We Do Hosting

For years we have provided hosting for our clients through third party hosting providers, whether that is shared hosting, VPS or dedicated servers.  We have always searched for the best deals, not only based on price but location of data centres, support and so on.

Over the years we have formed relationships with some good companies and been let down through support with others.   We have faced sudden price increases and faced companies who simply want to charge you for every little update or change you request to a server. Some companies have removed the ability to simply pick up a phone and call them unless you pay for a premium support service and worst of all, we have quite often found that when something goes wrong, you are simply isolated, no one answers support tickets, or sends updates.  instead, you get customers worrying because their website has suddenly gone down, they are not receiving emails and so on and nobody knows why, how long it will be before the site is back up and running, or even what the issue is.  It’s very rare but it does happen. 

We also found that by having our clients websites on different servers and with different hosting companies we couldn’t manage them as well as we wanted.  We couldn’t simply make changes to a server or make tweaks without having to raise a non-urgent support ticket that can take hours to get answered or actioned.  And so, we decided it was time that we provided the hosting. 

We have been running our own servers, for our own projects for years and so we felt it was about time to offer that service to our customers, to provide a better and more secure environment for their websites and to be able to provide a level of service that doesn’t include the need for us to raise support tickets.

As of February 13th, we will be launching 1711hosting.co.uk.  where we will provide a range of hosting plans from simple shared hosting to VPS, dedicated servers, and cloud hosting, we will also be offering renewable energy hosting for those businesses who are committed to Climate change. 

Companies will be able to constantly monitor the status of their hosting from our off-site monitoring platform hosted at amilive.co.uk.  This platform will provide a real time status update on all of our services and will be updated every two minutes automatically.

So, if you are thinking about getting new hosting, starting a project or thinking about going green, then why not visit our web hosting page for more information, prices and a list of the services that we provide.

Building Your First Website

We know that starting a business can be expensive and building your first website can be daunting if you have never done it before or if technology isn’t your thing.   There are also so many options, from free web builders, cheap hosting and choosing a web designer which  can all make building your first website a nerve wracking experience.   And then of course there is the cost, how much should you pay for your website?

I founded this company on a bad experience in 2000, when I spoke to a company about building me my very first website.  We had a brief chat about what type of website I wanted, and openly I shared the name of the company.  They asked me if I had a domain and I said no not yet and they asked for the name to just check to see if it was available for me.  The next day I received a follow up email, explaining that my domain name was available and that they had just purchased it.  If I wanted them to build the website for me the domain name was free, and if I didn’t and simply wanted to buy the domain name it would coast me £12,000.

As you can imagine, I as so angry, I felt like I had been manipulated and coned in to giving them the information they wanted, not to help me, but to try and strong arm me in to paying for a development that expensive and way more than what my budget was.

So I decided to take a different approach, I done some research, spoke to a friend, and bough my very first web hosting with Easy Space, I renamed my business and bought a new domain name and armed with Microsoft front  page I built my very first website.   In building my first website, I fell in love with coding, and soon I was building websites for fun, for friends and just learning and growing my skills one language at a time until finally it become my fulltime career.

I know how difficult and daunting it can be when you are looking to start something new, I know that there are plenty of companies and people, even today who will try to do anything  good and bad to win your business and I also know that there will be companies who try to oversell you things that you don’t need. 

We wont do that, we are happy to discuss your project with you, we will answer your questions and we will give you advice, and if you want us to we will even give you a quote for the work.  And that’s where it ends.  We will not email and phone you and push you to make a decision.  We understand that there are so many different options that you need to make the best decision for yourself, without sales people calling you and trying to get you to commit to work.  Instead we will give you advice, answer your questions and hope that we provide you with enough information for you to make the right decisions, and if that decision is for us to work with you, then great but if you feel that other options, fit your need and requirements more than ours, then we wish you all the best.  The reality is we might not be the company you need today, but we hope that we will make a great first impression, that maybe sometime in the future, we maybe the company you need.

So if you have an idea, want to just discover if an idea is possible, how much it is likely to cost and how you would even get started, then why not visit our contact us page and drop us a message and we will give you a call and answer your questions with absolutely no obligations.

 

How Secure Is Your Website?

Over 43% of all websites on the internet are made from WordPress, making it the leading platform for building a website.  Whether you want a static website, a shop, a blog or a news site WordPress, has it all covered.

But with popularity comes problems. The importance of keeping on top of updates and security patches is something that can never be overlooked.  The number of times we log in to a WordPress website to make some changes or to update the design, for a customer only to find that nearly all of their plugins and even their version of WordPress is out of date. 

A quick conversation and you soon learn that they have never been informed that they need to either run automatic updates, or keep these plugins updated to maintain the security and integrity of their website. 

As a demonstration to a client, we recently installed a number of security plugins on to their WordPress website, and they were shocked by how many times a day, login attempts are made to login to their admin area.  Now this isn’t done by some hacker sat in a dark room, trying username and password one after another until they get in.  Instead, its code, sent out across the internet to look for WordPress websites.  Once they are found, the hackers try to take advantage of vulnerabilities in outdated WordPress versions or plugins. 

Time after time we have been asked to regain access to a hacked WordPress website, and to remove malicious code that has been embedded on the website to send out spam emails, add advertisements and a whole host of other things hackers do when they get access to your site. 

Quite often, you won’t even know your site has been hacked until suddenly your emails bounce back and you get an email from your hosting company saying they have noticed unusually high activity or even complaints that your Ip address and domain are sending out malicious emails.

In most cases we can regain access to websites but with a framework of several thousand pages, finding the malicious code can be impossible and so the best and safest option is to take the website down. Sometimes the Server company will simply do that as soon as they feel your website is compromised and it will stay offline until you have removed the malicious code and  the vulnerabilities.

If your website is just an information website, which simply shares information about your company, then it is simply a case of recovering and securing the domain and getting the website back up and running securely.  But what if your website is a shop? The consequences of being hacked is unthinkable.

If you own a WordPress website, it is important that you keep on top of your security.  Invest in some security plugins, or use the free versions, install an automatic updater for your WordPress plugins and even ensure to keep on top of your comments.  Login to your admin area every morning, check your updates, and comments, it takes ten minutes a day to keep your website, customers and visitors safe.

Below are a couple of links to both paid and free security plugins, that will help you keep your website safe,

We understand that not everybody has the time, or experience in keeping their website and business protected online.  Which is why we offer our clients a WordPress website management service. 

For just £49.99 per month.  We will manage your websites security, allowing you to concetrate on your business whilst we keep it safe and protected online.  If you are interested in this service then please visit our WordPress  Security  webpage for more information.