The server engineers are working to try and resolve the issue which seems to have resulted from a massive spam attack on the server which has caused a blockage.

Once this is cleared normal service should be resumed but I will keep updating this blog until it is fixed.

My apologies for the inconvenience. I know how difficult this is.

Paul

—————————————-

13.11.pm The mail server was the target of a Denial of Service (DOS) attack. We’ve now stopped this and the mail that was waiting to be sent and received can now do so. There will be a delay while this occurs as there is quite a lot to be processed.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The server experienced a Denial of Service Attack late Wednesday which resulted in the server being flooded with mail (Spam). Whilst this was cleared, it left some virus issues that seem to have caused the current problem.

I know that this is taking some time to fix, but the engineers are working as fast as they can to resolve this.

I will keep you posted with updates here as and when I get them.

Thank you for your patience.

15.04 - Most email accounts are back online now and running OK. There are a few that are still causing problems which are all being individually looked at now and should be back up and running shortly.

Once again, our apologies for the inconvenience

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Email is currently not affected

14.08.08 - Problem resolved within three hours - apologies for the inconvenience

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Over the last few months it has undergone a re-design and I have also been doing some search engine optimisation work on it with keywords and descriptions. The end result is that as of today in Google, we have number 1 spot for the keywords Mortgage Packagers, Loan packagers and ASU Providers. I am currently working on the rest, but as you might imagine, looking at the stats I am now getting a fair amount of traffic.

One of the reasons this has happened is due to the age of the site. Google regards the age of a domain name as being quite important and as The Broker Zone has been around for a good view years, it may well jump over sites that are newer. The site also has a lot of outgoing links which again Google may see as an “Authority Site” and rank it higher accordingly.

It would be slightly different for your sites as you are selling a service or a product and the last thing you need to do is put in lots of links to other sites that will take them away from your site. You goal should be to get as many people linking to your website as possible. Start with searching for “UK Directories” on Google and try and find sites that will allow you a FREE entry. For goodness sake don’t pay for anything - if it asks for payment, go on to the next site.

It may be that you could add a links page to your site and try and get reciprocal links from other sites. This can be time consuming, but if you want to find out how this can be done, give me a call and I’ll talk you through it.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

In the meantime, my apologies for the inconvenience.

4.30pm - Websites are now up and running again and the server engineers are working to get the mail server and databases back up on line.

5.00pm - I have now heard from the server engineers who tell me that the Data Centre suffered a complete power failure. Websites returned at about 3.30pm and email records are being updated and they should be back online shortly.This incident was completely unforeseen and our senior management is waiting for a full report on what happened and why.

6.10pm - Email is now coming in - one or two of you may experience problems sending email but that should resolve itself fairly quickly now.

Once again, apologies for the inconvenience.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Having been designing sites for a number of years, mainly concentrating on how they look rather than how high up the Google ranking they will get and, it has to be said, telling my customers to shortcut the search engines by using Pay Per Click campaigns, I now know why I didn’t get into search engine optimsation before - it is incredibly time consuming and consequently can prove a little expensive. Having said that, it terms of the business it can generate it is in the long term incredibly cost effective.

Over the course of the next few posts, I will attempt to explain what I am doing and how I am doing it. Obviously, I won’t tell you everything, otherwise you won’t employ me, but suffice to say, that one of the main reasons I have set this blog up is for for search engine purposes. If you have a website, you should have a blog. It can work wonders. If you would like one setting up, let me know - it is very inexpensive. It actually doesn’t matter too much if no one ever reads it except Google and the other search engines although it could provide a valuable tool for keeping in touch with your clients and customers and it is a good way of doing an email newsletter on the cheap.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Having spoken to them at length, it is their intention to vastly improve the system to make websites faster and email more reliable.

I will keep you posted here as to improvements and or issues that may affect you.

My apologies for any inconvenience you hace suffered over the last couple of days.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

There are several reasons I have put this site up. It will enable me to have a rant every now and again, but primarily, it is available to cover support issues and updates and I have done it for Search Engine Optimisation reasons, more of which you will find out about if you look in the Search Engine Optimisation category.

Much of the stuff I put on here will probably have a financial services theme to it, as I find myself designing and administering a lot of financial services sites. How long that will continue, I don’t know judging by the state of the industry at the moment, but hopefully we can all ride the storm.

My Broker Resource site - The Broker Zone is undergoing a re-design at present and should be available soon. I also have a few other projects underway, that I will enlighten you of in the course of these posts when the time arises.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites