LiewCF.com: “Download: The Google SEO Starter Guide (2010)” plus 1 more

LiewCF.com: “Download: The Google SEO Starter Guide (2010)” plus 1 more

Download: The Google SEO Starter Guide (2010)

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 03:19 PM PDT


googlebot cartoonGoogle has updated The SEO Starter Guide (2010), which was first published in 2008 to include glossary, more example images, SEO for mobile sites.

The SEO guide ebook layout has been redesigned and better readability. It is now look like a “book” instead of just another word document.

google seo starter guide table of content

The content includes:

  1. SEO Basics
  2. Improving Site Structure
  3. Optimizing Content
  4. Dealing with Crawlers
  5. SEO for Mobile Phones
  6. Promotions and Analysis

This is a Must-Have SEO ebook for all webmaster and bloggers! It’s free! Click here to download (PDF)

Massive Malicious Traffic Attacks. Cloud Hosting to Rescue?

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 12:11 PM PDT


web server load spikes

In the past week, my server was down couple times due to massive attacks from unknown sources targeting liewcf.com (this blog).

The malicious traffic caused high server load (load spikes) and brought down the server. Restart web services didn’t help.

That was very frustrating. Website uptime is essential for a full-time blogger, just like how important is the car for a taxi driver.

Website down = No traffic = No $$$

I spent hours and hours sitting in front computer to monitor the server load. Mood was down as the server down…

Fighting attackers!

Here I have to praise the support of my hosting provider — Liquidweb.

In order to monitor my server for load spikes that happen randomly, server admins are assigned for 24/7 close monitoring. *thumb up*

At the end, the server admin blacklisted the IP addresses to return the server to normal stage.

So far, the server performance is good now. There are still some load spikes now and then, but eventually they goes down before bringing down the server again.

How about cloud hosting?

Cloud server is not a solution for random load spikes. It does not auto scale. It is flexible but only when you configure it manually (on-demand server).

It is good only when your server need to scale up/down frequently. Also, most cloud server is self-managed. I am not a server admin guy.

Fully managed cloud hosting like Rackspace Cloud Sites (not Cloud Server) does auto scaling but it is pay-per-use. Thus, you might end up paying a bomb in order to keep your website online under massive attacks. Not cost effective.

Future protection?

This is not the first time and will not be the last time.

The server has some server protection software installed but they are not bulletproof. I cannot afford the enterprise class of hosting environment (multiple server, hardware firewall, load balancing, etc).

I am considering to add a hardware firewall though.

How do you deal with malicious traffic attacks?

Update: Just when I want to publish this article, the server experienced another load spike last for few minutes…