the news and how the fallout from those attacks can leave businesses ‘picking up pieces’ for weeks or months after they occur. Think about the helplessness you’d feel if the business you poured your heart and soul into is shut down by some malicious person or group’s attack on your web presence. Worse yet, those attacks are usually for that person’s or group’s own monetary gain or to satisfy some ego-driven urge to punish you for being successful in either your business or a cause you believe in.

It happens all too often, and most people don’t realize that it can actually happen to them. On a weekly basis, I speak to at least one person that tells me, “We’re small, and we really don’t have any competitors … Our website is down. If we can’t stop this attack, I am going to have to send all of my employees home and close down!”

The truth is that denial-of-service protection providers normally sell “fear.” They do this because people don’t have answers to a few key questions about DDoS protection:

Read the rest of ServerOrigin’s Guest Blog! »

It’s that time of year again. No, not time to spread joy and cheer to your family (it can be that, too), but rather the time of waiting in long lines when it’s freezing outside hoping to get a good deal or the perfect gift. It’s the holiday shopping season. With the holiday shopping season comes the holiday “holy cow it’s freezing cold out here” or the holiday “hey! that person just cut in line” season as well. Of course, one thing people need to remember this time of year is that it’s not about the shopping and spending money (Money? What money?) but rather it’s about spending time with family and looking back at the year that has passed. Of course, retailers and scammers would like you to think otherwise. They’re trying their hardest to get you to part with your hard earned money. What does this mean to you? It means that you have to watch out who you’re buying from and what websites you are giving your personal information to. This is the perfect season for scammers to get your grandparents to give up their personal information (and with it everything in their bank accounts). Of course, this is easily avoided. Most reputable websites will have SSL certificates from a reputable vendor. Being a customer of SoftLayer you are already aware of a (fairly) new service we offer… A short while back SoftLayer began to offer VeriSign and GeoTrust SSL certificates (for more information: http://www.softlayer.com/partners_geotrust.html). Simply making sure that the site you are buying from has a certificate installed like the ones we offer will help ensure that your information isn’t going to some thief hiding in his basement. What’s the moral of this story? (All Holiday stories have a moral…) Stay safe, be careful, and enjoy the holidays!

When it comes to managing a server remember you can never be to careful. In this day and age we face a lot of things that can damage and even take a server to its knees here’s a few things for everyone to consider.

Anti-virus:

This is a must on systems open to the net now days. There are always nasty little things floating around looking to take your server apart from the OS out. For windows servers there are a multitude of choices and I’ll just mention a few that can help protect your goods. You can use several programs such as avast (which offers a free edition), ClamWin (open source), Kaspersky , and Panda just to name a few. I would suggest before installing any of these you check links such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_antivirus_software to name one that provides a list of several choices and their compatibility. You may also want to read reviews that compare the available options and give you an idea of what to expect from them. This will allow you to make an informed choice on which one works best for you. Now with linux there are also several options for this including the well known clamav which from personal experience works really well and can be installed on a variety of linux disro’s(aka distributions). It’s very simple to use and may prevent you from headache later on down the road.

Firewalls:

Firewalls are a double edged sword but are most defiantly needed. When it comes to firewalls you can protect yourself from quite a bit of headache however if setup to strict you can block positive traffic and even yourself from reaching your server but in the long run a defiant way to help protect your server from unwanted visitors. A lot of firewalls also have modules and add-ons that further assist in protecting you and securing your server. If in doubt it’s always a good idea to have a security company do an audit and even a security hardening session with your server to make sure you are protected the best way possible.

Passwords:

This is probably one of the most important this you can do to secure your server. Use strong passwords (no using password or jello is not a secure password even if it is in all caps) and if you are worried about not being able to come up with a secure one there are several password generators on the web that can come up with secure ones to assist. Passwords should contain caps letters, numbers, symbols, and should be at minimum 8 – 10 characters (the more the better). It’s the easy to remember and easy read passwords that get you into trouble.

Armed with this information and so much more on security that can be located on the web using the great and all powerful Google should be a good start to making sure you don’t have to worry about data loss and system hacks. Also remember no matter how secure you think you are make regular backups of all your important data as if you server could crash at any time.