Got Docs? Use Scribd to Convert and Post Them
Web publishing clients often ask us to help them find the best way to convert old documents and presentations into content for their websites. Many of them have lots of content pertaining to their niche but it’s trapped in MS Word documents or Powerpoint or some other proprietary format.
Of course we go around the block with them as they try to publish those files directly to their site, or worse yet, they try to use the built in converter in MS Office – YUCK. Once we clean that mess up we have to manually convert them to PDF or Flash (for presentations) then publish them as embedded links.
Now we have new solutions to work with and recommend. About a year ago we stumbled onto a great document converting, hosting, and embedding service and wanted to share it with you.
I want to recommend to you one of the best way to convert, host, and embed documents into your website. As you may know a large part of our expertise is focused on SEO and website promotion. With that in mind we always try to recommend solutions that take the promotion of your website into consideration. That way you can climb the SERPS (search results) as quickly as possible without spending too much money to do it.
With that said I want to recommend a free web2 enhanced document service called Scribd. (scribd.com)
You can sign up for a free account there and use scribd for several critical services to enhance your website and your sites search authority.
Scribd gives you a free way to convert word docs into pdf presentations. In fact it will convert word, pdf, powerpoint, etc into embedded presentations that you can embed right into your website or wordpress blog — the same way you embed videos. Not only does it provide the conversion and embeds, but it also provides you with hosting for the document on their website that provides links back to your website. (This is perhaps the greatest benefit of all because scribd is a very high ranking website, if you have links on it to your site it will help your site gain authority and rank very quickly.)
Hope this tip helps. Drop us a line and let us know where you use it.
Site Hacked? What its All a Bot
A client recently reported some strange entries in their website statistics referrer logs. The entry was from a bot probe by a nasty outfit that is up to all sorts of evil malware stuff. The issue did raise a good questions about the security of sites and what even novice webmasters can and should do to protect themselves from site compromise.
Bot probes from a slimy outfits are common. Properly secured systems will block offending IPs but the attacking bots switch IPs all the time. This form of vulnerability probe or referrer spam is very common — just like email spam. We do everything we can to prevent it but that does not stop the evil bastards from trying… all the time.
This is why it is so important to have a strong password and to change it every few months. You should also look around in your site file structure frequently for things that don’t belong — like .c files or .exe files or even php files that you did not install. I recommend you check your site once a week for this kind of activity.
Remember, no matter how secure our servers are, your website is an open door to the world and malware developers have a powerful monetary interest in gaining control of your server resources to make money. The days of malicious teenagers gleefully scrambling your home page and laughing through a mouth full of hot pockets is long gone. Hacking websites to install malware is serious (and big) business.
So it’s also up to you as a webmaster to make sure you don’t let these demons in the door.
By the way. Take care which backlinks you click on while scanning your stats reports. That is one way referrer spam works. The malware developer creates an attack routine and embeds it in a web page. Then they deploy botnets to spider websites constantly — leaving nice little fake ‘visitor’ entries in the log files and stats. Then if you click on the link to see who visited you the malware site hits your machine with a payload. Even though you may have a great antivirus / antimalware program, pages can be constructed in ways to overwhelm your computers resources and tie up your system as the payload is being installed.
It’s a jungle. Don’t let your website become part of the food chain.
As always we’re, At Your Servers
Dwayne
Install a Custom WordPress Theme
So you have your own blog using WordPress and want to install a custom theme. It’s easy to do — depending on your web hosting platform and how it is configured.
The easiest way to do it is using cPanel control panel. If your host has this control panel it’s follow the instructions. If your host does not provide cPanel contact me and I’ll get you fixed up. As always, I’m At Your Servers at Gmail. 
Issues: Installing a new WordPress theme is a low impact process and at the most you may have a compatibility problem later if an update includes functions the custom theme does not support. In that very rare case you can revert back to the stock theme while you get a new custom one — or have it adapted for you.
Make sure you get your theme from a reputable site! There are many sites out there that do a shabby job of theme building and are only providing free themes so they can embed links in them to monetize your traffic — or worse. So use the WordPress theme directory or some other mainstream site to make sure it’s safe to download your dream theme.
Once you have acquired the zip file, upload it into your hosting storage area using the cPanel control panel. I recommend using the ‘File Manager’ feature of your control panel instead of an FTP client because the control panel application will unpack the zip file for you making theme installation virtually effortless.
Ready to rock? Let’s get started. Step by Step…