Server problems solved with Google

Google + Blogs is better than any manual or helpfile, due to the fact that you can almost always find someone else with the exact same problem, and usually a solution as well. The blog aspect helps as you tend to also get a stream of user comments that might go into more detail.

A case in point. For whatever reason, one of my servers decided to stop resolving names. OK, chances are that the DNS servers I'm pointing at have fallen over or something, but that's no good for me, so I went hunting for more DNS servers to use.

I found the OpenNic Project, which is a free to use group of name servers - ideal for my requirements. I noted down the French and UK IP addresses (server is physically in Germany, so France is the closest on their list for me) and went to add them to my server.

Aha. A problem. Due to the server setup, it's not possible to update the DNS servers using the windows interface, as Windows tries to trap an error (which is there because of the ISPs configuration). No problem, I'll add from the command line. But how?

This posting from years back provides the solution, which worked a treat. Simply use the NETSH commandline utility and you can remove and add DNS servers with impunity! After a swift reboot to install recent system updates whilst I was sorting things out, the server is back up and running as it should. Phew!!

Yahoo Search Marketing Upgraded

My Yahoo Search Marketing / Overture account has just been upgraded to the new platform, and everything looks good so far.. The expected 8 hour conversion time took place within 15 minutes. Not a bad start.

Then I find a killer good feature: Import campaigns from a third party (ie. Google). This is excellent. Google have always made it so easy to create campaigns and groups and keep everything very targeted. Yahoo, on the other hand made it difficult for small advertisers, as there was no way to import/export. If you were spending thousands per month then there was a solution, but that didn't help me...

Now the good point here is that Yahoo ALWAYS converts for me way better than Google. If I can get the campaign quality and control that I do on Google with the conversion rates of Yahoo, then things will start looking good. Fingrs x'd!