BINTEL finally has a new website

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by dylan_odonnell

Yep, because we've switched to the old (original) domain name now - bintel.com.au .. when trying to hit it with the temporary/transition URL binocularandtelescope.com.au you will get the SSL warning.

We decided that the original domain name was the best one to run with now that the old site is gone so please update any bookmarks you have to go directly to bintel.com.au and you won't get any errors.

I'll update the original post to reflect this too.. thanks!

Dylan.

why not get a multi domain SSL? Costs a bit, but protects both the old and new domains...

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

The old site had piers etc, but the new site doesn't. I don't know if Bintel no longer stocks such things (it's probably not worth their time or money), or they do, but their site isn't showing it.

I have to say I prefer the old site, but they, I'm a big subscriber to the don't change it unless it's broken mentality. A change for change's sake is never good imho.

Dave

[dylan_odonnell (Dylan)]

Originally Posted by dpastern

why not get a multi domain SSL? Costs a bit, but protects both the old and new domains...

That's true! The new URL was really temporary for staging though and we won't be using it ever again. Google prefers a single URL so it doesn't detect duplicate content across different domains. It's already unindexed and the main domain is working well in google's index already.

The difference in stock between old site and new site is definitely the main feedback we get. Lots of stuff on the old site wasn't stocked any more but could be sourced if needed. They are still loading in new/old stuff all the time and over time it will accrue a large list of in-stock and out-of-stock items like the old site did, expect this time you can tell which is which in real time.

There is always room for improvement and while the new site performs better according to the back-end data, they still consider all the suggestions in this thread. Custom sorting is a big one but requires a fair amount of data entry and setup (e.g. adding all focal lengths for 100s of products) but the default "sort by price" works well most of the time. (e.g. small scopes are cheap, big scopes are expensive!)

Thanks for all your help Ice in Spacers!

d

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Well, if it's a Wordpress site, just make sure the server it's running on is using up to date Apache2.x and PHP5.x, with all security updates, and that Wordpress is updated as soon as a new update is released. Wordpress (and Joomla) both have very bad reputations for being a delight for crackers. I'd make sure that both the apache2 and php config files are hardened and probably train the staff to check both the apache2 and syslogs daily.

edit: you should be able to do an apache2 rewrite in a .htaccess file to redirect the old site to new, but I'm sure you already know this.

[dylan_odonnell (Dylan)]

Originally Posted by dpastern

Well, if it's a Wordpress site, just make sure the server it's running on is using up to date Apache2.x and PHP5.x, with all security updates, and that Wordpress is updated as soon as a new update is released. Wordpress (and Joomla) both have very bad reputations for being a delight for crackers. I'd make sure that both the apache2 and php config files are hardened and probably train the staff to check both the apache2 and syslogs daily.

edit: you should be able to do an apache2 rewrite in a .htaccess file to redirect the old site to new, but I'm sure you already know this.

Yep, I used to run an ISP and have been running my webhosting company since 1999, so I look after everything from the kernel to the html Updates are regular and controlled.

.htaccess with url re-writes / 301 redirects are in place just in case anyone comes in from the old links, but it's already phased out really.

Thanks again for all the feedback and advice!

d

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Excellent! I can't think of anything else.