LATHAM, NEW YORK (November 21, 2016) – Leading Datacenter and Cloud Hosting Solutions provider TurnKey Internet, Inc. announced today the launch of their all new Refer-A-Friend program combined with the launch of their 2016 Black Friday Deals offering some of the best cloud servers, dedicated servers, and web hosting offers for 2016.

The Refer-A-Friend program provides an incentive for our valued clients who already tell their friends and colleagues about the great service they receive every day with TurnKey Internet’s Cloud-Hosted services. An easy 1-click referral link is provided to clients that can be sent via email, social media, or placed on web sites, blogs or newsletters to automatically earn a $50 service credit. Launching this program at the start of the annual Holiday seasons helps increase the rewards for existing clients who participate.

TurnKey Internet is known for running its eagerly-awaited, industry-leading Black Friday specials, and this year is no different. TurnKey Internet is offering up to 95% off for the life on nearly every product they offer – cloud servers, disaster recovery backup services, cloud storage, dedicated servers, virtual private servers, cPanel web hosting, Microsoft Windows web hosting, enterprise colocation services, SEO optimized web hosting, and much more. More information can be found at https://turnkeyinternet.net/holiday/ .

In a bold move in contrast to other companies that exclude or limit their best seasonal deals from existing clients – TurnKey is rewarding existing clients with a loyalty bonus. The loyalty bonus is applied as a free month of service for every previous year of loyalty when purchasing any new services during this Black Friday promotional period. This gives existing clients access to deals greater than 95% off when factoring in the free loyalty bonus months of service included.

“We love our loyal clients and I’m truly excited to expand our loyalty bonus and launch of our Refer-A-Friend program during our Black Friday promotion.” Remarked Adam Wills, CEO of TurnKey Internet. “While most companies offer only their best deals to new customers, we shake up that model and put the customer first. TurnKey is focused on giving back to our loyal clients – and in turn they are our best advocates telling friends and colleagues about their experience. We have launched the Refer-A-Friend program specifically to reward those efforts by our loyal clients.“

For more information about TurnKey Internet’s Refer-A-Friend program or to speak with a Cloud Hosting Solutions expert, visit https://turnkeyinternet.net/referral/

About Turnkey Internet

Founded in 1999, TurnKey Internet, Inc. is a full-service Cloud Hosting Solutions provider with Datacenters in New York and California specializing in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to clients in more than 150 countries. Services offered in both East Coast and West Coast, USA – include Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Dedicated & Bare Metal Servers, Backup & Disaster Recovery, Online Storage, Web Hosting, Managed Hosting, Hybrid Solutions and Enterprise Colocation. Headquartered in New York’s Tech Valley Region, TurnKey Internet’s Flagship company owned Datacenter offers SSAE 16 Type II certification powered exclusively by on-site Solar and Hydroelectric sources to provide a 100% renewable energy footprint. In 2013 the facility was designated as the 39th ENERGY STAR® Certified Datacenter in the United States. For more information, please call (518) 618-0999 or visit www.turnkeyinternet.net/media.

December has arrived, and with it, the holiday season. We love any excuse to celebrate here at TurnKey, so we are kicking off this festive time of year with a sale, of course, but also a fun, interactive game for you to play. Introducing: our Holiday Gift Grab!

First and foremost, with the coupon code GIFTGRAB50, enjoy 50% off* of your purchase, and get locked-in at that price. We are offering this discount on nearly all of our products — dedicated servers, virtual private servers, reseller hosting, SEO hosting, and more! That is our 2012 Holiday Sale, plain and simple. But that is not all, of course. You have participated in grab bag games before, correct? We hope so; they’re fun! Regardless, we are sure you will love our rendition of the age-old holiday tradition. Here is how it works:  With your purchase, we are offering three free gifts* from a pool of 12, and leaving the choice of which you’d like to “grab” completely up to you. These gifts include (but are not limited to) a cPanel license, 1 free month, doubled disk or an additional 250 GB, VoxWire 10-person room, doubled bandwidth… The list goes on! Normally, in holiday grab-bags, your gift is a surprise. However, we are making sure you get the highest-possible value out of your gifts from us this holiday season. If you see it listed, and you want it, it’s yours; completely free, for life. Just grab it! Head over to our Holiday Gift Grab page and check it out.

Seasons greetings, happy holidays, and enjoy!

What are your plans for the holidays this year? Which holiday do you celebrate? We would love to hear about it. Leave a comment below!

*The coupon GIFTGRAB50 and the corresponding offer of 50% off and three free gifts is limited to the selection of an annual payment plan. Please visit the Holiday Gift Grab page for alternate plans and the offers/codes that apply.

The rumors are true, everyone! You spoke, we listened, and you DON’T want to miss this.

Do we have your attention yet?

Based on the wide-spread excitement over last year’s promotion, we at TurnKey Internet have tuned-up, polished, and re-released our industry-leading, eagerly-anticipated Black Friday Special. It’s back, and it’s even bigger and even better than before. We have whittled down prices and jam-packed savings to the bursting point! With the coupon code BF2012, you can get 75% off of  nearly every product we have – dedicated servers, virtual private servers, SEO hosting… oh, my! You name it, it’s marked down. And the best part? This discount isn’t just a one-time thing. Take 75% off your purchase for life.

But wait just one more second before you get down to shopping. 75% off is not the only piece of exciting news we have to share! We launched some brand new hosted services this week, including (but not limited to, of course) our all new ROOT Reseller packages, and super-fast dedicated servers powered by the brand new Intel E5 HexaCore 2620.

We know you’re anxious, so we won’t eat up any more of your time! You can find more information about all this and more at http://www.turnkeyinternet.net/blackfriday. You can also read the full press release here.

Happy holidays and happy shopping from your friends at TurnKey Internet.

A few weeks ago, Jeremy wrote an excellent article concerning Black Friday and why it’s important to consider all the cloud has to offer for managing such a busy holiday. Remember that? If not, you can (and should!) give yourself a little refresher course, here. Now, to establish the obvious, Black Friday is a high-traffic “holiday”. The same thing goes for Cyber Monday. However, these days, this might be little more than the result of heavy marketing campaigns and layers upon layers of hype that have accumulated around it over the years. We recently stumbled over some intriguing statistics that The Wall Street Journal dug up. For those of you hardcore deal-seekers who may be tuning in–you should probably consider sitting down for this.

Did you know that Black Friday may not always be your best bet for finding the absolute lowest price or steepest discount? It was hard for us to believe, too! There’s always such a craze leading up to and—of course—on Black Friday; from the lines wrapping around entire city blocks, to the blinking, coffee-slugging early-birds maniacally refreshing retail sites. However, according to the aforementioned study conducted by The Wall Street Journal and Decide, Inc., all of this effort (and, well, misery) might not be monetarily worth it in the end.

Interestingly, it seems that major retailers are pumping up marketing campaigns surrounding their more extreme deals, while inflating the price of other items to avoid a diminution of profits. Therefore, let’s say you want a specific TV, and see that it’s absurdly marked down at a specific store. Go for it! You wait in those lines, hurdle those human beings, and get that TV by any means necessary! However, if you’re shopping in general or looking for something that has a significantly reduced demand post-holidays, you might want to just hang out for a week or so. Or, you know what? Be a go-getter! Create your own shopping holiday and have a “Super Saturday” a few weeks early, or something.

Before you give yourself a head-slap for time spent in the calamity of Black Fridays past, rest assured that Black Friday does offer some outrageous deals and you absolutely will and have saved yourself a good chunk of cash. Our point is, a lot of expert deal-hunters might be looking for bargains on days that aren’t Black Friday, and you’ll see high traffic spikes then, too. So, although you definitely need to consider Jeremy’s advice for Black Friday because of the less-informed masses who will virtually stampede through your virtual doors, you might ALSO want to do some research and apply it here and there at other times throughout the year. That way, you won’t be unprepared for the hordes of shoppers who have really done their homework.

Take a look at this graphic we pulled from Decide, Inc., and mull it over. Happy Autumn (and happy shopping!) from TurnKey Internet.

Howdy-do, TurnKey Lovers?

Jeremy here, with another entry for you to gobble up. “Gobble”? Well, that’s a funny use of the word, but it actually deals directly with my current post. The word “gobble” results in thoughts about turkey. Now, this could be due to the fact that I’m hungry. Any reference to food incites a bout of extreme hunger, causing me to crave that 5-piece spicy nugget from Wendy’s that I have left over. But, I digress.

The reason that I mention “gobble” is really to talk about turkey—not TurnKey—but turkey. That, sometimes dry, meat that you have to cook perfectly on Thanksgiving, or start looking for a gallon of water to just get through the meal. Turkey brings us to Thanksgiving; one of the joyous occasions most Americans celebrate every year by engorging themselves with as much food possible, and then passing out an hour later. Ok, that might just be me who does the passing out part…

There is also another GREAT benefit to this time of the year. Have you figured it out yet? Did you even guess? I’ll give you a hint; it’s the day after you recover from stuffing yourself with delectable food. Queue the jeopardy theme song—BLACK FRIDAYYYY!!!

Black Friday isn’t considered a holiday, but with the sheer amount of people out shopping, you would think it was the busiest holiday of the year. I will give you a bit of history on the day Black Friday:

This day, Black Friday, is the official kick-off to the Christmas shopping season. You will see/hear/read about many retailers opening up at 4AM or earlier to accommodate the large rush of customers expecting to find ridiculous deals on different products. Consumers every year look forward to this one day, so that they can purchase those headphones they’ve been eying for months that were a bit too expensive, or that new 50-inch LCD flat screen that they’ve been wanting to hang up over their fireplace since first seeing the ad on television.

To put this in perspective, I’ve included the table below from our good buddy Wikipedia, which depicts the average amount of money that is spent on this day:

Retail Sales

The National Retail Federation releases figures on the sales for each Thanksgiving weekend.

Now, you may be wondering, “What on Earth does this have to do with hosting?” Well, my friends, we live in a world with a digital economy now, and it seems that everyone and their mother has a website. Almost every major retailer has some sort of ad space where they post their upcoming deals for Black Friday. With so many consumers looking for the best deal, you can imagine that sites will receive heavy traffic spikes due to the demand of finding the best deals.

These large spikes of traffic need to be handled as smoothly as possible, so that retailers and consumers do not experience any downtime during this whirl-wind of a day. Enter stage left—expandable cloud servers, multiple VPS’s (virtual private servers), or another dedicated server to handle the increase of traffic. All of which you can find here, at TurnKey Internet.

Each solution has its unique benefits. For example, let’s say you have a cloud server. On Black Friday, your traffic quadruples. Well, one of the main benefits of a TurnKey cloud is the ability to add more resources without incurring downtime. You could have more RAM allocated, increased disk space, or even increased bandwidth. The scalability is very enticing. Then, after Black Friday has concluded, you can downgrade your cloud server with no issues.

Or, let’s say you purchase an additional TurnKey VPS to handle your increase of traffic. You could then have those extra VPS’s decommissioned. You see, the real winners on Black Friday are the consumers/retailers that plan ahead. They purchase the additional bandwidth or add another server before the day occurs. As my college professor would say, “Prior preparation prevents poor performance.” That could be increasing your Turnkey cloud resources, adding an additional Turnkey VPS, or purchasing a new Turnkey dedicated server ahead of time. That way, you can keep your sales flowing in and your customers happy.

Now, my chicken nuggets are calling. Until next time, TurnKey lovers!

The holidays bring cheer, presents and a fresh new round of scams to our Internet. It’s a time of year when folks are busy shopping online and we’re all feeling a little more giving. Unfortunately, our giving attitudes and rush to get gifts for everyone on our lists make us likely targets for the opportunistic crooks in our midst. So hunker down, have a cup of cocoa and learn how to protect yourself from the 12 scams of Christmas, 2011!  Thanks to the folks over at McAfee for reprising the list! We’ve included some from them and some others we’ve seen in our own travels. Enjoy!

1. Online Shopping

Everyone buys gifts online these days. It’s a great way to find the perfect items without having to leave the comfort of your home. But beware of the scam store! If you’re shopping somewhere unfamiliar, be careful to check out the store’s credentials. Otherwise you may purchase a gift that never arrives.

2. Mobile Malware

As mobile devices become ever more popular, malware that targets them does too. As more consumers than ever use their mobile devices to shop, check bank accounts and redeem coupons, more of us are in danger. You should pay particular attention to QR codes this year. Malware exploits the little black and whites to gain access to your phone (particularly Androids).

3. Fake Apps

Who doesn’t love apps? They’re cute, cheap and entertaining. Unfortunately there are many malicious apps out there that will steal information from smart phones or send out expensive fake texts. They’re often masquerading as games or cute applications.

4. Fake Antivirus Software

It’s ironic: you get this stuff to protect you from viruses and here it is causing them! Fake antivirus software or scareware, as it’s now known, frightens users into installing it with a fake alert about an active infection. Once the user clicks “install” the real infection takes hold.

5. Scammy Facebook Promotions

Facebook is chock full of fake promotions, contests and prizes. While this is always true, users are particularly susceptible around the holidays. Protect yourself from this one by simply refusing to click! Just say no. If something seems too good to be true… well… you know the rest.

6. Holiday Screen Savers

They’re so cute: Rudolph and his glinting nose, 3D santa, a festive tree, but be careful! Downloading anything from a site you don’t know and trust can be dangerous. The scariest part is you may never know you were infected!

7. Mac Malware

This is a first! Until recently Mac users have been protected from your typical spammy malware, but not so anymore. According to McAfee, there were 5,000 pieces of malware targeting Macs at the end of 2010. You better believe that number is only going up.

8. Phishing at the Holidays

Phishing scams are a matter of course all year round, but at the holidays they take on a decidedly trickier hue. Many holiday phishing scams claim to be charities, social holiday greetings from friends or coupons for holiday shopping. Always be suspicious of any unsolicited communications!

9. Online Coupons

Speaking of coupons, watch out for them! Everyone is looking for coupons while they’re doing holiday shopping, and scammers know it. Most coupon scams involve entering personal information. Never enter personal information on an unfamiliar or untrusted site.

10. Mystery Shopper Scams

Who doesn’t want to be a mystery shopper? It’s a fun job doing what you already enjoy (if you’re like me). In this tough economy, many people are looking for extra work to make ends meet around the holidays. If you’re attracted by a mystery shopper job offer, beware. Don’t enter any personal information and you’ll be safe.

11. Tickle Me Elmo

Okay, so this particular “it” gift isn’t so much the rage anymore, but every year there is some toy or gadget that everyone simply must have. Scammers love to use that raw desire to their own advantage. If you see that special something offered for a deep discount or on a strange website, don’t bite. Read all the text carefully. Poorly written copy is often one of the only signs that a scam isn’t the real deal.

12. Away From Home

This is an old-fashioned scam in a new-fashioned world. Don’t announce on Facebook that you’re going out of town. You might not realize it, but chances are good you’ve got some followers you don’t know all that well. Chances are even better that they’ve got followers you know even less. Take a simple precaution and keep your travel plans to yourself.

Time for family, friends, food, presents, festivities and crime! Last year I wrote about the 12 scams of Christmas, and got a lot of positive feedback. So, I decided to write an updated 12 scams list for 2010, with help from the folks over at McAfee. Unfortunately, scams always seem to ramp up with everything else around the holidays. Be sure to watch out for these tricks to keep yourself safe this holiday season.

Scam 1: Free iPads
You’ve undoubtedly already seen links for free iPad offers this holiday season, and hopefully you haven’t fallen prey. With the iPad topping the charts for the most sought after new tech gadget, these scams are sure to ramp up as the big day approaches. This scam is rampant on social media sites where visitors are asked to take a survey for a free iPad. Be wary of any survey that asks you to submit any personal information. Often these will ask for your cell phone number and then will bill you for $10/week.

Scam 2: Social Networking – A Cybercriminal “Wants to be Your Friend”
I know how flattering it is to think perfect strangers want to be friends, but beware. This year there are more fake profiles than ever. These scammers are out to install malware on your PC and steal your password. And you just wanted to be friends!

Scam 3: Charity Phishing Scams – Be Careful Who You Give To
It’s a low down, dirty game but this scam hits you when you deserve it the least (not that you ever deserve it, but you know what I mean). Watch out for emails claiming to be from a charitable organization. They might contain links to fake websites set up to steal your donations and/or personal information.

Scam 4: Fake Gift Cards
Gift cards are extremely popular this year—in fact we ran our own gift card promotion in September. Like many other scams, fake gift card offers ask for your personal information. When in doubt, DON’T PROVIDE IT. Stay safe.

Scam 5: Help Me Overseas!
This variation on the overseas needy gets personal when scam artists hack into email accounts and send fake distress messages to family and friends. The scammers ask for wired money, claiming dire straits in foreign lands. Before sending money, give your loved one a call and make sure they really need help.

Scam 6: Fake Job Offers
This is a real heartbreaker—fake job offers targeting the out-of-work and desperate. You’ve likely encountered plenty of these scams on classified sites and otherwise legitimate job listing sites. Any time you see the words “work at home” or “I made x amount of dollars in one week” or anything else that seems too good to be true, IT IS. Avoid these scams at all costs, and protect your personal information!

Scam 7: Smishing
This silly word refers to a very serious crime. Smishing is phishing via SMS text messages sent directly to your phone. They appear to come from a retailer or your bank, and have already fooled many consumers who aren’t used to receiving spam on their phones.

Scam 8: Holiday Rentals
Many people are looking for nice rental properties for their families during the holiday season. Never send anyone a down payment unless you’re sure they’re legitimate. Use rental sites with consumer protection, and be sure to google names and locations for more information. Often, people that have been duped before you will post their experiences online to protect future consumers. Make the most of this early alarm system.

Scam 9:  The Dangers of Holiday E-Cards
Happy Holidays! Celebrate with the gift of malware. ‘Tis the season! This scam was popular last year too, and apparently it works because it’s making the list again. Beware.

Scam 10: The Recession Money Scams
This is another one that’s been around for years: low-interest and pay day loans. Don’t buy the hype: free money isn’t free! Pay-in-advance credit cards are another popular one this year.

Scam 11: Holiday-Themed Downloads
Downloads are the easiest way for cyber criminals to install malware on your computer. Be wary of holiday screensavers, apps, jingles and animations, even if the link is sent by a friend. Scammers are increasingly using the names and information they collect to target friends and family members of the stolen addressee. It’s a sad thing, but you really can’t trust anyone—even people you know.

Scam 12: Price Traps
Any time you see a deal for something you want at a price far below market, beware. Many cyber criminals are using popular classified sites to post fake deals for popular brands. Always make sure the URL of the website you’re on corresponds with the company.

Yikes!

It’s a scary Internet out there but you can protect yourself by keeping your security software up to date and your wits about you. Avoid strange links, don’t open weird attachments, and keep your chin up!

We hope you have a safe, happy and crime-free holiday!

As a girl working in the technology industry, I’ve got a lot of tech-obsessed buddies on my list this year. So, I’ve been paying pretty close attention to what’s new and exciting in the bright and shiny electronics world. At this point, I’m panicking. December is rolling on under me like a breakneck speedster and, well, I am completely overwhelmed by the stunning volume and variety of new tech gadgets: Nanos and Kindles and Androids in The Cloud or something? Not only don’t I know what my friends want, I don’t have time to figure out what everything even is! If you’re feelin’ me right now, then stay tuned, because I have the solutions to all of your tech gift-giving problems:

1) Web Hosting
2) Domain Names

In today’s world, many of us spend more time interacting in cyberspace than we do in originalspace. It’s where we socialize, do business and stay informed. As more and more people all over the world gain reliable, regular access to this global marketplace, online real estate will only become more and more vital and necessary in our everyday lives. What better gift at the holidays than a juicy plot of land in our global village? No matter what gadgets your friends have, they can always use online real estate.

Once you’ve got the house, you need an address. Giving the gift of a domain name, with web hosting or on its own, is a great inexpensive way to help your friends expand their online empires. Tell them to think of picking their domain like naming a band. That always helps me.

Whether your friends are techtastic like mine, or have always wanted a website but haven’t gotten around to setting one up, web hosting and domain names make excellent gifts. And, if you’re really ambitious, install WordPress and build a blog to get them started! Think of it as the ultimate holiday card.

Anneke Rudegeair
Marketing Director

While Cyber Monday has come and gone, all the studies show that the shopping season is far from over. In fact, we’re being told now that consumers will most likely continue to increase their spending through the end of the month. If you’re an online retailer, you will probably be seeing a steady increase in traffic to your website. As a former online retailer myself, I remember my greatest fear around this time of year: website slowdown, or worse! Today, as consumers expect faster and faster shopping experiences, this is an even scarier prospect. When the tiniest glitch during selection or check-out can send customers surfing, making sure your website is running at top speed is just smart business.

Take this snowy day (if you’re in the right half of the country) to have a look at your stats and, if they’re in the red, upgrade your service to handle the extra load. If you don’t have stats to look at, get in touch with your hosting provider and ask if your current plan could handle double the traffic it has now. If not: upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. Doubling your capacity might be overkill, but you only have do it once a year. Besides, the potential lost sales from a slow-down will more than pay for the upgrade.

If you don’t upgrade and your site goes down, I won’t say “I told you so” because I’m not that kind of girl… But I’ll be thinking it!

Anneke Rudegeair
Marketing Director

It’s a curious thing about people but, despite tough times, when it comes to gift giving we always feel generous. In hardcore, ramped-up holiday America, that makes us delicious morsels for anyone who is selling something. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the Marketing Director for a web hosting and web conferencing company: I’m selling something too. So, maybe don’t trust anything I say. But right now I’m putting on my hypocritical hat to balk at the maelstrom of advertisers all around me. I’m in an advertising soup. These noodles want my money! And, strangely enough, while one part of me is bothered by the assault, another part of me actually does want to buy stuff.

So, the question is: What advertising actually works? What cuts through the creamy broth? Where’s the beef? (And by that I mean sales.)

Personally, I appreciate an up-front, old-fashioned discount. What can I say? I enjoy a sale. But I don’t just want to feel like I’m getting something for less than I should be. As a consumer, I actually want it to be true. Needless to say, at the same time that I want an honest-to-goodness bargain, all those business-ladies out there still have to make a buck. So, you might ask, “Where, Anneke, do the twain meet?” Well, reader, I might answer: in the lovingly-crafted compromise.

Before you call me a Socialist (and I wouldn’t be mad if you did) remember: in tough economic times more than any other, it’s the returning customers that sustain your business. Loyalty leads to word-of-mouth and word-of-mouth leads to more customers (which leads to more word-of mouth, which leads to more customers… see where I’m going with this?) With big corporations leaning heavily on the tax-payer, honest, sustainable businesses have become an invaluable commodity in America. And in an age of social networks, reputation is more important and spreads faster than ever.

The focus-on-the-customer idea isn’t new. But the give-the-customer-a-real-discount-such-that-you-don’t-make-a-big-profit idea, is. I contend that the potential value of that customer’s positive experience outweighs your immediate monetary profit. Obviously you can’t run your business that way all year round or you’d never make a dime, but at the holidays in a tough economy, when customers are inundated with options and strapped for cash, your deep discounts will really matter. Allowing a customer to be able to afford your product or service at the holidays can make it possible for that customer to give a meaningful gift to a loved one. If that doesn’t engender loyalty, I don’t know what will. This is an honest, legitimate, practically and emotionally significant way to build your business.

In summary: providing unprecedented discounts can really set retailers apart in the mad scramble this season, and can set them up for unprecedented success in the new year.

Anneke Rudegeair
Marketing Director