I want to thank all the folks who have responded. Responses were *all* educational, but the main tunes are (a) that’s business and something can go wrong with any provider; and (b) that running even a simple site is hard, and non-techies are going to be challenged; so an established hand-holding provider environment for a WordPress blog is a good thing.
I am recommending that my friend stick with what’s working. And I’ll make sure they have some backup for the contents as suggested below. (The offense that set this off was against a little organization we both have connections to. The outrageous cost for an expired name registry caused clients' management to switch to a using a secondary URL. After some grumbling I moved on, but my friend is a justice fighter and felt the need to make a statement.) _______________ On 20190902, at 11:11, techli...@phpcoderusa.com wrote: All of my close friends are non technical. I tried to teach a couple of them how to manage their own hosting and it did not work. I tried to teach them simple stuff like how to FTP. I think GoDaddy, HostGator... etc are the best it gets for them. One lost his blog do to some tech issue at GoDaddy. AND that is going to happen. I hosted with GoDaddy for years. I figured I could get away with it because I am technical and had backups and could restore my website in 10 minutes. If all they have is a simple website or a blog then they need to know a handful of information. One is they need someone technical they can lean on such as a consultant. They need to do backups to avoid lost data. WordPress plugin with S3. They will probably need help with that. I think we take for granted what it takes to own and manage a website. I think it is difficult for the average person. On 2019-09-02 04:45, James Dugger wrote: > I have to disagree with many of the comments and suggestions thus far. As a > devops engineer I develop, and maintain hosting platforms. I work on AWS, > Azure, in-house bare metal. I have experience with Bluehost, Nexus, > Hostgator, GoDaddy, Google, Linode and Digital Ocean. > > First, cloud computing providers are not as easy as GoDaddy or Bluehost to > setup WordPress websites. They can come close (Linode, Google) but they are > still each more complex, and at minimum about 4 times more expensive per > month to operate. Anyone who says otherwise is disconnected to what > "non-technical" means. > > I worked on the GoDaddy Managed WordPress team developing and managing the > platform, I know all of the developers who are on that team. They are all > very talented, hardworking and most importantly they believe in the platform > they are developing. They are not "Microsofties". > > So let's talk about honesty. GoDaddy has gone through some issues on their > support/sales side. There has been some toxic individuals and management on > the support side in recent years, however my understanding is that they have > weeded out a lot of the problem people and changed their policies. If there > are issues with your friend's experience there, I'm positive that GoDaddy > would make things write if notified about the issues. > > I think it is absolutely hilarious sometimes what I here in discussion groups > that I would consider out of date, no longer relevant, or are simply > anecdotally wrong, especially when it comes to GoDaddy and even Microsoft > recently. I remember team lunches there where we would read the latest top > ten managed WordPress platforms where Media Temple was ranked 3rd and > GoDaddy's was ranked 8th. These blogs would pontificate about how much > better Media Temple was then GoDaddy, never realizing that GoDaddy had bought > Media Temple years earlier and that we had migrated their entire platform > onto the GoDaddy Managed WordPress platform. MT sites were and are literally > sitting adjacent to GoDaddy WordPress sites on the same servers, but somehow > they were better. So who is being honest and who isn't. > > How about WPEngine in recent years they were called on the carpet because > they were reporting more site visits than Google Analytics, which they > denied, causing site owners to pay substantially more after going over their > limits. However it was determined that they had not removed the bots and > crawlers that crawl the sites to index them from their metrics. This was the > same case for FlyWheel. And just this weekend FlyWheel reported platform > issues, there platform was in maintenance mode for 5 hours Saturday 8/31. > And they have not been transparent about the issues. Yet FlyWheel was > supposed to the best new MWP hosting platform. They have lost (or should) > any tripple-nine status they had. I know someone who may lose a client over > this outage this weekend. The business owner that runs and manages the site > told me just last night that they are sick of trying other hosting providers > and are going back to GoDaddy because they will guarantee 24/7 support. They > actually said that they miss the feeling of security they had with GoDaddy. I > have many more actual events/issues with other hosting companies but I won't > belabor the point any more. > > So everyone seems to have a different opinion on each hosting company, and > registrant. I don't get the need to switch registrants. This just seems > trivial. The difference with one vs another is literally 2 to 3 dollars > mostly. It takes 5 times longer to change it and setup something as > ubiquitous as a domain name. So how valuable is your time? There never > seems to be a shortage of people who are willing to step over dollars to save > dimes. > > But hey if you just can't stand GoDaddy then I guess try Bluehost. They have > a good reputation. I have used them on and off for 15 years. I recently > removed a site because I just can't stand CPanel as a site admin dashboard. > But if money is a big deal than go with a large reputable hosting provider > that has a good track record for keeping the sites up. And is triple-nine > rated 99.9% at least. The smaller hosting providers just don't have the > depth or the track record. > > And just a quick note about Microsoft, because I know how much we love to > hate on them. They have changed more than any other firm in the industry > over the past 7 years. They are now the largest contributor of open source in > the world (and that's not because they bought Github). They have a permanent > position on the Linux Foundation. Windows 10 with the WSL version 2 summer > 2019 update comes with a full Linux kernel built in when the WSL is > installed. By the end of the year they are on-track to have a fully > functional cross platform native terminal that will rival if not eclipse the > best terminal experience on either Linux or BSD (Apple). They still have a > ways to go but they are seriously moving the needle weekly and monthly. > Comparatively Linux desktop development seems stagnant, argumentative, and > being out paced by both Apple and Microsoft. > > Good luck with finding an alternative to your "largest-local-provider" > problem. > > > On Sun, Sep 1, 2019 at 9:16 PM Michael Butash <mich...@butash.net > <mailto:mich...@butash.net>> wrote: > I've moved all my domains to google, good or bad opinion of the org, it's far > better than godaddy I moved from. > > Being an early godaddy person out here, there was some pride in keeping my > domains there from early years, even hosting, but after acquisition, they > filled with ex-microsofties and ex-yahoo-ers (who?), there wasn't much left > aside from bleeding rocks as people. Just another faceless machine now with > ambiguous purpose and dubious value. Not entirely sure how they exist these > days as not the cheapest and far from the best... > > I don't host anything these days, but I just know I wouldn't host there. > > Hosting anything, best to see how good their peering is and round-trip time > to servers it's on from where you and your potential visitors are coming > from. Running mtr (an enhanced traceroute) against their servers tells you > quick if you want to be there or not. > > -mb > > > > > On Sun, Sep 1, 2019 at 6:46 PM Stephen Partington <cryptwo...@gmail.com > <mailto:cryptwo...@gmail.com>> wrote: > For Nam services only Google DNS is really easy to use with some nice > features. Cloudflares foray into DNS is staggeringly awesome and with many > features and a scalable learning curve. Aka easy to use but you can do more > as you are ready. And of course you have their other services immediately > available. They also will do all your ssl but not the same way let's encrypt > does. And finally dreamhost is also pretty good. But they are better geared > to hosting and their DNS services reflect that. > > On Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 4:58 PM Mark Phillips <m...@phillipsmarketing.biz > <mailto:m...@phillipsmarketing.biz>> wrote: > I use NameSilo as a domain registrar and Linode for hosting. I have been > happy with them for years now. > > Mark > > On Sat, Aug 31, 2019 at 1:34 AM David Schwartz <newslett...@thetoolwiz.com > <mailto:newslett...@thetoolwiz.com>> wrote: > I use a company local to Phoenix as my primary registrar, NameSilo. > > For hosting, I use Eleven2. > > In general, I don't recommend using the same for both. > > I used NameCheap, and they're owned by the same borg entity that owns > HostGator and tons of other hosting providers. But I've used them for years > for name registrations. > > The thing I like about NameSilo is they give you a domain name Privacy option > for FREE forever. NameCheap used to be for one year, but they may have > changed. GoDaddy charges an absurd amount for it starting from the get-go. > > "Honesty" is relative in the domain world. They all have their policies and > they all enforce their polices. But some are far worse than others. > > The "other" big registrar in Phx has a very "honest" bunch of policies that > railroad you into spending a HUGE amount if you forget to renew your domain > on-time. NameSilo and NameCheap are far more forgiving, and give you 30 days > to renew your domain at the regular renewal rate. They're all quite "honest" > about it, as long as you read their TOS and pay close attention to what's > there. > > There's also an area that isn't talked about much, and I don't really even > know what to call it. But you might think that every cPanel / WHM hosting > provider is the same, since they run the same hosting software. I've found > that's not true. Nor is it "dishonest", either. > > There are several dozen settings that can be enabled or disabled on cPanel / > WHM installations, and there are various plugins that the host can also > include if they want. > > The net effect is, there are some such providers that I'd say tend strongly > towards the "paranoid" side of the scale, while others bend the other way. > > NameCheap is a very "paranoid" host. If you want maximum security against > hackers and invaders, you'll like them. They get that distinction because > they have a habit of disabling all sorts of UI options that have even the > slightest whiff of something a hacker could use to get into your hosting > account. > > I put up with this for a few months, and then moved to Eleven2, who is far > more relaxed about things. > > That said, you can always get a VPS, then install cPanel / WHM or any other > control panel, and tweak it however you like. > > Personally, I have a "shared reseller" type hosting account (ie, one that > includes WHM) at Eleven2. Shared hosting tends to overload the servers after > a while, but they usually don't put as many "reseller" accounts on a host as > regular (single cPanel) accounts — maybe by a factor of 10-to-1 or more — so > they don't fill up as fast. > > But if your shared hosting account starts to slow down, and if you've been > there for a while, ask to have it moved to a newer server. That's very easy > to do with cPanel accounts, and the places I've been tend to be fairly > accommodating if only because they'd rather not lose you to another host just > because they don't want to spend 5 minutes moving your account. > > -David Schwartz > > >> On Aug 30, 2019, at 12:36 PM, Victor Odhner <vodh...@cox.net >> <mailto:vodh...@cox.net>> wrote: >> >> A friend who is totally non-technical wants to move their WordPress from the >> current registry and hosting service, and is looking for is good providers >> of registry and hosting, with the most honest reputations within a >> reasonable cost. >> >> A few years ago I worked with NameCheap, and have heard fairly good stories. >> >> I've heard some registrars are in a better chance to negotiate transfer of a >> name which may be owned by the current registrar. >> >> I'm pretty sure my friend was spoon-fed the setup with a single phone call, >> and might find a change too complicated. I am personally free of >> [largest-of-local-providers], so my bias is towards running away from >> [that], but I don't really know what choices are "out there" for innocent >> button-pressing clients. >> >> Thanks for any advice, >> Victor Odhner >> >> --------------------------------------------------- >> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >> <mailto:PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >> https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >> <https://u2206659.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=3cK2FVJjyu2N-2Bxco034fZirB8KjJB6TWmws3JQznod2-2BarXdgEBTyt3QzdhIH35ch-2BzFTkBm5yT6T6kXEEWvZUZZmbLgltYY6BMhl9aJCyg-3D_6lpMB7VLnN-2Fj9-2FEErg8-2F-2BMBpb5QxlByTgv2M3fbWD9ebvC-2BWrN3h7jImK8EVWYBeNRAAZmRl1X5YPg2jMyIeBS-2BtxahvC1vMnGpdwKJEeuA6CEQzma4GPz-2BcD-2ByGlKQQ5HeQGbSxwJbfuHJqsavhmU0QjcuChn-2F-2BTc12LRhw1LqEHBwz3YdCsXxZrQJDe-2B6lMQR4yP4LzzuGzO-2BGAVn61X9d-2FVga2gHF1mWhi3bANQs-3D><blocked.gif> > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > <mailto:PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > <https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss>--------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > <mailto:PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > <https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss>--------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > <mailto:PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > <https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss>--------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > <mailto:PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > <https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss> > > -- > James > > Linkedin <http://www.linkedin.com/pub/james-h-dugger/15/64b/74a/> > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > <mailto:PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > <https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss>--------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
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