You may have seen reports in the press that hackers have recently singled out WordPress websites for an attack.

Recent figures suggest that over 90,000 servers have been attacked so far with the number growing daily.

Since Adira build the majority of it’s websites on WordPress, I felt that it would be a good idea to write an article explaining what exactly is going on and how to defend your WordPress site against this botnet attack.

Adira clients who are signed up to a maintenance contract, or customer care package need not worry as we will take care of everything for you. Clients who are not on a contract are more than welcome to contact us for more guidance or detailed instructions on how to perform the tasks detailed in this article.

What is a Botnet attack?

As you may know, many computer viruses install themselves on home and office computers with the intention of using the computer, like a robot, to perform certain tasks.

A Botnet (or robot network) attack is the term used to describe a collection of infected computers that are used to simultaneously attack a specific target or targets.

In this instance, an army of infected computers are being used to take control of the website by trying to guess the password for a user called ‘admin’ (a commonly selected username).

How Does It Work?

The premise of the attack is very simple. Infected computers search out WordPress websites, using the username ‘admin’. They then try to find the password by trying thousands of different password combinations.

In general, Adira websites are protected from this to some extent by the simple fact that we rarely use the username ‘admin’.

What to do next

1. As previously mentioned, if you have a maintenance or customer care agreement with Adira, you need do nothing further, we will take care of it for you.
2. If you are an Adira client, feel free to contact us for further advice on 0845 6121199
3. If you wish to deal with this personally, we have prepared a set of instructions for you here

This how-to assumes that you have a basic knowledge of WordPress, are able to upgrade and install plugins.

There are a number of things you should do to ensure that your WordPress website does not fall victim to the recent spate of WordPress botnet attacks.

Step One: Use this free online tool to check whether your site has been infected (it will also tell you if you’re using outdated software)

Step Two: Ensure that you do not have a user called ‘admin’. To check this:-

1. log in to your WordPress Administration Panel (http://www.yourdomain/wp-admin).
2. Select Users from the left hand menu.
3. If you see an admin username, add a new user for yourself (ensuring that the role is set to Administrator) and log out.
4. Log back in as the new user and select Users from the left hand menu
5.  and delete the admin account.

Step Three: Ensure that you are using the latest version of WordPress. Either use the tool in step one, or log into your WordPress Administration Panel, take a look at the top of the screen. If you see a yellow bar that says ‘WordPress x.x.x is available. Please update now’, then your version of WordPress is out of date.

It is important to always have the latest version of WordPress as this will contain the latest security features

If your version of WordPress is out of date, do the following:-

1. Back Up your WordPress install – you can install this plugin that will back everything up and allow you to download it to your own computer. Updates do not always go smoothly so this step is critical.
2. Click the upgrade link, located within the yellow bar at the top, and follow the upgrade instructions.
3. Check your website to ensure that everything is working as expected. It is possible in some instances for  updates to interfere with older plugins (this is why step 1 is so critical!)

Luckily WordPress makes the upgrade procedure easy, so all being well the process should be very smooth.

Step Three: Install this plugin that limits the amount of attempts that can be made on a password. Once the limit (which you can set) is reached, it will lock the account for a specified period of time to prevent further attempts.

Step Four: Whatever user account you are using, make damn sure you have a strong password! This is true for any password! Here are some tips for choosing strong passwords:-

1. Try to use a minimum of 8 characters
2. Use at least one number
3. Use a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters
4. Use at least one character (i.e. @, $, ^, ! etc.)
5. Never use words you’ll find in a dictionary
6. NEVER use obvious passwords such as ‘password’
7. Your password should never be the same as your username.

I hope this helps, remeber if you’re an Adira customer and have any doubts then please don’t hesitate to call on 0845 6121199

This is often seen through the regular changes and innovations seen on the Google search page – we’ve seen great moving graphics, inspiring art and even full on games!

If you’re of a slightly geeky persuasion, for agens, I’ve been meaning to put together an article on the fun stuff you can do with the Google search page – you really don’t need to be a geek to make it work, but it helps to appreciate the humour!

1. Barrel Roll

Type the phrase barrel roll into the Google search box and see the screen spin around!

2. Gravity!

Type in the words google gravity and hit the ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button

3. Clever With Words

Type the word recursion in to the google search box and take particular note of the ‘Did You Mean…’ link. Obviously to appreciate the joke you’ll need to know what recursion means

4. Tilt

Does exactly what it says on the tin – type in the word tilt and watch the screen…er…tilt. You can also type in the word askew for the same effect.

5. April Fool!

This one started out as an April fools joke, but you can still see it here:- http://www.google.com/mentalplex

6. Pacman

Here’s another archived Google home page – it’s a full on version of the game Pacman! http://www.google.com/pacman/

I hope this proves that not all website designers lack a sense of humour If you know of any more Google tricks, why not get in touch and let us know.

1. Keywords/ Keyphrases

Before writing an article or blog post for your website you should consider your keywords carefully. Generally you will be writing about something to do with your business  so consider keywords or keyphrases that people might use to search for an article of this type.

e.g. Our business is primarily Website Design, therefore they keywords Website Design or Website Designer may be appropriate to our posts.

Once you’ve identified the primary keywords or phrases, ensure that they appear regularly throughout the article. If you find it easier, do this retrospectively.

2. The Title

The title of your blog post plays a significant role in determining how Google will treat the article in the search engine results. Try to get a key word or phase into your title at least once, twice if you can. Feel free to use dashes or full stops to help achieve this:-

e.g. Website Design – Common Mistakes Made in Website Design

Google will see these keywords in this important area and take note.

3. The Text

The most important thing for Google to understand what your article is about (and therefore what keywords to rank you under) is the text.

Make sure your keywords feature regularly in the headings and the text. As an indication, keywords found in a ‘Heading 1′ or main heading will be worth more that keywords in a ‘Heading 2′.

Generally the first 2 paragraphs are the most important  so consider this when including keywords in your text.

Having said this, don’t just stuff keywords all over the place, it’s far more important that your text reads well.

4. Permalinks

This is a geeky term for how the web address shows. For example, if you have an article call ‘Website Design For Beginners’ the web site address would be:-

http://www.adira.co.uk/web-design-for-beginners/

If your blog was put together by Adira then you can ignore this step as this would be set up correctly, however if your web address looks something like this:-

http://www.adira.co.uk/?p=299

Then you need to update the permalink setting on your wordpress settings. To do this:-

1. Log in to your WordPress admin panel adn select Settings
2. Click ‘Permalink
3. Copy and paste this:-  /%category%/%postname%/ into the Custom field.

Follow this and your Category name and Post name will appear in the web address.

NOTE: If you do this you may have to change your .htaccess file.

5. Blog Tags

Tags are are 1 or 2 word description of the post. They help people find the article when using your blog search but also help search engines and bookmarking sites determine what your post is about. The correct form for a tag is:-

website-design, website-designer

Do not exceed 3 words in a tag.

If you follow these 5 steps, you’re sure sure to see a marked improvement in your search engine results without too much additional work.

For some time it has been common practice to include lists of ‘tags’ or keywords within a website design – this has traditionally been used to add relevant keywords to the website page in an attempt to boost Google rankings.

However, it has recently come to light that this is now considered by Google to be bad practice – here’s a video that explains the issues…

We’ve just recieved an email from SitePoint all about using WordPress as a content management system to back up great website design. Adira uses WordPress for many clients – and, it seems, with good reason!

For those of you that don’t know, WordPress is a back end system that allows you to manage your website pages, add functionality (online shop, website gallery, booking system etc…) through a vast bank of plugins that are usually free or inexpensive to acquire.

WordPress is incredibly easy to use which is why we use it as a back end system for much of our website design work. The WordPress statistics that were sent through by SitePoint are as follows:-

- There are 65,810,415 WordPress powered sites (at time of writing)

- Over 100,000 new WordPress sites are created every day!

- WordPress powers 14.7% of Alexa Internet’s “top 1 million” sites

- WordPress is used in 22% of all new websites

Now that’s impressive! If you’re interested in a low cost website based on the fantastic WordPress, then please feel free to get in touch right now!

Please be aware that this clip deals with an adult theme and contains some explicit language.

Choosing a web design firm for your company’s website may seem simple. You can choose the lowest cost website design company, or you can make a list of what you need for your website and choose the website hosting company that is best able to give you what you need. Though the list may be more time consuming, a bit of research can help you rest assured that you’ve made the best choice for your company.

One of the first things that you need to consider is the type of information that will be on your website. Some companies might only need a simple brochure type website. Other companies may need something more involved, like a shopping cart system.

You should make a list of the information that you want on your website, so you are prepared when the developer asks for content. A good developer can help you make sure your web content is optimized for the search engines. Search engine optimization works in conjunction with your website’s keywords to help bring your website to the top of the search engine results pages.

Another consideration for a new website is how the interface will look. If your website’s interface isn’t intuitive, then your customers may not find what they need. If a potential customer can’t find what they need, they may go to a competitor’s website instead. Though you may be able to find your way around your website, verifying that others can find their way around your site can help you be sure that your customers are finding what they need.

With the abundance of build-it-yourself website kits out there, it may seem like aesthetics aren’t as important to a website as they once were. However, research has shown that people still form a first opinion of a company or person by what they see. If your website isn’t visually appealing, the poor first opinion may carry through to your customers’ opinions on your company in general.

In web design, careful evaluation of the user interface, the information on the website, and the aesthetics of the design can help you get the best value for the money you spend. You should be sure that your website hosting company understands these design aspects as well. Choosing the least expensive company isn’t always going to give you best results for your money.

• If MySpace were a country it would be ranked the 5th largest in the world
• We send more text messages each day than there are people in the whole planet
• The NY Times publishes more information in 1 week than a person in the 18th century came across in their whole life

Sound interesting? Take a look at the video – you won’t be disappointed.

Web users visit a website to get the information regarding a product or service that is being offered by that very website or to know about that online business, its experience, scope of work, and so on and so forth. A website must therefore provide its visitors reliable and up-to-date information about its online business and about the products and services that it provides. If a website is unable to do so, it can lose its visitors to its competitors for ever and nothing can save it then.

In order to attract visitors and to generate sales leads, web design professionals Winchester add interesting and relevant content to their clients’ websites. They make sure that the content is interesting to read and capable of holding back the web site visitors to it. By including the price and mentioning the special offers and discounts in the content, website design Winchester further add to the effectiveness of the web design Winchester.

Good web design professionals in Winchester allow their clients to add, remove, and change the website content from time to time.

For the best web design services in Winchester, log on to www.adira.co.uk