John Travolta’s Secret to Success Video
How I Bulletproofed WordPress Video Hosting with SmugMug
File under “don’t build your house on rented land”.
First, it was YouTube.
12 years of videos gone in less than 60 seconds.
We are still replacing “dead” YouTube videos on our Zencart e-commerce site as we trip over them and as we migrate to a new site but
Continue reading “How I Bulletproofed WordPress Video Hosting with SmugMug”
Why Trying to Please Everyone is a Bad Strategy
Back in the time that fish and chicken were still used as barter, an old man and a young boy were leading a donkey into a village for supplies.
They needed to cross a bridge over a river to gain entry.
As they were walking they heard people mumble.
Continue reading “Why Trying to Please Everyone is a Bad Strategy”
Sunday Matinee: Making Growth Happen Film Festival
Over the past several months, LinkedIn has premiered 10 animated short videos in our “Making Growth Happen” series. These videos condense the most useful wisdom from some of the best content marketers in the business into one-minute snippets. And now you can see these indispensable videos from the likes of Carla Johnson, Jay Acunzo, and Tim Washer all in one place.
You should be able to view all of these videos in about 10 minutes. That’s a small time investment for the content marketing wisdom of the ages.
Continue reading “Sunday Matinee: Making Growth Happen Film Festival”
Are H1 Tags the Rice SEO’s Won’t Let Go Of?
File under “If you weren’t sure he’s losing it”.
Firstly some background.
Filipino monkey hunters have developed an efficient system for snaring the harmless creatures used over centuries.
They seek out trees that monkeys occupy.
Once the correct choice of trees is established the trappers:
- Drill one hole in each coconut.
- Fill each hard-shelled seed’s empty cavity with warm cooked rice.
- Place the ancient style but effective “traps” along each tree’s base.
The anthropoid hunters will lie in wait, invisibly and patiently.
Continue reading “Are H1 Tags the Rice SEO’s Won’t Let Go Of?”
Should I Be Worried About Cross-contamination of My WordPress Sites?
Regarding SiteGround AI security
Your Chat Transcript on 14/12/2019
Mitch Rezman: windycityparrot receiving following error intermittently Service Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later. Additionally, a 503 Service Unavailable error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request. Apache/2.4.29 (Unix) mod_hive/6.27 OpenSSL/1.0.1e-fips mod_fastcgi/2.4.6 Server at www.windycityparrot.com Port 443
Mitch Rezman: This question is related to account: birdandparrot.info
Mitch Rezman: sure – spike in core usage over the past 30 minutes
Lachezar U.: it could be as the site is loading fine on my end now – url:https://prnt.sc/qalk2c
Mitch Rezman: yes – buts crashing every 5 – 10 minutes and then recovering – I’ve had the site for 17 years – something is wrong – there was no traffic spike but there was a spike in core usage over the past 30 minutes – what would cause that?
Lachezar U.: that is strange, I do not find obvious reason for the spike, so let me post a ticket to our advanced techs for further investigation
Mitch Rezman: that would be great – I am waiting for my developer to mitigate a bot attack by installing Recaptcha – this is a zencart store (trying to move it to woo – https://www.screencast.com/t/q3aBaOe9
Lachezar U.: the ticket is just posted now and will be updated with more details in 15-20 minutes
Ticket 3380418 for account birdandparrot.info
Posted: 13 Dec, 2019 18:47 CST Status: Resolved
Ticket Subject: Technical Issues
Continue reading “Should I Be Worried About Cross-contamination of My WordPress Sites?”
Why Are Cartoon Characters Scamming for Copyright Violations?
It’s becoming almost a biannual event
First, there was
Continue reading “Why Are Cartoon Characters Scamming for Copyright Violations?”
How Many Support Interactions Are Needed to Fix a Website Breach?
Hello Mitch,
Thank you for contacting our Help Desk.
I checked the details on my end and I confirm that I was able to recreate the same issue on my end.
To resolve it, I would highly recommend you to try requesting the re-index of the site from the Googlebot by following these steps:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6065812?hl=en
As a result, the information should be properly updated and the site should once again show the correct content.
If afterward the results are the same or you need any further assistance and guidance- we are available 24/7, so feel free to contact us again.
Best Regards
Olga Labova
Senior Technical Support
the site is indexed I can see the results when I search – the server is blocking the site from google
If it was not being indexed I could not do this
Thank you for the update, Mitch.
In order to investigate further on, can you please confirm when was the last time it was functioning properly and whether there were any recent changes applied on the matter?
For example, if you have applied any important changes in the configuration of the site and its database.
Awaiting your update,
Best Regards
Olga Labova
Senior Technical Support
The drop in traffic occurred sometime around midnight cst wed 12/18
I have found the issue – search console has been blocked until just now and this is what I have found
The site has been hacked and content injected
https://www.screencast.com/t/Y12GPWd0J
it’s important to note windycityparrot.com is 2 sites zencart for eCommerce and WordPress for the blog which is why you see 3 databases but only 1 domain
sorry 3 databases but only 2 domains
please make no changes to the site without talking to me I know about the php (5.4) issue – it’s because of zencart – I don’t want to pay $750 to upgrade all the (62) zencart plugins – especially because I’m about to abandon the site.
Please see if maybe we can roll back windycityparrot.com??
In the meantime, I will accelerate my birdandparrot.info build which is to become windycityparrot.com will try to do that in 2 – 3 days
thank you
Hello Mitch,
Thank you for the update!
As per your request, no changes were applied to the website.
Please allow me to explain that as the website was marked by Google it would be best as my colleague mentioned to be re-crawled so this way it will become accessible from Google search.
In regards to restoring the website, this could be done from your cPanel > Backup Tool
https://www.siteground.com/tutorials/cpanel/backup-restore-tool/
If you are not sure how to restore the application, please post a separate ticket from your User Area > Support section > Backup Restore so we could perform it on your behalf.
Also, I ran a malware scan on your account and I am providing you with the results:
Code:
[HEX]reversed_base64_decode [13/06/18] /home/customer/www/geekwindycityparrot.com/public_html/wp-content/cache__old/object/000000/ac0/c96/ac0c964bf5cbd00fa6e037bc83d19cb1.php
[HEX]reversed_base64_decode [13/06/18] /home/customer/www/geekwindycityparrot.com/public_html/wp-content/cache-bk/object/000000/ac0/c96/ac0c964bf5cbd00fa6e037bc83d19cb1.php
[HEX]reversed_base64_decode [13/06/18] /home/customer/www/geekwindycityparrot.com/public_html/wp-content/cache-bk/object/000000/ac0/c96/ac0c964bf5cbd00fa6e037bc83d19cb1.php
Please make sure to clear the provided files as they seem suspicious.
If we could be of any further help, do not hesitate to let us know!
Best Regards
Maria Genova
Technical Support Team
At this point, Siteground asked me to re-crawl the site – twice now
Firstime – Siteground is saying “we don’t know how to fix this”
I’m talking to my developer – because of the 2 databases zencart and WordPress that have been merged via customization – I’ not sure how to approach the rollback – any suggestions?
for clarity – here’s the issue
When you pay $500 a month for web hosting, “I can’t help you” when you know they can is not acceptable.
So I called the 800 number about a half-hour later and spoke to Alexander briefly.
He was worse.
“There is definitely nothing we can do on our end here.
I’m very sorry I wish we could do more but it’s something that you can have to work out with Google
Good luck”
Second time – Siteground is saying “we don’t know how to fix this”
which database was the scan run on?
I just ran the SG site scanner which indicated the site was clean and not black listed? how can that be if you found suspected malware and we know is blocking the site?
sorry google is blocking the site
I apologize for the delayed reply!
Please allow me to explain that the scan has been made on the cPanel account with username wcparrot. Both of the files are related to your cache folder.
It is just a suggestion to check them and make sure that this account is clean in order to prevent any further issues in the future.
In regards to the website under windycityparrot.com, I was able to resolve the issue by restoring only your .htaccess file and the website is now accessible from Google.
However, I left the previous .htaccess file under the name .htaccess1 and it is under your root directory. I would advise you to contact your website developer so he/she could check the rules inside which could be causing the issue.
If we could be of any further help, do not hesitate to let us know!
Best Regards,
Maria Genova
Technical Support Team
Third time – is the charm
I’ll be adding you to my list of future ex-wives Maria:-)
You are most welcome Mitch 🙂
I am glad my colleague was able to assist you.
If you need any further assistance don’t hesitate to contact us again.
Best Regards,
Bozhana Tringova
Senior Technical Support
Why is Elementor Not Suited for Woocommerce Shop Designs?
Spoiler alert – The two “nails in the coffin” with respect to Elementor not being compatible with Woocommerce are:
Why you can’t use Elementor to create Woocommerce categories
From Elementor support
What the other support teams were saying is essentially right.
The plugin (Elementor pro) won’t recognize it as an endpoint because it isn’t actually an archive page generated by WooCommerce (or WordPress for blog posts).
The plugin searches for archive and single pages (whether blog or product) and adds them to the breadcrumbs.
Standalone pages aren’t added since that’s not a part of what the plugin looks for.
In order for this to be recognized, you’ll have to create actual categories in WooCommerce (since you’re working with products) and create a template to display these within Elementor and that will ensure that the pages get picked up but look the way you want them to at the same time.
Continue reading “Why is Elementor Not Suited for Woocommerce Shop Designs?”
If You Are Not An Expert In Programming and Opensource – Be Careful
From Ron H regarding a post from our sister site’s blog at Windy City Parrot
Your new format….. I can accept that you are doing Keto, but a “bird based email” (birdy brunch) should probably have bird info before all the other stuff you 2 are doing.
With all the spread-out interest you 2 have, you are spending less time on the basics: proper English:
Here’s an example from today:
Why are so people down and negative about free flight of birds?
On your pet project from the last year – it appears to be how to do websites.
Continue reading “If You Are Not An Expert In Programming and Opensource – Be Careful”
You
On behalf of client: I am having an issue with https://www.windycityparrot.com
wit Google which you can check here –
https://www.loom.com/share/361e04be15bc4f748b45dd996994500f