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Hatchling Gators

HostGator has been growing in record numbers lately, and hiring employees just as fast. We thought it might be interesting to go around and harass some of the new trainees. Without further ado, meet our new employees as recorded by Justin…

The first few people we interviewed for the video started saying how much we sucked, but after canning them the moral suddenly increased as you can see in the above video.

The employee culture at HG has generally stayed the same over the years. I started at the company when there were just 4 of us in a small office in Florida, and now we’re closing in on 200 employees in our Houston office.

One of the cool things about the company is you’ll see the owner, Brent Oxley, at the office every day working more hours than just about any other employee. Many new hires would never expect him to be the owner of the company, which reminds me of a prank we pulled on Vincent when he first started.

Vince was heading home after his shift, when he ran into Brent. Not knowing that Brent was the owner, Brent was asking him how he liked it at the job. Of course Vince, like the other new fish you saw in the video, declared his love for the job. He was a bit surprised, however, when Brent started going off on how much he hated the company. Acting as though he was a disgruntled employee, Brent mentioned how he was going to come back the next day with a gun to shoot the place up.

Brent went on for a minute complaining about the “owner” of the company and how much of an @!^hole the owner was before he asked if Vince had met him yet. Vince had tried to reason with Brent not to shoot the place up, until Brent finally broke the news and introducing himself to him.

Good thing Vincent loved his job that day.

P.S. We’re looking for excellent System Administrators and Support Techs to join the fold. Apply today if you want to love your job too.

Scaring The New Gators

So I thought it might be a good idea to go by and just do a quick film of the new employees here at HostGator. The people in the video are either first or second week hires. Maybe they weren’t sure what to think with a video camera coming up in there face after being with us a short while. I wonder if they were thinking to themselves, “I don’t recall signing up for this”. Regardless, everyone was a good sport about it.



Even though we didn’t go to in depth with what goes on behind the scenes, the video gives you a chance to see a little part of HostGator, as well as introduce you to some future chat and phone support. A lot of these guys already had a background in webhosting or were familiar with Cpanel or Plesk when coming into HostGator, but there is still training to ensure all the key aspects of support are covered.

This is part of the reason that we allow our customers the ability to rate how a chat tech does, so that we can continue to help improve HostGator employees on an individual basis.

If you were to apply for HostGator, which we would encourage you to do if you have experience with Cpanel or server management, you most likely wouldn’t be getting filmed for the blog unless you wanted. And by the way, all these guys gave me the go ahead to post this video of them, so I guess it didn’t bother them too bad.

CyberSquatting And Copyright Infringement

“Cybersquatting” has been something fairly common in the industry for a while. I’m sure even some of you that are reading this may buy and hold domains based on the fact that price and value goes up every year. Something however that has a lot of businesses and organizations on the defense is the fact that thousands of domains are registered every year with copyright names within or as a part of the domain registered.

The views on this issue are somewhat split. While some ’squatters’ have registered domains to put defamatory content about a company, others have registered various domains and jacking up prices to ridiculous amounts in hopes of a company with that name wanting to buy it.

Let me give you one example of what I am talking about. Locally here in the Houston area where our corporate office is located, there is a car dealership that is very well known named Munday Chevrolet. You would think they own mundaychevrolet.com right? Wrong. They own munday-chevrolet.com, a second rate domain name for your company if you ask me.

If you go to mundaychevrolet.com you will find very brief text from the website owner saying why he would never buy a car from Munday Chevrolet. Previously the site was used for pornography. Thats got to be bad for business especially when you have to tell potential customers to add a dash in the middle of your name.

Lets take an even bigger name into consideration that caused a legal battle for years, nissan.com as opposed to nissanusa.com. The only problem here is that this is a bit complicated. What happens when your last name is truly Nissan? This guy is not trying to ‘cybersquat’ at all. He has a legitimate computer business he is running on this site. It’s unfortunate that Nissan motor company had a lawsuit filed against this guy. So where does the gray line run into black and white, making things clear as to what domain you should and shouldn’t be able to own without legal ramifications? (Read more about the Nissan case HERE.)

According to a group called the “World Intellectual Property Organization” that watches over ‘cybersquatting’ occurrences, it has been reported that the snatching up of domain names of popular celebrities names and corporations from the previous year is up 18%, and is continuing to rise. The industries that had the largest issues with this was biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Closely following was financial institutions and banking.

The fact is, anyone can register a domain name, and people will continue to register domains that contain parts of or even full trademarked names. We could go on even further with domains that are typos as well, but I’m gonna leave it at that. Now its your turn to give us your thoughts. Where should the lines be drawn?

iphone “to break or not to break” applications

A lot of people from the get go thought the iphone was a piece of junk, while others thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Everyone has their opinions about iphone vs Nokia just like Mac vs. PC. So moving on then…

Since Mr. Steve Jobs had announced that there would be an SDK (software development kit) for the iphone, a lot of people have really been excited. Now that over 100,000 people have downloaded the developers kit whats next?

How many people will really switch over from their jailbroken iphones to go legit with Apple? The reason I even ask that is because the current developers kit doesn’t allow for 3rd party music applications. Isn’t music what people would likely use their iphone most for? Or would it be games?

It seems that Apple has decided to do things this way so sales on itunes are not hurt, but there will be an affect with upcoming players like Amazon music as well as Emusic which have compatible DRM free music for the iphone. Will Apple lose some ground with their Itunes music downloads?

One thing is for sure, and that is that Apple will continue governing and restricting their own products and applications like they have been for a while. I think thats why people either hate them or love them. But that still doesn’t stop people from cracking these things wide open.

Lets see what people are willing to blow their money on for new applications approved by Apple, and made by the developer that had to pay $99 for the SDK license to create it.

In the meantime, here below is just a little rundown of some of the FREE jailbroken iphone applications that actually have some value.

SSH For iphone - How to setup and install SSH for iphone.

MobileTerminal-vt100 - A Terminal emulator for the iPhone.

MobileTextEdit - Allows you to edit .txt files within mobilefinder.

Izoho - Full office suite to create edit and more.

Ruby on iphone - An iPhone Ruby interpretor which includes supporting libraries.

Stumbler Wifi Networks Locator - Lets you find wireless networks in your area.

BSD Subsystem - Unix Tools for the iphone.

Iphone Python - An iPhone Python interpretor including libraries.

Mobile Scrobbler - Lets you play music from Last.fm

NES Emulator - Play old school Nintendo games.

Ishare - Works with a Sendspace account to upload and download files.

Swapmusiclibrary - Allows you to sync with another PC without erasing.

Genesis4iphone - Lets you play Sonic and other Sega games.

Navizon GPS - GPS for the iphone.

TouchPadPro - Control your PC or Mac with Your iphone.

RocketShotz - Adds Icons So you never have to Type a Favorite URL to Browse.

Ispit - Acts as an http Server that runs from your iphone.

Funiculus - Guitar Tuner for iphone.

MobileChat - Instant messenger with all the extras.

Ifob - Social Networking application worth using.

iPhlickr - Easy way to browse Flickr Pics.

Expense View - Keep track of finances.

iPhoneDigg - For all the fanatical Diggers.

iPhoneTravel - Easy way to book flights and car rentals.

goMovies - Easy view of movie shows and times.

Google Reader - Clean and easy to use RSS for the iphone.

Iactu - Displays headlines from multiple newspapers.

Competition Fights Back

I have some bad news regarding HostGator. In our quest to “eat up the competition”, one web host has been busy trying to “bag all the competition”.

I stumbled across a new web host that I can already tell is going to be very serious competition for us. It seems as though we have overlooked a worthy contender — HostGaroo.com (no link for you guys, sorry!)

It’s only a matter of time before their sheer creativity and inspiration overtake us and the ‘Gator is bagged like the rest of them. There’s just one thing that doesn’t seem right here. I know I’ve seen Host Garoo’s design from somewhere before…

Current Host Garoo front page:

One year old Host Gator front page:

Testament to Google’s ingenious:

So what do you think, all things equal, the ‘Garoo or the ‘Gator?

One Laptop Per Child, They Will Fail…

I’m very proud to announce that Hostgator has made a $100,000 donation to MD Anderson which is one of the world leaders in cancer treatment and research. They have truly been a pleasure to work with. Working with MD has given many of our employees that warm fuzzy feeling inside that you should have when you are helping people.

I would also like to announce that I feel used, abused, and completely violated on a $25,000 donation hostgator made to One laptop per child. OLPC has a mission to develop cheap laptops for children to educate and express themselves on.

Maybe I’m being a drama queen so please come to your own conclusion based on the following experience…….

It all started with a $25,000 donation being made on their site and the following email being sent shortly after:

December 30th 2007

“Hello,

I’m the owner of hostgator.com and I just wanted to shoot off an email
to let you know I have just donated $25,000 via google checkout on my
amex. We get dozens of fraud orders a day so the purpose of this email
is to let you know it’s legit. I’m currently on xmas vacation in the
bahamas in the wyndham so the ip isn’t going to match my american address.

Please let me know if you have any questions or if any further
verification is needed. Thank you, and keep up the good fight!!

Sincerely,
Brent Oxley ”

Their Response 11 days later January 11th 2008

“Dear Donor,

In order for me to locate and track your donation, can you please provide me
with your complete address, reference number and the name used at the time
of donation. This will allow me to access the correct donation and locate
your laptop.

Thank you for your interest in One Laptop Per Child.

OLPC
Donor Services”

My Reply January 11th 2008

“Are you serious?

Our company name is hostgator.com
My name is Brent Oxley

How many $25,000 donations do you receive? Please spend the minute that
it would take to look up the donation. Thank you.”

(we received automated email back instantly confirming they did receive our email)

Twenty days later and we still have not had a follow up response or anyone in the company making any type of contact with us other then what’s listed above!!!

OPLC has been getting slammed recently after Intel left the group January 3rd of this year. There are many critics that argue the money can be spent better on libraries, food, water, etc. You can read up more on OLPC on wikipedia. Even with all the negative publicity I and many of our customers believed it to be a worthy cause that deserved our help.

Based on our experience it’s quite obvious OLPC is being mismanaged to the point of failure. I now feel our donation would have been put to better use had we mailed 25,000 one dollar bills for the children to use as toilet paper.

Bowling, Beer Tricks and Buddies

Recently we had another HostGator fun day. Just another one of the perks of working for HostGator. Everyone got together to go bowling, play pool and watch the bartender do some cool tricks. All company paid with free food and beer. You can’t beat that. So we took some pictures, and I wanted to post them for everyone who might like to see. One of the amazing things caught with a Camera, compliments of Lance, was these detailed images of liquid in action. I hope you enjoy them.

Make sure to click on the first 3 images to see greater detail.

Windows Dedicated Web Hosting

Ok folks, I know you have been waiting for a while, and I have had a lot of you ask me when the new windows hosting will be available? Well I am happy to let you know that now you can purchase a Windows dedicated server. First I want to say this is just the beginning of what we will be offering for windows hosting, so stay tuned for further announcements.

So what does having your own Dedicated Windows Server offer you? You will receive the latest Plesk 8 interface for setting up your website email etc… The windows environment will allow you to use ASP. You can choose which version will best fit your needs along with your choice of MSSQL, MYSQL, and Access database connections which will be available at all times for you to create and take advantage of simultaneously.

Do you need a server fast? Your Windows server will be provisioned, secured and delivered within 24 hours of purchase, and we will provide you with monthly server management at no additional cost.

So I have given you the scoop, and now I am offering the first 5 people that purchase a Windows dedicated server from reading this blog a $100 dollar discount on your first month purchase. In order to receive this dicount you must email me at jgarcia(at)hostgator.com.

This is a first come first serve deal and this discount may NOT be combined with other offers, so if you want to get your first month at a reduced price you better act quick before its over. I will give anyone who emails me for this deal a 24 hour window to complete the purchase, then I will offer it to the next person in line.

Employee Referral Program

Well, its that time to give you some more great news! We have prepared another type of program for you besides that of just referring persons to host with us. We are pleased to let you know that you can now refer potential employees to us, and if they are hired you can make some nice cash. Take a look at the referral program, and you will notice that the payout is pretty generous. The payout is up to $2500 dollars for a referral. Thats right, I said $2,500 US dollars. So let me explain why we have decided to add this program.

HostGator is growing at a phenomenal rate. With the growth of more customers, this means that we need more qualified web hosting support. With this in mind we have put together a system that will help us to build upon the current HostGator team as well as provide an incentive for persons like yourself that can help us find the right people for the job. Everybody wins here. An employee for us, cash for you, and a new job for someone in a fun working environment.

Let me tell you a little about how it is working at HostGator so you can have some good information to provide your referrals. HostGator is a fast paced but relaxed environment. We had a previous post called “Office Tour“, which gives you a little bit of an idea of what things look like inside the HostGator building. There is a Pool table, workout room, Air Hockey, and Ping pong table which is my favorite! We also have company paid events regularly, and free food for employees as well throughout the week. Full time employees receive full health benefit options as well after 90 days of employment.

Ok, so now that I have given you the details about the great perks of working here, now would be a really good time for you to think of anyone you may know that has some of the skills we are looking for, and have them fill out a job application with us. The requirements for the employee referral are very short and simple, so here below are the few requirements.

1. They must be able to legally work in our Houston Headquarters.
2. They must be employed for 90 days in order to be paid.
3. You must fill out the below referral form before their first interview.
4. You cannot refer yourself.

If you didnt pick up the link earlier on this post, click HERE to get started with your referral program and make some extra cash!

Remote Control Helicopter Madness

Everybody at HostGator received a remote control helicopter, which was really cool. It takes some getting used to to learn how to fly them though, thats for sure. After charging all the helicopters, and then lining up as many as we could, we were ready to fly. But wait, out of no where comes Brian our HostGator.com Web developer who decides to play Choreographer today. I guess Brian had some inspiration or something, because he was trying to apply his Web skills to flying little remote control helicopters. This was taking way too long, but it was fun none the less.

Ok, it was time to fly some helicopters. We knew that once they got off the ground that there was no way we could keep them from crashing, but we gave it our best anyways. If these were real helicopters we would have done millions of dollars in damage, but we settled for the next best thing and just crashed a bunch of Havoc Heli Air-Hogs. Heres the videos below, enjoy!!

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Blog Awards And Your Votes

I’m sure if you read more than several blogs you may have seen the logo thats in the top right corner of this blog right now. The bloggers choice awards are given for the top blogs of multiple categories. The bloggers choice awards can give you some nice exposure as a blogger as well as give you something to gloat about if you win. Its pretty much the Oscar award of blogging so to speak.

Besides the Bloggers Choice awards, there are other awards for bloggers as well. I thought I might put together a few of the other prominent ones for those of you who not only read the HostGator blog, but blog yourself as well.

• Bloggers Choice Awards
• The Weblog Awards
• The Bloggies
• The Bloggy Award

Since I have started writing for the blog, I have gotten a chance to get to know some really cool people a bit better and read over others blogs that have great content. We always appreciate your support, and especially from you feed readers that are subscribed.  I thought it would be good to get involved with the Bloggers Choice awards now that things have gotten on a roll, and so I have added a nomination link for it as I mentioned earlier in the top right corner.

If you enjoy reading this blog then feel free to vote for it. Also, tell me what blog you have that might be nominated for a particular subject. I would be more than happy to check it out and vote for yours as well. We have a lot of fun things coming up to post about, so stay tuned, and if you haven’t joined our feed I would encourage you to.

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Video Games Guinness Book Of World Records

Ok, so this caught my eye today. I am not the hugest game fan out there, but who wouldn’t like to know what the official fastest time is for beating Super Mario Brothers? Or the highest score ever for the Original Arcade Donkey Kong game? Well now you can get all official, with the Video Games Guinness Book of World Records, which covers everything from Mario to Halo and beyond.

Thats because this year for the first time the Guinness Book of World Records will be publishing a book of Video games records only. Better work on your gaming skills!

As I was thinking about all those gamers out there setting records, I thought it would be cool for HostGator to have a record holder for something. We have a pretty good group of people working here that like to play online games. So what could a record be set for?

Guinness Book has some guidelines that have to be followed, and not every submission for a record is accepted. If you prepare to submit an application, you will find that actually a majority of things they receive are declined. However, there just might be a chance that we could set a record for some game from either past or present that could have enough bearing to get in the Video Games Guinness Book. It really doesn’t have to be a game either. Maybe we could have a game theme or something else that could land us a cool spot.

Either way, If you have suggestions for what you think could be make it into the Video Games Guinness Book of World Records either this year or the next, please feel free to comment and give us your feedback!

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Ugliest Website Winner!

Pierre-Luc takes the cake on this one, and wins himself a free year of web hosting. We were looking to see who could get the craziest with a site, and this guy did it. So what was it that got our attention? Below is some screen shots if his ugly website as well as a list of the things he used that we liked, which would win anyone the lowest honor of ugly web design.

• Frames everywhere! How nuts could you go with frames on a site? This guy put them in little corners that you would have to really be looking to recognize.
• Completely bad grammar. If you want to have a site thats horrible, then use bad grammar if possible.
• The colors were sick. If you spent enough time looking at these colors you would go blind very quickly.
• Flashing images. The background as well as the flashing Gator image was great! Enough to give you seizures or just a bad headache.
• Use of multiple pages. Some pages had very few things and others had huge fonts, but we like the time spent making them.
• The funny factor. When you look at an ugly website, isn’t it just great to laugh? This website had a theme about wolves which made no sense, but was put together well.

Congrats Pierre-Luc! You have not only given us a solid headache from the flashing colors, but you took pride in your work, and showed us something so senseless about wolves that gave us a good laugh.

We also want to thank our other contestants, who put time and effort into their ugly sites as well. Don’t worry, we will have other contests in the future that you can take part in which we will be offering prizes for as well.

If you have not subscribed to our feed yet, now would be a great time to do so. We have a lot of good stuff on the way!

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Stuck In The Elevator

When Daniel and Julio (HostGator support) thought that it was going to be just an average day at work, they had no idea what was coming. After entering the Elevator of the HostGator Building on the first floor, and pushing the 4th floor button, to their surprise the elevator stopped halfway up. What do people do in a small elevator when its stuck? They call in late to work to start with, because if you get stuck in an elevator there is a chance you may be there for a long time. I think 2 hours was enough for them.

After enough standing around, they decide to sit down. Since it was the holidays and there was nobody really working on elevators, Julio and Daniel thought they might have to wait till the next day to get out, but they didn’t. Brent and Brian managed to prop open the doors to help them squeeze through to the next floor. Just before the rescue, Daniel managed to record their cramped experience with his phone. From the looks of it Julio is a little upset already, Daniel however just seems to be having fun with this whole thing. Check the video out that we put on Youtube below.

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5 Tips On Branding Your Website

Branding livestock goes back to around 2700 B.C. Even paintings in the tombs of Egyptians show hieroglyphs of people branding oxen. This branding confirmed the ownership of the livestock. You may not be branding livestock, but this certainly applies to your website. It needs to be brandable so people will connect your website with a product, service, or other type of value.

Do you know how many people call HostGator and refer to us as GatorHost? A good number of people, but its our logo that people will never forget, this is just another part of branding yourself. If you surf the internet on any given day you will see the HostGator logo at some point. I can almost guarantee you that because it has been established across the internet. There are many aspects to branding your business besides the obvious sometimes. With that in mind, the following 5 tips will help you get on the right track to branding yourself better on the internet.

1. Branding With A Domain

   Have a domain which describes the name of your business as best as possible. Shorter domains are easier to remember. People can return to your website if the name is catchy and memorable. Avoid long domain names if possible, which detracts from the professionalism of your business.

2. Create A Logo Thats Memorable

   Make or have someone create a logo for you. This is also key for branding yourself. Remember, A picture is worth a thousand words. A logo, or image on your website will help connect customers, as well as potential customers with what your website is selling or promoting. You want to brand an image in peoples minds so they think of your business first when there is a service or product they need, or that their friends need.

3. Have A User Friendly Website

   Make your navigation simple and easy to use. A lot of people don’t realize that the user friendliness of a site is a part of branding. When you go to a website that is disorderly as well as looking and feeling complicated, would you rather stay and figure it out or find another resource that is simple and user friendly? If your website is simple and easy to use to purchase something, then people will come to you first over your competitors.

4. Coin A Phrase

   A motto is another great thing to be known by. Almost every large company out there that you can think of has a motto. The HostGator motto is, “We eat up the competition”. This phrase just makes perfect sense, and connects people with the HostGator image. If you have a Logo for your website, then it might be a good idea to create a motto that is easy to remember as well.

5. Set Yourself Apart And Specialize

   Setting yourself APART from the rest really encompasses everything from the last 4 tips. Make sure to be different from your competition. Know what you want to be known for. What aspect of your company do you want people to recognize when they think of your business? If you are selling a wide variety of power tools, would you want people to recognize you as a leader in the industry of drills? That would certainly be easier as a niche than competing with larger companies which offer power tools as well.

From the last 5 tips, you can see that branding is huge! If you are starting an E-Commerce site or have one already, but are lacking the success, then this is one of those things you have to take a serious look at and ask yourself, “why would people come to my site over my competitor”. Until you think like your potential customers, you may find that your business is lacking. If you follow these tips on branding, you will be building upon something that will have a lasting effect far into the future.

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Ugliest Website Building Competition

Here at HostGator, we run across some pretty sad looking websites that could use some help sometimes. As I thought about how some people build and even sell horrible looking websites as a business, I thought it would be fun if we had a competition of who could build the ugliest website. The best part is we will be giving away a prize for it? The winner will receive a Free 1 year Swamp web hosting account.

Do you have what it takes to design something that strains the eyeballs, is disproportioned, or is absolutely user unfriendly? If you do, then read the list of rules and get started. Keep in mind that there will be one winner, so don’t be upset after its all said and done if you don’t win. The plus side however of this competition is that it gives you a good chance to get some traffic and exposure. We will be leaving the voting up to everyone that reads and comments on this blog as well as HostGator employees.

Website Contest Rules

• You may use a previously built website as long as it is yours.
• You MUST copy the code below and put it on the main page of your site.
• No site with any type of illegal content or questionable material will be accepted.
• Once your site is ready, you need to comment on this post with the web address to your site, so people can see.
• HostGator Staff will then judge based on viewing and your comments. More Comments can be found on the HostGator Forums. The winner will be announced on January 4th.

The <a href=”http://blog.hostgator.com”>HostGator</a> Ugliest Website Competition.

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Donors Choose FollowUp and Charity

We want to thank those of you who checked into different funds on Donorschoose.org. Especially those of you that gave us direct links to a particular fund. As you will recall, several posts back we gave you the readers, the opportunity to choose which would be the best school project to fund. We also agreed from several comments to the post, that we would match the $100 dollar donation. This means a total of $200 will be donated to the specific cause.

So we started looking through what you gave us and decided on “Thumb Drives to Fingerprint Success”. What a great way to take advantage of technology and save on paper, since so much paper is wasted everyday. This particular donation suggestion was referred to us by Josh. Thanks Josh, and all of you with suggestions! You can click HERE to view that project fund.

Charity Suggestions

Not to be forgotten is the Charity money that has also been raised from 404 error pages. We would once again like your input on this. There is about $50,000 dollars that will be donated this year. For which charity do you feel we should use this money for? Please let us know again with your comments and suggestions.

There is also a forum post that we would encourage all to share in which can be found HERE.

With that being said, thanks for all your support in making HostGator the great hosting company that it is today, and we hope we can be part of making a difference wherever this money ends up being donated.

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Paintball Was A Blast

As you remember, we had a day where anyone who wanted could play paintball. It was a blast, and we have some pictures to show you. Brent likes to have these gatherings once in a while to let everyone from the office unwind and have a good time together. This office gathering was about shooting your fellow coworkers, and your boss. What a great time for payback! All in good fun of course. In the end, the man with the cleanest gear got drenched with paint. Enjoy the images, and click to enlarge.

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Beef Your Blog With Super Cache Plugin

WordPress is one of the greatest and simplest tools for bloggers today. WordPress uses PHP and thats great, but can at times not so great too. Why so? Receiving a lot of traffic over the period of a day is generally not an issue, however it can be an issue when you start getting a huge amount of traffic that is coming all at once. Unlike normal html webpages, PHP pages are dynamically generated. This means the server frequently re-compiles each page before displaying it to each visitor. This consumes more CPU than a standard webpage, so very popular blogs can quickly consume all available processor time.

Making Things Better

One of the best ways to combat against unnecessary recompiling of php pages (and thus greatly reduce cpu use) is to install and activate the WordPress Super Cache plugin. A cache is a temporary storage place for frequently or recently accessed data, and this is exactly what this plugin is designed to do. It takes the dynamic content in the form of php pages, and presents the results using low-overhead, generally static pages.

I think anyone that installs WordPress should always get this plugin no matter who you are. For the simple fact that when blogging, you may hit a subject or post something that catches on rather fast with social media based websites. The Super Cache plugin is based on the original cache plugin which was created by Ricardo Granada, and is just an overall solid wordpress plugin that is in my top ten favorites. Whats so great about the new over the old?

Difference Between Old and New

The larger difference between the original WordPress Cache plugin and the WP Super Cache is that the original, required manual work for whichever page you wanted to be cached, whereas the Super Cache is automatic. Keep in mind this plugin is not the solution to all your WordPress problems, but it will make a major difference when you are receiving larger amounts of traffic, especially in a shorter period of time than normal.

I would highly recommend that you would read thoroughly over the guide to this plugin to understand what it is intended for. You can read about and install the WP Super Cache plugin HERE.

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5 Reasons Your Business Needs a Blog?

Blogs have in more recent times gained a ridiculous popularity. A lot of people previously thought that blogging was just for kids or for people that wanted to just talk about the goings on in their lives, but not so anymore. Businesses as well as people creating niche websites are using blogs more than ever. Wordpress being the popular choice. So why should you use a blog if you have a E-Commerce website or just a simple site promoting your business? The following list covers these points.

1. Announce new products or Services to your customers.

One of the best things about a blog is the announcing of new products which will be available for purchase, or bring attention to new services that you will be providing. This can be good especially if you do not plan to update your website as frequently, and want to make a simple blog post about it to inform current and potential customers.

2. Mention upcoming sales or special events.

What better way than to announce on your blog that you will be having an upcoming sale. If the content of your blog is good quality articles, then adding in a special sale that your E-Commerce site will be having in the near future can be a nice touch. This can lead to people coming back to your website more often to check on deals you may be offering. The more you get someone to come back to a site, the the greater potential for a sale increases.

3. Get on a more personal level.

Your blog gives you a great opportunity to build relationships with customers on a more personal level. It helps to give you more credibility and shows customers what you are about. This is especially important when it comes to repeat customers, and those who really do want to know who you are.

4. Help guide public image.

The fact that people have an image defined of who you are from looking at your website, or from what others say is Big. A blog will allow you to not only clear up possible misconceptions, but guide persons view of what your company is all about. This helps you in the branding of your business and making a name for it.

5. Create more quality content to drive traffic where you want.

This is a key factor with a blog and is good because it allows you to put more emphasis on different areas of your website. Internal linking to specific pages of your website will help with Search engine placement as well as targeting areas of your website you want more traffic to get too. The more articles you write, the more content you have which is relevant in search engines. This means more organic traffic for you, which in turn leads to sales.

As you can see, a business blog can be very essential and add to the overall value of your website. A blog is very easy to set up as well. As I mentioned previously, Wordpress is the tool by choice for most bloggers today, as it has more functionality and ease of use. If you have a HostGator Account it is very quick to set this up in the Fantastico option of Cpanel. With this function you can be up and running your Wordpress blog in no time, so make good use of it.

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500,000 Dollar Google USB Drive

I’m sure you might be expecting a USB drive made of Gold with inlay diamonds sparkling away, but all that glitters isn’t gold, and as a matter of fact, you won’t find anything at all that is absolutely stunning. We merely want to show you what you could expect if you were to lay down about 500 big ones for Google advertising. We received the annual gift from Google and just wanted