How to Keep Your eCommerce Site from Crashing

Preparing your eCommerce site for a busy holiday season is an absolutely critical process that has to begin well before most shoppers start looking for gifts. No change alone will fully protect your site from the issues that commonly arise during periods of heavy traffic. Engage in planning, testing and optimization before your site is ready to weather the storm of holiday shoppers that will soon arrive. We will discuss how to keep your eCommerce site from crashing.

How to Keep Your eCommerce site from Crashing

The following are a few ways on how to keep your eCommerce site from crashing:

Follow Through with On-Site Testing

Several forms of site testing can be used to resolve this issue with low visitor capacity and reduced performance, with one of the most essential being the peak-load test. The peak-load test determines the maximum number of simultaneous users your eCommerce site can host before performance degrades.

These tests should occur twice a year. The first setting a baseline and the second determining the maximum load for holiday shopping.

Utilize Expire Headers and Cache Control

Reducing the number and size of informational transactions between a visitor’s web browser and your site is a significant element of fast, efficient performance. This is the case even more so during the holiday shopping season. First time visitors may have to make many HTTP requests to access all of a site’s components.

Expire headers also help reduce image sizes and control caching to cut down on transactions and stop redundant transactions from piling up.

Use a Content Deliver Network

Content delivery networks optimize the provision of web content through a system of distributed servers — a network — that shifts depending on the location of visitor.

The closer the computer of the user is to a specific server, the fewer potential problems exist in terms of network bottlenecks. This boosts speed and performance.

Clean Up Promotions, Minimize the Number of Rules

Removing hold, unused promotions reduces needless work on the part of your site and also improve response times. As the number of promotional rules increases, so does the number of calculations your site needs to make at checkout.

This logic is redundant is neither beneficial nor necessary. During times that are especially busy, it can be the difference between a visitor staying or going to a competitor. Sites that don’t clean up their promotions will likely face increased negative outcomes as time goes on. An effective alternative to rules is using conditions to target specific customers. This is because it minimizes server load while still incorporating special offers.

eCommerce Security

Honestly speaking, wherever there are shops, there are thieves, and eCommerce has its share of crooks. These cyber criminals are always on the hunt to find a weakness in the code or any loophole left by the user through which then can hack in.

These nefarious elements typically invade website to conduct suspicious activities such as spamming, phishing and stealing user data. This cyber criminal activity is even more common during the holidays when your eCommerce site is overloaded with customers. If not properly secure, your eCommerce site could be at risk.

Use the Latest Version of Magento

Magento consistently updates at a good pace. Subsequent versions of Magento fix security issues of the preceding ones.

Therefore, using the latest version of Magento is another way on how to keep your eCommerce site from crashing.

Use Two-Factor Authentication

To discourage attacks, it is ideal that you use a two-factor authentication for your Magento site security.

There are extensions available that deliver two-factor authentication. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about password-related Magento security risks anymore.

Set a Custom Path for the Admin Panel

You can prevent hackers from getting on your admin log-in page and guessing passwords by replacing /admin with a customized term (for e.g. “Store door,” etc.) Also, this prevents hackers from accessing your admin login page even if they somehow get hold of your password. Your Magento admin path by following these tips:

• Locate /app/etc/local.xml
• Find <![CDATA[admin]]>
• Replace the term “admin” with your desired word or code

Acquire Encrypted Connection (SSL/HTTPS)

Whenever data is sent, like your login details, across an unencrypted connection, there are risks of that data being intercepted. If intercepted, the assailants can look into your credentials. You can eliminate these issues by using a secure connection.

You get secure HTTPS/SSL URL in Magento simply by checking the tab “Use Secure URLs” in the system configuration menu. This is also one of the key components in making your Magento site compliant with the PCI data security standard and in securing your online transactions.

Use Secure FTP

You can prevent the intercepting of FTP password hacking method by using securing passwords and using SFTP (Secured File Transfer Protocol). This uses a private key file for decryption or authenticating a user.

Have an Active Backup Plan

It’s great that you take strict preventative measures for Magento security. However, it is necessary to have an active back up plan. This can include hourly offsite backups and downloadable backups. This ensures if, for any reason, your website gets hacked or even if it crashes, the continuity of your services.

You can prevent data loss by storing your website backup file(s) off-site by arranging for backup through an online backup provider. Data backup results in minimal (and sometimes, no) data loss.

Disable Directory Indexing

Once you disable directory indexing, you are able to hide the obvious pathways via which the files of your domain are stored.

This prevents cyber criminals from gaining access to your Magento-powered website’s core files. However, they can still access your files if they already know what the full path of your files is.

Invest in a Sound Hosting Plan

At Centennial Arts, we work on developing technology to help businesses grow and connect with their customers. Through our experience in the website design industry and as a hosting provider, our specialists stays up to date with new technologies to help your business succeed.

Not only doe we back our service with a 99.9% up-time guarantee, our services also come with outstanding customer support. Our Support Packages include bug fixes, text and code changes, consulting on all aspects of your website, training of online documentation and phone support to ensure we meet all of our clients individual design and support needs.

These are just a few ways on how to keep your eCommerce site from crashing. Contact us with the link below for more information!