Monthly Archives: April 2022

04.30.22
by

Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code


In 2021, The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology notified the new Information Technology Rules, 20211 (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) under Section 87 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (“IT Act”) and in supersession of the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011.

As per Section 2(1)(w) of the IT Act, an “Intermediary” concerning any particular electronic records means any person who, on behalf of another person, receives, stores, or transmits that record or provides any service for that record and includes:

  • Telecom service providers.
  • Network service providers.
  • Internet service providers.
  • Web-hosting service providers.
  • Search engines.
  • Online payment sites.
  • Online-auction sites.
  • Online-market places.
  • Cybercafes. 

As per Rule 2(1)(w) of the Intermediary Rules, a “social media intermediary” means an intermediary which primarily or solely enables online interaction between two or more users and allows them to create, upload, share, disseminate, modify or access information using its services.

As per the Intermediary Rules, vide notification dated 25th February 2021, a social media intermediary with fifty lakh registered users in India or above specified as threshold notified by the Central Government shall be considered a significant social media intermediary. 

Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 Required Compliances

Under Rule 3, an Intermediary is required to comply with the following requirements, which are binding on an intermediary in India:

  • 1.1.Publish on its website, mobile-based application, or both, as the case may be, the rules and regulations, privacy policy, and user agreement for access or usage of its computer resource by any person. 
  • 1.2.The rules and regulations, privacy policy, or user agreement of the intermediary shall inform the user of its computer resource not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information that—
    • belongs to another person and to which the user does not have any right;
    • is defamatory, obscene, pornographic, pedophilic, invasive of another‘s privacy, including bodily privacy, insulting or harassing on the basis of gender, libelous, racially or ethnically objectionable, relating, or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or otherwise inconsistent with or contrary to the laws in force;
    • is harmful to a child;
    • infringes any patent, trademark, copyright, or other proprietary rights;
    • violates any law for the time being in force;
    • deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of the message or knowingly and intentionally communicates any information which is patently false or misleading in nature but may reasonably be perceived as a fact;
    • impersonates another person; 
    • threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order, or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence or prevents investigation of any offence or is insulting other nation;
    • contains a software virus or any other computer code, file, or program designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer resource;
    • is patently false and untrue, and is written or published in any form, with the intent to mislead or harass a person, entity, or agency for financial gain or to cause any injury to any person;
  • 1.3. Shall periodically inform its users, at least once every year, that in case of non-compliance with rules and regulations, privacy policy, or user agreement for access or usage of the computer resource of such intermediary, it has the right to terminate the access or usage rights of the users to the computer resource immediately or remove non-compliant information or both, as the case may be.
  • 1.4. An intermediary, on whose computer resource the information is stored, hosted, or published, upon receiving actual knowledge in the form of an order by a court of competent jurisdiction or on being notified by the Appropriate Government or its agency under clause (b) of sub-section (3) of section 79 of the Act,
    • shall not host, store or publish any unlawful information, which is prohibited under any law for the time being in force in relation to the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India; 
    • security of the State;
    • friendly relations with foreign States; public order; 
    • decency or morality; contempt of court; 
    • defamation; incitement to an offence relating to the above, or any information which is prohibited under any law for the time being in force, and shall remove or disable access to that information, as early as possible, but in no case later than thirty-six hours from the receipt of the court order or on being notified by the Appropriate Government or its agency. 
  • 1.5. Shall periodically, and at least once a year, inform its users of its rules and regulations, privacy policy or user agreement, or any change in the rules and regulations, privacy policy, or user agreement.
  • 1.6.Any information which has been removed or access to which has been disabled, the intermediary shall, without vitiating the evidence in any manner, preserve such information and associated records for one hundred and eighty days for investigation purposes, or for such longer period as may be required by the court or by Government agencies who are lawfully authorized.
  • 1.7.Where an intermediary collects information from a user for registration on the computer resource, it shall retain his information for a period of one hundred and eighty days after any cancellation or withdrawal of his registration.
  • 1.8.The intermediary shall, as soon as possible, but no later than seventy-two hours of the receipt of an order, provide information under its control or possession, or assistance to the Government agency which is lawfully authorized for investigative or protective or cyber security activities, for the purposes of verification of identity, or for the prevention, detection, investigation, or prosecution, of offences under any law for the time being in force, or for cyber security incidents.
  • 1.9.The intermediary shall not knowingly deploy or install or modify the technical configuration of a computer resource or become party to any act that may change or has the potential to change the normal course of operation of the computer resource than what it is supposed to perform thereby circumventing any law for the time being in force.
  • 1.10. The intermediary shall report cyber security incidents and share related information with the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team in accordance with the policies and procedures as mentioned in the Information Technology (The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team and Manner of Performing Functions and Duties) Rules, 20133. 
  • 1.11. The intermediary shall prominently publish on its website, mobile-based application, or both, as the case may be, the name of the Grievance Officer and his contact details as well as the mechanism by which a user or a victim may make a complaint against violation of the provisions of this rule or any other matters pertaining to the computer resources made available by it, and the Grievance Officer shall
    • (i) acknowledge the complaint within twenty-four hours and dispose of such complaint within a period of fifteen days from the date of its receipt;
    • (ii) receive and acknowledge any order, notice, or direction issued by the Appropriate Government, any competent authority, or a court of competent jurisdiction.
  • 1.12. The intermediary shall, within twenty-four hours from the receipt of a complaint made by an individual or any person on his behalf, in relation to any content which is prima facie in the nature of any material which exposes the private area of such individual, shows such individual in full or partial nudity or shows or depicts such individual in any sexual act or conduct, or is in the nature of impersonation in an electronic form, including artificially morphed images of such individual, take all reasonable and practicable measures to remove or disable access to such content which is hosted, stored, published or transmitted by it. The intermediary shall implement a mechanism for the receipt of aforesaid complaints which may enable the individual or person to provide details, as may be necessary, in relation to such content or communication link.

ADDITIONAL COMPLIANCE MEASURES FOR SIGNIFICANT SOCIAL MEDIA INTERMEDIARIES

In case, an intermediary qualifies as a social media intermediary as per the definition given under the Intermediary Rules and has more than 50 lakh users, then such intermediary has to comply with the additional compliances as provided under Rule 4 of the Intermediary Rules. 

PROCEDURE AND SAFEGUARDS IN RELATION TO NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS 

In addition to the above compliances, an intermediary in relation to news and current affairs content shall publish, on an appropriate place on its website, mobile-based application, or both, as the case may be,

  • a clear and concise statement informing publishers of news and current affairs content that in addition to the common terms of service for all users,
  • such publishers shall furnish the details of their user accounts on the services of such intermediary to the Ministry about the details of its entity by furnishing information along with such documents as may be specified, for the purpose of enabling communication and coordination within a period of thirty days
  • and shall publish periodic compliance reports every month mentioning the details of grievances received and action taken thereon. 

CODE OF ETHICS AND PROCEDURE AND SAFEGUARDS IN RELATION TO DIGITAL MEDIA

As per Rule 2(1)(i) of the Intermediary Rules “digital media‘ means digitized content that can be transmitted over the internet or computer networks and includes content received, stored, transmitted, edited, or processed by- 

(i) an intermediary; or
(ii) a publisher of news and current affairs content or a publisher of online curated content;
(iii) Under part III of the Intermediary Rules, additional rules have been framed specifically for publishers of news and current affairs content and publishers of online curated content and such entities shall be administered by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.

NON-OBSERVANCE OF RULES 

Where an intermediary fails to observe these rules, the provisions of sub-section (1) of section 79 of the IT Act (safe harbor immunity for an intermediary) shall not be applicable to such intermediary and the intermediary shall be liable for punishment under any law for the time being in force including the provisions of the IT Act and the Indian Penal Code, 1860. 

04.30.22
by

Whois Hosting Syrian Websites


No web hosting company is willing to host the Syrian website, as the country is under U.S. sanctions. The American government prohibits web hosting companies from hosting sites and other services of the Syrian government. Furthermore, it also ensures that their sanctions are respected enormously by their allies. Syria faces a complete Internet and telecommunication blackout, and few Syrian government websites hosted by Western providers are available to the public.

Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), an office of the U.S. Treasury Department‘s Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, enforces U.S. economic trade sanctions against targeted foreign countries, including Syria. Under a series of executive orders, U.S. businesses are prohibited from selling goods and services in Syria. The hosting providers cooperate with law enforcement and regulators to prevent illegal activity online and take the necessary steps to comply with applicable laws and regulations. The sanctions have the inadvertent effect of cutting the Syrian people off from the rest of the world.

The U.S. Treasury Department makes the hosting providers and domain registrars aware of civil enforcement actions. They impose potential hefty fines if a hosting company gets associated with the Syrian government or regime.

.sy is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Syrian websites.

A2 Hosting currently cannot provide any hosting services to individuals in the following countries and regions:

Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, & Region of Crimea

Treasury regulations prohibit hosting providers from registering domains or hosting websites that use the TLDs associated with the countries and regions listed above. The specific prohibited TLDs are:

.ir, .kp, .ss, .sy, .cu & .crimea.ru

04.30.22
by

Remembering The Internet icon GeoCities


A web hosting service started in 1994 by David Bohnett and John Rezner, and it was the third most visited website on the world wide web. Earlier named Beverly Hills Internet (BHI), a small Web hosting and development company in Southern California, later renamed GeoCities. It allowed registered users called ‘Homesteaders’ to create and publish home pages and e-mail addresses, chat, bulletin boards, and community elements with neighborhoods they wanted to belong to with 2 M.B. of space provided. The neighborhood was part of the member’s Web address along with a sequentially assigned “street address” number to make the URL unique (for example, “www.geocities.com/RodeoDrive/number”). 

According to their content, the users select cities or regions to list hyperlinks to their web pages like computer-related were placed in ‘SiliconValley, and entertainment placed with ‘Hollywood.’ GeoCities included GeoCities Marketplace, a commercial website, which sold GeoCities-branded merchandise.

The users need to provide personally-identifying and demographic information when they register for the website. In the privacy statement on its New Member Application Form, the website promises not to give anyone personally-identifying information without the user’s permission. The visitors can browse user-created websites by their theme or interest. They enjoyed the user-created websites and built a profound community.

In 1999, FTC received a complaint against GeoCities that it violated provisions of (the Federal Trade Commission Act, precisely 15 USC & 45. The act states, “Unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, are hereby declared unlawful.” The agency found GeoCities engaged in deceptive acts and practices in contravention of their stated privacy act. The website sold personal information to third parties who used the information for purposes other than those for which members gave permission. The website illegally permitted third-party advertisers to promote products targeted to GeoCities’ 1.8 million users by using personally identifiable information obtained in the registration process. Subsequently, a consent order was entered into, which prohibits GeoCities from misrepresenting the purpose for which it collects uses personal identifying information from consumers. 

On January 28, 1999. Yahoo Inc. acquired the GeoCities hosting service for $3.57 billion in stock and abandoned this practice to favor Yahoo member names in the URLs.

In July 1999, Yahoo! switched from the neighborhood and street addresses Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) for homesteaders to “vanity” URLs through members’ registration names Yahoo! (“www.geocities.com/membername”). This service was offered previously only as a premium.

 Later in October 2009, the United States GeoCities services came to an end. Yahoo terminated the most user-written website with at least 38 million pages – The vintage personal web hosting site got farewell on October 26, 2009. Yahoo asked and encouraged users to download content to computers if they want to rebuild them on another site, as they won’t be archiving user pages. Yahoo urged users to try the company’s pay Web-hosting service. The company introduced a for-fee premium hosting service at GeoCities. It reduced the accessibility of free and low-price hosting accounts by limiting their data transfer rate for Web page visitors.

By 2008, the domain geocities.com attracted at least 177 million visitors annually and had 18.9 million unique visitors from the U.S. during March 2006. Later in March 2008, it decreased to 15.1 million unique U.S visitors and in March 2009 had 11.5 million unique visitors.

GeoCities Joined a long list of other services, including Yahoo! 360, My Web, Yahoo! Briefcase Farechase, LAUNCHcast, My Web, Audio Search, Pets, Photos, Live, Kickstart, etc. Web messenger and teachers prioritize their products and services to deliver the best products to consumers. The visitors looking for GeoCities won’t find flashing banner ads, questionable color schemes, guest books, streaming HTML marquee tags, and omnipresent “Under Construction” signs. The site touched the hearts of millions of users that “RIP GeoCities” was a trending topic on Twitter. The website where millions first tried their hands at coding and designing before Yahoo scrubbed it.

04.30.22
by

Best WordPress Web Hosting Services 2022


The WordPress web hosting market is growing substantially. Ananova’s team predicts this trend will continue, and WordPress will cover the top market in the upcoming years. Ananova.com is a trusted provider of current, unbiased, comprehensive web host reviews and reports developed using in-depth, real-time, data-driven tracking, social media sentiment analysis, and honest user commentary. Their team uses research tools to analyze the hosting industry. The portal recommends top web hosting providers https://ananova.com/best-hosting-providers by assessing the hosting company, growth, resources, support, strategies, and hosting plans. Ananova team does the SWOT analysis of the thousands of web hosting companies to help consumers face challenges while selecting the best web hosting provider. The individual company reviews enable the consumer to understand better the web hosting provider offered resources to match its needs or requirements. The consumer requirements may vary depending upon:

  • Platform: Linux or Windows
  • Consumer Profile: Individual, Small company, Medium size enterprise, Large Enterprize, Non-profit organization, Government institution
  • Regional: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa

Different consumer personal pertains to additional market share, product demand, and growth. Ananova analysis of web hosting provider companies, plans, hosting resources, support services, and latest developments helps consumers make the perfect hosting buying decision. Ananova follows the hosting provider’s expansions, merger & acquisition, research and development, and hosting plan strategies. The Ananova best WordPress list is the outcome of the market study, executive summary, and competitors. 

04.29.22
by

Hover domain registration service


A customer from the registrar wants convenient and quick domain search, registration, management, ease of transfer from another registrar, and top-notch customer support. Nowadays, registrars support hundreds of TLDs; thus, customers can register a proper name. With Hover, a domain name registrar, subsidiary of Tucows, headquartered in Ontario, Canada, a customer gets the satisfactory name of its choice at an exact price. Hover is a publicly-traded American-Canadian internet services provider formed by Tucows in 2008 by merging three-domain registration services – NetIdentity, It’s Your Domain (IYD), and Domain Direct. 

The Hover’s user-friendly platform is primarily for domain registration services. Still, it offers additional services that include webmail services, email web boxes, email forwarding, and WHOIS privacy protection in every domain purchase. Hover supports 300 domain name extensions, including generic ones like COM, NET, and uncommon ones. APP, CLUB, and IO for individuals and organizations. It does not charge any fees for transferring domains; however, it charges one year of additional registration added whenever a domain is set to expire. The provider offers excellent customer support through email and telephone. A 2FA authentication is provided to customers to protect user accounts from compromise. A customer can connect the domain directly to third-party web hosting and publishing tools, e.g., Ecwid, Jimdo, and Weebly. 

Important Notes

  • An individual & business look for a perfect domain with the best domain registrar.
  • WHOIS privacy protection prevents spammers from contacting web owners by hiding the information in the WHOIS database.
  • Domain transfer takes one to two weeks, depending on the parent registrar and specific domain extension. 
  • A standard rule across the domain industry states that a domain to be transferred must be registered for at least 60 days.
04.28.22
by

WordPress 6.0 Closer To WCAG 2.0 AA compliance


WordPress 6.0 features numerous accessibility improvements that bring it closer to WCAG 2.0 AA compliance. WordPress announced the version release on May 24, 2022, with inclusiveness and accessibility as a core goal, making it easier for users to publish content regardless of device and maintain a website or application.

Accessibility Improvements in WordPress 6.0

WordPress

  1. Alt Text used on the featured image: It will use the post title as the alt text when a featured image is linked to the post.
  2. Improvements to Tabbing into a block placeholder as requested by the GitHub pull: This makes the placeholder controls keyboard accessible when the “Contain text cursor inside block” preference is enabled. Tab allowed into placeholder controls during edit mode when focussed on a block with a placeholder.
  3. Screen Reader Related Improvements: Making it easier for publishers who use screen readers to navigate through the blocks and get things done. Ensure that blocks with placeholder setup have their description ready by VoiceOver, giving context for the block itself and the resulting controls.
  4. Search Results in Block Manager
  5. Improve successful Draft save notification for screen readers by making it more descriptive as Draft saved instead of just Saved.
  6. Add button text labels to the site editor to show text labels instead of icons on interface buttons.
  7. Avoid duplicate labels for the “Save Draft” and “Save as pending” buttons to reduce confusion.
  8. RichText: Reverse disable line breaks to determine the aria-multiline state.
  9. Remove role attributes on SVGs meant for “decoration.” It is about adding a role=”img” tag without adding an aria-label to SVGs. 
  10. Improvements to the Navigation Block
  11. Improvements to WordPress List View: improved the ability to select specific blocks, improved aria labels, and improved keyboard controls and announcements.
  12. Screenshot of List View Toggle Button
  13. Improvements to Handling Media: “Preserve attachment properties on cropping custom logo. It means that the alternative text, title, description, and caption of an image will migrate over to the cropped copy of the image after cropping.
  14. Stop arrow keys switching media if URL focused.
  15. Add a “Copy URL to clipboard” function to the list table view. Set break-word on sample permalink so the full permalink will be visible on mobile devices in posts, media, and comments.
  16. Remove target blank attribute target=”_blank” from media uploader edit links to change permalink structures and change the link text to clarify link purpose.
  17. Improves screen reader and keyboard functionality in the Quick/Bulk editing, fixes issues with the login and registration buttons to add autocomplete values but in a way that doesn’t represent a security issue since the values are stored in the browser.
  18. Miscellaneous accessibility improvements to official WordPress themes: “Twenty Nineteen: Override flex order in the comment form. Transform search into a dialog role and fix the handling of aria-expanded to synchronize mobile and desktop buttons.
  19. Twenty Twenty-One: Reverse logic for prefers-reduced-motion media query.
  20. When hovering over the theme details button, use the pointer cursor for consistency with the theme card.
04.28.22
by

GetLark Simple Business Hosting platform


GetLark is a group of experienced product experts and technology enthusiasts who desire to change the status quo of the market landscape. The company’s mission is to provide a shared hosting platform for web developers, agencies, or freelancers, offering hosting services, domains, and free hosting for 14 days. 

The web hosting platform has over 5000 users, meets everyone’s needs, and is one of the fastest-growing web hosting companies. It’s simple to create an account with the company, and the webmaster is granted account access within 30 seconds. Suppose anybody doesn’t like the services; it’s easy to revoke access. The company claims that its hosting services are the right place for web developers, as they dedicate free hosting accounts for their web developer’s clients. The web developer can create a free account on them and hand it over to website owners after complete development.

The control panel is user-friendly, and web developers can use it without hassle. It comes with safe authorization standards that enable easy management of clients’ services. The hosting services are offered on 100% pure SSD storage. The clients can pay quarterly, yearly, or biennially and get a 30-day money-back guarantee. The hosting provider championing simplicity in the web hosting industry offers hosting services to any brand looking to project itself on the Internet. The hosting service’s benefits include greater security, backup features, technical support, better performance, and even restoration if a site is hacked. The clients can park domains, transfer, and create email accounts and databases. 

The company claims to provide the best performance with hosting features like a Free ‘.com’ domain, Lets Encrypt, PHP, MariaDB, Perl, Python, Backup every 12h, kept seven days back, WP-CLI, DDoS protection, Support 24/7, & GIT.

GetLark’s dashboard control panel, which is currently the easiest to operate in the industry, comes with the following desirable features:

  • SSH access
  • LiteSpeed & LiteCache Lightning-fast service management
  • Advanced and straightforward webmail solution
  • Deployment of new hosting in 50 seconds and Free hosting during the site-building process
  • Creation and configuration of a new website in 30 second
  • Great performance on smartphone
  • All statistics in one place
  • One-click apps installer
04.27.22
by

Choosing Windows Web Hosting Services Over Linux


The web hosting business can thrive only when it can retain existing customers and keep adding new ones. The web hosting platforms like cPanel & Plesk have provided ease of integration and migration. Still, the web hosting providers are categorized as Windows & Linux web hosting service providers. Each has its allegiance, revenue, and marketplace, as web development goes in all these languages Laravel, ASP, Microsoft’s .Net.

Microsoft offers and is continuously developing tools for the web service provider industry & hosters with products such as Site Server and Commerce Server to gauge the application management, integration, and packaged value-add delivery nuances of Web services and .Net. Microsoft makes it easy at work to integrate and build responsive websites for handsets and PDAs. The company has remained a solid contender for the Linux web services space and has continuously improved and overcome shortcomings.

Linux is open-source, accessible, and cheap to deploy back-end services. Thus, it’s gaining much popularity & accounts as a leading platform for the web. While being economically viable, the hosting platform provides the best security, stability, and transaction support. Most hosting providers offer Linux hosting solutions with plan customization.

The choice of Linux or Windows platform largely depends on the web programming language as ASP, Visual Studio .Net, and .NET run only on Windows and its excellent reliability. Web developers still use these languages as the toolsets and resources make it easier to modify applications, customize them faster, integrate changes, and the ability to deliver them with the best functionality. Thus, bringing dynamism to customer applications as per needs. The customers didn’t need to wait around to get results. Furthermore, .Net applications are considered secure compared to others magnified by ten and hence dominate the web development market. With the best engineering, full support, and Microsoft build products, the Windows web hosting services will stay for long in the web hosting business and keep drawing the attention and momentum.

Microsoft upgrades and enhances the web host’s capability of deploying Microsoft Microsoft architecture in their data centers. Furthermore, it supports the development of an internal service-level management application built entirely using .Net. Most hosting providers endorse ‘.Net’-based web hosting services to small and midsize businesses to use a shared hosting environment and when applications outgrow the use of windows dedicated servers.

The web hosting services market is growing fast, as the amount of application-to-application or server-to-server traffic will explode.

04.27.22
by

End of Life (EOL) ‘.htaccess’


WP Engine announced ending support for the ‘.htaccess’ directive and has a set date of October 2022 for its complete removal. And, when managed WordPress hosting provider WP Engine is saying this, it means a lot. WordPress websites stop working if something happens to ‘.htaccess’ and, with time, become an integral part of the platform. The WordPress platform generates the default version of .htaccess while installation. It’s a longstanding established practice to customize the file for better performance and security tactics and control certain website aspects. 

Most web admins use the ‘.htaccess’ file for URL redirection purposes or for blocking IP addresses of malicious hackers and scrapers, among many other uses. But for this, the WordPress plugin ‘Redirection’ can easily manage redirects and headers. The plugin provides a convenient log file that shows 404 responses and alerts inbound misspelled links. The plugin offers the most efficient way of managing activities like blocking IP addresses or redirecting URLs. Another way is by creating Web Rules that allow users to manage IP-based allow/deny rules and setting header responses. Yoast SEO plugin also comes with a redirect manager.

WP Engine, such an announcement sounds like a deal-breaker. Is the company looking for some new technology, as most web admins won’t find the web hosting suitable for their professional websites? The company might be doing this with complete strategy and planning. Their decision is not pop-up like a surprise, and it would be well researched and thoughtful. The company has been in the WordPress Managed Hosting business since 2013. Their team is dedicated to improving website performance, protection, and accelerated development. 

The company is giving the reasons behind removing .htaccess from site-level is achieving performance and matching industry trends. The company has developed a list of recommended alternatives, and rewrites will be handled at the server level. Another reason the company provides is that the official Apache Software Foundation itself recommends not using .htaccess at the website level. According to developers of the Apache server software, the only time ‘.htaccess’ files should ever be used when access to the server configuration file is restricted, such as one might find on budget shared servers. The file is used on servers that run Apache open-source server software and Nginx servers that run as a reverse proxy for Apache.

The Apache Software Foundation documentation advises:

“There is, for example, a common misconception that user authentication should always be done in .htaccess files, and, in more recent years, another misconception that mod_rewrite directives must go in .htaccess files.

This is not the case.

You can put user authentication configurations in the main server configuration, which is the preferred way to do things. Likewise, mod_rewrite directives work better, in many respects, in the main server configuration.”

WP Engine claims that there are clear benefits for their users and website visitors.

The large ‘.htaccess’ file hurts SEO and conversion-related metrics such as the Time to First Byte (TTFB). The metric measures how long it takes for a server to download web page resources. It impacts both server performance and scalability, as it has a measurable and significant impact on CPU & memory usage. The WP Engine wants to create website friendly environment to make the website faster.

Will other web hosts follow WP Engine and deprecate the .htaccess file?
04.27.22
by

Multi-Vendor Marketplace


Most businesses list their products on top marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Etsy, and others to increase sales. While focusing on their e-commerce portals, SMEs list products on branded marketplaces that helped increase revenues by 80 per cent. The global marketing websites allow listing men’s and women’s clothing, fragrances, skin-care products, cosmetics, and much more. Their product pages look like brochures. With managed services, these marketplaces make buying, selling, and sophisticated transactions easier.

Most businesses start their e-commerce portals, but one in thousands begin getting traffic. Thus, these businesses find it comfortable to list products on marketplaces where traffic is already there. The e-commerce marketplace provides fully managed services, responding to the complex needs of SMEs and large businesses. Hence they are gaining popularity as more businesses go online. The company gets the liberty to sell products worldwide with hosted applications and even don’t need employees scattered across those selling destinations. The standard, the preconfigured platform, enables companies to list products instantly after signup to get customers.

The marketplace provider installs base e-commerce software, apps, round-the-clock monitoring, caching, 100% uptime, periodic backups, and other plugins on standardized hardware and server infrastructure and configurations. The technical team takes care of performance, complex needs, and speed deployments, and manages the application, content distribution, network, storage capability, and service-level agreements and licensing. Furthermore, it makes data accessible anytime and anywhere, with real-time access to billing information, trouble tickets, and other data associated with their accounts.

The businesses find the cost of listing or launching products on marketplaces much lower than implementing and maintaining e-commerce portals themselves. Thus, they decided to go with branded marketplace instead of making a significant investment in bringing up sites, thus capitalizing on the marketplace’s extensive infrastructure.

Most companies don’t have the skills, technical staff, & technologies for those pieces. Marketplaces like DownTown.us do much more marketing stuff like offering streaming media services, social media sharing, & business listing apart from providing the platform, thus making the companies profitable by increasing the visibility and demand of their products. Therefore, most small and midsize companies are moving into the managed services arena.