New Web Host and Domain Name for ORCA

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Brian F.
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Location: Hilo, Hawaii

New Web Host and Domain Name for ORCA

Post by Brian F. »

You may not have noticed on your visits to Reel Talk over the last couple of weeks but we've made a significant change through the great talents of our web/adminstrative help. The ORCA website and Reel Talk are now using the new domain name orcaonline.org and Dreamhost is our new web host. You may have noticed that the board loads a little faster but the main benefits are that we will be able to update website content easier and avoid outages and the run around that was going on behind the scenes.

Not much to do on your part but we could still use your help and, if you are reading this, you are halfway there. First would be to make sure you update your bookmarks for Reel Talk to:

http://reeltalk.orcaonline.org/

but more importantly, please let friends who may not visit as often know about updating their bookmarks.

Second is to update links to orcaonline.org that you may have on your own web pages. And again more importantly, let others who don't visit Reel Talk know about the link change. We want to avoid having as many outdated links out there as possible but there are many since we've built up quite a reputation over the 15 years since Phil White established ORCA's website and Reel Talk.

As always, please let us know if you encounter any problems.
Adnim
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Joined: Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm

Re: New Web Host and Domain Name for ORCA

Post by Adnim »

Thanks Brian!

Also thanks for putting up with me! :roll:

Yes, speeds have definitely improved and I am glad you have some practical experience of this. Google says that page loads on your old site were taking a second or more, whereas on your new site, these are now 0.429 seconds. So much for Google though. What about users all over the globe? Page loads were taking up to 7 seconds and are now taking up to 1.4 seconds. This is faster than 81% of sites.

Much has been happening behind the scenes since January. There is more to come! :D Most of you don't need to know any of this other than the site has been kept running for you and in the future the content should be a lot fresher. I'm happy to address any questions you may have, if you post them in an appropriate forum.

You can help by placing a link to the new location in your blogs, twitter, facebook or whatever. Please do not spam though. Not only is it unfriendly, it can be detrimental. If you have a current signature that links to ORCA, please by all means update it. Do not however add one.

The link to use should be: http://orcaonline.org/

ORCA email addresses are all the same, except they have a hyphen in them. e.g.
spam@orcaonline.org is now spam@orca-online.org (of course that is fictitious!)

I would now like to address Webmasters specifically. This helps us and it helps them.

Webmasters

Many changes have been made and circumstances have dictated how and when they had to be carried out. Links require to be updated on your sites for both of our benefit. 301 redirects have been implemented but cannot be relied upon. Subsequently, some of these 301s have been removed and ultimately, they all will be. There will be one final switch but redirects will be maintained there, so they have no place right now.

Why is this important to you?

Your site's reputation is built upon the quality and reliability of your content. Simply: once links begin to no longer work, your reputation will drop. Please plug these holes before they happen.

Why is this important to ORCA?

Brian refers to a 15 year history. Those 15 years have built quite a reputation for ORCA. We are practically starting all over again and have 15 years worth of reputation to rebuild. That reputation was built upon inbound links to orcaonline.org. We are now orcaonline.org. These old links badly need to be updated, to get anywhere near the standing you once enjoyed.

I will list the changes that you need to make below.

Code: Select all

www.orcaonline.org => orcaonline.org
orcaonline.org => orcaonline.org
ipw-web/bulletin/bb => reel-talk
v-web/bulletin/bb => reel-talk
I am offering to freely assist any Webmaster in making these changes but please be advised that if you have an HTML site, I will need FTP access (Host, Username, Password) and this will be done within 24 hours. If you have a database driven site, I will need phpMyAdmin access (Credentials will be required depending on your hosting). Database driven sites can be updated within minutes.
nomdeplume57
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Re: New Web Host and Domain Name for ORCA

Post by nomdeplume57 »

What benefit is coming from putting the Hyphen in the address? Looks like a Heck of a lot of work to me . Not a conflict with the Whale Protectors was it ?
Adnim
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Posts: 88
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Re: New Web Host and Domain Name for ORCA

Post by Adnim »

Yes it is a heck of a lot of work and I assure you there is no benefit. It is a necessity to ensure this site keeps running for you guys.

Remember to update your bookmarks: http://orcaonline.org
Adnim
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Joined: Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm

Re: New Web Host and Domain Name for ORCA

Post by Adnim »

I want to say a thank-you to Rick and Steven for being the first ones to be noticed by the search engines for updating their links!

I also want to say thank-you to Ron Mc for an exemplary link and image posting record. Nice work on filing and maintaining your 1116 posted images. One 404 out of the whole lot since Tue, 26 Jul 2005. Not a single broken link posted either!

Well done guys!
Adnim
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Re: New Web Host and Domain Name for ORCA

Post by Adnim »

Jim is next one up for being spotted by the search engines. Thanks! :D

I just want to stress there is no www. in front of orcaonline.org. This was dropped in January of this year.

Guys, unfortunately we have not had many people making updates and I really do not want to spend around 4 days of my time emailing everyone about these changes. Around the 12th of June, Google started losing interest in ORCA. This is very bad news and I have just had to sit and watch it. :bash:

Is there any way you can help out here? This is your association. :bow:
Adnim
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Re: New Web Host and Domain Name for ORCA

Post by Adnim »

We've made the switch fairly successfully.
Image
The new website is up but is badly needs its content updating.

Some fresh content would be good too. Have we any writers and photographers that could produce a report on the 2012 convention? Article on cleaning, etc.? For that matter, could anyone produce retrospective articles for the missing years conventions?

With the odd blip, pages have been consistently downloading in around half a second and there has not been a single server error noted in the last two months.
Image
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robert ellis
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Re: New Web Host and Domain Name for ORCA

Post by robert ellis »

Thank you Admin guys, for all your hard work ! :bow:
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