Ron Gilleland

Web Development & Digital Marketing

SSL Certificate For Your Website – WHY?

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Most websites that are not heavily commercial have always been hosted on a non-secure host. Meaning that the HTML code and content was sent out across the internet “in the open”. Anyone could intercept the traffic and see exactly what was being streamed. That has not been a problem to someone broadcasting their story or their products and services. You want people to know what your site is about. As these sites have become larger and more interactive suddenly there are things being passed both ways on a website. Things like passwords and credit information and NAPs (name, address, phone number)…not what you want.

Google has taken it on themselves to clean this mess up. A SSL Certificate (Secure Sockets Layer) is a guarantee that the data flowing to and from a website is being encrypted as it is being sent and de-encrypted at the users screen only. The http:// protocol becomes https:// so that means that the site is on a different server with different configuration.

Users will notice a padlock in front of the URL and hovering over it will give a message “Secure Connection”. This is the guarantee. See the URL bar at the top of this page. A site hosted on a non-secure server will have an I with a circle around it…clicking it will show a message “Your connection to this site is not secure”. Not exactly what you want a prospective customer or subscriber to see.

Google started this in January of 2017 and stated in October of this year they would “up the ante”. The warning is going to be a lot more in your face…the message in front of the URL will become….

This change, if done correctly is not a simple task. If done incorrectly your website will have lost links and visitors will find 404 Page Not Found messages. And worst of all Google will devalue your site in search rankings.

Call me or use the form here for a conversation about your site. I have done several in the recent weeks and am sure that October is going to bring this to the “top of mind” for a lot of people.

Brazos Manufacturing

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I manage all of the marketing efforts for this start up. My background is in the material handling world so I am uniquely qualified to promote their brand and develop their marketing strategy. It is a great pleasure to do so because they are genuinely nice hard working people who I want to succeed.

Brazos Manufacturing

There Are A Lot of Bad People on the Internet

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I have been involved with the internet since the mid-90s and there are a number of things I do not understand. The most puzzling to me is the motivation of a certain class of hacker. This individual spends his time and his efforts in a digital version of driving the neighborhood looking for an open front door. Some are “script kiddies” and others are sophisticated individuals or groups.

According to Wikipedia a Script Kiddie –

In programming culture a script kiddie or skiddie (also known as skid, script bunny, script kitty) is an unskilled individual who uses scripts or programs developed by others to attack computer systems and networks, and deface websites.

Another class of hacker is the thief who’s plan is to profit by stealing data and selling it. We see these in the news from time to time. Think Target’s problems last holiday season. A large volume of credit card numbers and other identity fragments will be pilfered and be sold to different individuals or groups … each with their own agenda. This type of hack is usually automated…not some individual setting at a screen poking at the internet. That is the type of attack that is occurring on one of my sites.

On one of my sites I have a current version of WordPress and all plugins are up-to-date. I have Wordfence installed and the number of failed login attempts set to 10 before the user is locked out for 30 minutes. Further the user name “admin” has been deleted and replaced by a more cryptic one (a practice I employ on all sites I create or manage). In the last 24 hours I have had over 120 sessions where someone is locked out of my login screen for exceeding the number of attempts. In every case they are trying to login using the user name “admin”. They are most likely automated attacks and they are coming from all around the globe. They are coming from Russia, Canada, USA, Malaysia and unfortunately even France.

My advice is that if you have a WordPress install that has the user name “admin” delete it after creating another identity. By doing so you will be doing the single best, most effective thing you can do to harden your site to hackers. We will never agree with the hacker’s motives and many we will never understand but I tell you this … they are coming and they will try to get into your site and they can have success if you don’t do this one simple thing. Even an old site that you have abandoned can be useful to them.

Web design is important as is good SEO but keeping a site safe from misuse is becoming a more important part of my job with each passing day.

England Products

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englandScreenCaptureI built the site for a 30 year old company who contracts with mills and manufacturers that produce wood waste. They collect and blend the wood types for resale to companies who produce many different products. Among them are products for agriculture use like animal bedding, compost and mulch. Products for industrial use like hazardous material control and engineered wood. Fuel items like wood pellets and other industrial fuels. Home products for cooking foods with pellets or charcoal as well as felt paper and other construction item.

A WordPress site using Genesis theme Enterprise Pro. Good impact, clean and modern….all in all “a nice site”.

Dolphin Style Apparel

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Lifestyle Apparel from Dolphin

Lifestyle Apparel from Dolphin

A Orlando, FL company with personal ties in the fitness community…Dolphin Style Apparel is a lifestyle brand of sports clothing and accessories.

Starting in a community of triathlon competitors, the clothing has attributes valuable to those who know and appreciate the fit, feel and perspiration control of true fitness wear.

Another Genesis Executive Pro offering, it couples nicely with Woo Commerce culminating with a connection to PayPal. Straight forward, styled right, works great. A lot of photography done with IPhone by the client and taken into Photoshop by me.