Are you paying for the WordPress sites you created thru GoDaddy? I just used GoDaddy for my domains and then pointed the server to here as it says above. Are you using the email accounts and are you active on the WordPress accounts you have? If not, you could just point the servers to here as in the training and set up your email here. Unless you either point the domains here or transfer them you won't be able to use them so I guess it is a matter of how active they are. Not sure this helps but maybe someone else can come in and help further.

Hi MsMerry,
Yes, I paid GD for hosting, renewable every 2 years - up this year, I think. One email isn't used, the other two are.

Are you saying that if I transfer everything over to WA, I might lose the existing emails in the account, but moving forward, I will still be able to use those email addresses?

I am not sure on that one Joanne relating to the emails question. Yes, I pay GD for my domains and hosting is done, but never bothered with the email set up. I didn't transfer my domains, I just pointed the DNS server to WA on Godaddy and then I was able to use my chosen domain name here. I use my email that I set up here as it is easy to do. Probably yes, you would lose the emails but not certain of that. Sorry, I am not more help, but it does make sense that the emails could still be active if you don't transfer but instead point the servers to here. Your host is still GoDaddy for your domain names, but if you want to use those domain names here, you have to do one or the other. Am I muddling things more for you?

That's a good amount of work.
First, start with your least important site and do them one at a time to completion before you start the next one.
You'd have to back up the GD WordPress website with a plugin.
Backup email account for that domain
Either transfer the GD domain to WA or leave the GD domain in place and just point to the WA Nameservers. I think domain pointing would be safest, as it gives you a fallback plan if things go awry. You can always transfer them later.
Once the domain pointing or transfer is successful, you install WordPress on a site here (very quick process)
You install the same backup plugin from your old site.
You restore the backup file to your new WA site.
Test.
Test some more.
Configure email on the new domain. Decide if you want to forward emails or have three separate accounts. I like forwarding. You can reply as the specific account, and there's a lot less fuss with dealing with all those accounts.
Restore email. (Process varies depending on if you are using a client like Outlook or a webmail like Gmail)

After you are satisfied that everything is running ok, you can start your next one.

After all three are done, and everything passed its tests, and you get your friends to verify that they can get to your websites, you can consider terminating your GoDaddy hosting.

If things don't go so great, you can just repoint your nameservers back to Godaddy, (hopefully you documented the old settings first) and decide to just leave the sites at GD or hire someone to do this.

Random additional notes:
I should also mention that you should understand the limitations of Wealthy Affiliate hosting before you do anything. You do not have cPanel access, direct access to the databases, or cron jobs. That isn't a problem for the vast majority of people, but some custom plugins and self-hosted email autoresponders will not work.
You asked for clarification on what you get here at WA. WA includes email hosting and forwarding at no additional charge. You can point domains registered elsewhere to Wealthy Affiliate for no cost. If you transfer your domains, I think the current cost is $15 per domain per year, which includes Whois privacy protection. That is an expensive add-on at Godaddy.

Thanks for stepping in Steve. I think I had the general idea right but you really clarified where I couldn't. Appreciate you helping.

You're welcome. It was an interesting problem so I wanted to lay out a step by step instead of just contributing missing parts.

The email is the difficult part. Or at least the part that makes it more complicated. I think doing the domains one at a time is better because you are confirming that the process works. The last thing you want is to start the process on all three domains at once because you're trying to save on time and possibly labor cost and then realize that there's a problem. A contingency plan to go back to what you had is also great to have.

I so agree. It was interesting, wasn't it? I am just so happy you saw it and jumped in.

The first thing I would do is go to your current website, export everything to a document, and then save it, just in case something happens. Here is how you do that... Wordpress Export Tool You can transfer your domain name and import everything from your old website onto your WA website.Then you can cancel your GD account, because you get free hosting with WA. You get your own email for each website with WA as well, I am not sure if you can use the same email address, but you can try to create the same one if you go to "Email" after clicking on the black square with the airplane up top. Here is a video to help you transfer your domain... Transfer Domain Name from GoDaddy to Wealthy Affiliate SiteDomains I hope this helps, let me know if you have more questions.

Hi MsMerry,
I think this is making sense :-)
I need to better understand the WA hosting and domain service. I understand about redirecting the domain name, but need more on the hosting side, especially since my membership fee covers this. Then, I'll have to learn about website development and all!
Oh my!:-)
Thanks for your contribution. Much appreciated.

if you are paying for premium membership here then you are paying for hosting and it may be more advanced hosting than you have at godaddy? Worth looking into it with sitesupport to see what's involved with moving those sites and email.

You are welcome and as you said, with premium hosting is included. Unfortunately for me, my domains are 2 years so cannot transfer yet.

Hi Foobard,
Thanks so very much for all the detailed reply. You are awesome!
My GD websites aren't being used, expect for one is just a home page. I've been waiting to set them up once I knew what I wanted to be or do when I grew up! :-)

Can you help me understand more about what you said....

You said, "You do not have cPanel access, direct access to the databases, or cron jobs. That isn't a problem for the vast majority of people, but some custom plugins and self-hosted email autoresponders will not work."

Does this mean that if I want to use tools to build email lists, such as LeadPages, and email management tool, like AWeber or Mailchimp to capture email addresses, I won't be able to with WA??

And what are the implications of not having access to cPanel, direct access to the databases, or cron jobs?

And, that the WA premium fees for hosting are far more affordable than, say GD?

So much techie stuff that I need to understand to make decisions, and I thank you for your very valuable info and feedback!
Thank you!!!

MailChimp and Aweber will work with WA. They are paid services that are hosted by third parties. I was referring to self-hosted solutions, running directly on your own server. There are a lot of downsides to doing that, and a higher level of technical knowledge is required. Just google "self hosted autoresponder", and you will see a bunch of articles, and some that go into all the potential problems.

WA hides the complexity from running a website. They make it extremely easy. In return for making it easy, they impose some limitations. These limitations only apply to a very few people who are "techies" for the lack of a better word.

As far as the implications of not having access to those techie features, there really isn't any. They would only matter if you wanted to create a custom database, and write custom SQL queries to it, if you wanted to run Joomla or some other CMS that is not Wordpress, create scripts to run at scheduled times, etc. This is all stuff you aren't likely to be doing. WA is a wordpress host. It is logical for them to limit what people do to just wordpress. It is easier to support, and it is easier for the user, as there isn't a maze of options to choose from.

I am here mostly for the training. The hosting was just a bonus. But, yes, I think WA is better than GD for hosting.
Sorry for the delay in responding.

This is so clear. Thanks for the detailed explanation. One moe wuestion..do you know if eight WA I could run wish list?? As a plug in to run/ host ,manage online courses where clients can go to access resources??

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking here. If you are going to be offering online courses, I would use a platform designed for that, like Udemy https://www.udemy.com which is most known for their public courses but offers private courses too, or there might be other ones that allow subscriptions and private courses, like maybe this one https://www.proprofs.com/training/
You could create and host your online training courses in one of these other third party engines that are designed for that purpose and then link to the training from your website.

But anything is possible, but "anything" often requires custom coding, which can be very expensive to contract out, hope it is done correctly, and then it has to be maintained, which is an ongoing cost. Using third party services can be a lot easier to manage. Plus they come with built in support.

Good points. I'm probably nit picking since I find it hard to get clear about technology when I can't have a verbal chat to talk my ideas / questions through.

Thanks again for your very helpful chat. I also feel better about dropping Go Daddy and staying with WA as my hosting company. :-)

You're welcome. I like helping people, and it makes my skills better as a bonus.
Well, if they offered phone support where you could actually talk to someone, I guarantee they would have to charge more. But again, in my view, the value in WA is maybe 80% in the upsell-free education, 10% in the networking, inspiration, and motivation, and maybe 10% in the included hosting.

@Joanne-G thanks for asking the question @Foobard @MsMerry @Moz @Kksb0711 thank you all for offering your expertise. I just went trhough the process of pointing a domain to WA server, I'll check back tomorrow to see if it was successful.

Looking forward to that Mike.

When you change over your dns to the WA name servers, your email will be on WA. All the namservers do is tell the internet where to find your website. Let me know if you require assistance.

@Foodbard,

I'm seeing lots of questions going around best hosting options...So, I called GD and learned my annual hosting cost is $119 CDN firm, and with WA, I pay out on average per MONTH $79 CDN with fluctuating USD/CDN Exchange rate each month.

I understand I'm paying WA for the education, networking and awesome support/feedback, like you offer as a community member.

I guess this is why I'm hesitating to move forward beyond Course 1, lesson 1 where I need to set up my website account!

So, in essence, WA is the same as GD hosting, and they are offering the free websites to choose from, with training on how to build and maintain my own website on my already owned domain names (which can be renewed through WA if I choose later, with access to my existing email through WA, and the extra costs of about $800/year is the education, and active community?

Sorry if I'm appearing a bit daft with all of this, but my gut is stopping me from moving forward until I have full understanding of it all :-)
With awesome kindness sent your way!!!

Joanne, I checked that also with GD and I chose to point my domain servers here because I have the advantage of learning so much more. I have never paid to host at GoDaddy for my domains. I just keep it all really simple and only have the basic domain without all the extras. We don't really need that right away.
I did the comparison and actually did a review.
You have your domain name, it is paid for so why not just point the servers here and you can learn how to do this yourself. In the end, it is the better way to go. Hope this helps a bit.

MsMerry, I'm good with redirecting my domain names, I was just really comparing the hosting fees - GD $118/year vs. WA about $500 (CDN).
The $400 difference is education and community, I guess.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing but it all comes down to what you already know I guess and feel comfortable doing without help. Here is the review I did and you can see if it rings true with you.
https://myaffiliatehomebiz.com/godaddy-wealthy-affiliate-review

Good article. Thanks for sharing! In the end, it's about building an online business - with awesome support! :-)

100% agree with you, Joanne. All the best in your decision making.

Decision done Went annual! Thanks so much for your support! :-)

Congrats Joanne! That is what I did as well. And you are so welcome. It was a pleasure to help out.

ns1.mywahosting.com
ns2.mywahosting.com

Add these in the number 1 and 2 spaces for the nameservers

:)

Thanks ... so do I delete the third one under DNS3? Or just leave it as is?

delete it. Just use the two WA ones

Excellent thank you very very much! Much appreciated :-)

If you bought your domain name here you don't have to worry about the DNS. You should be good to go.

I'm not sure what "switched" means, but it sounds like you transferred the domain to WA. So it is all here. It is not pointed from Godaddy. If that is the case, and it is working for you, then there is nothing to check. They try to make things super simple here, so there's not much to mess with. You could always verify with Site Support that everything looks ok.

Thank you for the :)

As you bought the domain from Go Daddy you need to log into your go daddy account not 1&1 - 1&1 is a different domain registar

okay i did that already, maybe i'm all set.

Ok, go to Manage Domains, click the box beside your domain name and then in the menu click on Name Servers - then Set Name Servers - now change the nameservers to the WA servers, it can take from a few minutes to a few hours for things to update

That's a good questions for SiteSupport. I know we have security and security monitoring but I don't know the specifics. Ask SiteSupport. They should get right back to you.