Hostgator and SSL Certificates on your Hosting Account

One of my websites is doing ecommerce transactions and I needed a new SSL certificate ordered and installed. Since the website is hosted at Hostgator I opened a ticked through the helpdesk and inquired about what they would need from me. Shortly after I had submitted the ticket I received an email with some basic instructions – including the explanation about needing a dedicated IP address. I also was offered the option to order an SSL certificate directly from Hostgator or from a 3rd party.

Since I have wholesale access to domain names and SSL Certificates I opted to buy my own. My website was already sitting on a dedicated IP address. All I had to do was click on the link that took me to a page where I would submit my CSR request for the certificate. This portion is created on the web server. With this code you can buy a matching SSL certificate. It’s like a challenge/response key that assures security. If the keys don’t match when the certificate is installed, it cannot be installed and the website visitor cannot be tricked into a presumable safe web connection.

Overall the entire process was fairly easy and streamlined. I’d say even a less experienced webmaster can easily accomplish this without asking for too much help. Hostgator apparently has looked at this process very well and worked out a way to reduce errors dramatically. The only gotcha I found was the missing information about what Web Server / SSL combination (Apache + ModeSSL) was in use. I had to update the ticket just to be safe.

So, if you need ecommerce strength web hosting that includes an SSL certificate, Hostgator should definitely be on your list of web hosts to be considered.

Hostgator Homepage

IX Web Hosting or Blue Host – Web Hosting packages compared

How often does it happen to you that you receive different recommendations and when you compare them it is just too difficult to make a decision?! A friend approached me with the question which host would be the better choice: IX Web Hosting or BlueHost?

 

In my opinion, IX Web Hosting and Bluehost web hosting are both very solid web hosting companies. Both web hosts fall into the category “great web hosting company” and I would recommend them both. But this would still not answer the question which one of the 2 to choose. We wanted to compare both web hosts, but the different web hosting packages on each side made it a little difficult to do this for all packages and to come to 1 conclusion. However, 2 packages seemed to be a good fit for a comparison and below you will find this high level comparison of features and pricing for the Business Web Hosting packages for each Web Host.

 

Bluehost Web hosting is a professional web hosting provider. Bluehost promotes a business web hosting package with unlimited storage, unlimited transfer and unlimited domain hosting. To compare Bbluehost with ixwebhosting, we picked the ixwebhosting business package. This Business Web Hosting Package is not only aimed at businesses, but also at webmasters who require a little more from a shared web hosting account. The Ixwebhosting business plan comes with unlimited storage and unlimited data transfer as well as unlimited domain hosting.

 

In addition to above hosting features, ix web hosting is offering two free domain names when you sign up + multiple dedicated IP addresses. IX Web Hosting also comes with free merchant account access for ecommerce website hosting. This ixwebhosting business hosting package is currently selling at a low $6.45 per month, while the Bluehost business web hosting package is selling a notch higher – at $6.95 per month.

 

Conclusion: IX web hosting is offering more hosting features for less money compared to Bluehost! The price difference is insignificant and either choice will be good for you. Let us know which one you picked and what  you like about your new web host (or dislike for that matter).

Visit IX Web Hosting to review all Features

 

Visit BlueHost to review all Features

Protecting Your Wordpress Installation

Many web hosts offer their hosting accounts with tons of features – including auto-installers for many popular Open Source software packages. One of the most popular software packages offerd with these automated installers is the blogging software “Wordpress”. Wordpress is a very popular blogging  software and can be used for blogging, but is also frequently used as a content management system (CMS). With the high popularity of this software come more risks as well. Worpdress has been targeted by many hackers over the years and while the software is quite secure, there is always a risk.

For one, outdated installations of Wordpress can be easily hacked and second the available plugins might also be a backdoor for a hacker. I recently came across this new firewall plugin for Wordpress and decided to install it on one of my Wordpress driven websites for testing. It turned out to be a great success. I had the plugin configured to email me upon attack. The plugin stopped several SQL injection attacks based out of China last night while I was sleeping. While I was dreaming about more affiliate success (just kidding) the Wordpress firewall plugin protected my website and did let the attacker run into this virtual roadblock.

The firewall plugin is free to use and therefore should be a standard plugin for you to install on your Wordpress installation at your web host of choice. The firewall plugin is extremely easy to configure as you can see on the pictures below. It comes completely pre-configured (you might want to add your email address of choice) so that you do not have to do anything other than activating the plugin.

My recommendation for you would be to install it as soon as possible. I have several websites running on Wordpress and are pushing the plugin out to all of them. The Firewall Plugin for Wordpress is available from here.

If you do need a web host where you can run Wordpress, check out IX Web Hosting and Hostgator – both are excellent choices when it comes to cheap webhosting.