There’s one particular UK webhost that’s investing heavily in advertising right now, with a campaign claiming that server speed directly impacts your website’s effectiveness in Google, to the extent that Google actually penalises slow loading websites.

Personally, I’m not 100% convinced, and even if Google does pay attention to speed of the server (load speed of the page is another matter) then I’m sure it’s significance is minor compared to many other things I’d consider first if my SEO needed improving.

That said…  a fast loading website (helped by a fast server) is clearly an important thing – moreso for users looking to minimise the time they spend hunting down info or browsing for products/services to buy online. 

At NSDesign, we had a hunch that our servers were among the fatest in the UK, especially since we’re what you might call a “budget host” (at £25 for a standard shared linux host – we’re certainly in the “budget” price range), so we did a little research…

Independant “performance benchmarking” site www.webperf.net lists 170 UK Webhosts, and regularly tests their performance (measuring the Mean Rate in K/Sec – ie: the speed!).  We’re currently at a respectable position 16, well ahead of many of the major Hosting “giants” (the ones you see advertising full page in .NET magazine).  A quick check of the 15 hosts above us, and it’s no surprise that on average, most of these companies charge considerably more than us, with a few just specialising in providing high-end dedicated servers (no end-user hosting at all).

Something to proud of for certain, but how do we compare to the uk host that’s claiming to be so fast that even google prefers them?  Well – unfortunately they don’t list themselves in Webperf, so we resorted to a quick a simple speed test of their own website homepage using www.alertra.com and also did the exact same on the NSDesign.co.uk homepage.

Once we’ve removed the duplicate test locations, the above results show that on average (across the globe), we’re over 60% faster, and when tested in the UK (the London test), our access was over 40% quicker.  FORTY PERCENT quicker than (if we believe the hype) one of the UK’s fastest hosting companies.  Not bad for a little webhost from Glasgow.  Maybe helps explain why our own Google Search listings are so highly placed….  page1, position1 for keywords such as “Web Hosting Glasgow”, and “Linux Hosting Scotland”.  Server speed, or just damn fine SEO?  You can decide, but no matter the conclusion, well done us

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Susan Boyle is currently enjoying unexpected Global success following her recent appearance on “Britains Got Talent”, with the subsequent media hype help making her into a household name, but NOT on the internet.  Why? – because all of the susanboyle internet domains names were snapped up by cybersquatters, the moment they realised the value in her name (with the exception of the .com – which was already owned by a artist in Texas – I wonder if her spam has increased?).

Many of the sites which were registered in the days following her appearance on the show are branded “fan sites”, but call me cynical – I’m sure they’ll also be fully aware of the potential value such a high profile celebrity name brings with it.  With YouTube now at over 50 MILLION views for the Susan Boyle Clip, it’s easy to see how getting just a small percentage of the current Google searches to your site could bring in some financial gain, not to mention the possibility of Susan herself wanting to buy it from them.

On the 17th April, I emailed Talkback Thames (the production company responsible for Susan’s current fame), and explained:

“…surely you have a responsibility to Susan, to help protect her best interests, and with the knowledge that she was likely to become the subject of media interest (given the show is pre-recorded), I find it difficult to understand why you (acting on her behalf) did not takle measures to ensure the relevant domain names were secured in advance of such public exposure, and therefore protecting her online identity for the future.”
 
I did received a response, claiming that they “already have domain names secured for them (they are just not active yet)”, however I’ve still to find the domains they are referring to, and in a news article released just 1 week after this, Susan herself is reported to have confirmed she doesn’t actually have an official website.

The issue of celebrity cybersquatting is nothing new, and I use Susan Boyle as a very current example, however, I could easily substitute any “reality TV star” from Britain’s got Talent, or X Factor etc.  The same thing happens every year with Big Brother – the contestant’s names are registered as domain names often within minutes of them being announced on the first live show.  We know – we’ve seen the orders!

So whether you’re destined to be the next overnight global success or not, make sure that you understand the value in your own name, and take steps to protect it online by registering your domain name(s),  or risk exploitation by all your adoring “fans”.

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Many people take advantage of “email forwarding” – the ability to easily forward email from your domain onto for example your hotmail or gmail home address.

Sounds a perfectly good thing to do, and what harm can it possible cause?  In actual fact – a LOT of harm, to you and any other people hosted on the same server as you!

Lets say your name is dave, and you have the domain poundshop.com.  You setup an email forwarder for dave@poundshop.com to forward to your dave1296@hotmail.com, and all your email arrives very conveniently for you at Hotmail for you to read, and process in the normal way.

But ANYTHING sent to dave@poundshop.com is forwarded on – including all the spam that you’ve been getting lately.  This causes 2 main problems:

1) Some ISPs (such as Hotmail and AOL) don’t recognise the true source of the spam, seeing it as originating from the last “hop” in the delivery route – ie: your poundshop.com domain, and our server.

2) Some ISPs have spam filters in place based on the volume of incoming email, and if you suddenly get a lot of spam email, or – more likely – a lot of “bounced emails” caused by someone spoofing your dave@poundshop.com address, then there’s the potential for a serious volume of email to all be forwarded onto your chosen destination. 

Both scenarios above have the same result – YOU are seen as the spammer, and as a result – the reputation of your domain, and the entire server (with all the other customers hosted on it) is decreased, leading to increased risk of your email being considered spam, or worst case scenario – being totally blacklisted by an ISP or major blacklist provider.

The situation increases exponentially when you setup “catch-all” email forwarding, when EVERYTHING@poundshop.com is forwarded on.  Imagine a spam attack where the spammer sends literally millions of emails to any_word_or_phrase@poundshop.com – all of which are forwarded on, and all of which result in you “spamming” yourself. 

Our advice – NEVER use catch-all email forwarding (in fact never use catch-all email full stop), and only consider email forwarding of any sort if you 100% really have to.  Personally I cannot see any valid reason for needing to forward email.  Some people say that forwarding to Hotmail is convenient as it allows them to pickup their mail from anywhere.  These people don’t realise we provide a perfectly good webmail system to do just that.  Others say it allows them to collect all their various emails into one handy account, and therefore not login to multiple email boxes – this is fine – but forward them all to an address on your domain – NOT an external one.

Many web hosts are now banning email forwarding, removing the capability all together.  And the result for these hosts is a serious decrease in spam complaints against their servers.  We’re not planning on removing email forwarding just yet, but in the long run, it might be inevitable for anyone running a mailserver to come to the conclusion that forwarding email externally is just too much trouble, and the benefits to everyone by turning it off, far outweigh any benefits of having this so called “feature”.

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Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of sitting down to lunch with some of the Nominet Staff, including CEO Lesely Cowley and board member Gordon Dick.

As well as a very nice meal in Malmasion, the opportunity to catch up on new Nominet initiatives within the .UK domain world was well worth it, and  I’d like to highlight just a few of these here…

Renewal Campaign
As some of you may have seen, Nominet are currently involved in a clever marketing campaign, aimed at .UK domain owners, reminding them of the importance of keeping your domain renewal up to date, and generally looking after your domain to ensure it’s not lost.  Their dedicated keepyour.co.uk site and associated marketing is great news..  anything that helps domain users better understand the importance of keeping their contact details up to date, and knowing when their domains should be renewed etc should help stop the many domains that are lost every year because people simply “forget”.

Register a UK domain for 1-10 years
Finally, Nominet will shortly allow the registration of UK domains for anywhere between 1 and 10 years, bringing consistency with Global domains (such as .com).  For us this is a positive step forward…  Customers who wish to give anothe rlayer of protection to their domain can secure it for 10 years at a time, minimising the risk of losing it every 2 years at renewal time.  The 1 year option is also great…  It means that finally we can offer “annual hosting accounts”, and have the UK domain match up with the renewal date (instead of the current situation of the domain being every 2 years, and the host account every year).

2 character Domains
Nominet also confirmed that they are currently looking into the process of making available the limited number of 2 character uk domains (at the moment, a UK domain must be a minimum of 3 characters in length).  So for example – we’ll be hoping to get NS.co.uk.  This whole idea (although a good one) opens up a whole new can of worms regarding how it’’s managed, who get’s first pickings, the prices for these (since demand will be so high) etc…  There’s talk of auctioning them off, with the money going to charity, and I’m expecting that if this is the route they take – the end-price will be well into the 10’s of £1000’s for each one of them – some going for much higher!  Maybe we won’t get our ns.co.uk after all….

Some other general chat between Nominet members focussed on the role that “small players” have in the domain industry..  While it’s impossible for small companies to match the crazy “domain names for a penny” offers that some of the Domain Giants can offer, everyone agreed that smaller companies by their very nature offer a better personalised service, both in terms of other value added services, and also customer support.  There’s even a call for Nominet to offer “accreditation” to members who can show and continually demonstrate a high standard of service across all areas related to domain registration – and I would agree that this is a good step forward, increasing consumer confidence and proving that just because we don’t give domains away for 1p, there’s a LOT more to choosing who to register with than just price alone.

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Last week ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announced significant changes in the way web domains will begin appear. In addition to the most common web suffixes such as .com and location specific domains like .co.uk, domain names can now be based on any string of letters, allowing the registration of thousands of new domain names. Businesses will now be allowed to apply for a far wider range of domains including more specific locations like .london and .scotland and suffixes relevant to particular industries such as .bank, .flight, .entertainment or .gamble. The existing system categorises web addresses under 260 geographic and general names. The new domain names will begin to appear next year.

There has been concern among the web community as the changes will surely make the web a more complex and expensive place for small businesses and home users, while affecting web security and opening up more opportunities for fraudsters and cybersquatters. Small companies will find it more expensive to maintain their web presence as they be will be forced to buy a lot more domains. The pricing of the new domains will also vary more.

One of the biggest concerns is that the changes could lead the way to a huge online red light district where all adult sites would carry the .xxx or similar suffixes. ICANN had cleared this type of domain then later withdrew it. The process of clearing a new suffix involves the the applicant going through an initial review where anyone can raise concerns on aspects such as racism or trademark issues though if no objection is raised approval will be very quick.

Other changes in consideration include the use of non-English characters in web addresses which would allow Chinese or Arabic letters to appear. The demand for these type of names has been increasing due to the fact that the the internet expands to non English speakers and those who cannot easily type English characters. This particular type of change would definitely be positive for web accessibility.

Links

BBC News Article on the subject: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7475986.stm

BBC Video Report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7474203.stm

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Would you pay money to a Random Electricity Company that sent you a letter saying your bill was overdue?…  Would you hand over your credit card to a Mobile phone company you’d never heard of, simply because they sent you an official looking invoice for your Vodafone account?  I’d hope not…  So WHY are so many people still getting scammed by the Domain Registry of America (DROA) when it comes to Domain renewals.

We first reported on this outfit back in early 2004, and again just recently, but they are just as active today (if not moreso), and still conning people into transferring their domain names into their control, simply down to their official looking letters.  Check out Nominet’s site for details of other current domain scams.

Do not be fooled, and if in doubt – contact NSDesign for any advise or questions before signing a cheque to a company tht you’ve never heard of!

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Catch-all email may sound like a great way to setup your email – but in practice, it’s almost guaranteed to give you problems.

At first glance – the ability to setup your email to allow everything@yourdomain.com to be received to your inbox sounds great – especially if you’re trying to promote yourself as being bigger than you actually are.  Once setup, you can simply promote sales@ info@ support@ anythingyoulike@ addresses, all handled in exactly the same way by your default email account.

The main problem with catch-all email is spam.  Unfortunately Spam Email isn’t going away – it’s continually on the rise, and the methods spammers use get more elaborate and harder to tackle.  By allowing email to anything@yourdomain, you are inviting a spammer to bombard you with email.  Dictionary attacks (whereby the spammer sends 1000’s of email to randomwords@yourdomain) are common, and with a catch-all email setup – each of spam these emails will be delivered to you. 

The end result is not only a LOT of unnecessary spam email to go through and delete from your inbox, but the potential for your web hosting account to run out of available web-space.  Emails take up space, and it doesn’t take too many spam emails (especially if the mailbox you’re directing them to isn’t regularly checked) to consume 100’s of MB.  Far too often we see “help I’ve run out of webspace” support tickets, caused simply by spam email to a default (catch-all) email account.

The other common occurrence that we see is regarding Spoofed emails.  Again, sad but true – it’s common to have your domain name spoofed by a spammer.  Email spoofingis the practice of changing your name in email so that it looks like the email came from somewhere or someone else.  This isn’t too much of an issue itself (technically, the emails are NOT sent by you, or through your account – and this is easily proved by examining the email headers), but if a spammer sends out a few thousand emails using a from address of random@yourdomain – you can guarantee that most of these emails will bounce – right back to you – because your catch-all accepts email to random@. 

So..  take the time to setup one or more email addresses that you actually use, and make sure you disable catch-all email – otherwise, sit back and enjoy the spam.

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Yesterday’s press announcement from the Scottish Nationalist Government regarding moves to introduce a Top Level Domain (TLD) for Scotland, has sparked some lively debate.  Despite the fact that this is nothing new (similar proposals have been around for many years), finance secretary John Swinney is backing the campaign for the new “.sco” suffix which will see Scotland have it’s own domain space.

My own opinion to the question – “should we bother” is featured in today’s The Scotsman newspaper (p 24), but in short – I seriously question the value in the .sco domain, and can’t help thinking it’s being used by the politicians to push their own agendas, and not the interests of the companies trading online from Scotland.  Shortbread and whisky anyone?

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No matter how often we warn against it, we keep seeing clients lose their domain names due to completely preventable reasons…

Things like…

• Changing email address but not telling us (so therefore not getting reminders)
• Ignoring email reminders until just after the due date
• Leaving it until after that holiday (and after the renewal date)

The expiry date on Domain names should always be considered too late…  ensure your domain is renewed in advance of that date, and make sure that you mark it clearly in your diary, and don’t rely on others to ensure it gets done.

Remember that .com domains (and other “global” domains such as .net and .org etc) WILL go offline the day after the renewal date if the registry hasn’t been paid.  And as a general rule of thumb, we (like every other company and registrar) won’t pay the registry until you pay us!  Leave it much longer than a day, and you risk going into “Redemption” – which starts geting costly.  Ignore it beyond that, and the chances are you WILL lose your domain to someone else – most likely a cybersquatter.

If your name is at all vital to your business, then SECURE IT, either via our own domain protection service, or simply by registering it for longer than 1 or 2 years at a time (.com can be registered for 10 years).  Don’t be one of the many who phone us with “help me – I’ve lost my domain”. 

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I was speaking to a customer earlier who claimed that seconds after searching for an available domain name at Network Solutions, said domain name was instantly showing up as “registered” on other whois lookups.  Back at Network Solutions domain checker – the domain continued to show as available.

This led him to believe that Network Solutions was in fact instantly registering every domain name that people check.  SURELY NOT I thought…  so I did a quick experiment…  I checked on their site for the availability of a random domain – nsdesign20.com – and as expected, this showed as available for registration.  I then checked via Enom (the registry we use for all our .com registrations) and sure enough – nsdesign20.com was registered, and unavailable.

A little more digging shows this practice, commonly known as Domain Name Front Running (or domain tasting) is indeed confirmed by the folks at Network Solutions who claim they are actually trying to ”protect customers” and is not simply a case of them using phishing techniques to hijack or steal domain names, FORCING customers to register with them and no-one else (I’ll let you decide which attitude is correct).  More info can be read on Wikipedia (updated just yesterday).

The good news, for those people who have been conned (as some would suggest) is that they only keep the domain registered for a 4 day period, so that’s good of them, and no I haven’t included an actual link to Network Solutions in this blog post as I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy (I’m not angry – honest). 

Ps – don’t anyone dare register nsdesign20.com when it becomes available in 4 days – It’s critical to our future plans.

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