Would You Ever Move Your Websites to Another Host?
Recently I decided to move my websites from the Wealthy Affiliates hosting platform to my own self-hosted platform. I did this, for one main reason: FREEDOM.
Let me get this out there... I LOVE WEALTHY AFFILIATES... and I'm not leaving. I just want a little more control over my sites, and there are a few things they just won't let me do.
You see, I manage, curate and post to over 15 blogs. 3 of which I setup on wealthy affiliates when I got started here. At the time, I was interested to see the value of having them on wealthy affiliates versus my own hosting package.
Now 6 months later, the ONLY difference between my self hosted blogs and the wealthy affiliates blog is the "comment exchange" NOT the give and take thread... but the Comment Exchange application where you earn points by leaving comments, and those points can then be used to request comments. You can't ask for comments on a site that is self hosted.
AGAIN, this is NOT the give and take thread... this is something else.
So, why would I go self-hosted? Quite Simply ... Wealthy Affiliates will NOT let me use the plugin ManageWP OR Jetpack.
(I know I sound like a brat... but both of those two plugins make my life sooooo much easier)
Jetpack is a big application with a lot of really great tools. Like Publicize which links to all your social media so you post in your blog and it populates twitter, facebook, pinterest and more.... and there are so many other things ... (read more here on Chris Lema's blog post about it: http://chrislema.com/wordpress...) BUT you can't use it on wealthy affiliates because it's more like a plugin container... and if someone were to activate ALL of the plugins within the jetpack container... well, it will slow down your site. (technically not a jetpack issue because if you were to independently install all those plugins you'd get the same result)
ManageWP is a centralized place to manage backups, security, updates and more for ALL of your wordpress sites in one area. It's a web-based application that links to your plugin and pulls information out to the web-based application. Wealthy Affiliates doesn't like it because of the interconnection and the way it communicates back and forth. They won't allow that kind of access on their site because they can't maintain the security control. When I asked them about another backup solution, they told me one... but I would have had to go to each site to install, and go to each site to manage and run.
(So, here's me.... thinking... hmmm.... I can go to one site and manage ALL of my sites... or I can log into all of my sites one at a time and manage them... I know... still feeling a little bratty)
I have lived without Jetpack for 6 months... but the ManageWP was the thing that made me evaluate whether I really needed my sites hosted on Wealthy Affiliates.
I don't.
Having said that... It's not easy to transfer a site (whole) without having to recreate everything nearly from scratch. However, with the help of The Duplicator plugin and the people at Siteground (www.tinyurl.com/siteground1 my favorite hosting company) it was easy.
AND I'm not making this decision lightly... because I wanted to do it myself my sites were down for about 8 hours.. and in one case 2 days... but when they came back up... they looked just the same.
To be clear. I'm not going anywhere. Wealthy Affiliates and You guys (the community) are so encouraging and activating that I can't imagine not being able to check in and see how everyone is doing.
Share my successes, share my challenges...
I just need a little more freedom when it comes to my sites.
I guess I'm writing so that you will know it's possible. So that you will know you don't HAVE to have your site here on wealthy affiliates and moving your site doesn't mean that you don't love it here!
Have an amazing day.
Wenda
Recent Comments
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Hi till now I am hosting with WA, however WA Servers have limitations (no php ini edit allowed), as long I can run within this limitation I will stay with WA, but if I cannot and WA has not added any upgrade packages by then, I am forced to move some of my projects somewhere else.
It is things like what you menton that will force many members to move to a hosting service or to set up a dedicated server...We had the same kind of thing going on, so many of the new sites are over on SG as opposed to SR...
As Wenda mentions, just for purposes of consolidation and being able to take action on many sites at once, it is a smart move to transfer our websites over time...
The sites we have at SG are also membership site/subdomains and e-Commerce stores, so really the traffic we expect in totem is pretty high...
Plus many of the sites are pretty image heavy, and even while we use AWS S3 and buckets, plus CloudFlare CDN, etc. we are always looking for more speed for downloading the pages...
Another important thing for us is having a dedicated IP, PCU compliant hosting, SSL (for payment processing and also site trust), some of which you get with SR and some not...
I guess each person.company has to make decisions on the directions they intend on moving, then make the moves that will take you forward...
Cheers!
Dave : )
I liked your comment. Reason why: There were so many things mentioned I'd never heard of, let alone understand, I see there is a long, steep learning curve. And much food for future thought. Thank you.
Not a problem at all....If you any partiicular question, ask away, I will either provide an answer or get the answer hehe! Cheers! Dave : )
Hi Wenda, For now, I have everything with WA - domains and hosting - and I can't imagine going anywhere else. I heard Siteground is really good for really big sites but at the rate WA is growing, improving and adding enhancements, I'm sure they will always be a step ahead of me.
I agree. Wealthy Affiliates ROCKS! I love this place. I'm also migrating ALL of my websites off of my GoDaddy Hosting.. (I'm actually a reseller for godaddy so this was a big decision!) I just finished the hosting review... and there are a lot of sites there that I'm hosting for friends and family. (most of which I am also paying for! )
So, I sent out emails explaining my decision and letting them know their options. I feel like I'm giving everyone plenty of time to transfer their domains if they don't want to start paying me to maintain their sites.
In the end, I feel like it's a great decision for me... I'll have everything on SiteGround... and I'll close my Godaddy hosting (currently 4 hosting accounts) and move everything over to an easy to manage single location on ManageWP
... deep breathe... it's a big step for me... and I can already feel some of the relief seeping in...
Have an amazing day!
I agree with you Wenda. You know what you are talking and you are technically advanced. I do have some observations but I cannot have a claim because I am a newbie on the internet but I do have some doubts in mind.
I know for sure a Webhost can control a website and does what it wants. However, if I were the Webhost it would be my pleasure to give the full and best support to my clients because they are what makes my business exist, excel over others and it will be a service to the business hungry people. Helping is our motto and if a site succeeds it will be Wealthy Affiliates success too.
You know I worked in helpdesk for a long time... and the first rule of thumb is... If it isn't broken... don't fix it!
The wealthy affiliate product is top notch and solid. I just need a little more freedom with my sites. If I ONLY had the three sites on wealthy affiliate... I might consider staying.
My efforts will (in the long run) also provide me with more time freedom, as everything will be in one easy to manage place.
Hi, Wenda...
I am in the process of moving all my websites to that same host for the reasons you mention and also for consolidation purposes.
I too am not leaving WA, but I need to have the added flexibility that I get with my two GoGeek accounts (yes we have TWO)...
I am interested in your experiences with moving the sites using the plugins and I am aware of the excellent support that SG offers. We have been with them for awhile now, lovin; it just as I love WA hehe!
I think that many of the members that have been here for quite some time are hosting their websites elswhere, either because they started before the SiteRubix was available or before it became as robust as it is now...
The issues you spell out (and a few more) are deal stoppers for me when it comes to ramping up our business operations...
I fully expect that we will go to a dedicated server again at some point soon (we tried with Hostgator and were - unhappy?) and we will do this move with SG...They are THAT good!
By the way, I have a workaround for the exchanging of comments feature in place and open to all...I have a Facebook Group specifically for that purpose...
You can find it on my profile page here on the right hand side of the pages, it is one of the facebook links..Basically a little less formal and we do a 1 for 1 exchange and use the honor system...
I am the admin for that group, and truth be told, I have not spent much time there (lots of irons in the fire here)...I do have 4 new people that are being onboarded (have been since mid-July) so I will likely add one as an admin there to see if we can't kick up the participation a bit...
Just for my own purposes I need comments on 8 websites and more coming, and we have partner stores with blog content, and etc. This comment exchange thing is really a good service to have available...
You are welcome to join and participate in that group!
Cheers!
Dave : )
Thanks Dave, I'll look up that facebook page. And you're correct about the comment exchange thing being a great service. I didn't have ANY problems moving my sites off wealthy affiliates, because for the most part the sites are fairly new and not that large... it's my GoDaddy sites that I've been using for years that are causing me the migration trouble. I will say, that the duplicator plugin... is pretty amazing.
Wenda
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I just completed successfully tranferring one site from SiteRubix over to SG using the Duplicator plugin...A few rough spots, but man painless really! Good stuff and HIGHLY recommend this plugin.... :)