Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with hosts

Lost in landing page hosting SEO strategies

slater — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 01:04:32 -0800

Our client (Switzerland-based, but internationally operating) currently has companyname.ch as their main site. That's where all their sites' content is hosted. We've also set up companyname.ca and companyname-keyword.com for their international operations. Those sites are just one index.html page where all links then go to "companyname.ch/page=pageid&locale=ca" for the canadian site and "companyname.ch/page=pageid&from=com" for the keyworded site. We recently moved the canadian site's hosting from our servers in Switzerland to a Canada-based host for (minute) SEO reasons. Questions follow... Questions are two-fold:
1) Is such a "landing page strategy" wise, from an SEO POV? Or should all sites have their own content without ever linking to anything at the company's main site?
2) Is it even worth having the hosting according to the domain's country-level name (eg, companyname.ca hosted in Canada is "rewarded" with better SERP by Google et al, as compared to having all of the client's sites hosted in Switzerland)?

How do I manage my HOSTS/LMHOSTS file and/or better manage a virtual machine IP that changes?

bertrandom — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:50:09 -0800

How do I manage my HOSTS/LMHOSTS file and/or better manage a virtual machine IP that changes? I'm on a Windows XP machine. I have a linux virtual machine (Centos 5) running in VMWare Workstation.

I'm doing some web development on this virtual machine and I use the hosts file to make some dummy entries like:

192.168.1.4 www.domainnamestaging.com
192.168.1.4 domainnamestaging.com
192.168.1.4 www.anothersiteimworkingon.com
192.168.1.4 anothersiteimworkingon.com

and in the lmhosts something like

192.168.1.4 linux

Then I'll make a SMB share to \\linux\whatever and I can test my website with http://www.domainnamestaging.com/ and that all works fine. The VMWare networking is set to Bridged networking which just treats the Virtual Machine as if it's on my router like any other machine.

The only problem with this is sometimes I'm working at a coffee shop with no connectivity in which case I have to change the Virtual Machine's networking to a "private network" where the IP changes to something like 192.168.199.128 and I have to go through the HOSTS and LMHOSTS file and change all those entries to the new IP address. Or the coffee shop will have internet access but their router gives me a completely different IP address for the Virtual Machine.

I'm thinking I could write a script to search and replace all the IP addresses in those two files, but I'm guessing there has to be a better way? Is there some program/networking trick that switches all this stuff easily, bonus points if I don't have to run anything, it just works regardless of how it's connected?

Disassociative Networking Disorder

mkb — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:27:12 -0800

Is there a way for Leopard to bind a hosts file to a location in Network Preferences? My workplace is on some weird network transition period where I can only check my mail when connected to the parent company's VPN. If I'm not connected to the VPN, I can use the office DNS just fine and contact all the servers in the office just fine. If I AM connected to the VPN, I can't use any of the regular office DNS and instead have to look up the name in an Excel spreadsheet and add it to my hosts file. Depending on whether I am on the VPN, the servers have different IP addresses, so the hosts file will only work on the VPN!

I've already created separate locations for being on and off the VPN in order to manage proxy settings, so I was wondering if there's any way to get something like the hosts file to stick to a particular location as well. This way I don't have to comment everything out of my /etc/hosts file when I get off the VPN.

What lies between my browser and the internet?

miniape — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:11:24 -0800

I have an idea for a simple piece of software. It would involve intercepting browser requests, checking the requested url (probably not ip address, so before that conversion takes place) testing the url and redirecting if it passes the test. The test will itself make a network connection. Probably a pretty simple problem, but my background is in web development, and I'm foggy about 'OS' stuff, if that's even what it's called.

How are some ways I can go about this? I'd ideally like to write the program in Java or Python, but I'm not really looking for code specific information. I'm looking for google terms, useful libraries, descriptions of what happens step by step between the time I press enter on the keyboard and the time the request leaves the computer, generally strategies.

I'm guessing it might be hard because this is what a lot of spyware does, but I would be happy even if installation required some configuration.

Is BT blocking sites on me?

twistedonion — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 12:05:32 -0800

I'm with BT for my broadband and over the last few days I've been unable to access some sites in the US. Notably my own web host Mediatemple. Anyone else with BT experiencing problems? I'm tearing my hair out here. A couple of weeks ago I noticed I couldn't access my email or any of my web sites. Thought it strange I hadn't got a text from pingdom monitoring service. Checked the sites on my mobile and they were working fine. Couple of hours later the problem seemed fixed and I thought no more about it.

Then two days ago same thing happened. I have no access to my site or any of my clients. I can't get on to any site hosted by Mediatemple. Things got more worrying when I asked around and found everyone I know on BT also couldn't access these sites.

Phoned BT yesterday and they predictably blamed Mediatemple. Phoned Mediatemple who got me to email them a traceroute to help them build up a case against BT... they said both they and BT are well aware of the problems and it's not just affecting Mediatemple but other US hosts as well.

Just off the phone to BT. Tech guy was nice but useless. Apologetic but had no solutions. One thing he said that I found strange was... "are any of the sites you are visiting of questionable material?" Are BT censoring sites?

What is or could be going on? Anyone knowledgable about these things help me out. I hate not knowing exactly what the problem is and I need to know if I have grounds to cancel my contract with BT and move to another provider... that's two days so far I've been unable to do any work to my sites. Not to mention two days without email.

It would also be helpful to be able to know what's up so I can inform my clients.

Blocking websites using /etc/hosts

proj — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:48:02 -0800

Why won't OSX let me block MeFi via the /etc/hosts file? I'm trying to make one computer "work only" and eliminate web sites on which I waste a lot of time (MeFi being one of them). I have successfully blocked all the websites that I care to EXCEPT MetaFilter. I am running OSX 10.4.10 on a MacBook Core 2 Duo. The following is my /etc/hosts file:



127.0.0.1 localhost metafilter.com www.metafilter.com metatalk.metafilter.com

255.255.255.255 broadcasthost

::1 localhost

I have tried it with JUST metafilter.com, just www.metafilter.com, etc. with no luck. Rebooting, refreshing, clearing cache, etc. MeFi continues to load normally. Safari, Opera, Firefox have all produced the same results. This is driving me crazy!

hosts file broke my Internet

Meatbomb — Thu, 24 May 2007 03:08:46 -0800

The hosts file on my Windows machine seems to have broken the Internets... When Metafilter made the change to new IP addresses, a good samaritan showed me how to change the hosts file in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc so I would not have to wait for the change to register.

It worked beautifully when I was in Afghanistan. My hosts file has this in it:

127.0.0.1 localhost

74.53.68.130 metafilter.com
74.53.68.130 www.metafilter.com
74.53.68.130 ask.metafilter.com
74.53.68.130 metatalk.metafilter.com
74.53.68.130 music.metafilter.com
74.53.68.130 projects.metafilter.com

Now I am in Bishkek, on my friend's wireless network, and everything EXCEPT Metafilter times out. If I mem out the above Metafilter lines, Metafilter also times out and won't load.

I know the actual network connection is good because Metafilter will load (when those lines are in the hosts file), and the googletalk program fetches my email headers, my antivirus auto-downloads its updates, etc.

I would love to solve this stupid problem myself, but as it is I can only connect to you nice people, no google, no email... please help me?

Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges!

Tuwa — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:49:15 -0800

How do I get my browser to ignore a certain site? Occasionally when I go to my yahoo mail, I'm prompted repeatedly, by popup, for a password for one of the sites serving ads.

It's happening again, at this page, returning each of these two popups six times:

I've added adserver.adtech.de to my HOSTS file and restarted the computer, according to these instructions (i.e. I added a line saying 127.0.0.1 adserver.adtech.de and saved the file again, with no extension). I thought that would solve the problem but it hasn't; revisiting that page after reboot shows that the site is still pestering me for a password.

I want my browser to ignore any and all requests from that site--to dump it in the bit bucket and continue loading the page without its input. I thought that was what HOSTS was for; but if it is, then why isn't it working?

Why does Firefox ignore my hosts file

alan — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 12:25:21 -0800

Can anyone help me figure out why Firefox is ignoring my HOSTS file when I use a proxy server? Win XP/Firefox 1.5 I'm a web developer. I'm required to connect to the internet through a proxy at work. I also have to make changes to my hosts file in order to view the different dev/stage/live servers.

Let's say I have the following two entries in my hosts file

192.168.0.100 example.com
192.168.0.101 example.org

If I have my box/browsers setup to connect directly to the Internet, both Firefox and IE will obey the settings in my hosts file. Of course, since I'm not going through a proxy, I can't connect to anything outside the local network.

So, I setup the box/browsers to use the proxy. Here's where things get weird.

IE will continue to obey the HOSTS file, assuming I add the domain to the "Do not use proxy server for addresses beginning with:" setting.

Firefox, by and large, will also obey settings in the HOSTS file (again, assuming I've added the domain to the "No Proxy For" setting). However, there are certain domains where it will not. So, in the above example, when I'm set to connect through a proxy, Example.com would resolve to 192.168.0.101, but example.org would ignore the setting in the hosts file, and resolve to something else (192.0.34.166).

Digging through Bugzilla, I came across this bug, which seems to be related, but I don't know enough about how proxy servers should work vs. how they do work vs. how Mozilla makes them work to fix my issue.

I assume that there's something set on the proxy server that says "hey, it's important that we look this domain up, so ignore local settings", but again my knowledge of what's really going on behind the scenes it too limited to make any use of this theroy.

Has anyone run into this problem with Firefox before? Can anyone recommend tools/procedures for further debugging of proxy server issues in general?

Standard Disclaimers

Yes I've cleared my cache.

Yes I've tried restarting Firefox between proxy changes.

I love reading RFCs. I love practical advice that explains the concepts laid out in RFCs even more.

Yes, the Help Desk/IT Department should be handling this. Their response "oh, we have limited support for Firefox, sorry", (Despite the fact it's a development priority). I'd like to diagnose the problem to the point where I can say to them "I need you to do X, Y and Z".

Yes, the editing of host files is a questionable way to deal with dev/stage/live environments. While suggestions of alternatives are appreciated, I'm months away from having the political power to recommend changes likes that.

Large companies are fun, eh?

How to reduce reliance on a single web host for email delivery?

SteveInMaine — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 03:31:46 -0800

Web hosting woes: My host has had massive email issues for the last few days. Would it make sense to move DNS to somebody like Zonedit so that I can redirect email to other domains temporarily when situations like this arise? Any other suggestions?

My web host is down

dg — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 05:28:57 -0800

Where did my hosting company go? I have a reseller account with ADT Hosting and they have always provided good service. Until today. [more inside] All my sites and those that I host for others are unreachable. ADT Hosting's site is unreachable. I cannot ping the IP address or the domain (or the nameservers). I have tried the following:

1. Called the phone number in the whois information - wrong number (surprise, surprise). Whois info shows:
Buhr, Scott domains@server26.com
41st Street
Long Island City, New York 11104
United States
9174477477 Fax --
2. Tried to find a phone number via Google, but I suspect that ADT Hosting is just a trading name and they are not listed under that name.
3. Called the phone number in the whois information for the name servers operating by ADT Hosting - invalid number (surprise, surprise). Whois info shows:
Connor, Ryan T. info@server26.com
41st Street
Suite 5
Long Island City, New York 11104
United States
(718) 305-987 Fax --
4. Tracked down the owner of the IP address my hosting account uses, which is Net Access Corporation and phoned them. They advise that one of their reseller customers was relocating at the time and maybe ADT Hosting was a customer of a customer of theirs, but they cannot confirm it (although the staff there were very friendly and helpful).
5. Tried, with little hope of success, e-mailing ADT Hosting's support e-mail.
6. Freaked out.

What else can I try? Am I panicking too soon? (things have been dark for around 11 hours now).

DNS Hell

scarabic — Wed, 26 May 2004 11:11:52 -0800

DNS hell! My Windows 2000 box seems to have some kind of DNS problem. Certain sites just 404 or time out. I know it's not my net connection, because other computers on my network can get to these sites. I've already renamed the hosts file and rebooted. I need to resolve this for a paying gig. Help! [more] Example #1: On this page, scroll down to the EBGames row and click the orange "Buy It' button. I get a connection refusal from "click.linksynergy.com"

Example #2: the Salon day-pass ads. Scroll to the bottom of that Rush article and try to do the "day pass." I get a connection refusal from "cache.ultramercial.com"

Example #3: I cannot get to this link from the Ebates.com main index page (registration required). I get a connection refusal from "www.qksrv.net"

When I say "connection refusal" I mean a "page not found" error message in IE. Firefox actually tells me in an error dialog that the connection was refused by the host.

Now, these are all ad or paid referral sites. So killing off the hosts file was something to try. I apparently have a big ad-blocking hosts file installed by KLite++. I renamed it and rebooted. Is that enough to "turn it off?"

What else should I try? Again, this is for work so any help would be greatly appreciated.