Google will be turning off the old “UA-” Universal Analytics format analytics properties July 1. OmegaNet has, several months ago, converted all the analytics for the sites we host to the new “G-” Analytics 4 system.
If you have another website managed elsewhere, I wanted to be sure you are aware of this. Contact your webmaster to be sure they have migrated to the new Analytics 4 properties for your site.
Below is a message from Google with some relevant links.
Hello Google Analytics user,
On July 1, 2024, Google Analytics 4 properties will have fully replaced Universal Analytics properties, as previously announced. From that date, Google will begin turning off all Universal Analytics services and Universal Analytics APIs, which means Universal Analytics properties will be inaccessible through the Google Analytics front-end and APIs. If you haven’t completely migrated to Google Analytics 4 properties, follow the migration guide to start making the switch today.
Exporting your data To maintain access to data from your Universal Analytics property, you should download or export your data now. If this isn’t done through one of the methods provided in the Google Analytics Help Center, your data will be permanently deleted by Google and won’t be recoverable. If you intend to use the BigQuery integration to export historical data from your Universal Analytics 360 property, we strongly recommend initiating this immediately.
Recently, OmegaNet modified the log-in process for our wholesale sites so that you can specify a page you’d like to link to AFTER log in. Until now, if you linked to, say a specific product, you would be taken to the log in page and after you logged in, you would be taken to the Main Category page. There was no easy way to find the product you had originally linked to.
Now it is possible to provide your customers with a direct link to a product AFTER logging in, so they can find and order it.
Use Cases
How can you use this?
Links in email advertising. Simply link to the product you want to feature (see below for link structure).
Links on landing and sales pages, where you direct customers to a dedicated page for a special offer.
Links in social media, such as Facebook/Meta, Instagram, Twitter/X, Pinterest, etc.
Note: Customers who are already registered on your site will be able to simply log in and will be taken to the desired page, but those not registered (such as those coming from social media) will need to first register before they can log in and go to the page. This may require clicking the link again.
How to format the link
IMPORTANT NOTE: You should not simply copy the URL from your browser when you are logged in. You can start with that, but you must modify it before using the link in the ways described above. Here is an example of a possible link URL and how it should be modified. When you copy the URL from the address bar of your browser it will look like this:
(the URL above may break to two lines on the page, but there should be no line breaks or spaces in the URL) In your case, in the URL above, “userid=0000000&” will be the actual 7-digit customer ID for the user for which you are logged in. You MUST delete the “userid=0000000&” because that will vary with each person who logs in and the system will automatically be added to the URL when they log in. Everything else you can leave, like “item=000000000000,” which will be the actual 12-digit item number of the product which was automatically displayed by the system, “sku=ABC123” which will be your actual SKU and “&cat=000000” which will be the actual category ID of the product. You could delete “&cat=000000” to shorten the URL because it isn’t required.
To recap, you MUST delete “userid=0000000&” and you CAN delete “&cat=000000” to shorten the URL.
It may also be desirable to further shorten the URL using an online service like bitly.com, tinyurl.com and there are others which you can find using a web search. Be sure to test the URL link when you use it to be sure your modifications were correct.
Video is becoming more and more important, especially on social media. Many of you participated in our “Virtual Spring Trade Show” at www.giftshowspecials.com. If you didn’t participate and haven’t seen it, you should take a look.
Since Gary Ivey used to do video production for a living, he thought he would do a short video (9 min.) about basic Video Production Principles. We hope it can help you to use this tool to promote your products.
The rules concerning email blast ad design have changed drastically. Watch the short (5 min.) video to see how you should approach email blast design today. (You can also see examples of email design here.)
For a website to be HTTPS, a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate must be purchased and installed on the server where the domain is hosted.
How We Do It Now
Currently we use a shared “wildcard” (*.cameoez.com) SSL certificate to make selected pages HTTPS, such as Login, Registration, Update Account, Checkout, etc. where customers input sensitive information. These pages are already SSL secure (displayed as HTTPS and for which Chrome displays “Secure” in the address bar). As a result of this shared certificate, until now you have not needed to purchase your own SSL certificate each year. Ordinary product and information pages are not SSL secure, but are displayed as HTTP.
Until now, Google Chrome has simply displayed HTTP pages without the “Secure” notification in the address bar, but beginning in July, 2018, Chrome will display a “Not Secure” warning in the address bar of all HTTP pages, rather than just omitting “Secure.” The warning in Chrome will likely be alarming to your customers who use that browser.
Our current server software version does not allow SSL certificates on multiple domain names on one IP address, but we have formulated a plan that will satisfy Google Chrome.
What Does This Mean for You?
Whether your site must have its own SSL certificate depends on your “website type.” You can identify your website type in Admin Console > Account Setup > Account Type. Your Website Type will be “Attached Site,” “Redirected Website,” or “Complete Site.” If yours is an “Attached Site” site, number 2 below applies to you. If your site is either “Redirected Website” or “Complete Website”, number 3 below applies to you. We may also contact you with specific information for your situation.
“Redirected Website” or “Complete Website”: If your site’s domain name (yourname.com) goes directly to your wholesale website, then you will be required to pay for an SSL certificate for your domain name. OmegaNet will purchase and install this for you and bill you or charge your credit card on file. We do have to install the certificate. Installation includes:
generating a “Certficate Signing Request” (CSR) which can only be generated on our server.
properly installing the purchased certificate and keys in the proper location on the server.
How Much Will the Certificate Cost?
OmegaNet will charge $140 (including installation) for a certificate, which is good for one year. Our vendor is considered the best protection and the best value according to a “Best Five” list for SSL security.
Is this an annual expense?
Yes. We have been able to save you this expense until now with our shared certificate, but Google has made it impossible to continue this way. You will be billed or charged again one year from the date that we set up your site with your own certificate. The price may be different, depending on what we are able to negotiate with our vendor.
Can I buy my own certificate?
No, we aren’t allowing this, simply because, with hundreds of websites, there is too much for us to keep track of, doing all these sites at one time, plus we are getting a discount because we are buying so many and if you bought your own, we would still have to install it, for which we would charge you, so you wouldn’t save anything.
NOTE: SSL Certificates are not transferrable from one server to another.
Is this Mandatory?
Yes. You don’t want Google Chrome users seeing the scary warning. That will hurt your sales.
More Than One Domain Name?
What if you have more than one domain name associated with your site? Will you need to purchase an SSL certificate for each of them? Technically you would, but if your domain names are just variations of the same name, we can set your site to convert to what you consider your “main” domain name when customers type in one of your secondary domain names so you only have to pay for one certificate.
When is the Deadline?
We have a lot of work to do to be ready, but we will begin purchasing certificates and applying them to domains as soon as we can with a target to have everything complete by mid June.
Questions?
Contact Gary Ivey (gary@omeganetinc.net or 770-482-3012 ext. 104) with questions.
Last year we had to stop using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to upload files in order to be PCI Compliant for credit card security (see previous bulletin).
At that time we installed a new, better File Manager for you to use in addition to the image uploaders in the Admin Console. However, the File Manager still left a lot to be desired, so we took the extra step of setting up a separate server to host images only. Now when you view your images in the File Manager you are actually looking at them on a different server. Having images stored remotely will help with page-load speeds, but the biggest advantage is that you can now FTP again.
Here’s how: Use ftp://images2.cameoez.com as the host name and use your Admin Console username and password for the FTP username and password when prompted.
You can use an FTP client software program or Windows Explorer to do this. Click Here for Instructions.
NOTE: The FTP server is only for files located in the “images” folder and its subfolders, such as the “import” folder where product images need to be uploaded.
Dear OmegaNet/CAMEO EZ Clients: As you may remember, not long ago we moved the sites on one of our servers to “the cloud” to allow us to make changes to comply with PCI standards and to give us better speed and uptime. (Bulletin #110711)
However, after multiple episodes of under performance in the data center to which we moved our server, they admitted that they have a connectivity issue there, but have not found the root cause. So, with no satisfactory solution forthcoming from them, over the weekend we realized we had to solve the problem immediately and move to a workable situation.
So, during the night tonight (April 30) we will be moving all affected sites to a new server that will be much better.
Today it is VERY IMPORTANT that those of you with wholesale sites DO NOT Process Images, since this drags down the performance of the server because of the nature of the problem at the current data center.
Two pieces of good news: we will be able to keep our IP address, so you will not be required to make any changes, AND with this move we are also arranging to handle images separately so everyone will be able to use FTP again. These changes should restore the expected uptime and page load speed to optimal levels.
Sorry for the inconvenience. We are committed to improving our service to you.
At OmegaNet, we endeavor to ensure that all credit card data is secure by providing 128-bit SSL encryption for all transactions and maintaining 24-hour monitoring on our servers to alert us to any attempts to enter our servers by unauthorized persons. Additionally, credit card information is stored encrypted then deleted after 30 days.
In order to be completely compliant with the PCI SSC Data Security standard, we must take an additional step of turning off the File Transfer Protocol server (FTP) and closing port 21. We will do this on the evening of Friday, July 15.
For updated information on using FTP to upload images, see Bulletin #120605.
We think you will really like the features of the new file manager if you have been using Windows Explorer to do your uploads. We apologize for any inconvenience but we really have no choice in the matter.
OmegaNet Inc. Web Site Clients: URGENT Notification
They say “The Only Thing Constant Is Change”. So it seems to be with web hosting. There are many operating system and software upgrades that we must make in order to meet certain compliance requirements, but which cannot be made on our current server where your web site is hosted. Because of this, we must move your site to a new server.
This will necessitate that we take down the current server and activate the new one over a six-hour period on the evening of this Sunday, May 22. The server (and all web sites) will be down beginning at 9:00 pmEastern time until 3:00 am. During this time we will be making a final copy of all the most recent files and data, so that nothing is lost. I would advise you not to make any uploads or updates to your web site on Sunday, May 22.
If OmegaNet has your domain name, full website and email, you will not need to make any changes. The server change will be invisible to you.
However, some of you may need to make a change if you are using the current server IP address either in an FTP client or if you are redirecting from an official host to our server. I will try to notify each of the latter directly so you can be prepared. The new IP address is 208.43.126.162.
We have installed a new type of Large Image presentation for wholesale sites that allows people to see large product images without opening a new window and without leaving the thumbnail page. Since many people turn popups off in their browsers, this will avoid that problem. Also this method is more current.
Below is an image of a screenshot of the way the new Large Image should look. If it’s not that way it is on your site, you likely have a custom thumbnail page so we will need to make a couple of changes in your custom template. Let us know and we will make the change.
