How should we treat our demo shops, to keep them private during development?

How can I work on my demo site private just for me to work on?

I know about the robots to prevent indexing but that is not always certain it will work.

Can I run my demo shop on my windows 8.x laptop?

Thanks

Couple of options, if it is online, there is the ability to place the shop in maintenance mode excluding the ip address of how you access it. (Allows access from the entered ip address(es) though some features may be disabled.)
Or as requested, you could setup a WAMP, LAMP, XAMP, etc. package and develop from your laptop. If you do this, be sure to setup your "paths" so that they mirror your production side. Ie. If you have chosen to install ZC to a subdirectory as seen from the internet, use the same sub-directory name on your local server. Though ideally because this is a money making venture, your ZC site is in the root of whatever url you have chosen, and as such the same should be done on your local server even if through a "sub-domain"... This way as you code without hard links, everything will also line up on the development server the same way.

You can do multiple things.

• Build the site locally, using something like xampp or wampp
• Build it on-line, in a sub-folder. I this case I always put the site in maintenance mode, put my own Ip address in the exclusion list, and set hiding the header etc to true. This way anyone who finds your test site will be presented with the down for maintenance page except for you.

Make sure, too, if you've got Google Analytics set up on your main store that you disable its operation on your demo-shop! That way, you're not notifying Google of the demo-shop's location.

spawnie69:

How can I work on my demo site private just for me to work on?
I know about the robots to prevent indexing but that is not always certain it will work.

I think the simplest way is to put it in a password protected directory on your web server which keeps it private from absolutely everyone including robots. I use Cpanel to do the password protection. Takes about 1 minute.

Zean:

I think the simplest way is to put it in a password protected directory on your web server which keeps it private from absolutely everyone including robots. I use Cpanel to do the password protection. Takes about 1 minute.

Many thanks i just did this under file manager and works nice!

mc12345678:

Couple of options, if it is online, there is the ability to place the shop in maintenance mode excluding the ip address of how you access it. (Allows access from the entered ip address(es) though some features may be disabled.)
Or as requested, you could setup a WAMP, LAMP, XAMP, etc. package and develop from your laptop. If you do this, be sure to setup your "paths" so that they mirror your production side. Ie. If you have chosen to install ZC to a subdirectory as seen from the internet, use the same sub-directory name on your local server. Though ideally because this is a money making venture, your ZC site is in the root of whatever url you have chosen, and as such the same should be done on your local server even if through a "sub-domain"... This way as you code without hard links, everything will also line up on the development server the same way.

Thanks MC, gotcha. Since mine is in the root if I was to WAMP it just make sure the structure is the same.

lat9:

Make sure, too, if you've got Google Analytics set up on your main store that you disable its operation on your demo-shop! That way, you're not notifying Google of the demo-shop's location.

Google Analytics yes that's important, thanks. If i secure a directory I shouldn't need to though right? or best to just in case?

spawnie69:

Google Analytics yes that's important, thanks. If i secure a directory I shouldn't need to though right? or best to just in case?
If it is in a password protected directory, I don't think Google Analytics is going to know anything about it. That's part of the advantage of this approach . . . It is a simple and entirely comprehensive solution.

lat9:

Make sure, too, if you've got Google Analytics set up on your main store that you disable its operation on your demo-shop! That way, you're not notifying Google of the demo-shop's location.

spawnie69:

Google Analytics yes that's important, thanks. If i secure a directory I shouldn't need to though right? or best to just in case?

Zean:

If it is in a password protected directory, I don't think Google Analytics is going to know anything about it. That's part of the advantage of this approach . . . It is a simple and entirely comprehensive solution.
Given that Google Analytics pushes the data from your browser up to Google, it doesn't matter if you've got a password on the directory or not, you'll still be telling them about your private site, with every click. It's up to them whether they decide to try to crawl it. But it's better if you turn off all analytics if you don't want them to know about that private area.

DrByte:

Given that Google Analytics pushes the data from your browser up to Google, it doesn't matter if you've got a password on the directory or not, you'll still be telling them about your private site, with every click. It's up to them whether they decide to try to crawl it. But it's better if you turn off all analytics if you don't want them to know about that private area.

Thank you. Good to know. I won't use it in that case.

DrByte:

Given that Google Analytics pushes the data from your browser up to Google, it doesn't matter if you've got a password on the directory or not, you'll still be telling them about your private site, with every click. It's up to them whether they decide to try to crawl it. But it's better if you turn off all analytics if you don't want them to know about that private area.

That's a good suggestion, especially if you are concerned that Google would know there exists an area that you are accessing which they can not access, crawl or read since they don't have your password.

So, I'm wondering if Google did try to crawl it, which would obviously fail, does anyone believe that would have an effect on SEO or rankings of other pages, or any effect on anything?:lookaroun

I just found someone looking around at my password protected sub domains's directory store's items (even though store is down for main.)

via user tracking.

should I worry, is this usual I wonder?

spawnie69:

I just found someone looking around at my password protected sub domains's directory store's items (even though store is down for main.)

via user tracking.

should I worry, is this usual I wonder?
If you're asking whether it's usual for people to poke around, the answer is: it depends.
I think the real question you should be asking is: how did they find out about it. And how did they get past the password-protection you said you put on it. Or is that protection actually working.

DrByte:

If you're asking whether it's usual for people to poke around, the answer is: it depends.
I think the real question you should be asking is: how did they find out about it. And how did they get past the password-protection you said you put on it. Or is that protection actually working.

yes but, how can see see this? It was once being seen by robots and indexed on google but would that let them in?
Its password protected as of yesterday.

How can I be sure the protection is working? Right now it just asks for password and login and it seems to work.

I did have the directory unprotected before yesterday which was being indexed on google.

if you put anything up on the web, rest assured someone/something will find it.

having it password protected is 1 step to preventing unwanted snooping assuming they do not break your password protection.

when it comes to "demo" shops, i'm a big fan of developing locally on your own machine. personally, i use vagrant, git, and bitbucket to develop and then push out to a live site.

i suppose there is a learning curve to it all; but one needs to find out their own path for making a development environment secure and free from unwanted snooping.

frankly if you put something out on the web, people will find it.