Category: Tips

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Watching Your Site for Malware Intrusions

Website owners need to keep an eye on their website and blog to make sure that they are not unknowingly spewing malware onto the Web. Not only can this be bad for your site visitors, but you can actually get your website blocked by Google for allowing malware downloads; even if you didn’t know that it was happening.

If you have a blog on your site, there are lots of free, cool plugins that monitor your blog and help you to keep it safe, but how about a website? I found one tool recently that allows you to scan your website files for malware. It is called Sucuri. You can visit the free online website scanner here. I recommend not only scanning your root directory, but some of your top traffic directories as well just to make sure you are malware free.

Another tool you can use for malware monitoring of a website is the Google Webmaster Control Panel. To use this Google service you will need to verify your website ownership by downloading and then uploading to your server a small file. Once in place, Google will scan your site and you can review its malware detection results.

In many cases I have found that Google is very slow to report if you have had a malware attack. Eventually they will notify you if there is a problem, but it may be woefully late, and your notification may actually be that Google has banned your site in their index. I personally recommend a much more proactive and early prevention focus.

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CHMOD Server Setting For Improved Security

If you need to keep your blog secure or just want to make sure you are doing the most to keep website hackers at bay, you’ll want to review these Apache server settings to keep your content and website safe.

CHMOD Explained
“CHMOD is a UNIX term for a server operation to set or change the mode of the file access permissions. When executed, the command can change file system modes of files and directories. The modes include permissions and special modes.”

If you click into the CHMOD Server Permissions website linked above you will be able to read what permissions should be used for which cases.

As a rule of thumb typical website pages should be a CHMOD of 644. Your blog’s wp-config.php file should be 600 or 660 to keep secure. The bottom-line on CHMOD is that using your FTP agent you can right click on any file or directory and change the file or access permissions. Make sure before you start changing things that you review CHMOD Explained and keep track of what you have changed so if need be you can revert back to a prior setting if needed.

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Want to Check Your Backlinks Here is an Easy Tool

If you are concerned about organic search placement, then you need to keep an eye on your website’s backlinks or more commonly known as inbound links. I’ve found an easy to use free tool that allows you to check your link numbers quickly and even review links that are follow and nofollow. The tool is called the Open Site Explorer and can give you a snapshot picture of link on the Web being pointed back to a page or domain.

As you review your statistics and numbers you may wonder what a nofollow or follow link are. A nofollow link is one that a search engine robot will not be following to discover your site. You receive no search engine “juice” from this link. You may still get site traffic, but no organic placement benefit. On the other had follow links are goldmines. That means that the search spider will follow the link all the way to your website from the original website. You may get an authority rank benefit as well as a link number benefit that may raise your own organic search placement. Follow links are good as long as they are from legitimate non-spammy sources.

Try the tool out for yourself and see what you think. I think it is pretty cool!

I am not receiving any compensation for writing this blog post from the site owner. I just found the tool, like it, and wanted to let you know about it.

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Keep an Eye on Your Website and Blog for Hidden Spam Parasites With This Tool

In today’s world, you’ve got to be proactive about protecting your online search engine capital. One way to keep an eye on your website and blog are to routinely review both for hidden parasitic spam hacks that will sap your search engine placement and could actually end up getting you banned (temporarily) on Google.com. Here is one tool you may want to do a few scans with to make sure that you are clean.

The tool is called Unmask Parasites. This free online tools scans a few random pages on the URL you input and then gives you a pretty fair report on activity, links, and if your site is carrying parasites. It is important if you feel you have a problem that you not just scan your home page. Do some directory scans as well to see if deeper in your site you have a problem.

Additionally I highly recommend that you review at least monthly, your Google Webmaster Control Panel and review the keywords that Google is finding on your website. If you are finding a prevalence of casino, gaming, or mortgage related keywords, your site has been hacked and needs a thorough cleaning.

Although Unmask Parasites may not find an all hidden parasites as it only scans random files, using it in conjunction with the Google Webmaster Control Panel will allow you to keep tabs on the security of your site and work to monitor others cracking in and using your site to funnel hidden spam links forcing your placement down in the organic search results.