About

Website Tests & Tips

Technological Background


Technology

Neither Cookies nor JavaScript

As website visitor you can browse here absolutely casually and safely. I am very happy about interested visitors, but I do not track anyone.
I only use software solutions that work without cookies and JavaScript on visitors side. Operational security, data protection and performance benefit from this.

Change of Main Domain successful

29.09.2020: Just in time for today's domain move of the old .info domains, Google has updated its search index. So I could change the main domain without waiting.

Motto is and remains: senseful online

29.09.2020: Since this afternoon, every page request at senseful-online.info lands directly on the same web server as testsandtips.info.
As of tonight, page requests at sinnvollonline.de and sinnvollonline.eu will be redirected from the old web server to testsandtips.info.
My motto “senseful online” will not be abandoned; visitors will therefore continue to reach the website via all known domains.

With Security: DANE, DNSSEC, HSTS, TLS 1.3, 2FA

My web pages are generally preloaded in a transport-encrypted form, as far as technically possible (HSTS preloading). Two-Factor-Authentication (2FA) and TLS 1.3 is also offered by my previous internet service provider. But I also wanted to have DANE and DNSSEC and now I found a suitable provider.

No Access without Transport Encryption

My website is not accessible via BlackBerry or other old device with outdated browser software.
Security has absolute priority for me. I do not want to be the victim of a man-in-the-middle attack, nor do I want to allow web pages to be manipulated on the way to your device. You could be shown falsified information to harm me or you. These dangers exist when using unencrypted web offers! Also, my password could be spied out if it was sent as plain text over the Internet.

If you are reading this website from your PC/notebook or on the smartphone of a friend/colleague because it could not be opened from your own old device with an old browser, now you know why. – Thank you for taking the trouble!

Easy Maintenance without Database

This website does not require any complex database maintenance. As soon as I log out of the system as admin after making changes to the website, a data backup with timestamp is automatically created. Even server relocations or even provider changes do not cause sweat and are completed within minutes if necessary. This is how it worked on 12.09.2020 with this website at the new Internet Service Provider: downloaded the website from my old webspace via FTP and uploaded it to my webspace at the new ISP, done, running. Afterwards only the old website name on all pages has to be changed to the new one. On pages whose content has to be adapted anyway, done manually. Then “search & replace” using the code editor Textastic.

All Web Pages in only one File

The English technical term for this is Flat-File CMS. A technology that is still underestimated, but which is becoming increasingly known and popular.

Multidomain: Language appropriate Domains (1. Try)

29.09.2020: All page requests on senseful-online.de/.eu/.info domains are served by the web server of my new internet service provider since tonight.
All English-language pages will be redirected to testsandtips.info/en/. Laughing Smiley
This is my small case study of whether Google really treats this as double content or whether I can manage to split the content between the domains by language DE/EN.

08.10.2020: Language-dependent content distribution on separate domains abandoned for the time being because Google did not recognise it. My CMS is not multidomain capable and cannot address two domains internally. Google would have recognised this and indexed it promptly. Too bad.
Update: Second try (18.04.2021)!

Smooth Transition to my new Domain testsandtips.info

Nevertheless I will try to redirect page views with the English domain testsandtips.info/en/ not necessarily to the German domain tests-und-tipps.info/en/.
Advantage for visitors: if you call up English-language content with an English domain name, you will also see this more suitable domain in the address line of your browser.

24.10.2020: Page requests with the old domains sinnvoll-online.info and senseful-online.info are temporarily not redirected to the new main domain tests-und-tipps.info since this evening. Only when a link on overview pages is selected does the user redirect to the main domain.

testsundtipps.info serves all Page Requests

22.11.2020: as of today all page requests with other domains are redirected to the main domain. This is really better for the ranking at Google!
Visual design and a two-month adjustment period were hopefully clear enough for my visitors to know that they are still meaningful aka senseful online here …

06.12.2020: Sometime at the end of November, I removed the fixed redirect again, because otherwise I would soon have been kicked off the HSTS-Preload-Liste. I didn't know then that there was a solution for this. I manually set many canonical tags and wrote out all internal hyperlinks, i.e. only used absolute links with the main domain.
My internet research for a better solution continues (keyword: .htaccess and mod-redirect) …
Update: solution found (18.04.2021)!

Testing a simple Multisite Solution

One CMS manages two websites: the large website testsandtips.info and the small website michael-glaser.de. It works with a trick …

Workaround

Website is routed depending on the language folder (de/en) or (ue/ab). Where /ue/ stands for German: “ueber” and /ab/ for English: “about” and both load the small website michaelglaser.de.

Multisite Test Operation ended – michael-glaser.de separate again

13.01.2021: Workaround with simulated language folders /ue/ + /ab/ no longer required. Have reset the paths using CotEditor (Search & Replace).

Page Requests now even more fault tolerant

For technical reasons, the URL here contains a question mark after domain and language subfolders /de/ or /en/, but otherwise already corresponds to a “Clean URL”. To ensure that page requests without question marks are also loaded without errors, I use a technical trick (page redirection).

  • 24.06.2020: All folder and page names changed to lower case letters.
    Only to real existing folders you should add a slash to save the webserver some work. But not at my website, because its a Flat-File CMS.
  • 26.03.2021: If a web address is typed in with capital letters, the web server corrects this if it does not contain a question mark (tech term "query string").
  • 18.04.2021: From now on, accidentally used upper case letters will also be corrected to lower case letters in web addresses with a "query string".

Multidomain: Language appropriate Domains (2. Try)

I like domain names that match the content linguistically. So German domain names for German-language content and English domain names for English-language content. My English-speaking visitors certainly like that better than a domain with seemingly misspelled words.

Technical Requirement

  • if you call up a web address with a German domain, the web server appends /de/ and German content is displayed
  • if you call up a web address with an English domain, the web server appends /en/ and English content is displayed
  • if you click on the German flag, the web server will load the German version of the content – and will use the German domain!
  • if you click on the English flag, the web server will load the English version of the content – and will use the English domain!

Main Domains testsandtips.info and testsundtipps.info

18.04.2021: After a long research I found a great technical solution! Laughing Smiley

Anyone requesting my website with sensefulonline.info domain will land on an intro page and will only be redirected to the target page with main domain tests-und-tipps.info after selecting the language (DE or EN).

01.05.2021: as of tonight, page requests for all domains are handled as described above.
Search engines only see linguistically matching page content, as they are reliably routed to the matching domain. Now it works great! Laughing Smiley

Multidomain: CMS as Duo (1. Try)

17.05.2021: Multidomain configuration further optimised: as already mentioned above, the CMS used does not support multidomain. In addition, no language folder /de/ is provided for the main language (e.g. German) as for the second language /en/. Possible workaround: set up a third language that is not really used as main language so that German + English get language folders (de|en) and plug-ins work safely. Too bad.

Solution

Previously, I had saved the two content files (German/English) to make them available to the CMSs configured in each language.

Configure the CMS as a monolingual version in a subfolder with a two-character ISO name of the language. Then configure a copy of it in a second subfolder with the name of the second language.
Or formulated differently: two subfolders /de/ + /en/. Move the CMS configured for one language (!) from root directory to subfolder /de/ and copy it into subfolder /en/. This way I still get multilingual URLs according to the scheme tests-und-tipps.info/de/ + testsandtips.info/en/.
Thereafter I change the CMS copy in /en/ to English – that's it! Smiley

The rest remains the same: firewall, IP blocking, routing and maintenance mode are still controlled from the now almost empty root directory.
Finally, both configurations were thoroughly checked again and the plug-ins were reduced to one language each (de|en).

The only real disadvantage: there is a great language change plug-in, which I unfortunately cannot use. As it does not support a second domain, it would generate hundreds of unwanted (hreflang) links. That would be double content and Google would ignore my web pages, so I have to set the language change links manually.
But I prefer to set few but correct links between the language versions at the beginning and expand them step by step.

Insignificant second disadvantage: image folders and plug-ins are also duplicated. But that doesn't make any work and there is enough storage space.

By the way, thanks to the user-friendly backend, it doesn't bother me at all that I use a CMS twin pack. It is only noticeable at login because of separate passwords and login twice when I want to edit pages in both languages.
However, I would also have to do this with one instance because I use two domains and the admin cookie is set separately for each domain (there are no other cookies than for the admin login).

Maintenance Mode added

22.05.2021: Maintenance mode (unavailability display for visitors) configured and tested. Runs fine.

23.05.2021: One should not use flags for language switching, because flags stand for countries and not always for suitable languages. Done.
The header now shows the selected language in dark green letters at the top right and the link to the homepage of the second language in green letters to the right.
Those who like flags can see them only under articles of the 14 main menus, which offer a link to the translation.

Website in new Design

29.05.2021: Found a new design template that meets my expectations for modern web design. I tried it out on this website in the evening, so it was temporarily unavailable.
30.05.2021: I really like the new design template, it can stay and replaces “my forest”, which has been the trademark of this site for years. Disadvantage or reason for the change: the pulldown menu loads all menus with every call of the website and on small displays it folds out of the edge of the screen on the right. Unattractive. That's where a Hamburger Menu is an advantage. I hope that all visitors will quickly get used to it.

Maintenance Mode improved

10.06.2021: Maintenance mode (unavailability display for visitors) further optimised. It is very rarely needed, but then it should at least look nice and be easy to use.

19.10.2021: Perfecting routing requires small compromise on maintenance mode: my further development of error handling of incorrectly retrieved/moved/renamed web pages revealed that maintenance mode is better not handled separately by language version. Since maintenance mode is rarely needed, and then usually only for a few minutes, this is very acceptable. On the other hand, visitors and bots now encounter 404 (“page not found”) extremely rarely, even when they call up an old web page with changed web address from the time when my website was still running on a system with database. Search engines and some people sometimes need a while to relearn and my extended error handling to avoid 404 error pages has paid off. Smiley
19.11.2021: Maintenance mode improved again. Smiley

Multidomain: one CMS Entity handles it all

05.03.2022: Good ideas were exchanged in a forum discussion around the topic “standard language also in the subfolder”. Result: my CMS no longer has to run as duo; one entity can serve both languages and all domains. However, it still needs a redirection for page requests without language folder in the URL (missing /de/ or /en/).
22.03.2022: I was able to optimise the configuration again.

Browser Language Detection

28.03.2022: From now on, my website uses the language settings of your browser to show you the start page in the desired language right away. Only if neither German nor English is set as the desired language in your browser, an intro page will be displayed for manual language selection. Of course, it is always possible to change the language via the Hamburger Menu.

If you type in a web address manually and specifically put /en/ or /de/ after the domain name, this has priority for my web server and even corrects the domain if necessary. But the page name always has the highest priority. If this is stored in my routing list, the web server will even correct the URL if you leave the German domain or /de/ for an English-language web page.

06.05.2022: Had to disable automatic browser language detection for now because it interferes with site administration. Now you will get an intro page when you request my home page https://testsandtips.info.

05.06.2022: Automatic browser language detection active again!
Problem solved; Website administration is no longer affected. Smiley

Tip: to start right away in your preferred language, please bookmark e.g. https://testsandtips.info/en/ for the English version. If you simpler remember the motto of this website or you like my old domain name better, you are welcome to continue simply use sensefulonline.info. It will redirect you to my home page testsandtips.info/en/. Wink Smiley

Maintenance Mode optimised

12.05.2022: Almost a year ago I started with the development. As of today, my own maintenance mode (unavailability display for visitors) is exactly the way I wanted it. Depending on your language version choose, the temporary unavailability is displayed with a nice informative text.

Since I now revise my articles more often offline and upload them again afterwards, I need the maintenance mode more often than before, even if only for a few minutes and mostly unnoticed by visitors.

P. S.: I am not a coder. But I never give up. With patience and web research I reached my goals … Smiley

Multidomain: Testing CMS Duo (2. Try)

12.05.2023: Oops, another year has passed! By chance, I optimised the maintenance mode again on 12 May – by using separate CMS instances for each domain so that both language versions are not offline at the same time during maintenance work. I am now testing whether the effort is worth it …

Multidomain: one CMS Entity serves both Domains again

22.05.2023: Have continued the work on routing for wrong entries and erroneous page views (the web doesn't forget anything – stupid bots still ask for old web pages that have long since been renamed or moved).

And I have switched my CMS back to one entity.
This saves resources and makes the website more stable against the now massively increasing requests from unsolicited bots.
Since my CMS does not provide a language folder /de/ for the main language (German) as it does for "second languages" (e.g. English; /en/) and a tricky redirection to /de/ and /en/ should be avoided as much as possible, I have now set up a third "language" that is not really used as main language. This is the only way my CMS supports language folders on the system side.

Language Recognition Menu dependent

25.05.2023: As of today, the desired language can be recognised for page requests without language folder (missing /de/ or /en/ in web address). The right language version will be loaded.
28.05.2023: As of today, this also works with query strings.

Multidomain: CMS Duo (3. Try)

20.06.2023: My CMS is working as a duo again (two instances).
Higher resource requirements are hardly measurable; my CMS has so far been able to fend off requests and attacks from malicious bots.

New Solution

In search of a better solution for multilingual websites, a forum member had the idea of specifying language folders right in the PHP programme code. The setting that completely prohibits the use of language folders for the default language can also be prevented by a minimal code change.

This is still not a real solution for multidomain. But this way I can also use language folders for one language (or the default language if using more than one) with this CMS.
So now two instances configured in one language are running as a duo:
Each is only responsible for one domain and language (de/en).

Visitors, bots + browsers (user agents) without a preferred language get an intro page. If another page is requested, the CMS automatically adds missing language folders /en/ or /de/.

Examples

Requests

http://www.sensefulonline.de
http://www.sensefulonline.info
http://www.testsandtips.info
http://testsandtips.info

Answer

https://testsandtips.info

Requests

http://www.sensefulonline.de/?hardware/mobile-phone
http://www.sensefulonline.info/hardware/mobile-phone
http://www.testsundtips.info/hardware/mobile-phone
http://testsandtips.info/?hardware/mobile-phone
https://testsandtips.info/hardware/mobile-phone

Answer

https://testsandtips.info/en/?hardware/mobile-phone

Another Advantage

Maintenance mode for both instances completely separate, so if I want to make changes to the German version, therefore the English version does not have to go offline at the same time – and vice versa.

New Domain: nice, short and simple

16.08.2023: The TLD “.tips” fits perfectly for my website, doesn't it?
In Germany, since the last spelling reform, we write “Tipps” instead of “Tips”, but my German visitors just have to tolerate that. Smiley winking

tests.tips serves all Page Requests

17.08.2023: My CMS is working solo again. As mentioned in website/history, I found an alternative for the increasingly expensive .info domains.
“Multidomain” now only applies to my CMS in the sense that it is accessible with almost all previous domain names for another year.

Examples

Requests

http://www.sensefulonline.de
http://www.sensefulonline.info
http://www.testsandtips.info
https://testsandtips.info
http://www.tests.tips
http://tests.tips

Answer

https://tests.tips

Requests

http://www.sensefulonline.de/?hardware/mobile-phone
http://www.sensefulonline.info/hardware/mobile-phone
http://www.testsandtips.info/hardware/mobile-phone
http://testsandtips.info/?hardware/mobile-phone
https://testsandtips.info/hardware/mobile-phone
http://tests.tips/?hardware/mobile-phone
https://tests.tips/hardware/mobile-phone

Answer

https://tests.tips/en/?hardware/mobile-phone

07.09.2023: My web pages are now also preloaded transport-encrypted under the new domain tests.tips, as far as technically possible (HSTS preloading).
09.09.2023: Google's index already lists 228 of 465 web pages under the new domain tests.tips. Things are going well.
24.10.2023: Google's index now lists 339 of 481 websites under the new domain tests.tips.

Language Switcher

06.11.2023: The Hamburger menu now includes a language switcher in the top right-hand corner. If the displayed page is available in German and English, this will switch directly, otherwise it loads the homepage.

Flags are not the best solution for a language menu, but unfortunately the plug-in I use cannot be switched to text display.

I welcome German-speaking visitors from all countries and regularly have visitors from Austria and Switzerland.
I am just as happy to welcome visitors from America, Australia and all other countries where English is spoken!

As soon as I have some time, I'll create GIF images with text to replace the flags: “DE” + “EN” + “Start”. It's very tedious on MacBook, I haven't found a graphics tool that's easy to use like IrfanView for Windows.

08.11.2023: I entered the above-mentioned texts in the word processing programme Apple Pages, took screenshots of them and adjusted the size and graphic format using the graphics tool Pym. It's not perfect yet, but better than flags.

16.11.2023: Found a simple solution: no graphics, but text via CSS.

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