Hoping one of the more technically inclined can help me with this.
So, I have a VPS with hostgator and a bunch of wordpress installs on it. I also have my tracking software on the same VPS.
Does it makes sense to get a separate VPS to host just my tracking... and then have my websites hosted elsewhere? Is there any advantage/disadvantage to having all of my things on one server?
So, firstly, it is going to be common council to avoid have Wordpress installs on your server which hosts tracking and most landers. Why? Firstly, if poorly optimised I believe WP can degrade performance elsewhere, and you never ever want to jeopardise your tracking. Secondly, WP is notorious for vulnerabilities that can be exploited and used to compromise the entire server.
Having tracking + landers on the same VPS is fine. If you're going to pay for performance you might as well use it right? If you are running large enough volume that all the VPS's resources are being used for your tracking system or landing pages, then splitting them apart and/or upgrading would be wise. You could opt for separate servers with optimal performance for each function though there will be benefits to combining both on a more powerful server.
Thanks Zeno. I'm going to break out my tracking.
NEVER have your campaigns on a server that has wordpress installed.
Have seen it too many times the whole server getting hacked.
Wordress is a very widespread piece of open source software so everyone looks actively for new exploits.
After exploits are found and published on the various vulnerability databases every kid can copy paste them and hack into your server.
Another tip , even if you don't user wordpress , make sure you use separate cpanel accounts ( or diff user accounts ) for different domain names.
The same advice applies to any other very common piece of software. Specific examples that occur to me: PHPBB, Ruby on Rails, Moveable Type, node.js.
Basically, I'd advise you to run NOTHING except your tracking software and maybe your landers on your tracking server. Servers aren't expensive - getting rooted is.