SPAM: The Final Frontier
In a previous instalment, we looked at the different types of SPAM that your website could fall victim to, from comment SPAM to email SPAM and everything in between. We even covered different ways of helping to prevent it, which included using Google ReCAPTCHA on your contact forms and installing an anti-SPAM plugin. Now, whilst those are very useful tools, you may find yourself in the situation where you are still receiving SPAM emails. That’s obviously something you’ll want to avoid, which is why in this blog, we will look at some key ways to identify these SPAM emails (if you’re not too familiar), why you’re still receiving them and what you can do to prevent them.
How to identify SPAM emails
You may find that some of these emails are automatically caught by your email client and are either added straight to the Junk folder or are at least marked as SPAM. This often doesn’t happen, so it is important to know what to look for, to prevent you from accidentally replaying to these emails, or clicking on any links they contain. Take a look at this email below that I received.
Here are quite a few things wrong with this email, which will give you an important indication that the email is SPAM and should be deleted quickly.
#1: The email is entirely unsolicited
SPAM emails will always be sent out of the blue. Essentially, you never asked for them, but you got them anyway. I’m not actually sure I could imagine a credible scenario where someone would ask to be spammed. They usually advertise services or products, of which you have no interest. In this case, the spammer is advertising app design services, but it could just as easily be web design services, guest blogging, sunglasses or anything in between.
#2: The email is not addressed to you, or anyone else you know
Here, you can see the email is addressed generically and doesn’t use yours or your business’ name. In this example, the emailer just says ‘hi’ to start with.
#3: There are (multiple) naming discrepancies
In the image, you can see there are discrepancies with the supposed name of the sender and the email address. In this case, the sender is supposedly called ‘Jason Wells’, but the email address has the name ‘Andrew Loniem’ and the name that appears in the sender area is ‘Lisa Wloch’, none of which are consistent.
#4: The email address is personal
You can see that the sender’s email address isn’t a company-branded one. In this case, as is often the case, it appears to be a personal email address. When you’re advertising your services as a business, claiming you have done lots of apps for people, wouldn’t you want to have a branded, traceable email address, to show off to potential clients?
#5: The company or brand information is absent
There is no mention in the email text of the sender’s company or brand name. A reputable agency, as they claim to be, would want to advertise this to potential clients, who could then go and take a look at their portfolio and testimonials etc.
#6: The email isn’t well written
Anyone who knows branding and marketing knows that first impressions are extremely important. If this email is the first contact you have with that company, they should want it to be perfectly written, to give off a good first impression. Here, the grammar, punctuation and spelling are all exceptionally poor. Now, people of course do have different standards when it comes to grammar, so this isn’t necessarily an indicator of SPAM. In addition, if English isn’t the person’s first language, you can make an exception. However, if a company is advertising their amazing services (in this case app design services) then you would expect to see a good command of the language. If not, you can rightly assume that their product, if they even do have a product, is of low quality and is riddled with errors.
#7: (Lots of) clickable links in the email
Now, this example doesn’t have clickable links, which is a positive thing. However, you will often see many of these in an email. These unsolicited emails tend to include them, in the hope that people will click on the links. In the best case, these links are just there to direct more traffic to the sender’s websites. In the worst case, these links would cause malware to be downloaded, or the user’s details to be stolen. The more genuine emails wouldn’t send you any links unless they knew you were open to receiving them.
You may find that an email you receive has all of these. You may find that it only has one or two. The main message is, don’t interact with them. If you’re not sure, it is best to just get rid of the email. It’s better to be safe than sorry. Now, let’s take a look at why you are receiving these emails, even after you have installed anti-SPAM services.
Why are they still getting through?
Any sophisticated anti-SPAM software will be able to block SPAM information being sent through a contact form, SPAM comments on blog posts, non-human visitors to your website and more. However, SPAM attacks are constantly evolving and you may be finding that despite your best efforts, you are still receiving these unsolicited emails. If you are, there’s a key reason why.
There’s an all-too-common practice called ‘email address harvesting’, which is essentially where harvesting bots (special pieces of software) scan websites, looking for email addresses present on websites. Once they’re found, they are extracted (harvested) and stored in various lists. Spammers can then purchase these lists in order to send everyone on the list their SPAM emails. That’s one of the reasons why these emails often are addressed generically, since the spammer only has your email address.
Now, it is possible that your email address has been extracted from an account you signed up for, although this isn’t anything you can sort. It would be down to the security of the website you’re subscribed to. However, more often than not, you’ve innocently put your email address on your contact page, in your website’s footer, or even in a header bar. This is fantastic for user friendliness, since some people would prefer to send you an email directly, rather than using your contact form. It is unfortunately most likely to be the reason why you are receiving SPAM emails.
There could, of course, be other reasons why you are receiving these emails, such as posting your email address on forums, online articles, or anything in between, although this is a very common reason, linked to your own website. Let’s now take a look at how you can stop it from happening.
How can I do more to prevent SPAM emails through my website?
As we have seen, you could be receiving SPAM emails due to email harvesting. When you post your email address on a website, it could easily happen. The best way to ensure this doesn’t happen is to effectively mask your email address. Now, I know what you may be thinking – you don’t want to do this, since you need your visitors to actually see your email address, so they can get in touch with you. Well, don’t worry. Masking your emails doesn’t mean making them invisible, or illegible to the human eye. It is actually to do with the website code, but not the visual result.
The easiest way to mask your email addresses, if you’re using WordPress, is through an email encoder plugin. Once installed and activated, this plugin would do the rest, without you having to lift a finger. A few of the best ones are:
- Email Encoder – Protect Email Addresses
- Email Address Encoder
- Email Address Security by WebEmailProtector
These plugins do something very simple. They look through all of your web pages for any email links and then mask them from any email harvester. Take a look at the examples below, to get an idea of how they work.
The first example is what your email address will look like inside a website’s code, if you have made it clickable and it is not encoded. When you click on a ‘mailto’ link, it essentially just opens up the default email programme you’re using. This makes it an easy target for any email harvester.
The second example is what your email address looks like, once it has been encoded. Whilst the email link is still perfectly usable, as it was before, the ‘mailto’ link is no longer there. That means your email address cannot be harvested like it used to, successfully closing off another avenue to you falling victim to email SPAM. Of course, different plugins will work slightly differently, but the outcome is the same.
The upshot
We know that there are many reasons why you might fall victim to SPAM. One of those is through the email address(es) you have on your website, to help your visitors to get in touch with you, which means your emails could be harvested and sold to spammers.
You need to prevent this from happening. Of course, the simplest way would be to not post your email addresses on your website. You could also add your email addresses to your website as images. However, you shouldn’t do that. It is terrible for the user experience, since people want to be able to click on an email link, or at least copy it. They can do neither when you have an image there instead.
That’s why you should use an email encoder plugin, to mask the email addresses you have on your website, to prevent them being harvested and sold to spammers. The examples provided in this blog work on the WordPress platform. Although different website platforms work slightly differently, they should all have similar same functionality. Of course, there’s nothing to stop a human visiting your website, clicking on an email link and sending you an unsolicited email. However, in conjunction with an anti-SPAM plugin, you’re now giving yourself the best chance of preventing SPAM.
How will Digital Lychee help you?
At Digital Lychee, I make sure that all my clients have the perfect website for their needs. Whether you are looking for a brand new website or just help upgrading your current website, I will help you create a great-looking, functional and ultimately secure website, that prevents as much SPAM as is possible. If you are interested in my services, or you want to find out more about my blog, I would love to hear from you. You can get in touch with me here.
Latest Client – Rocket Girl Coaching
I am proud to announce that my latest client website is now live! Mary Doyle, who founded Rocket Girl Coaching, is an inspirational Accessible Aviation Consultant, Disability Equality Trainer and Online Executive Coach, who lives with a disability but never lets it get her down. She was named in the Shaw Trust Disability Power 100 in 2018 and 2020 and was also a recipient of an FSDP (Flying Scholarships for Disabled People) scholarship. If you want to find out more about her or get in touch with her (or both!) you can do that at https://rocketgirlcoaching.com.
If you’re thinking of getting a website built, or upgraded, for any purpose, from a business to a club and anything in between, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Favicons: The What, Why and How
If you have ever been browsing the internet, whether you have been working from home or just trying to find the best deal on your next holiday, the chances are that you have had multiple tabs open in your browser at the same time. In my case, this is what my browser window tab area looked like today.
To the left of each of the tabs, you’ll notice a little icon. In the case of my own website, on the left-hand tab, that icon consists of three lychees, one of which is opened. It’s these icons that are known as favicons. In this blog, we will delve a little deeper into them, looking specifically what they are, why you should use them and how you can create one for your website.
The What
A favicon is a small browser icon, associated with a particular website or web page, that represents the brand of that website. You will most often see it to the left of the browser tab in which a particular website is open. You will also see them in a bookmark bar, search history and even in active search results, on larger and smaller devices alike. Take a look at the search results below, the image of which I took on my mobile phone, whilst searching for the best curry house in Bristol (of course).
You’ll notice that for the top two results and the bottom result, they all have icons, helping you to identify the brand. However, you’ll notice that the third one has instead a grey globe. That means the website creator has neglected to add a favicon to the website and in its place, Google Chrome has added the default globe icon.
The Why
Previously, I spoke about how search engine optimisation is very important for your website. A common misconception is that a favicon will directly help improve your website’s search engine performance. Sadly, that’s not the case. However, there’s no need to worry! Whilst including a favicon might not directly make you appear any higher in search results, it has some very important indirect benefits.
Including a favicon on your website will significantly improve the user experience for any of your visitors and will help to strengthen your brand identity, all the while making your website appear much more professional. The favicon really helps to visually emphasise what your website is all about, before your visitors even navigate to it. It is widely acknowledged that images can have a strong effect on branding.
This will in turn lead to more visitors to your website, for longer, which will help to improve your search rankings, hence the indirect effects. But don’t just take my word for it. Let’s see this logic in action, using the mobile search results above.
The Good
Let’s take the first search result: TripAdvisor. We know that TripAdvisor has a very established brand identity. Most of us will have visited their website at some point to find a great restaurant, holiday, or anything in between. When you look at that search result, you can see their favicon, the ‘iconic’ black owl eyes on a green background. A person’s attention is usually drawn to that first, before they look at the text. When you click through to the website, you’ll notice something.
Do you see it? The favicon is part of the company’s logo on the website. That is very important for strengthening the brand identity of the website, making it much more memorable. You’re more likely to revisit a website where that brand identity sticks in your mind.
The Bad
Now, let’s take a look at the third search result, the only one without a favicon. In its place, you’re seeing Google Chrome’s default globe icon. Instantly, you’re getting no idea of the website’s branding. More often than not, the perception is that websites without favicons are either built with free website builders, they’re old and forgotten about, they might be full of adverts, or even malware. It’s pretty much an instant traffic-killer for your website. When you click through to this website, you’ll notice something interesting.
What do you think? There’s no branded favicon, so you don’t get a great first impression. However, when you navigate to the website, you’re actually greeted with a fresh, modern, professional-looking website, into which the owner has clearly put a lot of effort. You can even see a nice personal touch, where ‘Mr Mashuk’s’ is written in a handwriting font. That is completely at odds with the message you’re given from the initial search results. As with anything, in an ever-competitive world, first impressions are very important. The likelihood is that this website is losing out on a lot of visitors, because it isn’t giving off the right first impression. That could be easily remedied by including a favicon that helps to provide a strong brand identity for the website.
The How
So, we have looked at what a favicon is and why you need to include one. Now, it’s time to look at how you can design and build a favicon that perfectly represents your website branding.
The Design
First and foremost, you need to make sure your favicon perfectly represents your organisation or website’s branding. It’s no good having a picture of an orange for a favicon, when you run a lemonade business, for example. Granted, that’s a silly example, but I’m sure you get the point.
Therefore, you make sure you sort out your branding and logo first, subsequently using those to develop your favicon. The TripAdvisor example above is exactly what I mean, since they developed their favicon from their logo.
You might not already have a logo and that’s okay. You just need to get started designing one. You can either do this through a designer (I do offer this service, so I’d love to hear from you if you are interested) or through online tools, such as Canva or Logo Maker. There are, of course, many more websites out there that offer similar features. Most of these offer a free tier of service, although you’ll have to pay to get more options when designing your logo.
Once you have your logo, you can then make your favicon. If you have a logo like TripAdvisor, or even my own, creating your favicon would be very simple, since you can just extract the image and use that. Often though, it might not be as simple. For example, your logo might be words only, so you would need to come up with something a bit different, since the words wouldn’t be in any way legible at the size of a favicon. A good example of this is one of my own clients’ websites – Bradley Stankler Planning. Here, the logo in the website header was text, so I had to design a variation that would work better as a favicon. Take a look below.
You can see that the logo, which has been very elegantly designed with text, giving quite an upmarket feel, would not have been in any way suitable for a favicon in that format. Therefore, I created a truncated version, that maintains the same aesthetic, whilst suiting a favicon much better. It’s that sort of thing you’ll have to bear in mind, although you could just as easily replace it with an illustration of some sort.
The Build
Now that you’ve got the design for your favicon, you need to build it. If you created an image during the design phase in a PNG format (that’s the best image format for an icon) then it is perfectly acceptable to simply use that. Most web builders will happily allow you to upload a PNG image. You would simply need to ensure that the image is square. Some of the most common sizes (in pixels) are:
- 32×32: standard for most desktop browsers
- 128×128: Chrome Web Store icon & small Windows 8 start screen icon
- 152×152: iPad touch icon
- 167×167: iPad Retina touch icon
- 180×180: iPhone Retina
- 192×192: Google Developer Web App manifest recommendation
- 196×196: Chrome for Android home screen icon
Now, you may be thinking, which one am I supposed to pick? Well, your confusion would certainly be warranted. Your website is going to be viewed on all sorts of devices, so there clearly isn’t one perfect PNG image size.
Don’t worry, there is a solution! This is where the humble ICO format comes in. It’s rather special. Where a PNG image is only ever going to include one size, which would be the uploaded one, each ICO file can actually contain one or more icon sizes. For example, it could include all of the above dimensions and when you upload that to your website, instead of the PNG file, the most appropriate size is displayed on any given device. That’s amazing, isn’t it?
There are many different online tools you could use to generate your favicon, such as favicon.io, favicon-generator.org and realfavicongenerator.net. Each of them is highly sophisticated and so whichever you use, you won’t go far wrong. These usually offer the choice of downloading as either a PNG or ICO file, but you would ideally want to use the ICO format, for the best overall suitability of your website favicon.
The Upshot
Favicons are an often overlooked, yet very important part of your website. Including one on your website will improve the experience for your users, it will significantly strengthen your brand identity and it will also make it appear much more professional and trustworthy. You should always make sure you include one, no matter whether you are using a free website builder, or a bespoke website from a designer, such as myself, especially as all it takes is an image file and a free service from one of the websites I mentioned above.
How will Digital Lychee help you?
For all my clients, whether you are looking for a website to be built from scratch, or you simply need a refresh, or of course anything in between, I will work with you to design and install the perfect favicon, to add that perfect finishing touch to your website. If you are interested in my services, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I would love to hear from you.
Creating a Staging Site with cPanel
In a previous instalment, I explained why it was important for you to set up a staging site, from allowing you to break lots of things on your website, to training new webmasters. There are, of course, a number of ways you can do that, which can suit different people or organisations better. Over the next few blogs, I will take you through those, starting with the more manual, cPanel way.
The cPanel way
For those of you who are not aware, the cPanel is a Linux-based graphical user interface (GUI) which is used as a control panel to simplify the management of your website and its server. It provides all the functionality you would need to be able to publish your website, manage any associated web domains, create mailboxes and forwarders and even manage spam filtering. It is through the cPanel that you would set up your staging site. To do that, I’ve set out the following steps you should follow.
- Create a subdomain
- Create a new database
- Create and assign a new database user
- Export the live database files into the new database
- Copy all WordPress files to the subdomain
- Update the wp_config.php file
- Update all of the URLs in your copied database
This method works best when you have your web domain hosted within the same account as your database, which means you wouldn’t need to update any DNS (Domain Name System) records. In this tutorial, that’s the situation I am presuming you find yourself in. If not, please feel free to leave a comment and I will do my best to give you the advice you need.
#1: Create a subdomain
When you’re creating a staging environment for your website, you need to make sure it is effectively separate from the live site, so it doesn’t interference with that site and cannot be found through a simple search. The best way to do that is to create it using a subdomain. You’ll have come across these before in numerous guises. For example, you maybe have seen companies who run a blog on a subdomain, looking something like this: blog.mywebsite.com. In this case, you want to name it something like dev or staging but in reality, it is up to you. To create it, log into your cPanel and select the Subdomains icon in the DOMAINS section.
Once you’ve clicked on this, you’ll be taken to a new page, which will allow you to enter the name of your new subdomain. In the first box that appears, you will be allowed to choose the new subdomain, in the Subdomain box. When you do choose your subdomain, the Document Root will automatically populate, so you don’t need to worry about that. The Document Root is in fact the folder to which all your subdomain’s files will be copied, at a later stage. Once you have clicked on Create, you will see a green success message.
#2: Create a new database
Now that you’ve created the subdomain from which your staging website will be run, you need to create a new database for your staging website. To do this from your cPanel, select MySQL® Databases from the DATABASES section.
Once the new page has loaded, you simply need to head to the Create New Database section, type in the database’s name and click on Create Database. As in the previous step, you’ll then be greeted with a green success message.
#3: Create and assign a new database user
Much like a car needs a driver, or an aircraft (not some military ones though) needs a pilot, your newly created database needs a user. To create this user for your database, in the same MySQL® Databases section of the cPanel, simply head to Add New User under the MySQL Users section. There, all you need to do is create a new username, generate a password and click on Create User. Again, you will see a green success message once you have created the user.
Now, to add the user to the database, you simply need to navigate to Add User To Database, which is directly below Add New User on the same page. Here, simply select the user you just created and the database you created previously, before clicking Add.
When you do this, you will be taken to a new screen, which is called Manager User Privileges. Simply select ALL PRIVILEGES and then Make Changes. You will see a green success message when this is complete.
#4: Export the live database files into the new database
When you create your staging website, you want it to be an exact replica of your live website, to give you the best chance of seeing what any changes you make will look like, when they are published. That’s why you need to copy the website files over, rather than simply starting afresh. To do that, head to the phpMyAdmin page within the DATABASES section of your cPanel.
One you have been redirected to your phpMyAdmin section, head to Export. There, you will be greeted with the export window. From there, it is as simple as selecting Go and saving your downloaded database file somewhere you can find it. You can leave the Quick option selected. There’s no need to use any Custom settings.
Next, select the new database from the sidebar menu, head to Import and browse your computer for the file you just exported and select Go. Then, after a brief moment, you should see that all the database files you exported have been imported into your new database.
You need to remember though that as you have copied the database files from the live site, the staging database will default to using the live site’s URLs. You need to change this. Still in phpMyAdmin, ensure you have your new database selected and expanded, and head to the wp_options tab. Here, make sure you edit the siteurl and home properties, to point to your staging site.
#5: Copy all WordPress files to the subdomain
By this point, you will have set up your subdomain, database, user and will have imported your live database into your staging one. The penultimate task you must complete is to make sure you transfer all of your files from the live website domain to the subdomain. To do this, select File Manager from the FILES section in your cPanel.
Once you are in your File Manager, in the menu on the left you will notice two files: public_html and dev.digitallychee.com (in my case – yours will be whatever you set your subdomain to be). Essentially, all you need to do is copy and paste the files in public_html folder to your subdomain folder. You can do this by selecting all the files in public_html, right click, select Copy and in the window that appears, change the file path from the default (public_html) to that of your subdomain.
#6: Update the wp_config.php file
At this point, you’ve set up your subdomain, set up your database and you have copied over your website files to the subdomain folder. The problem is, the files you have copied over are still looking for the database of the live site. To remedy this, simply right-click on wp-config.php within your subdomain folder, select Edit and then Edit again. There are three characteristics that you need to change here. These are: DB_NAME; DB_USER; DB_PASSWORD. These should be changed to the values we created in previous steps.
#7: Update all of the URLs in your copied database
By this point, you have completed everything you need to do within your cPanel, to set up your staging website. There is, however, one final thing to sort. Throughout your staging website’s database, there are still likely to be references to the live site’s URL. That can pose quite a problem, which needs to be sorted. But don’t worry, it is simple to sort, with a plugin.
Basically, you need to install a plugin that will look through your database and update any URLs to point to your staging website. In my case, this would involve updating https://digitallychee.com to https://dev.digitallychee.com. There are many plugins you could use, although the one I use for my WordPress website is called Better Search Replace.
Once installed, you will find the plugin at Tools > Better Search Replace. This will of course vary, depending on the plugin you choose to install. Next, you need to add your live domain into the Search for box, your staging domain into the Replace with box and click on Run Search/Replace. You’ll notice a tick box which asks if you want to do a dry run first. That can be useful, just to see if you actually do need to make any changes and it could also catch any errors you have made typing in the domains, before you make your changes, so you don’t end up with problems later.
How will Digital Lychee help you?
If you have followed the above steps and you haven’t run into any issues, then voila, you’ve got a functioning staging website! If you’ve got any comments or questions about the blog, then please don’t hesitate to ask, by leaving a comment, or sending me an email.
For all my clients, if I am helping to build you a website, then I will ensure a staging environment is set up, so that we can agree on the new design, before it is published. I would love to hear from you, to help you get started on your digital journey. You can get in touch with me here.
Why You Need a Staging Site
If you either have a website, or you are thinking of creating one, for whatever reason, the chances are you’ll want to do some work on it at some point. Perhaps you want to build a brand-new feature, or you want to upgrade the theme, or anything in between. Whatever the platform is that you are using, that’s where a staging site, or staging environment as you may hear it called, comes in handy. In this blog, I’ll explain what a staging site is and talk you through some of the key reasons why you should use one. In future instalments, we’ll go through some of the different ways you can set one up.
What is a staging site?
A staging website, in the simplest terms, is a development environment not often accessible to search engines and the public, which can be used to test new or different elements of a website, before they are published to the live, public version of the website. It is quite common to password-protect the staging environment, to ensure members of the public can’t view it, even if they can find it.
The staging site itself can be developed in numerous ways, from using a local server hosted on your computer, right through to using the same hosting platform as your live site. We’ll cover that in more detail in future instalments though. So, knowing what a staging site is, why do you need to use one?
It is a place to break absolutely everything
Now I hear you asking, why would I want to break anything with my website? This does of course seem counter-intuitive but bear with me. Whenever you have used anything from an app on your phone, to a word processor, Facebook or anything in between, all of these have been through a test phase, to iron out any issues before reaching you, the end user. If you were to make changes to your website and publish them straight away, you may very well publish errors without knowing, which in the best case would seem unprofessional.
Creating an environment in which you can test new or updated features of your website is very important; it means you are able to break things without any repercussions, allowing you to find potential issues before the end users do, resulting in a much better user experience.
It is the perfect training ground
If you or your organisation has a website, the chances are that you will have someone, such as a website manager or webmaster, whose job it will be to look after the website. This person will have the standard tasks of updating content every so often, writing blogs, adding new products to an e-commerce store etc.
However, when activities outside of that norm are required, which could include training up a new webmaster, or familiarising yourself with an updated system, a staging environment can essentially become a training ground. This would mean that whoever is managing the website can have more confidence when carrying out any sort of website-related tasks, helping to avoid any mistakes.
It can help you to showcase new features
Imagine you’re tasked with designing the latest feature for your website. Maybe you need to publish a blog, develop a new e-commerce store for merchandise or add a JavaScript-based quiz, to help clients know what product they need to buy from you. Whatever the reason, you’ll need to be able to show what you’ve built to the decision-makers and make changes, without your work being public.
That’s where a staging environment comes in. It can perfectly mimic your live website, feature for feature, allowing you to implement all of your new features, demonstrate them to others within your organisation and make iterative changes, without anyone else seeing them. That way, you can be sure that you’re only publishing the perfect end product, that looks great and integrates seamlessly with everything else on your website.
It allows you to test software updates
I always liken a website to Russian (Matryoshka) dolls. Whilst your visitors will only see the end product (your website, the innermost doll) in reality there are many layers beneath that. Firstly, your website is installed on a host, which will have an interface, such as cPanel. Installed within your host is your content management system (CMS). Some of the most common ones you will have heard of are WordPress, Joomla, Wix, GoDaddy and even something like Squarespace, which I often use for clients. Going further, within your CMS, you will have installed your theme and any plugins you decide to use. All of these layers are individual pieces of software, often open-source and developed by many different parties. As a result, it is quite logical that there could be conflicts between them, especially if updates are required.
That’s where a staging site comes in handy. It provides you with the perfect environment to update any particular one of the pieces of software used on your website, with zero associated risk. If there’s an issue when you update something, you can fix it before it is published to the live site. If there are no issues, then you can just publish the changes straight away.
It can help you test out third-party scripts
Third party scripts on websites are very common. So common in fact, that you might already be using them without being aware. For example, you might be using Google Analytics to assess where your visitors are from and which of your pages are the most popular. These types of third-party programmes have many uses and can be very useful. However, they can also be quite dangerous, facilitating cyber-attacks, such as the ICO’s crypto-mining attack, which affected the NHS and the British Airways attack.
When you install any third-party script, you need to test how it works, from its basic functionality to the data it collects. Staging sites are perfect for this, as you can use all manner of dummy data, which poses no risk at all, even if the code you’ve installed does turn out to be malicious.
How will Digital Lychee help you?
In reality, there are many more reasons why a staging site is a must for anyone. However, I hope that these reasons have been able to persuade you to use one, if you aren’t doing so already.
For all my clients, no matter the size of the website, I will set up and use a staging environment to make any significant changes or additions, before publishing them to the live site. That way, you can be sure that whatever the change, it works perfectly and you love the look of it, before your visitors see it. Get in touch now to start your digital journey with me, be it building a brand-new website or improving an existing one. I am looking forward to hearing from you!
Latest Client – Women in Aviation and Aerospace Charter
Not only am I proud to have joined the Women in Aviation and Aerospace charter as a supporting organisation, I am excited to share that I am now supporting their website, with everything from building new features to search engine optimisation and maintenance. You can find out more about them and get in touch with them here: https://www.wiaacharter.com/.
If you’re thinking of getting a website built, or upgraded, for any purpose, from a business to a club and anything in between, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!
20% Discount Offer
To kick off the birthday celebrations, I am offering a huge 20% discount to the first person who can correctly guess the answer to this riddle. The offer is valid until midnight on the 2nd March and you must ensure you send me your answer privately. You can get in touch with me here. Happy guessing!
