But TurboHub, our exclusive dashboard for WordPress sites, gives you a snapshot of your security status and makes detecting vulnerabilities and updating your protection as easy as one click.

Whether you take care of your own website or are an agency or web developer who manages dozens of sites, TurboHub makes reviewing security status and making the necessary updates a breeze.

Advanced WordPress Security From One Easy-To-Use Dashboard

The TurboHub security tab is the fastest and easiest way to keep your site safe. Whether you manage one website or 1,000, it is vital for monitoring site health and security.

Loaded with features to keep you secure, you can quickly review potential threats in one convenient place. Verify your SSL certificates, make sure malware detection and proactive defenses are enabled, and review potential threats.

Plus, TurboHub recommends actions to eliminate security vulnerabilities. From salt key status to inactive plugins or themes, you can take immediate action directly from the control panel. In most cases, you can enhance your security with one click.

What Is TurboHub?

TurboHub is A2 Hosting’s exclusive control panel for WordPress sites. Designed to make managing and protecting WordPress sites easier, it offers comprehensive metrics about the performance, health, and security of your websites.

Improve your efficiency and workflow by reviewing all of your A2 Hosting WordPress sites in one place. Easily view current performance and security snapshots, review recommendations, and make improvements and updates across all of your sites.

TurboHub Security Features

WordPress site security is one of the core features of the TurboHub control panel. From proactive defense to security best practices, it puts the top security features at your fingertips.

SSL Status & Proactive Defense

When it comes to website security, you need to be proactive. TurboHub’s SSL status and proactive defense indicators ensure your SSL certificate is valid and your malware and proactive security defense are active.

SSL, or Secure Sockets Layer, is the industry standard in data encryption for information transferred between a web server and a web browser. It protects online transactions and personal information, ensuring data privacy over the Internet.

A valid SSL certificate tells web browsers – and your customers – that your website follows SSL protocols for secure data transfer, keeping them safe.

Malware and proactive security defenses protect your website against malicious attacks that can hijack your website or steal customer data.

Advanced Website Hosting Protection

TurboHub allows you to instantly validate the status of your firewall and DDoS and brute force protection. These ensure you are safe against attacks designed to gain access to your web server.

A firewall is a digital barrier that blocks unauthorized access to your sites from cyber threats. When active, they block malicious traffic based on predefined security rules.

Reinforced Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection prevents malicious attempts to attack your website and take them offline. DDoS attacks use multiple compromised computer systems to slow down or even crash websites, preventing access to legitimate users.

Brute force protection shields against relentless attacks attempting to log into your system. Attackers will systematically try to guess passwords, encryption keys, or other secret information. Brute force attacks are typically automated, allowing them to rapidly test millions of combinations.

A2 Recommended Actions

TurboHub also includes a number of A2 Hosting recommended security actions, like locking editing abilities on plugins and themes or bcrypt password hashing. These recommendations improve your overall website security, lowering the risk that hackers can access your site data.

Common recommendations include:

• Locking the editing for plugins and themes from WP Admin to prevent the misuse of built-in editing capabilities for malicious purposes.
• Deny direct access to configuration files to block bots and web users from directly accessing and potentially exploiting WordPress config files.
• Remove old wp-config.php backups to eliminate unnecessary files with potentially sensitive information.
• Use bcrypt password hashing for a more secure password storing and hashing method.
• Disable XML-RPC services to close a possible entryway a hacker could exploit your site.

You can easily toggle these options on or off from the TurboHub security panel to fit your security needs and keep your website data safe.

Best Security Practices

TurboHub also analyzes your website to ensure you are following the best security practices. You can identify potential vulnerabilities at a glance and take action to secure your sites. Simply review the recommended security updates and follow the instructions to implement these improvements.

When necessary, TurboHub will recommend the following actions:

• Regenerate salt key passwords to protect your account even if your login cookies are compromised.
• Check for and remove insecure SQL backups and files that could be accessed by hackers.
• Reduce potential vulnerabilities and improve site performance by removing unused plugins and unused WordPress themes.

Just follow the steps associated with each best practice to protect your site.

More TurboHub Features Coming Soon

Committed to the fastest and most reliable hosting solutions, A2 Hosting developed TurboHub to streamline WordPress site performance and management.

From personal sites and hobby projects to agencies and developers managing client sites, it offers features that simplest updates and makes everyone a performance and security expert.

But we aren’t done yet. We have an exciting lineup of advancements that will enhance your workflow and your websites.

A2 Intelligent Performance

Optimize your site’s performance with the power of AI. A2 Intelligent Performance monitors critical performance indicators to keep your site performing at its best. Easily review the data and make the most informed decisions about your site’s speed and reliability.

A2 AI Assistant Inside WordPress

Launch new websites quickly and easily with our AI co-pilot. Exclusive to TurboHub, our A2 AI Assistant for WordPress writes content, generates images, and can even design page layouts. Trained on WordPress help documentation, it will answer common questions and help you get the most out of your WordPress site.

Enhanced Staging

Our upcoming enhanced staging feature makes developing, testing, and deploying website updates a snap. This robust tub maximizes compatibility by recording changes on both staging and live sites. And the advanced 2-way sync ensures changes are mirrored in both environments.

Enhance Your Website Security With TurboHub

Enhance site security and improve your site performance with TurboHub for WordPress from A2 Hosting. Quickly review potential security risks and easily make improvements to protect your website. Streamline your WordPress site management today. TurboHub is available on all A2 Hosting WordPress hosting plans.

The post WordPress Security Made Easy With TurboHub appeared first on The A2 Posting.

If you manage multiple sites, you know how much of a hassle it is to keep them up-to-date and secure. A2 Hosting’s new cutting-edge agency management control panel, TurboHub, is here to help!

TurboHub offers robust features that streamline site management for agencies and developers. Not only does it simplify your workflow and client onboarding process, but you can now update all of the sites you manage with just one click.

What Is TurboHub?

TurboHub is our new state-of-the-art control panel for WordPress sites. It not only speeds up site performance but also makes it easy to manage multiple sites from a single screen.

TurboHub is an essential tool for agencies and developers who manage multiple sites. It provides comprehensive metrics about each site’s performance, health, and security.

Plus, you can improve performance and bulk update WordPress plugins on all of your sites with one click. This saves you time while ensuring that your client’s sites are running at peak performance and security.

Features Designed for Agencies and Developers

Designed with agencies and developers in mind, Turbohub eliminates the hassle and headache of managing sites separately. It allows you to track all of your A2 Hosting sites in one place and makes updates and performance checks a breeze.

Improve Your Workflow

TurboHub makes your workflow more efficient. Quickly review all of your A2 Hosting WordPress sites in one easy-to-use control panel. Check site performance and health, then easily roll out updates across all sites. 

Intuitive User Management System

Manage, add, or remove users for all the sites you manage. Set user permissions and control separate access levels for each account you manage.

Streamline Client Onboarding

If your clients also use A2 Hosting, they can easily add you to their accounts with TurboHub. This can dramatically simplify your onboarding and initial site review processes. Have your client add you to their account through the TurboHub user management system.

Bulk Plugin Management

Elevate your plugin update process with TurboHub. Simply review the updates for all your clients or sites from one dashboard. Select all or choose individual updates and deploy them across each site with ease. You can even switch to maintenance mode or hide the site from search engines during the update process.

Site Status at a Glance

Quickly review site status and performance from a single dashboard. Easily check if your sites are online and running and verify SSL, domain, and nameserver status. Plus, you can automate site maintenance across all the sites you manage with just a click.

Optimize Site Performance

Easily implement performance enhancements to speed up sites. TurboHub analyzes each site and recommends improvements to boost performance. Then quickly deploy changes with just one click.

More Powerful TurboHub Features for Agencies

From improving communication between your team to identifying security vulnerabilities, there is so much more to TurboHub. Here are some of the other powerful features we included with agencies and developers in mind:

• Quickly scan for security vulnerabilities.
• Communicate between team members or companies with the site notes feature.
• Automate plugin updates for each site.
• Hide sites from search engines while under construction.
• Place sites in maintenance mode during edits.
• Quickly access all of your WordPress sites from one location.

How Do I Get TurboHub?

TurboHub is available now and is included free with all A2 Hosting WordPress plans. You can access TurboHub and start speeding up your site management through your MyA2 panel.

Ready to experience the benefits of a faster, more efficient WordPress site? Simply choose one of our plans for instant access to TurboHub. It is included with our Managed WordPress, Managed VPS, Managed Dedicated, and Shared plans.

Don’t have an A2 plan? Get started with TurboHub today!

What’s Next for TurboHub?

A2 Hosting has always been committed to the fastest, most reliable website hosting solutions and the best tools available. And these TubroHub features are just the beginning.

Stay tuned for future updates that will speed up your website, keep it more secure, and simplify managing multiple sites at the same time. Here is a quick look at upcoming improvements on the TurboHub roadmap:

A2 Intelligent Performance (Coming July 2024)

Use advanced AI technology to automatically optimize your site’s performance. This upcoming feature monitors load times and other critical performance indicators to ensure your site is always performing at its best. This will help you make informed decisions to continuously improve your site’s speed and reliability.

A2 AI Assistant Inside WordPress

Improve your content with high-quality AI content from inside WordPress. Our exclusive TurboHub AI assistant for WordPress will help speed up creating and launching new sites. Acting as your co-pilot, it will write content, generate images,  and even design page layouts. Plus, it’s trained on WordPress help documentation, so it can answer common questions and help you learn more about the system.

Enhanced Staging

The enhanced staging feature streamlines developing, testing, and deploying website updates. This robust staging tool records changes to both staging and live sites for maximum compatibility. The 2-way sync ensures only the changes are pushed live without overwriting your data.

Get Started With TurboHub Today

TurboHub is the ultimate solution for managing multiple WordPress sites, especially for agencies and developers. With its robust features and seamless integration, TurboHub simplifies workflow, enhances site performance, and ensures site security. Get started with TurboHub today and experience the future of WordPress site management.

The post Simplifying WordPress Site Management for Agencies with TurboHub appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Our Legacy of Speed and Performance

At A2 Hosting, we have built a strong reputation in the web hosting industry as leaders in speed and performance. Our commitment to providing the fastest, most reliable hosting solutions has always been our top priority. And that is why we developed TurboHub. It not only helps speed up site performance, but it also streamlines managing your WordPress sites.

What is TurboHub?

TurboHub is our state-of-the-art WordPress control panel that makes WordPress sites faster than ever! It’s an essential tool that allows individual site owners to improve performance, site health, and security. And the multi-site dashboard simplifies the workflow for agencies and developers. From a single control panel, you can monitor and maintain all of your sites, creating a seamless and more efficient WordPress experience.

Features of TurboHub

Site Performance Optimizations

TurboHub’s comprehensive metrics help you gain in-depth insights into your site’s performance. It highlights top recommendations and allows for one-click changes to boost performance.

Single-Click Multi-Site Management

Managing multiple WordPress sites has never been easier. With TurboHub, you can see all your sites from a single location, making updates and performance checks a breeze. This is particularly valuable for agencies and developers handling numerous client sites.

Site Health Monitoring

Keep your websites in peak condition with our site health monitoring tool! This is perfect for agencies and site owners with multiple websites and gives you an at-a-glance view of a site’s status to help you maintain smooth and secure operations effortlessly. Monitoring and maintaining multiple sites has never been easier!

Security Vulnerability

Through our partnership with Patchstack, we also alert you to high-priority plugin vulnerabilities so your site is never at risk. With the ability to see site risk at a glance, it helps you keep everything running smoothly and securely.

Other features to enhance your WordPress experience:

• Quick access to all of your WordPress sites.
• Grant access to users managing your account or request access to sites you manage for others.
• Automate plugin updates for each site.
• Site notes to enable easy communication between team members or companies.
• Quick access to databases, files, and email.
• Status information that lets you know your sites are online and running, including SSL, domain, and nameserver status.
• Ability to hide sites from search engines while under construction.
• Ability to place sites in maintenance mode during edits.

How Do I Get TurboHub?

TurboHub is now available free for all WordPress sites on our Managed WordPress, Managed VPS, and Shared plans. By choosing one of our plans, you instantly gain access to TurboHub and can start experiencing the benefits of a faster, more efficient WordPress site. TurboHub can be conveniently accessed through your MyA2 panel.

Don’t have an A2 plan, take advantage of our low prices and get started with TurboHub today!

Stay Tuned for More

TurboHub is constantly growing and evolving. We have an exciting roadmap ahead of us with many new features and improvements planned! At A2 we are dedicated to providing our users with the best tools available, and we encourage you to stay tuned for future updates on how TurboHub can help speed up and secure your website.

What’s Next for TurboHub?

A few items on our TurboHub roadmap that will help us achieve our goal of providing WordPress professionals with fast setup, fast websites, and fast support:

• A2 Intelligent Performance – Leverages advanced AI technology to automatically optimize your site’s performance. Easily monitor load times, uptime, and other critical performance indicators to ensure your site is always performing at its best. This will help you make informed decisions to continuously improve your site’s speed and reliability.
• A2 AI assistant inside WordPress – Helps you write content, generate images, and answer common WordPress questions.
• Enhanced Staging – Records changes to staging or live sites and lets them be pushed live or pulled back to staging.

Get started with an A2 Hosting plan today and get access to this new amazing tool and enhance your WordPress experience!

The post Introducing TurboHub – Transform Your WordPress Experience appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Focus Area 1. Auditing Your Site

Creating a positive user experience for potential customers on your website
is important for any online business. Before you begin to change elements of your website, one of the first steps is to check out what you have so far in order to approach your redesign with a fully informed eye.

Investigate the Front End

First, investigate the front end of your website. Click through the different pages and elements of your site and see what pops out at you. Is there a block of text that can be written more concisely? Does your image in the top right not seem
to match as well with the rest of your content? Make a list of all the things that come to mind as you deep dive into the front-facing part of your site. Check out this blog that talks about how to perform a thorough content audit for your site if you’re looking for help making a start!

Investigate the Backend

Next, it’s time to investigate the backend of your website. The first question to ask yourself: how are you currently tracking metrics? Are you using tools like Google Analytics? If not, that’s the first place to start! Check out our blog that talks about how to integrate Google Analytics into your WordPress site.

If you’re already utilizing a tracking tool, there are a few important metrics you should look at:

What pages are most popular? This metric will help show you what is currently working well for your site.

What’s your average bounce rate? The overall goal is to avoid a high bounce rate. By looking at this statistic you can better understand if customers enter your site and immediately find what they’re looking for, or if they leave quickly to go look at another source.

What’s the most popular customer journey? Where are people dropping off and what pages are they navigating to most often? Depending on these answers, you can often tell how well your site’s UI/UX is working and whether there are places you need to edit and improve.

Some aspects that could affect this are page speed, appropriate content on each page, and how user-friendly your website truly is.

During this process, take notes on what you notice when looking at your tracking tools to help you decide what to focus on when you start your editing process.

Perform A/B Testing

Next, it may be smart to work in some A/B Testing. This is a great way to organically test whether some elements you noticed in your audit are legitimate issues or not. To perform an A/B test begin changing certain elements of your website like text size, colors, and images one at a time and see if each edit makes a difference in your conversions. By changing one element at a time, you will quickly know which elements are working and which aren’t.

Ask Your Audience What They Want

You have the best resource at your disposal: your existing customers! Set up a poll directly on your homepage or social media or even send an email or create a survey to obtain your customers’ opinion on aspects like fonts, navigation, and graphics.

See if they have any comments on how they think your site could flow better or be more appealing to a future audience!

Focus Area 2: Updating Your Look: Branding Guidelines

Now that you’ve done some research and you’ve armed yourself with areas to focus on, it’s time to start the actual editing process. The first aspect to consider is the aesthetics of your website. Having a tool like branding guidelines can establish consistency in your branding. Fonts and Sizing

First off, be intentional and strategic with your typography. Keep your font and sizing variations to a minimum. For font changes and sizing, less is more. Some strategic variations can look cool but use with discretion.

Images

An easy place to start is with obvious stock photos lurking around your website. Avoid staged pictures (i.e. portraits of individuals staring into the camera or fake group high fives). If you must use a stock photo, choose natural, realistic poses, creative camera angles, and lighting. Choose photos that align with your brand. Want to layer text over your photos? Make sure the text stands out. Here’s a guide on how to create custom graphics for your site if you decide you’re feeling creative and want to experiment with your own!

Colors

The colors displayed on your website are also important. By using colors strategically you can help guide your customers through your website, carefully choosing where their eyes go to first and the pattern of things they notice as they scan your various pages. Certain colors have certain meanings to users and there is an entire color language called Pantone. Here are some examples:

• Red: passion, anger, love, confidence
• Orange: youthfulness, cheer, warmth, hunger
• Yellow: sunshine, happiness, energy, optimism
• Green: nature, fertility, balance, cleanliness
• Blue: water, tranquility, trust, power • Purple: nobility, power, elegance,
• wisdom
• White: peace, balance, purity, simplicity, winter
• Gray: neutral, sophistication, balance, wisdom
• Black: exclusivity, modern, power, sophistication, mystery
• Brown: earth, stability, tradition, nature
• Pink: love, romance, femininity, baby girls, humanistic
• Turquoise: tranquility, clarity, compassion, healing

Logo Usage

Your logo is you. Give it top billing! Logos set the tone, value, aesthetic, and recognition of your brand. You want it to be remembered! Many companies choose to display their logo in the upper left corner of their website.

WordPress Themes

Using an updated WordPress theme is an essential part of any WordPress website. WordPress themes can even impact the loading times of your whole site. Browse the many free themes available to you in case you decide your site needs a complete refresh.

Focus Area 3: Enhancing Your Website User Experience

At the end of the day, how your users interact with your website can be the difference between a conversion and a missed opportunity. The user interface and user experience, better known as UI/UX, is an important thing to consider when committing to redesigning and refreshing your online presence! Below are some ways you can make sure yours is working in your favor rather than against you.

Simplicity/Spacing

Using white space, also called negative space, can help you bring attention to details of your site that are most important. Spacing around titles can even improve your customers’ experience by 20%. More white space helps separate sections and guides your customers’ eyes down the page. Less white space can indicate that elements of your site are supposed
to go together. Through the yin and yang of content and spacing you can control how your user experiences every part of your page.

Website Navigation and Menu

Another important element of website design is your navigational system. The most important thing to remember when building your website’s navigation is that your users need to be able to find what they are looking for quickly and easily. Make sure your search tools stand out (normally located in the upper right corner) and that your colors are working together for readability.

Your menu should be located at the top of the page and should have no more than seven items (not including dropdowns). There should be ample space in between menu sections for aesthetic reasons. It can be helpful to use a fixed navigation bar as well so if your customers want to move to another section of the site they don’t have to scroll all the way back to the top of the page. A good rule of thumb for your overall design is that users should be able to access any point in three clicks or less. This ensures both efficiency and lack of confusion.

Mobile Responsive and Optimization

In 2021 it’s important your website is both mobile-friendly and responsive.
On average, 80% of users are searching on their smartphones so speed is vital. Though WordPress automatically makes sure your page is responsive (scales up and down with screen size changes and various browsers) it can be helpful to place buttons in the middle of your page for optimum mobile use. It’s also important to ensure a similar experience on both mobile and desktop viewing. This will help with consistency and return customers.

Hosting Choice

53% of people will navigate away from a page that takes more than
3 seconds to load. This means who you choose to host your website will have a major impact not only on your speed, but also on your website storage, uptime, and responsiveness to any future problems. That’s why we recommend going with A2 Hosting. Not only do we have a 99.9% uptime guarantee but our Turbo plans can increase your load times by 20x! This will improve your bounce rates, SEO scores, and conversions.

Speed

Explore these steps for a faster user experience with your chosen host:

• Optimize images
  Reduce plugins
  Clean up your themes
• Use a CDN
• Check as you grow to make sure you don’t need more resources (VPS Hosting can help!)

Selling Yourself and Your Website

Now that you have cleaned up the look and feel of your website and optimized your site for speed, it’s important to make sure you’re selling yourself and converting your customers! Below are helpful considerations.

Blog Posts and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Today, the way to win the web is through quality content and proper SEO procedures. Good blog posts keep your customers engaged and eager for more content. To achieve this, a solid SEO foundation is necessary. Start by targeting keywords to move your site up the ranks on Google searches. You want to generate as much traffic as you can and build credibility within your chosen industry. Check out our guide to SEO-Friendly blog formatting to see what you can do to improve your next post! Plus check out these three SEO mistakes to avoid.

Social Sharing

At the end of each blog post (and preferably at the bottom of your website), there should be links for social sharing. This will allow your followers to share your valuable content on different social media platforms. This is critical to help you build your following and to create an easy way for people to find your site.

Social Proof

You should also have areas of social proof somewhere on your website. This can be anything from written reviews to videos of customer feedback. These areas of true customer engagement lend your brand and your site credibility. They help potential customers trust that you will do what you say you do based on the positive feedback of others. We recommend you try and implement videos because these are a great way to keep your customers engaged with your website and fortify/strengthen human connection.

Calls to Actions

Finally, calls to action are where you close the deal and help your website convert potential customers into customers for life. Make sure they are

strategically placed in places like the top of your navigation, below sections that specifically require action, and at the bottom of the web page. They can be in banners, buttons, or whatever form you like the most! Some good examples include:

• Sign up for our email list!
• Shop in our store!
• Fill out your own lead form.
• Click for more info.
• See pricing.

Conclusion

Refreshing your website can be a long process, but we hope with the help of this guide it’s both easy and successful. Make sure to check out A2 Hosting for great hosting plans for your website and subscribe to our newsletter for future helpful content.

The post Three Areas to Focus on to Ensure Website Redesign Success appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Deciding between Shared Hosting and VPS, Turbo or Standard, Unmanaged or Managed… What is the right choice for you? The answer (as it always is) depends on your situation.

The first step in making this decision is to understand the differences between Shared and VPS.

The Differences Between Shared and VPS Hosting

Imagine you are living in an apartment building. Your building has 10 apartments total. Think of Shared Hosting like this apartment except that the size of each unit changes based on the needs of each tenant. For example, if Dale in Apartment 3B decides on Saturday night to have 50 of his closest friends over for a party his apartment will automatically grow from 800sq feet to 2000sq ft during the time of the party. Similarly if Beth in Apartment 4B throws an equal sized party at the same time, you may find yourself and all your possessions squeezed into a room the size of a hall closet. Turn on the faucet for a glass of water?… Sorry Beth and Dale are using all that too. Want to turn on a light to read?… Sorry about the blinking, Dale bought a disco light.

You may be thinking, why would I ever want my hosting to be in a situation like that? One of the key features of A2’s Shared Hosting is that we limit the number of people who you can share your server with. This reduces the chances of a resource draining scenario like this from happening to your site. Plus, Shared Hosting also limits how much of the resources can be used by any one individual. If your neighbors have extra space to hold parties and everyone is happy with their portion of the resources available, then you would most likely never have a problem.

But even in the best situations when everyone gets along, there is always a chance that one of your neighbors may need to take more and it could affect your website if you are also in a peak period at the same time. This is why Shared Hosting is the most inexpensive hosting option and for many is a perfect, low cost solution for their website.

Using the same analogy, VPS (or Virtual Private Server) is also like an apartment The difference? While you are still sharing the server hardware with other people, all of the specifications of the portion you are alloted are fixed. If you have an 800sq feet apartment, it is always there and doesn’t change… the walls never move. It’s dedicated to you and you alone. You have increased security, guaranteed and fixed resource allocation, and you know that won’t change.

It all Depends on What Type of Website You Are Running

If you are running a website to show off your photography, a collection, or maybe even selling some items on the side, Shared Hosting is probably just fine for you. This type of hosting is made for the individual, the blogger, and the simple website. It allows those who want to have a cost-effective presence online to have one! Most Shared Hosting users use WordPress and A2 has a one click option to install it when you set up your account. To keep the apartment analogy going even further, with the options available it’s like choosing what you want to furnish it with at the time as signing the lease.

But if your website is a mission-critical or key component of your business then Shared Hosting is most likely not the best option for you. Why? Because using a more dedicated environment increases stability, performs better (generally speaking), and it is more secure and not affected by the noisy neighbor. These are all things you want to have when hosting a website that includes handling credit card transactions, sales leads, etc. Now this is not to say that Shared Hosting is not secure, stable, or performant. In fact, I’d put A2’s Shared Hosting toe-to-toe against any other hosting provider in any of these areas and we would compete. It is just that there is more control and more options with a VPS hosting plan than with Shared.

In addition, while a Shared Hosting plan may “give you” enough resources to run your site, if the site begins experiencing a spike the resources may, in reality, not be available… because your neighbor may be using them.

Our VPS partner, Virtuozzo, recommends that you ask yourself these questions when trying to decide which is right for you…

• Is the website a core part of your business?
• Is your website performing as well as you would like?
• Do you sell products or services online?
• Do you drive traffic to your website through paid advertisements, social media or through other means?
• Are search engine rankings important to you?

If the answer is yes to any of these items, then VPS Hosting is most likely a better option…. BUT, there’s a caveat to this you should think about…

Do You Have the Technical Chops for VPS?

Shared Hosting is designed to be simple. With each step of the journey A2 tries to make it as easy as possible. This means that you will have a graphic interface (or GUI) throughout the process. Whether it’s cPanel or the WordPress Admin, most of the interactions you will have with a Shared plan will be by clicking on stuff on a screen to make things happen.

VPS, on the other hand, requires a bit more technical knowledge. Because a virtual machine can use a number of different operating systems and underlying software, it does not come with a cPanel (although it is available as an add-on). This means that the initial interactions with the server (to set up any operating systems, tools, or applications) will be done through a Command Line Interface (or CLI). Using a CLI requires specialized knowledge and training and is usually only something a SysAdmin, Server Admin, or Developer would most likely undertake.

To use our apartment analogy one more time, while you have a nice 800sq foot apartment with the water and electric allotment you need there really aren’t any doors… that is except the secret one that only the technical folks know how to use.

This is Where Managed Comes In

So, what if you are a cake-and-eat-it-too kind of person? You want to have the security, performance and stability of VPS but you don’t have the technical skill set required to set everything up or maintain it. For this A2 offers Managed VPS hosting plans. These plans offer you all the benefits of an unmanaged plan with additional support to help you get things setup and keep those things up-to-date.

Managed VPS plans also come with a cPanel license giving back the GUI interface to make things easier on you from a technical perspective.

With the additional help from the A2 Guru Team, Managed VPS is a great option if you don’t have or don’t want to have to hire someone with those extra technical skills required to make it successful.

Comparing VPS vs Shared Hosting

Whether to choose Shared or VPS for your hosting is largely based on your situation and use case. Here are some of the pros and cons to consider to help you choose the one that’s best for you.

Shared is Fine, But I Want More Performance

So if you start down this path and find yourself realizing that Shared Hosting is just fine for what you are doing,
but you still want to have increased experience for your users, A2 offers Turbo Boost and Turbo Max plans. These shared environments offer better hard drives (NVMe which are 3X faster than standard SSD), improved processors, and built-in caching. They also offer LightSpeed, which is a software application designed to improve the performance of the server you are on by up to 11X.

One thing to remember, however, is that it might not be the server that is making your website run slowly. To get best performance you should remember to optimize your site. You could have very large images that are taking time for your site to load. If you are using WordPress there are several plugins that can help with image compression and caching that can improve the speed and performance of your website. It would be a good idea to look at these options and see how that helps before making the move to a faster hosting plan.

If that sounds daunting, For WordPress users we offer Managed WordPress hosting plans that give you extra help and support while on a Shared Plan.

VPS Hosting may seem a little daunting for the non-technical user, but if you are running a website that is key to the success of your business or necessary to provide income, Managed VPS Hosting is the right choice.

A Note From the CEO

In late 2020, A2 Hosting launched a series of new VPS hosting products.These new VPS offerings took us to the next level when it came to performance, stability and security.

A2 made the strategic decision to partner with Virtuozzo, a market-leading provider of container virtualization. Utilizing their modern software and it’s included toolset, we are now able to offer our products state-of-the- art virtual environments.

Once we implemented the new solution, performance on the new servers increased by more than 40%, furthering our brand promise of Our Speed, Your Success. We are committed to providing the fastest, most stable hosting experience because, as the world moves faster, search engine algorithms seem to change on a weekly basis and visitor attention spans continue to shorten. This all impacts metrics like cart abandonment and bounce rate. The last thing our customers want to worry about is their web hosting. Our customers rely on us to provide hosting speeds that give them the edge for better rankings, better conversion rates and better bounce rates, which we deliver consistently.”

We promise to continue to improve the performance of our VPS offerings.
– Bryan Muthig, CEO

A Word from Our Partner

As a shared hosting customer, when do you know you should switch to a different type of hosting?

In my case, I switched when it became painfully obvious. I am not a technical web developer, but I have experienced a lot as a nascent, hobbyist, and small business owner over a 20-year period. During this time, I have volunteered to build numerous websites, one of which was for a new charitable foundation. It was ( I thought) the best I had ever built. My excitement was quickly diminished when I went to demo the website and it just sat there, failing to load.

While the person I built the website for was ecstatic. For me, I was disappointed as I spent more time trying to “fix” the website and the issues related to the speed than it took me to build the website itself.

With years of experience as a business user and many of those years working within the hosting industry, I still find myself reluctant to spend what I fear as hours working on migrating my entire hosting account or just a website to something that will perform better.

A2 Hosting gives a good recommendation; right from the start on the front page of their website, Shared Hosting is a “great solution for a blog or a personal website.”

That is what shared hosting is best for. Even with a blog, if you are expecting higher traffic and to monetize the website, you should think of it as a business website. If your website is for a business, you need a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or higher. If you are not a technical user, you need a Managed plan.

Whether or not you made the decision recently or many years ago, if you are like me, when is it time to make the move to a better hosting solution?

My personal decision can be attributed to a few different factors. I was running a WordPress website on an account with multiple other WordPress websites and other types as well. It was too much.

WordPress can be tricky to optimize and you might not ever get it to where you want it to be with all of the plugins tried and image compression. Shared hosting resources can have a tough time keeping up with the demands and VPS is a great option to give your website a boost.

There are ways you can check the performance of your website and receive recommendations of how to make improvements. To start, you can use free tools like Pingdom and GTmetrix, with the latter now powered by Lighthouse, Google’s latest set of tools for website developers.

If you are still experiencing performance issues, once you feel you have done all you can on your own you may want to find a freelancer to help you with continuing to improve your website.

In the end, it is really simple, if your website is a core part of your business, Shared Hosting is probably not the best option for you. If you are selling something, this becomes even more important. Whether it is Magento, PrestaShop, Woocommercem or another eCommerce option, you will be better off using VPS over Shared Hosting.

The post Choosing Between Shared and VPS: A Guide appeared first on The A2 Posting.

So, Does Website Migration Affect SEO? 

Any server change carries a slight SEO risk with or without modifications to your website,  but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You see, migrations primarily affect site speed. So if you’re migrating to a host like A2 Hosting, you’ll notice increased site speed. As loading time is a top SEO ranking consideration, this can only help you, not hurt you. Unfortunately, this means the opposite for migrating to a slower host (maybe it’ll make you think again about migrating to a cheaper host?). 

When users experience slow loading times, they’re less likely to revisit your site in the future, especially when more than 50% of visitors abandon a website if a page takes over 2 seconds to load. Since 2010, speed has been a ranking factor for desktop searches on Google. When researching new hosts, look for speed optimizations or determine how the web hosting company optimizes its servers for speed. 

For example, at A2 Hosting, we use only SSD and NVMe storage. “Our speed, your success” is our motto because we believe that speed is the most critical factor in attracting, maintaining, and increasing traffic and conversions. Additionally, our Turbo servers offer Litespeed caching, and specific servers also offer the AMD EPYC processors. When combined, these three elements contribute to lightning-fast speeds.  

Changing web hosting providers can also come with risks, especially if you lose certain functionalities at the new host or move from Apache to Nginx or IIS (Internet Information Services). If you’re wary about changing hosts, talk with someone on our sales team about the process and ensure your server needs match up with what we can offer you. 

Now that we’ve discussed how website migrations affect SEO, let’s review the migration process. Use our SEO checklist to prepare your website for its migration:

• 1. Set up a staging site on your new server. Before canceling your other web hosting plan, compare your existing site’s page load speeds against the new server’s load speeds. Hopefully, the new server improved your site speeds! 
• 2. Pick a slow time. After testing your new site on the server, pick a quiet time to perform the DNS propagation. Your site may be down for up to 24 hours as the DNS propagates around the world, but choose a time when you experience low traffic, so you’re not missing opportunities for leads and conversions. 
• 3. Perform checks on your site. For example, check the organic health of your website. Is there any penalization for spammy backlinks? Are your current backlinks relevant for the content? We recommend tracking your site’s domain authority with Moz Pro. 
• 4. Crawl your site. With Moz Pro or ScreamingFrog, you can crawl your website to receive a full URL and content inventory. Then, you can fix issues while you’re staging your site and map old URLs to new URLs in your 301 redirect map.  
• 5. Update Internal Links. Test your website and update internal links to avoid internal redirects or broken links. ScreamingFrog allows you to find internal links and their attached anchor text and their respective pages.
• 6. Create a custom 404 page. When visitors experience a broken page, engage them with a custom 404 page. It should direct them to your homepage or additional pages on your website. Otherwise, a blank 404 page frustrates users and makes them want to close the browser tab altogether and find a site that works. 
• 7. Update your Robots.txt file. The robots.txt file tells search engine crawlers which pages the crawler can or can’t request from your site. It lives at www.yoursite.com/robots.txt. 
• 8. Test your website on mobile. Is your site responsive or rendering correctly on a mobile device? Google offers a Mobile-Friendly Test tool to determine if Google views your site as mobile-friendly. 
• 9. Measure your performance post-launch. Once you’ve ensured your site launches appropriately, there are no broken pages or backlinks, your site is mobile-friendly, and you’ve updated your robots.txt file, analyze your performance after you launch your website. Check your ranking performance, organic traffic users/sessions, check for site crawl issues, and monitor your backlink profile. Track any 404 page traffic in your Google Analytics post-launch to catch and add any redirects to your 301 redirect file. 

SEO doesn’t need to be significant when migrating your website concern. With a few preparations, you can efficiently execute a website migration plan without worrying about lowering your website’s ranking. 

Related articles:

• How to Migrate a WordPress Website to a New Host
• Tips for Migrating to Joomla 4
• How to Switch Your Domain Name Without Damaging Your Site’s SEO
• A Total Beginner’s Guide to Website Hosting
• Who Has the Fastest Web Hosting? Matching Your Need for Speed

The post Does Website Migration Affect SEO? The Definitive Website Migration SEO Checklist. appeared first on The A2 Posting.

What is an Email Blacklist? 

The email blacklist is an extensive database of public domains and IP addresses marked as suspicious for sending spam emails through the internet. It’s also known as DNSBL (Domain Name System-based Blackhole List) or RBL Real-time Blackhole List. Organizations like Email Service Providers (ESP), Internet Service Providers (ISP), and anti-spam agencies (ASA) use this list to detect, monitor and block any spam emails entering their network. 

Am I Blacklisted? What Are the Signs?

There are many signs to alert you of your IP’s status. When you’re blacklisted, you can’t send emails to the recipient’s mailbox properly. Now, this doesn’t mean you’re going to be blacklisted from every mail server in the world. If you’re blacklisted with one DNSBL service, there are hundreds more that may not have blacklisted you. A few key signs:

1. There are an increased number of emails lost. 
2. You experience deteriorating delivery rates.
3. You find a high number of email bounce rates. 

These don’t confirm you’re blacklisted but are some warning signs. If you check a few of the boxes for delivery issues, you can now check to confirm the blacklisting of the domain or IP address. 

Checking Your IP address and Domain in an Email Blacklist Directory

There are various email blacklist services on the internet. It’s not practical to check every single one of them, but some applications maintain a list of live RBL (real-time blackhole list) directories to save your time. They provide a page dedicated to that RBL service and also offer a service to delist your domain or IP address. 

Here are a couple of popular RBL applications:

• MXToolBox: This checks for domain blacklisting across multiple RBL lists. It provides detailed information and suggestions on your domain’s current status. 
• MultiRBL: This is a free DNSBL lookup site that can scan 100+ DNSBL lists to check for domain blacklisting. It also details the steps to remove your domain from the blacklist. 

Malicious sites can be blacklisted by Google Safe Browsing, which will warn visitors of potentially unsafe pages. Dropmysite includes a feature that sends you alerts if your site is listed on this blacklist monitoring program – so take immediate corrective actions before it gets too late! A2 Hosting offers Dropmysite as an add-on cPanel plugin so that you can back up your data and monitor your websites. These services can help you actively monitor your IP address so that you can ensure swift delivery of all of your emails. 

Blacklists are an important tool for email deliverability. They help protect email users from spam and phishing emails and improve the deliverability of your legitimate email campaigns. If you’re not familiar with blacklists or aren’t sure if your IP address is on one, we encourage you to use a blacklist checking tool. Use this information to clean up your email practices and improve your chances of getting delivered to the inbox. If you have any more questions or concerns feel free to contact our support team 24/7/365!

Related Articles:

• How to stop unwanted e-mail using Spam Filters
• How To Prevent Outgoing Email From Being Marked As Spam
• How to monitor blacklisted sites using Dropmysite

The post What Is An Email Blacklist? appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Fortunately, there are many ways to protect your website from the threat of malware and other cybersecurity issues. Many hosting providers enable customers to configure a range of site security settings using the popular Linux control dashboard cPanel. 

In this post, we’ll explain what website security is and why it’s important. We’ll also provide seven actionable tips that you can use to improve your site security and protect your website with cPanel. Ready? Let’s get started!

Why Protecting Your Website Is Important

It takes time and money to create a high-quality website for your business. However, without the right level of security, you could be putting your site at risk. 

According to cybersecurity statistics published by Forbes, one in three Americans have been a victim of ransomware attacks, and only five percent of companies ensure that their folders are properly protected.  That’s why it’s so important for site owners to take steps to secure their websites on a regular basis.

However, although protecting against cybercrime is one of the main benefits of maintaining good site security protocols, there are also some other benefits, including: 

• It helps to keep your employees safe. In the same way that your website can be at risk of malware attacks, your workers can be too. Viruses can pass from device to device. Therefore, if your site becomes infected, the devices your team members use to access the site may become compromised too.
• It can prevent your website from going down. Site owners should aim for as little website downtime as possible. Good cybersecurity measures can help you achieve this. By putting protective measures in place before attacks happen, you can prevent malware from causing issues that make you take your site offline to fix them. 
• It can inspire confidence in your customers. For online businesses, reputation is everything, even when it comes to your website. By following good cybersecurity protocols and sharing this with your customers, you can help them feel safe and secure when using your site. 

Next, we’ll take a look at cPanel, a commonly used control panel for WordPress sites. You can use it to make your website more secure without investing in any expensive plugins. 

A Brief Introduction to cPanel

cPanel is a control application that enables you to carry out server tasks for your WordPress website:

It isn’t the only application of this type available, but it’s the most commonly used Linux control panel. cPanel provides users with an easy-to-use interface for carrying out essential server-side maintenance tasks, including:

• File management
• Database management 
• Email management
• Site backups 

It can make your site easier to manage due to its automated processes and 24/7 support team. As such, it could be worth considering if you’re looking to save time and effort on your website management.

There are also several ways in which you can use cPanel to enhance cybersecurity. Next, we’ll take a look at some of the things you can do to protect your website with this application. 

How to Protect Your Website With cPanel (7 Essential Tips)

There are many site security plugins that you can use to enhance your cybersecurity. However, many of these are premium plugins that aren’t available for free. By using cPanel, you can secure your website using tools already at your disposal, so you don’t have to spend a penny. Here are our top seven tips for protecting your website with cPanel.

1.  Update cPanel Regularly 

Outdated elements on your website can lead to serious vulnerabilities. This is also true for cPanel. If it isn’t up to date, you could be leaving your site open to attacks and breaches. 

Additionally, you could be missing out on access to new security features by using an outdated version. Updates are used to fix bugs, add new features, and improve the security of cPanel. As such, it could be a good idea to ensure that you are always using the latest version of the software.

The good news is that keeping cPanel up to date is fairly easy. Depending on your hosting package, you may not need to manually update it at all, as the system administrators may take care of it for you.

If you do need to update it manually, start by logging into WebHost Manager (WHM). In the upper right corner of the main WHM screen, you should be able to see the current version of cPanel you’re running:

If a new version is available, you’ll also see a box just underneath this giving you the option to Update Now. All you have to do is click on this and wait for it to finish upgrading (it might take a while). Note that the Update Now box isn’t visible in the image above, as we’re currently already running the latest stable build. 

2. Choose Strong Passwords and Regularly Update Them

It’s imperative to ensure that all of your site entry points are protected by strong passwords. Without secure passwords in place, seasoned cybercriminals can easily infiltrate your site and install malware. 

Thankfully, with cPanel, it’s easy for you to reset your password. It even comes with a password generator to help you protect your site using strong credentials. To keep your site as safe as possible, it’s recommended that you change all passwords on a regular basis. Configuring them around once a month is usually sufficient. 

To change your cPanel password, log in and head to the Preferences tab, then click on Passwords and Security: 

Next, you’ll be prompted to input your old password, as well as your new updated password. You’ll also see a score that tells you how weak or strong your credentials are. If your chosen password is too weak, you might want to click on Password Generator instead. This will automatically generate a new, stronger login: 

Once you’ve done that, copy the generated password and paste it into the New Password field. Also, be sure to save it in a secure location that you can access in case you forget it and need a reminder. 

When you’re ready, click on Save Password Now! Once you’ve done that, your update should be complete, and you can start using your new credentials. 

3. Password Protect Your Vulnerable Directories 

In addition to having a strong password for your cPanel account, it’s equally important to password protect your vulnerable directories. Doing this in cPanel enables you to limit access to certain content for specific users.

Once you’ve added password protection to a directory, your site will prompt visitors to enter a username and password in their web browsers before they can access it. This helps to keep sensitive content secure from unauthorized access.

To add password protection to a directory, start by logging into cPanel. Next, scroll down to the Files section and click on Directory Privacy:

Here, you should be able to see a list of all your directories. Click on Edit next to the name of the folder you want to protect. On the next page, tick the box next to the text that says Password protect this directory. Then, type in a name for the protected directory below and click on Save:

Once you’ve done that, you should see a brief ‘success’ message. Click on Go Back, then enter a Username and Password in the appropriate text boxes, and then click on Save.

Note: You can also automatically generate a strong password by clicking on the Password Generator button:

If you ever want to remove the password protection, repeat the steps above to navigate to the directory again. Then, clear the Password protect this directory checkbox.

4. Enable cPHulk Brute-Force Protection

cPHulk is another useful service provided by cPanel that helps to protect your server against brute force attacks. These attacks involve an attacker using an automated system to attempt to guess your username and passwords by repeatedly trying different combinations in rapid succession.

Using cPHulk through cPanel will enable you to block the IP address or accounts exhibiting suspicious behavior automatically. This prevents attackers from carrying out any further attempts to log in, thus preventing them from gaining unauthorized access and installing malware on your site.

To enable CPHulk Brite-Force protection, you’ll first need to log in to WHM. From there, navigate to Security Center in the left-hand sidebar, and click on cPHulk Brute Force Protection:

Next, you can toggle the button to ON to enable cPHulk protection:

Once it’s enabled, you can tweak the Configuration Settings. For example, you can specify how many failed login attempts are required to lock IP addresses out, and how long they should be locked out for. Once you’re done making changes, click on Save:

Note that aside from Configuration Settings, several other tabs are available on this page: Whitelist Management, Blacklist Management, and History Reports.

You can whitelist and blacklist certain IP addresses manually by navigating to the appropriate tab. This is useful in certain circumstances. For example, it may be a good idea to whitelist your own IP to avoid a lockout from your server.

If you ever need to see a log of what actions cPHulk has taken, you can do so by clicking on the History Reports tab. 

5. Protect Against Hotlinking 

Hotlinking (sometimes called ‘direct linking’) refers to when another website links out directly to content hosted on your website, such as image files. When visitors to their website load the page, your site serves the image files they see. This allows the other website to effectively ‘steal’ your bandwidth and use it to show pictures to their visitors. 

Naturally, this is something you’ll probably want to avoid. Fortunately, you can do so easily. All you have to do is configure hotlink protection using cPanel. Here’s how to go about it.

First, log in to cPanel and scroll down to the Security section. Then, click on the Hotlink Protection icon:

On the next page, you can toggle Hotlink protection ON or OFF. You can also change your configuration settings. For example, you might want to specify certain URLs that are allowed to access your files (cPanel will automatically populate this box with suggested local URLs):

Next, you can also specify the specific file extensions you want to block direct access to by adding them to the Block direct access for the following extensions box (make sure you separate each file extension by a comma):

Again, the above box should be automatically pre-populated with commonly hotlinked file extensions. However, you might want to add extra file extensions that aren’t already included. 

You can also add a URL to the Redirect requests to the following URL text box:

This will serve users from blocked sites with the specified URL page instead of the hotlinked file. Once you’re done making changes to the settings, just click on Submit.

6. Utilize Patchman by SITELOCK

Patchman is a really useful security service that helps to prevent your site from being hacked. Once installed, it will automatically scan your website for malware. If it detects any potential threats, it immediately emails you to notify you of them. If you don’t resolve the issue within 24 hours, Patchman will quarantine the affected files to protect your site:

Not only that, but Patchman also detects whether your WordPress, Drupa, or Joomla installation requires patching. Again, it will notify you of this by email and automatically apply the patch if you don’t fix it yourself within a week.

A2 Hosting has partnered with Patchman to provide our web hosting customers with free malware and vulnerability scans. Therefore, if you have a web hosting account with us, Patchman should already be enabled for your domain. 

However, if you want to manage your settings or carry out specific administrative tasks, you can do so by accessing the Patchman dashboard. To get to the dashboard, start by logging into cPanel, then click on Patchman in the Advanced section:

From here, you can run manual scans, view detected items and applications, and carry out manual actions. For example, you can review potential malware and choose to either ignore it or quarantine it:

Utilizing Patchman is one of the best ways to protect your website from security threats. However, not all hosting providers include access to it. Therefore, it may be a good idea to choose a hosting service provider that partners with the service.

7. Use Secure Shell File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)

SFTP stands for Secure Shell File Transfer Protocol. As the name suggests, it’s a secure version of the regular File Transfer Protocol (FTP). It uses the Secure Shell protocol to encrypt transfers.

If you didn’t already know, FTP is how you transfer files between your computer and your hosting server to make them accessible to the public and vice-versa. These files are often confidential and may include sensitive data such as usernames and passwords.

The problem is that the original FTP protocol doesn’t encrypt this data, which leaves it vulnerable to interception by attackers. If you want to prevent hackers from getting access to your data, it’s recommended that you encrypt it by using STFP instead.

In order to transfer files using SFTP, you’ll need your main cPanel account’s private key for authentication. To find it, log in to cPanel and scroll down to the Security section. Then, click on SSH Access:

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On the next page, click on Manage SSH Keys:

If you already have a public/private key pair, you can use those for SFTP transfers. If you don’t already have one, you can generate a new one by clicking on Generate a New Key:

Once you’ve generated a new key, go back to the Manage SSH Keys interface, and click on the Manage link next to the new key. Next, click on the Authorize button to allow it:

Go back and scroll down to Private Keys and click on View/Download. The next page should display your SSH key details. You can click on Download Key to save it somewhere safe to your computer:

Once you’ve done all the above, your site is ready for an SFTP connection. You can open your preferred FTP client and use the private key you downloaded to connect via SFTP.

Conclusion

Keeping your site safe from malicious activity and malware is extremely important. Fortunately, cPanel offers you several ways to ensure that your site is secure and protected. 

Here’s a quick recap of how to protect your website using cPanel:

1. Update cPanel regularly. 
2. Choose strong passwords and update them regularly. 
3. Password protect your vulnerable directories. 
4. Enable cPHulk Brute-Force protection.
5. Protect against hotlinking.
6. Utilize Patchman by SITELOCK.
7. Use Secure Shell File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).

If you’re looking for a hosting provider that understands the importance of site security and reliable hosting, check out our affordable Linux hosting plans!

Image credit: Free-Photos.

The post How to Protect Your Website With cPanel (7 Essential Tips) appeared first on The A2 Posting.

What is a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN)? 

A Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) is a domain name consisting of three parts: the hostname, the domain name, and the top-level domain. The hostname is the specific computer or device on the network that you want to use the FQDN for. The domain name is the section of the FQDN that uniquely identifies your network. The top-level domain is the highest level of classification for domains and is assigned by ICANN. For example, when you type “www.google.com” into your web browser, “www” is the hostname, “google” is the domain name, and “.com” is the top-level domain. 

Different computer types use different terminology for FQDNs like network names or full computer names. 

Why should I use an FQDN? 

FQDNs indicate unique addresses on the internet. If you don’t have an FQDN, you don’t have an accessible website. They’re required for installing SSL certificates, imperative to the security of your website. 

Apart from having an accessible website, FQDNs are also useful to have a discoverable computer on an internet network, like when you need to access a computer remotely. This is common in an office to track a computer’s activity. 

Also, FQDNs help you access domain services like FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and email. For example, if you want to connect your domain name’s email to an email app on your phone like Gmail or Apple Mail, you need to know the FQDN for the mail server, which is typically something like “mail.yourdomainname.com.” 

Here is an example of an FQDN:

1. www.a2hosting.com
2. mail.a2hosting.com
3. ftp.a2hosting.com

How to find your FQDN

If you’re not sure how to find your FQDN, please review the following links: 

Find your FQDN for Windows OS (operating systems).

Find your FQDN for macOS.

When you generate a domain name, it should contain three parts. The first part is the hostname which identifies the specific computer or device on your network that will be using this FQDN. The second part of an FQDN is the domain name and it uniquely identifies your company’s network. Finally, there is the top-level domain (TLD) which classifies domains as either generic or country-code TLDs such as .com for commercial purposes. If you need help viewing any of these components within your own FQDN contact our support team today!  

Related Articles:

• How to manage cPanel Mail Exchanger (MX) records
• How to use the DNS Zone Editor in cPanel
• How to verify site ownership with Google
• How to determine your account’s server name

The post What Is a Fully Qualified Domain Name? appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Although this may seem overwhelming at first, there’s a WordPress plugin that provides you with all of these aspects under one roof. With the Jetpack WordPress plugin, you don’t need to install several plugins to get the features you want, since it offers nearly everything you need for your starter website.

What are the key features of Jetpack that make it unique?

Key Features of Jetpack

One of the best things about using Jetpack is that you can seamlessly integrate Jetpack to meet your needs. These are the main features of the Jetpack plugin:

• Content Delivery Network (CDN): A slow site could be cause for search engines to penalize your rankings. With a CDN, you can help your website load faster while saving on your server’s resources. The great thing about this Jetpack feature is that it’s free and provides users with unlimited CDN bandwidth.
• Social media sharing: Using Jetpack for WordPress can provide you with social media features such as share buttons that let your visitors share your content in just a few clicks.
• Lazy loading images: Jetpack has a lazy loading image feature that displays photos while a person scrolls rather than presenting them with a blank div. The feature is beneficial for websites that use a lot of images but don’t want to compress them, which can lower photo quality. This can solve many image loading problems.
• Shortcode embeds: The Jetpack shortcode lets you embed content from your social media straight to your website. With this feature, you can embed these components by copying and pasting URLs within the visual editor.
• Automated spam blocking: With the Jetpack WordPress plugin, you can save time by automatically setting it to block and remove spam. This feature allows your site visitors to browse without being distracted.

How Can Jetpack Benefit WordPress Users?

Are you still asking the question, “Do I need Jetpack for my WordPress site?” If so, then let us share with you a few benefits that the plugin has to offer for WordPress users.

It Enhances Website Functionality

One of the best things about the Jetpack WordPress plugin is that it offers many features in one place. This means that you don’t have to install a new plugin every time you want to add functionality to your website.

It Increases Website Traffic

A website that doesn’t drive traffic is useless with today’s standards. Using Jetpack for WordPress is great because it helps improve traffic to your site once it recognizes that it’s lacking in that department.

Through its Publicize feature, you can automatically have it push out new blogs that you publish to your social media pages such as on Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter. This will help drive traffic from your social channels to your website.

It Provides Excellent Security

Nothing is more important for users than the security a website offers and this is exactly what the Jetpack plugin provides.

Its Protect feature offers fortified security by identifying and blocking any suspicious IP addresses from potentially harming a website. It also stops repeated login attempts that have failed to stave off cyberattacks.

It Offers Centralized Site Management

Running and managing several WordPress websites can be extremely time-consuming. Fortunately, the Jetpack WordPress plugin lets you streamline the site management process through a feature that lets administrators manage several sites from one interface.

Specifically, users can update all of the themes and plugins they have in each WordPress website simultaneously with just a click of a button.

Conclusion

The WordPress plugin known as Jetpack is one of the top add-ons users can get if they want to make managing their WordPress websites easier. Not only does the plugin offer better site functionality, centralized management, and improved security, but it also helps drive much-needed traffic.

At A2 Hosting, we offer the services of our experts to handle the administration aspect of your WordPress website. Getting a Managed WordPress account from us means that you can leverage numerous features, one of which is having a free Jetpack profile.

Talk to our sales team today if you would like to learn more.

The post The Key Benefits of Using Jetpack for Your WordPress appeared first on The A2 Posting.