Site Administrators

Professional Web Presence was retired as of the end of July 2020.  It has become Sites @ Georgia Tech.  Please visit Sites @ Georgia Tech for documentation and information on that service.

Technically, as long as your can log into your GT Account, you can still access any sites that you maintain on PWP - contact your local IT support or the OIT Technical Support Center if you have questions about your ability to use your GT Account Username after you leave Georgia Tech.

With changes to web browsers (Chrome in particular) coming soon that will mark non-SSL (http://) websites as Not secure, now is the time to consider upgrading your site to SSL encryption.  The first part is getting an SSL certificate and adding it to your hosting account.  However, you also have to check through and adjust your site for optimal results.

To set up an external domain name with SSL encryption on an OIT Web Hosting account:

Generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) File

You can generate a CSR for an OIT Web Hosting site from the site's Plesk Control Panel:

What is Central Authentication Service (CAS)?

From Wikipedia (Central Authentication Service):

Commercial Web Hosting

There are dozens if not hundreds of commercial web hosting solutions available outside of Georgia Tech, but use of them for Georgia Tech related websites is not recommended for a number of reasons:

There are a number of options available to you for hosting a website at Georgia Tech, but the first question to ask yourself is whether you need an internal or public website:

Internal Website

An internal website is only available to a subset of the Georgia Tech population (or, at best, most anyone who has a Georgia Tech affiliation). These sites are well suited for sensitive information that shouldn't ever be shared publicly.

Several options are available for creating an internal website:

SSL encryption is highly recommended for websites these days, not just because it makes user interactions with your site more secure, but also because the major browser manufacturers are starting to mark all non-SSL encrypted sites with some kind of red symbol (red padlock, red 'X' through a padlock, etc.) to better warn users not to enter sensitive information into these sites.  So, from a marketing standpoint, it's going to make your site look more professional if you turn on SSL encryption, which will keep those red warning symbols from showing.

Patch, Patch, Patch

The most important security practice for web application software is to keep up with your software patches.  The more commonly used the application, the greater a chance that someone out there is looking for insecure installations to hack.

OIT is phasing out the Sympa mailing list system and is no longer using it in conjunction with OIT Web Hosting.  There are other solutions for having multiple people get notifications relating to an OIT Web Hosting account, and it may be best to discuss these with your local IT support, who should understand the ins and outs of campus email.

Anyone who is running their own instances of WordPress that they fully administer themselves (this doesn't include people maintaining sites on Sites @ Georgia Tech), should make sure they are running a comprehensive security plugin like WordFence to monitor and protect their WordPress instance from cyber attacks. WordPress sites are popular attack vectors, especially ones that rank well in the major search engines.