What alternatives are there to GoDaddy to host our site?
What options are there to finding someone to move the site from there to another one?
It’s already built there on Wordpress but we want to find a host with better customer service.
I do not have the skill to do any of the actual web-building or transfer work.
Take a look at Digital Ocean, and at fxDomains.
(I know fxDomains and GoDaddy are at least partnered up in some way, but I’ve had good service from fxDomains for several years.)
To expand upon this, as I was in a hurry last night-
About five years ago, we had Websiteheads build our Wordpress site & place it on GoDaddy to host.
We recently renewed the hosting & GoDadddy built our site on a modernized less costly platform & added SSL.
Due to recent site problems with LogIns suddenly not working, my partner wants to switch over to a more
customer-service oriented host.
We need someone who can actually take the our ftp files and transfer them over, and rebuild a duplicate site.
A hosting service that does that also would be awesome.
I’m at a loss. We need this done but I have no idea how to go about it. Thanks.
There are many hosting providers that support Wordpress (mine does) and you can type “wordpress site migration” into your search engine of choice for a plethora of DIY options. Having done it, I can say it was pretty simple for me - but I do have an IT background. FTPing (probably SCPing or SFTPing really) the config and PHP files isn’t a big deal, it is the database that is often the issue. Hopefully you still have WP admin access to your site, otherwise it will be challenging for pretty much anyone. I recreated my installation locally by exporting the database and copying the files, so it is possible, but not recommended unless you REAAAAALLY like messing with backend stuff on your website.
If that isn’t your cuppa, I see that my host offers a free WP migration with one of their introductory plans - so I expect that is a common feature. Pick someone you like (services and price) and see if they offer that service.
RaffArundel, who is your host?
Thanks
I was avoiding “shilling” (since I give them personally B- and it almost sounded like you had someone in mind) but since you asked: I use GreenGeeks (yeah, 300% green and all) and the offer I was referring to is on this page
I have nothing more than a vanity blog, so if you may want to make sure they can support your traffic on the cheaper plans.
Since the OP is looking for advice, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Just about anywhere is better than GoDaddy. I’ve always had trouble every single time I’ve had to interact with them. I prefer Dreamhost or Bluehost. They cost slightly more than other hosts but all their documentation is actually up to date and very clear and easy to use. That and they don’t nickle and dime you over things you should expect to be included, like your whois domain privacy.
As to the actual site migration, uh, cough, I can do that for a small fee. Most web developers in your area probably can, too. You can do it yourself if you very carefully follow an online guide, but I know how easy it is to get lost in that jungle if something goes wrong. RaffArundel is correct that it’s usually the database that ends up causing the headaches with Wordpress migrations, but there’s also some road bumps possible just from doing the hosting changes on the domain if you don’t understand what’s going on or what you want to achieve.
The main thing that worries me is that if your Wordpress installation is beginning to break, i.e., not letting you log in, there could be any number of things going wrong aside from just your host not serving your pages properly. Your site could simply be so old and hack-y that it’s starting to break down under new and changing internet guidelines. So you potentially have something more along the lines of a total site rehaul in your cards and you might not realize it. I built my own site three years ago and this year was reaching the point where some Wordpress plugins would no longer play nice without a lot of work. I ended up redoing the whole thing this summer with better compliance. If that’s the case and if you’re going to redo your website to begin with, maybe worrying about a migration isn’t necessary.
www.urljet.com is who I use for my client’s vBulletin (shout out!) site but they also do WordPress. Their customer support has been great, the servers are solid, and they do do full-service transfer. And they have the ability to troubleshoot like **Macca **eludes to.
Thanks to everyone for the leads! The more, the better, but they do look promising.
In other words, keep them coming.
Any experiences with this provider?
I moved from 1and1 to dreamhost a few years back.
I was doing something more than the typical user (huge number of small files)
I followed advice from tech support. A year later, I was dinged for overuse, because I had followed the tech advice. I was told by 1and1 not to depend on what the tech support had said.
Glad to say that this seemed to be mostly a computer problem on my partner’s end. Still, she is pretty put out with GoDaddy’s initial
customer service for this incident, so she still wants to look for alternatives. My concerns are how much to have it set up, how long it would take to have someone do the migration work, and assurance for a 100% accurate migration.
FWIW I was on GoDaddy years ago and got away from them, fairly slick-looking site but always a gauntlet of special offers and some major site functionality weirdness. I’ve registered my domains on NameCheap.com since then, they are as their name says cheap but also easy to use.
I recently was giving the credentials of a GoDaddy account to transfer a domain name, and I’m sorry to say their site hasn’t gotten better. Majorly confusing and/or broken.
My hosting company changed hands a number of times over the years. After a lot of problems, I finally had to switch. Searched the net for reviews but found most of the review sites were scams (affiliated with certain providers). Finally found some blogs/reviews that appeared to be legit (sorry, don’t have links now). SiteGround appeared to be pretty good. My main concern was quality of support. I switched to SiteGround and it worked out extremely well.
Note: A lot of the bigger hosting companies are owned by the same company. A small hosting company can provide excellent service but then get bought out by the bigger company which then cuts costs to the bone causing a reduction in performance and support.
I would appreciate the links to legit blog & review sites IF you can find them. Thanks!
I think this was it:
Dirty, Slimy, Shady Secrets of the Web Hosting Review (Under)World – Episode 1:
Hey, I got delayed & am back to investigating this.
What I have now on GoDaddy is Deluxe Linux Hosting with cPanel until May 2023,
Plan Details
Deluxe Hosting
1 CPU
512 MB RAM (using 15 MB)
250,000 files (using 24.000)
100 entry processes
The hosting itself cost me $300, they migrated two sites for $100 each, total $500.
We also added 2-yr SSL certification for $200.
Now, if I transferred hosting, would GoDaddy refund me any part of this?
Should I call GoDaddy to discuss this even as a theoretical possibility?
Thanks to everyone for the info & advice.
SiteGround & URLjet are way too expensive for us. DreamHost has no phone support, even for sales.
I need to talk with GreenGeeks. JustHost & BlueHost sound like it has potential & someone is going to
call me back.