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samedi 12 novembre 2016

My Recent WP Engine Review

alt="My Recent WP Engine Review" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/wpengine1-500x286_c.jpg" />

style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/wpengine.php">class="border" alt="WP Engine Homepage" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2011/0613-1.jpg" width="750" />

class="att">*Important Note
In case you are unaware, WHSR is now hosted on WP Engine and I have written a new, lengthy review on WP Engine hosting. For my latest WP Engine usage experience, server track record, discount, and updated details; check out this href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/wpengine-review/">updated WP Engine Review.

Founded by Aaron Brazell and Jason Cohen, WP Engine offers premium WordPress hosting with tons of valuable WordPress optimization (security, load speed, updates, as well as plugin recommendations).

In case you are unaware, I did an href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/featured-articles/interview-with-wp-engine-co-founder-jason-cohen/">interview with WP Engine Co-Founder, Jason Cohen, recently. This is my review of WP Engine. I am not a WP Engine customer BUT, I have spent hours of reading and researching before I publish this post – I’m sure some of you guys will find this piece useful.

WP Engine: Premier Built-for-WordPress Hosting

As much as the fact that WordPress is world #1 blogging platform, it’s hard to find web host that focuses solely on WordPress. It’s even href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/wordpress-blog/best-wordpress-hosting/">harder to get good WordPress hosting company that is “serious” with their business.

This makes WP Engine a special gem in the market.

WP Engine is one of the very, very few companies that focus only on WordPress hosting; and what’s more, the folks at WP Engine are dead serious about their business.
You can visit WP Engine online here: href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine">http://www.wpengine.com. The company has recently renovate the website and it has a total new outlook now.

Why WordPress-Only Hosting?

“Why do we need a web host that focuses solely on WordPress? Other hosting companies can do the same job and host my WP blogs!”, you may ask. Jason, co-founder of WP Engine, gave the perfect answer in our recent interview session.

When asked “How has the strategy of solely focusing on WordPress users affected the business?”
Jason answered: “Focusing only on WordPress means we can do a fantastic job. For example we hire WordPress experts only, so everyone at the company is helpful and knowledgeable when you call into tech support.
Lots of hosting companies answer the phone on the first ring and call that “good service.” Of course if the person on the other end can’t debug the WordPress problem, at the end of the day it’s not helpful. We know what we’re good at — and what we’re NOT good at! — and we do only the former.”
“That’s how it affects you — the customer. How it affects the back-end business is that we can be more profitable because we don’t have to diversify technology or talent. American Airlines can’t make money because they service 20 kinds of planes; Southwest and JetBlue are profitable and run only a few models. We’re like the latter; most hosting companies are the former.”

What I like about WP Engine Hosting

id="right">alt="WP Engine Features" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2011/0613-2.jpg" />

As a big-time WordPress fans, there are plenty to like about WP Engine. But here are some of the important advantages with the WordPress host.

Backed by WordPress expert

The best reason to like WP Engine is because of its people. WP Engine is founded and run by WordPress experts. I mean, *REAL* WordPress experts.

Co-founder Jason Cohen is the maker of href="http://smartbear.com/products/development-tools/code-review/features/" target="_blank">Code Collaborator; Aaron Brazel, co-founder, has been an active WordPress developer since 2004 and he wrote href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470568135?ie=UTF8&tag=emmensetechno-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0470568135">WordPress Bible (Wiley); and we have Advisor, href="http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/" target="_blank">Ben Metcalfe, who is involve with WordPress development since the very early days.

WordPress Security

WordPress sites hosted on WP Engine is protected in several levels. WP Engine utilizes hardware-base intrusion detection appliances from DDos attack and rogue scanning. On the inside, hosting accounts are isolated with limited user access.

Server Scalabilty

The standard Touring Package allows 250,000 pageviews per month. But that doesn’t mean you have to limit your traffics at that level. According to statistics, WP Engine moves 50 million hits per day through their system. In other words, this means WP Engine is highly scalable.

As claimed by WP Engine, their customers have hit huge media sites like Huffington Post, TechCrunch from time to time and “never skipped a beat”.

Fully Managed Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Heard about CDN? Long story short, CDN is an effective way to stores and delivers your content frpm different servers and this allows your site to load faster. WP Engine is the ONLY WordPress host that includes a fully managed CDN service where your site’s static content (images, videos, static pdf files, etc) are served from servers all around the world. Furthermore, WP Engine also employs proxy servers, data bases, disk caching, file minification, as well as image compression to speed up customer sites load time.

Things you might don’t like about WP Engine

No 24×7 Customer Support

I know, most shared hosting companies offer 24×7 customer supports via live chat and telephone. But that’s not the case for WP Engine. The company’s customer support team does seem very dedicated (they call it ‘Customer Happiness Department’) but newbies who need hand-to-hand spoonfeed support might want to think twice.

Expensive Web Host

WP Engine offers 3 different stand plans; namely Sport (/mo), Touring (/mo), and Luxury Package (custom pricing). I know, WP Engine’s high price tag is a big turn-off. But hey, be realistic, how much do you expect them to charge? .99/mo for a premium hosting service?

Short Trial Period – 15 Days Only

WP Engine offers only 15 days of free trial period. But hey that’s not a big deal since WP Engine is charging its customer on per-month basis. This means it’s easy to leave WP Engine. ;)

WP Engine Customer Reviews

They are pros! “It’s nice to pay someone to handle all the hosting BS that we’re no good at. They’re WordPress Pros.” – Ash Maurya, Author of href="http://www.runningleanhq.com/">Running Lean.

WP Engine has been running well! “All in all WP Engine has been running well for a week. Now that I’m using their services I’ll probably stay with them for the foreseeable future. As I always try to remind you guys, when you are determining what you are willing to pay for a solution always include the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). per month for a site may seem expensive, but I don’t have to worry about maintenance, backups, server hacking and such. I do believe that their overall system needs to be streamlined and made to be more user friendly, but if you have a decent knowledge of Web Server Administration WP Engine may be a good option for you.” – Eli of href="http://www.everymanit.com/" target="_blank">EverymanIT.com, href="http://www.everymanit.com/2011/01/24/first-thoughts-on-the-migration-to-wp-engine/" target="_blank">full WP Engine review here.

WP Engine Hosting Plans At A Glance

Here’s a quick screen cap on WP Engine price and plan details. For more details, visit: href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine" target="_blank">http://www.wpengine.com

href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/wpengine.php">class="border" alt="WP Engine Homepage" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2011/0613-3.jpg" width="750" />

WP Engine Hosting Review:Should you go with WP Engine?

Any WordPress user who are serious about their blog should consider using WP Engine.

The reason why I am not switching to WP Engine is because I am very happy with Hostgator and I had recently bought/installed PressVault. If price is not a problem, then why suffer another sleepless night worrying about your site cracked due to hackers or heavy traffic loads? Just go with WP Engine!

To visit (opens in new window): href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine" target="_blank">http://www.wpengine.com

Page 27 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

Recent FatCow User Reviews

alt="Recent FatCow User Reviews" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/default-image-500x308_c.jpg" />

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2010/0715-2.jpg" alt="FatCow Hosting" />

We have roughly another two months to go for href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/updates-news/fatcow-host-smart-drive-smart-contest/">FatCow Host Smart Drive Smart Giveaway. In case you are considering FatCow hosting, here are some recent user feedback for references. Some of these reviews are quoted else where from the Internet; some were e-mailed to my directly.

FatCow Hosting User Feedback

“Great Service!!” I’m using fatcow for more than 6 months, and did not had any problems so far. They servers are reliable and didn’t noticed any downtime for my websites. Some times the live chat support is slow, but the email and phone support is professional. Fatcow is my first hosting provider, and they has helped me a lot to put my business online. Great service! I would recommend to any business owner! – Reviewed by Jorg @ July 8, 2010.
“Jaw-droppingly easy to use!” Fat Cow’s automated installations are jaw- droppingly easy to use. I create and sell CMS/Joomla! websites using Fat Cow’s unlimited hosting plan and it has been a very profitable experience with Fat Cow. I do have to note that the overall speed of Fat Cow’s hosting plan leaves something to be desired when it comes to load time for scripts – mainly in Joomla! / MySQL installations. Otherwise – Fat Cow is the only hosting choice that makes sense to my business. – Reviewed by Matherarts.com @ July 01, 2010
“Average” I’ve hosted many different websites using a variety of web hosts over the years. The only time I’ve ever been “hacked” into was with FatCow – not once, but twice in less than a six-month period. My account was suspended with virtually no notice, and it’s a hassle to get it reinstated. While they gave me general guidance on removing bad files and preventing it from happening again, it was beyond difficult to get anything that specifically addressed my situation such as the type of files that are vulnerable, etc. When I asked customer support for details, I was told that someone will send an e-mail to me “very soon” but the email is never in my mailbox until today (it’s been months!). I’ve been a FatCow customer for less than a year, so I’m not sure how much of a “fluke” this is. Having said that, online support has been fairly prompt and responsive when I’ve had other sorts of issues and questions. Aside from the “phishing” concerns, I’ve been content. – Reviewed by Anonymous @ June 8, 2010.
“FatCow – Not Impressed! “ I have been trying to get a FatCow reseller account now for about 3 weeks.. my paypal payment had an error, so i tried it again.. then realized in my paypal account the first one had gone through.. although was sat “unclaimed” so now I had two “unclaimed” payments in my paypal account. I have been talking to support staff throughout the last two weeks trying to resolve the issue and NOTHING has been done.. they have “escalated” the issue to a senior specialist or something of the sort. I mean a two year old could accept a paypal payment in a few minutes!!!! After reading some of these reviews I am having second thoughts about using them.. they obviously have the look and the pricing but apart from that they seem to be pretty rubbish. – Reviewed by Luke @ June 26, 2010.
“Nothing but pleasures!” Hi Jerry I just wanna drop by and say thanks for sharing your comments about fatcow. I signed up with them in late march and I am 100% satisfy with the kind of service I am getting. fatcow servers are fast (as you said) and I never experience any site down time so far…. The overall setup process was amazingly fast and easy so I’d recommend FatCow to any newbies out there who wish to get things started immediately. In short, fatcow is nothing but pleasures!! – Reviewed by Teressa @ May 17, 2010.
“Debra Lamb Psychic Loves FatCow!” I found FatCow on the Consumer Report site as one of the top recommended web hosting sites for price and customer service. Their web building tools made building my website fairly easy, considering I had absolutely no experience, and every time I called tech support (which was a lot) I was helped by a friendly and knowledgeable associate. I also received encouragement along the way! – Reviewed by DebraLambPsychic @ April 5, 2010.

If these are not enough, check out my href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/fatcow-review/">personal reviews on FatCow hosting here.

Are web hosting user reviews reliable? Here’s what I think.

As a smart shopper, you should understand that a user/customer review is always written based on one’s preference. How well a web host scores in one’s record is always biased towards his/her expectation.

I once received an email complaining about Hostgator. The reason why this guy is unhappy with Hostgator is because (ready for this?) the company does not provide real time web stats reporting tool for his shared hosting account. That’s right, he is looking for a real time web analytic tool – can you believe that? Seriously, if you are expecting such a tool from a /mo hosting service, there is no way in this world you can be pleased.

Another example: Look at this recently published href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/user-reviews/justhost-user-review-by-katja/">JustHost user reviews, check out the review in that post and the comment that follows, I can’t help but wonder why we can have such different feedback on the same web host (Katja was unhappy with JustHost while reader Voyager was shock to see a negative JustHost user review and think it’s a fake review).

So hey, just because you found a negative review on a web host means that it’s a bad choice; vise versa, a web host with some positive reviews might not work rightly for you. Web hosting user reviews (this one included) are solely for your references. Sure some basic research and reviews will help filter out some bad apples but to be safe you should always href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/web-hosting-shopping/15-tips-on-how-not-to-get-screwed-by-your-web-host/">protect yourself from being screwed by a lousy web host.

Page 29 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

10 recent tweets in my Twitter account

alt="10 recent tweets in my Twitter account" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/twitter-followers-500x166_c.jpg" />

You guys already check out my Twitter account – href="http://twitter.com/WebHostingJerry">WebHostingJerry?

class="border" alt="Twitter" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2009/1105-3.jpg" width="750" />

Recent tweets at WebHostingJerry

Here are my 10 recent tweets.

RackSpace CEO talked about cloud hosting and all the related matters in a recent CNBC blogpost – href="http://bit.ly/aWUd5" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/aWUd5
90 Free or Paid Websites File Hosting and Sharing Sites href="http://bit.ly/uhu00" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/uhu00
Tips to Write Better CSS Code href="http://bit.ly/1CH4YL" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/1CH4YL
Flickr image – Plastic life gallery (it’s a bit off topic but it’s really good) href="http://bit.ly/4bo1i4/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/4bo1i4/
50 Beautiful and Creative Blog Designs href="http://bit.ly/34QZTw/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/34QZTw/
A Wired.com Farewell to GeoCities href="http://bit.ly/4sOxBz" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/4sOxBz
iPage review – my experience with iPage so far (one month) href="http://bit.ly/2egGjI/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/2egGjI/
Top 10 Apps that Boost Your Media Center href="http://bit.ly/2M9hTu" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/2M9hTu
20 Linux Server Hardening Security Tips href="http://bit.ly/2V9Fgh" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/2V9Fgh
WordPress 2.8.5 released, version 2.9 coming soon! href="http://bit.ly/WSvWB" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/WSvWB

Get industry news and latest hosting promotions from me on Twitter!

id="floatright">href="http://twitter.com/WebHostingJerry">style="border: 0px;" alt="Twitter" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2009/1105-13.jpg" width="139" height="145" border="0" />

Confession: I am new to Twitter, I started the Twitter account 3 weeks ago. But yet, I find it extremely convenient and useful to share information and to search for inspiration.

As I mentioned in my Twitter profile, I don’t tweet about my cats or my underwear color. I tweet about industry updates, web development guides, latest hosting promotions, and frivolous (but related) information about the WWW.

If the these topics sound interesting to you, href="http://twitter.com/WebHostingJerry">please follow me on WebHostingJerry. I’ll see you on Twitter!

Page 30 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

Quick Round-Up On My Recent Web Reading

alt="Quick Round-Up On My Recent Web Reading" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/reading-500x320_c.jpg" />

class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7770" alt="reading" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/reading.jpg" width="750" height="481" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/reading.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/reading-300x192.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />

I have been reading quite a lot these days and I wanted to share some of the good ones in this post. Listed below are some hand-picked articles/blogposts WHSR readers might be interested in. Some of these are sort of old while some are freshly published – nevermind, the important part is that each of these articles comes with information as valuable as gold. I am seeing a very busy days ahead for myself thus I doubt that there will be any updates at WHSR this week.

So in case you are in the mood of reading… have fun clicking these links. :)

On Inspiration

Everyone loves list-post and need some visual inspiration, eh? href="http://www.selected-webdesign.com/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">style="text-decoration: underline;">Selected Web Design runs a great gallery of websites at its homepage; and for WP users, here’s some nice WP theme demo published on DesignBeep.com – href="http://designbeep.com/2011/06/21/when-wordpress-and-jquery-plugins-go-together/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">When WordPress And jQuery Plugins Go Together.

On Web Marketing

Search Engine Optimization

SEO is not only about links, title text and keyword research. As search and social media converge, “social signals” are playing a more and more important role when it comes to search rankings. This leads us to Moore’s interesting article about href="http://www.fuelyourcreativity.com/leveraging-social-content-for-seo/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">How to Leverage Social Content For SEO. Bing maybe href="http://www.infoworld.com/t/search-engines/microsoft-keeps-trying-and-failing-bing-168199" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">going absolutely nowhere in the near future but it does provide tons of handy tools for webmasters. To leverage these tools, you need href="http://www.seobook.com/bings-webmaster-tools" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">The Ultimate Guide to Using Bing’s Webmaster Tools.

As a WordPress users, I love learning new tricks and hacks. But we don’t need to do everything by ourselves, right? After all, that’s what Plugin is designed for. I bet you’ll be thrilled with some of the href="http://www.webhostingbreak.com/development/10-great-seo-plugins-for-wordpress/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">10 Great SEO Plugins For WordPress listed.

Social Network Marketing

Also, if you are like me, wondering why the heck everyone is talking and blogging and tweeting about Google+, read href="http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/08/google-dont-fight-it.html" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">Google+: Don’t Fight It and href="http://www.webhostingbreak.com/development/10-great-seo-plugins-for-wordpress/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">Google+ Has Made Twitter Boring.

On Website/Blog Interactions

Web design is not only about creating beautiful website. Getting the desired result is another important challenge for all web developers. Smashing Magazine has put up yet another a round-up of resources on href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/07/22/responsive-web-design-techniques-tools-and-design-strategies/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">Responsive Web Design Techniques and Strategies. And also, check out Ailsa’s guide on href="http://sixrevisions.com/content-strategy/website-tone-voice/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">How To Develop Your Website’s Tone Of Voice. I just read this earlier and trust me, this lady knows what is she talking about.

On Web Design and Development

Web Design In General

We all have bad habits and make silly mistakes all the time, perhaps it’s time to run a reality check and see if you are doing any of the list of href="http://www.problogdesign.com/general-tips/30-bad-practices-of-web-designers/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">30 bad practices of web designers? One-page websites are trending pretty fast recently. I’m not a big fan though; but in case you are making one for yourself (or your client), Kendra’s href="http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/07/6-tips-to-create-better-one-page-websites/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">6 Tips To Create Better One-page Websites is a must read.

And, for list lovers, here’s another round-up of href="http://www.webhostingdeals.org/webdevelopmentmarketing/18-free-online-sources-to-learn-web-design" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">18 Free Online Resources In Web Design.

HTML 5 and CSS

You can’t learn HTML 5 via just a few blogpost (you need a book and some practice the least) but Steven’s recent post would be a very good read if you wish to href="http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/html5-content-models/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">Understand HTML5 Content Model. Seriously, HTML 5 is not from Mars. In case you think otherwise, Mark’s href="http://www.webdesignermag.co.uk/tutorials/create-a-basic-html5-page/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">Create A Basic HTML 5 Page With The New Layout Tags should be your next stop. ;) There’s also a great list of learning sources I compiled earlier in href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/featured-articles/learn-html5-10-must-read-lessons/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">Learn HTML 5 – I bet you’ll love them! Further on that, newbies might also want to check out href="http://css-tricks.com/13317-little-css-stuff-newcomers-get-confused-about/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">Little CSS Stuff Newcomers Get Confused About. It’s a very well-written article by Chris that helps you avoid some common mistakes before it happens.

Website Enhancement

Do you ever know web files are related to your website as well? (What?!) Yeah I know, I was as confused as you now when I first read href="http://sixrevisions.com/web-development/5-little-known-web-files-that-can-enhance-your-website/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">5 Little-Known Web Files That Can Enhance Your Website. It’s an eye-opening reading and I love it very much to be honest.

On Web Hosting

Web Hosting Basics

Confused with domain names and web hosting? James’s href="http://www.10-cheapwebhosting.com/Domain-Hosting.php" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">Domain Hosting Explained should be your next stop then. Real case examples are given to explain the differences between domain names and web hosting server – you should be able to understand every necessary key point upon finish reading it.

Web Host Shopping

And hey, last but not least, I had hours of research and wrote a very detailed guide on href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/featured-articles/ultimate-cheap-web-hosting-guide-get-a-good-host-without-breaking-your-wallet/" target="_blank">style="text-decoration: underline;">How To Take Advantage Of Cheap Web Hosting Deals and I strongly encourage web hosting shoppers to check it out.

Page 27 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed