Website Security for Christchurch Businesses

The amount of websites being hacked is rising dramatically. Website hackers are able to install software onto websites that can get your site banned from Google and expose your information to cyber criminals. Choosing an appropriate website hosting provider should be a top priority for anyone looking to get a website up and running or moved to a more secure hosting facility.

One question that is being asked more than any other; Is is safe to host my website overseas? Overseas website hosting can sometimes offer low prices, and this is usually their website targeted marketing strategy, but often these lower prices are a reflection of lower standards of quality and more importantly, website security.

If you are looking to host your website overseas then one of the challenges you are sure to face is the difficulty of website support. If the hosting is provided in another country there may arise challenges in communication, language-barriers, misunderstandings, and the challenge of changing your website hosting to another hosting provider - which has been problematic for many website owners in the past. The speed of your website will also be a factor, the closer to the server your clients are, then the faster access they will have to their site.

If you are now thinking of changing your website hosting from an overseas company back to a New Zealand company, we have a few tips for you to keep in mind ;

• Keep your existing website hosting account open until you have completed the changeover. This will ensure that your website and any email accounts will still be active during the changeover.

• Have a back-up of your website information and files. This could be a problem if all the website files are located with a website hosting company overseas.

• Once you have changed to a new website hosting provider, you can make the necessary domain name changes, or if you have switched to a company like us, we would do this for you.

Here’s a couple things to be aware of that can become traps for website owners ;

• Don’t fall for gimmics like the promise of free Domain names - domain names are not free. When you register for a domain name a registration fee is required by the domain registry, which gives you the right to use the domain name for the duration of the term you have registered for. Choose a company that can provide website hosting and also take responsibility for your domain name renewal - without which your site would go down.

• Don’t believe a company who promises unlimited storage space. No web hosting company can provide this, there is always a limit to the space available but customers don’t, in actuality, need a huge amount of disk space.

• Don’t compromise your site getting cheaper hosting by putting up with ads plastered throughout your site. Sites with click-through adverts are the most targeted by hackers, and the adverts are a distraction and aversion for potential clients, unless they have some relevancy to the context.

At Activate Design our websites are hosted on our own secure server in a secure data centre and we employ industry-standard security measures to protect customer information from misuse, damage, disaster and/or the alteration of content. This includes 128-bit security encryption and the our use of a secure server. Our hosting server is located in a 24-hour alarmed and monitored secure area, and we have recently launched ActiveHost - as subsidiary of Activate Design Ltd., offering hosting and domain registration services as a dedicated business unit.

We would like to instil confidence in our secure, New Zealand based hosting servers, and uniquely secure CMS platform which we have developed and evolved over the past five years. There are a lot of CMS platforms out there, ours is unique because it has been created by us, exclusively for our client base, and as it is not publicly available there are no viruses for it.

Benefits of using Activate Design for your website hosting service ;

• Maintain fast loading speeds for New Zealand and Australian based audiences.

• Keep your website content and customer data safe.

• Get alerted to suspicious activity.

• Be able to back up your website and be able to easily restore it.

• Avoid getting blacklisted by search engines.

• Avoid your customers inadvertently downloading and running malicious files from your website if it gets infected.

• Avoid malicious files such as viruses, trojans, spyware etc. from completely compromising your website, requiring a complete rebuild.

• Avoid viruses out there that are programmed to disrupt the service and operation of websites, and to collect information, such as customers sensitive data that can lead to loss of privacy, enable unauthorised access, and cause major disruption.

• Be easily able to update your website using our C.M.S. (Content Management System).

• Have control to be able to edit content / add products yourself.

• Establish a high rank on search engines using our S.E.O. Services.

We offer our services both nationwide and overseas, so please feel free to contact us regarding the secure hosting of your website, at our trusted and experienced website design & development, hosting, graphic design and print management company. Take a look at our web design portfolio here.

If you have a website that has been hacked then you know the consequences of not ensuring your site is safely located on a secure server. If your website is hacked it can be non-operational for a long periods of time while it is either shifted to a new server or requires a complete re-build on a safer CMS (Content Management System) platform. Prevent this from happening by choosing a reputable, experienced company for your secure, trusted web hosting, design and development.

The unfortunate truth of online crime, is that websites are the most common place hackers will target. Contact us to discuss how we can create and maintain the highest level of security for your website, today.