The Banbury Massage & Reiki Therapy service, Stone Circle Healing, is to have their website promoted by us so as to improve the accessibility of the site via the search engines online.
Reiki Healing is a Japanese healing art where the practitioner helps the body clear toxins and stimulate a sense of well being in their patients. The Massage Therapy / Technique is not connected with a belief system so is suitable for anyone. Clare Stone, the owner of Stone Circle Healing says the treatment helps people to relax and rejuvenate allowing both body and spirt the time needed to regenerate while promoting the body's own natural healing process.
Stone Circle Healings website also contains a range of home fragrances to compliment the Reiki Therapy, special offers for treatments and Wedding Massage packages.
Friday, 26 November 2010
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Installing SSL Certificates from StartSSL on Debian
Start SSL offer Free Class 1 SSL/TLS Certificates to secure web server traffic across a network and prevent eavesdropping. Setting up a certificate for your server the first time around can be a bit tricky so here's a quick guide to how to request, configure and install an SSL certificate from StartSSL.
First of all you need to register with Start SSL, you will need to provide your own home address to start the registration. Start SSL use these details to confirm your identity and create your personal account - if you are requesting a certificate for a business you will first need to go through this registration process to confirm your own identity to them. Once you have an account be sure to back up your Client Certificate as loosing it will probably mean you cannot get back into your account.
Before you generate a certificate for your domain you must first verify you are the domain owner (or at least have full access to the domain). Click on the validations wizard and select Domain Name Validation in the drop down and click Continue. Enter your domain name on the next page, click continue and then select an email address which StartSSL can use to send a verification code to.
Once you have verified your domain you can request a Web Server SSL/TLS Certificate via the Certificates Wizard (Selected from the dropdown 'Certificate Target' in the wizard). Be sure to set a strong but memorable password and click on continue.
This will generate a private key, be sure to take a copy of it and store it somewhere on your computer. Copy this file to the server and name it [sitename].key a secure directory (we often use /etc/apache2/ssl/).
This key is encrypted and needs to be decrypted to stop apache asking for a password when it restarts. To decrypt the key on your server run the following command:
Next click continue and select the site you this certificate is to be used with and then add one sub-domain (i.e. www.yoursite.com). Carry on clicking continue after this and you will have generated your server certificate!
Again, take a copy of this file and upload it to your server (call it [sitename].crt)
Before we can install the certificates on our server we need some of the Certificate Authorities Certificates. For Class 1 Certificates we need to download the ca.pem and sub.class1.server.ca.pem
All StartSSL's certificates can be downloaded from 'StartCom CA Certificates' in the Toolbox of your control panel but a quick and easy way to get them onto your webserver is to execute these two commands while in the directory you are using to store your certificates:
And then secure your certificates by executing the following command:
Now we have everything we need to configure your server to use your certificate.
The standard Apache2 distro has mod_ssl built in but not enabled. To enable SSL copy ssl.conf and ssl.load from /etc/apache2/mods-available/ to /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/
Now you only need configure your httpd.conf file to secure your site. In debian your httpd.conf is usually found at /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
First we need to have apache listen to port 443 for virtual hosts so we need to add the line:
Add this before or after any other NameVirtualHost entries in the file. Next find you virtual host record for your site and add the following entery after:
Replace [www.]example[.com] with your site name / domain and be sure to change the paths for the SSL Certificate files to the directory you have stored your files in.
All that is left now is to restart Apache and your website will support SSL (Should anything go wrong and your server stops serving HTTP requests open the httpd.conf file and comment out all lines starting with SSL with the # character):
If Apache restarts without generating an error your website should now be available via https!
First of all you need to register with Start SSL, you will need to provide your own home address to start the registration. Start SSL use these details to confirm your identity and create your personal account - if you are requesting a certificate for a business you will first need to go through this registration process to confirm your own identity to them. Once you have an account be sure to back up your Client Certificate as loosing it will probably mean you cannot get back into your account.
Before you generate a certificate for your domain you must first verify you are the domain owner (or at least have full access to the domain). Click on the validations wizard and select Domain Name Validation in the drop down and click Continue. Enter your domain name on the next page, click continue and then select an email address which StartSSL can use to send a verification code to.
Once you have verified your domain you can request a Web Server SSL/TLS Certificate via the Certificates Wizard (Selected from the dropdown 'Certificate Target' in the wizard). Be sure to set a strong but memorable password and click on continue.
This will generate a private key, be sure to take a copy of it and store it somewhere on your computer. Copy this file to the server and name it [sitename].key a secure directory (we often use /etc/apache2/ssl/).
This key is encrypted and needs to be decrypted to stop apache asking for a password when it restarts. To decrypt the key on your server run the following command:
openssl rsa -in [sitename].key -out [sitename].key
Next click continue and select the site you this certificate is to be used with and then add one sub-domain (i.e. www.yoursite.com). Carry on clicking continue after this and you will have generated your server certificate!
Again, take a copy of this file and upload it to your server (call it [sitename].crt)
Before we can install the certificates on our server we need some of the Certificate Authorities Certificates. For Class 1 Certificates we need to download the ca.pem and sub.class1.server.ca.pem
All StartSSL's certificates can be downloaded from 'StartCom CA Certificates' in the Toolbox of your control panel but a quick and easy way to get them onto your webserver is to execute these two commands while in the directory you are using to store your certificates:
wget https://www.startssl.com/certs/ca.pem
wget https://www.startssl.com/certs/sub.class1.server.ca.pem
And then secure your certificates by executing the following command:
chmod 400 *
If they are all in the current directory or
chmod 400 /path/to/the/file
Now we have everything we need to configure your server to use your certificate.
The standard Apache2 distro has mod_ssl built in but not enabled. To enable SSL copy ssl.conf and ssl.load from /etc/apache2/mods-available/ to /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/
cp mods-available/ssl.* mods-enabled/
Now you only need configure your httpd.conf file to secure your site. In debian your httpd.conf is usually found at /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
First we need to have apache listen to port 443 for virtual hosts so we need to add the line:
NameVirtualHost *:443
Add this before or after any other NameVirtualHost entries in the file. Next find you virtual host record for your site and add the following entery after:
<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
DocumentRoot /home/example.com/public_html/
SSLEngine on
SSLProtocol all -SSLv2
SSLCipherSuite ALL:!ADH:!EXPORT:!SSLv2:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/example.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/example.key
SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/apache2/ssl/sub.class1.server.ca.pem
SSLCACertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/ca.pem
SetEnvIf User-Agent ".*MSIE.*" nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown
<VirtualHost>
Replace [www.]example[.com] with your site name / domain and be sure to change the paths for the SSL Certificate files to the directory you have stored your files in.
All that is left now is to restart Apache and your website will support SSL (Should anything go wrong and your server stops serving HTTP requests open the httpd.conf file and comment out all lines starting with SSL with the # character):
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
If Apache restarts without generating an error your website should now be available via https!
Monday, 8 November 2010
Review: Quirk SearchStatus
Just a quick review on a new tools we've been using for the past few days.
As with anyone that's trying to promote a site hunting down sites where a link would be appropriate that does not nofollow everything can be quite tricky. We'd read about a tool called Quirk SearchStatus highlighting the nofollow links so downloaded it and gave it a go.
It's only available for Firefox and Sea Monkey but it works very well and highlights any link marked nofollow, it also comes bundled with a bunch of other tools which are handy to have + keyword density analysis which reports on where the keywords can be found in your document.
Worthwhile installing if you're promoting a website. You can download SearchStatus from:
http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/
As with anyone that's trying to promote a site hunting down sites where a link would be appropriate that does not nofollow everything can be quite tricky. We'd read about a tool called Quirk SearchStatus highlighting the nofollow links so downloaded it and gave it a go.
It's only available for Firefox and Sea Monkey but it works very well and highlights any link marked nofollow, it also comes bundled with a bunch of other tools which are handy to have + keyword density analysis which reports on where the keywords can be found in your document.
Worthwhile installing if you're promoting a website. You can download SearchStatus from:
http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/
Friday, 5 November 2010
Google is watching you!
This can only be something recent as we've not noticed it before. Google has started to sculpt its natural listings for people who haven't got the Google Toolbar installed and are not logged into a google account.
In the last few weeks (at least) we've seen our own website start to appear alongside the sites we're working on when doing SEO work using 'clean browsers' to analyse the SERPs. Its not a major boost, often 4-5 places max and only if there is a keyword overlap but disabling cookies returns our site back to the place where we'd normally expect it to be (Private browsing has the same effect).
In the last few weeks (at least) we've seen our own website start to appear alongside the sites we're working on when doing SEO work using 'clean browsers' to analyse the SERPs. Its not a major boost, often 4-5 places max and only if there is a keyword overlap but disabling cookies returns our site back to the place where we'd normally expect it to be (Private browsing has the same effect).
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Blackhat SEO and Your site
Have site owners in your niche taken exception to your site and started a blackhat SEO campaign against your site? Us Too!! :)
It would seem that one of the sites we released in the last few months has attracted the attention of the owners of one of the sites currently sitting in the top 3 for the keywords we are targeting. They've been busy spamming some rather questionable forums, blogs and sites linking back to our site using some 'colourful' anchor text. Our friends have also been busy registering domains similar to the sites main domain and putting up blogs of their own, which stand empty at the moment.
In short these guys seem to be experts at 'spitting your dummy out' and are hell bent on doing anything they can from the site getting from page 3 in the google SERPs to page one.
I feel it is only fair though to point out that all of this effort you have put into this will probably amount to a small amount of misdirected traffic for a few months and much of what you have posted has already been deleted by the sites owners. Although I would like to thank them for not ploughing extra effort into your own website, which is really all you can do to fight off our own efforts. It has allowed us to make a serious dent in the lead you had.
So with that I have only one thing left to say: "COMING TO GET YOU!"
It would seem that one of the sites we released in the last few months has attracted the attention of the owners of one of the sites currently sitting in the top 3 for the keywords we are targeting. They've been busy spamming some rather questionable forums, blogs and sites linking back to our site using some 'colourful' anchor text. Our friends have also been busy registering domains similar to the sites main domain and putting up blogs of their own, which stand empty at the moment.
In short these guys seem to be experts at 'spitting your dummy out' and are hell bent on doing anything they can from the site getting from page 3 in the google SERPs to page one.
I feel it is only fair though to point out that all of this effort you have put into this will probably amount to a small amount of misdirected traffic for a few months and much of what you have posted has already been deleted by the sites owners. Although I would like to thank them for not ploughing extra effort into your own website, which is really all you can do to fight off our own efforts. It has allowed us to make a serious dent in the lead you had.
So with that I have only one thing left to say: "COMING TO GET YOU!"
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