Archive for the ‘Site Stuff’ Category

Removing a page from search cache

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

I had someone (very nice) e-mail me to have me help them remove their info that has been stuck in google's index for many months. She had posted an ad with us, and several months ago asked us to delete her ad - a very normal thing, which ...

Short-term rentals for the Calgary Stampede

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

Can you believe that it is almost that time of year where we start thinking about things like the Calgary Stampede? Gee whiz, we just got done with the holidays! Well, believe it or not, people are already starting to ask about short-term rentals for the Calgary Stampede, which ...

Post holiday traffic

Monday, December 29th, 2008

Every year, traffic on the site dips pretty significantly starting about the 2nd week in December, going through the 27th or so.  Then, around the 27th, the sharp, upward climb in traffic begins.   There is another small dip in traffic on the 31st and 1st, for obvious reasons, but then ...

I have made the move to a different webhost

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

I have made the move to a different web host.  My current (or most recent) one just simply was not adequate.   This old webhost of mine was down almost every other day, and I can't even begin to count how many tech support requests I had to send them.  On ...

I just discovered Osoyoos

Friday, November 7th, 2008

I have been doing this site for several years now, and I have learned a lot about many of the cities and towns in Canada that I service.  I thought that I had most of the 'important' ones on the site, but recently, someone mentioned "Hey, where is Osoyoos BC?"  ...

What does a typical scam e-mail look like?

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

I am now posting scam emails that people have received from my site to help the 'good guys and gals' to be able to identify the scammers.   I also have a list of known scammers on another blog post that you can see by clicking here. Here are some examples of ...

Our Fraudsters and Scammers List

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

We have decided today (10.21.08) to start publishing e-mail addresses of people who have targeted the renters on our site (or our site in general), and who have been identified as trying to commit fraud or scams.   This list will continue to grow, unfortunately.  We hope this information is helpful ...

MySQL Database Problems

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

Have been having quite a few problems with my database this week.  Every evening, like clockwork, I start getting errors.  I think it has something to do with the MySQL server at my webhost, but it is really hard to tell.  They have 'fixed' the problem each evening, but it ...

Site down equals stressful weekend

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

My site over the past month had been experiencing a number of outages - for whatever reason, the server my site was on was just not performing well, causing a lot of errors, and strange things happening.  I spoke to my web host on Friday, and they said that they ...

Sun Peaks Accommodations page

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

Imagine a heavy snowfall - the kind that adds up to a perfect, knee-deep powder day - while you are soaking in a hottub steps away from your slopside chalet! Yes! Ski season is almost upon us, and I am kicking myself for not having Sun Peaks on ...

I have done Gravenhurst Ontario a disservice

Friday, August 29th, 2008

I owe the folks up in Gravenhurst, Ontario an "I'm Sorry." I have had this site going on 3 years now, and up until today, Gravenhurst was not a city choice on my site. I really thought when we added our cities in the first place, that ...

Sneaky scammers paying for listings

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

I have been waiting for the day that a scammer actually pays for an ad on the site, uploads photos, and the rest of their information. The operative word here is "pays." This happened yesterday when I got an ad for a flat in Toronto. ...

Trying some new things out with search

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008

I am trying a few different formats for making the site searchable. I am trying a search box at the top of my site on the city pages, over on the right-hand side. This seems to be the 'standard' position of most good sites, so I will ...

Website down today

Monday, July 14th, 2008

Hi everyone, Canadarentals.net experienced about a 5 hour outage today.   I knew it was serious when my web host's site didn't come up either, but that also made it difficult to figure out why.    I learned early this afternoon that it was due to a power outage at their datacentre.   I ...