Webmaster - Ctrl blog

Bing as the Clippy assistant saying that bing.com/ping is gone.

Search engines

Bing stops accepting Sitemap pings, switch to IndexNow instead

Bing (and Yandex) no longer wants to be notified of updates to your website’s XML sitemap file anymore. Send the updated URLs directly with IndexNow API instead.

Web Browsers

Changes to how Mozilla Readability extract metadata in Firefox 63

Firefox’s Reading Mode now prefers Dublin Core and Open Graph Protocol metadata when available over other metadata sources.

The Firefox extension icon (a fox-head/puzzle piece) with the AMP project’s lightning icon on its forehead.

Web Analytics

New browser extension lets you opt-out of Google AMP

A new browser extension for Firefox and Chrome that gives people the choice to opt-out of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) in favor of the open web.

VPS

Moved to Hetzner VPS: Shorter legal docs as a competitive advantage

Linode required me to agree to updated Terms of Service with not enough time to review them. Hetzner’s full contract was shorter than Linode’s preamble.

An old brass key resting in front of a wooden box on a table.

Security

First impressions of KeyChest – A TLS certificate expiration tracker

The new cost-free service helps you keep on top of service maintenance by sending you an email notifications before your HTTPS certificates expire.

Review

Keep an eye on your certificates with SSLPing

SSLPing is a service that keeps an eye on the health of your TLS certificates and server security configuration. It’ll email you before your certificates expire.

A drop of water in the shape of a man impacting a water surface.

Hypertext

Always care for old links after moving domain and reorganizing URLs

Create a URL transition-plan and create redirects for old URLs. Take a few minutes to avoid losing traffic when you move domain names or reorganize your URLs.