I’d like to announce that WP Made Easy is now hosted on SiteGround WordPress hosting. In this article, I’m going to explain why we migrated to SiteGround from GoDaddy and why we didn’t choose another host like Bluehost, HostGator, InMotion Hosting, etc.
Additionally, I will talk more about the moving experience and things that you’ll not know unless you purchase the hosting.
Why didn’t I renew my Hosting at GoDaddy?
Before moving to SiteGround, our website was hosted on GoDaddy Economy Web Hosting. This package offers 100 GB of storage space, unlimited bandwidth, 100 email addresses, a Free domain for the first term purchase, and allows 1 website on the hosting account.
I used this service because my website was in its beginning, and I didn’t expect a lot of traffic in the first year. Also, the hosting cost me $1/mo only, so it was very affordable, and it was a great choice for a starting website.
But after my website started to get more traffic, the website started to go down, and the downtime started to increase. The website was also slow, and when I installed W3 Total Cache, WordPress was showing a blank white screen of death, so I deactivated the W3TC plugin.
Read also: How to Install WordPress on GoDaddy Economy Hosting in 3 Min
Later, I installed WP Super Cache, which increased my site speed and decreased load on the server. I also used CloudFlare’s free CDN service with WordPress to minimize the load on the server and to increase website speed, too.
However, all of that didn’t work!
The website was going down, especially when I update or publish a new post or page, or when I try to use the BackWPup plugin to Backup WordPress. I’ll post about my experience with GoDaddy Hosting as a WordPress Hosting later.
Why we choose SiteGround WordPress Hosting for our Website?
I always say that choosing the best WordPress Hosting is not easy, and you should select a host carefully in order to prevent future headaches. So I suggest that you list your website needs first and do your own hosting research, as each website has its own needs, which may differ from another website.
Doing our own WordPress Hosting Research
When I was planning to move to another host and while researching for a good hosting company, I prepared a list of my website’s needs and the features that should be available in the host, and these are the most important items on the list:
- Good, stable, and well-known hosting company.
- Hosting is optimized for WordPress sites.
- Supports PHP 7 WordPress Hosting.
- Affordable Prices and a high first-term offer.
- Solid State Drives (SSD) Hosting.
- Free regular backups.
- cPanel and SSH Access.
- Free Email accounts.
- Online Chat support.
After doing the research, I found some companies that I can host my WordPress site with, and SiteGround was at the top of the list, so I selected SG.
BTW: I bought the hosting plan on August 10, 2016, when Bluehost had a discount offer of 63% OFF and I could get hosting for $2.95/month instead of $7.99/month. So the selection process was hard, but I selected SiteGround mainly because they support PHP 7 Hosting.
Purchasing Hosting and Paying SiteGround via PayPal
When I decided to choose SiteGround, I contacted them via online chat, and they replied quickly. I asked them if they had any special offers other than the announced ones, but the answer was NO.
I also asked them if the domain would be free for the 2 years of the hosting, but they told me that the free domain applies for new domains ONLY and not for transferred domains. And if I want to transfer my domain to SiteGround, I’ll pay $14/year.
So, I decided to transfer our precious 😅 domain to NameCheap for $9 only. They also offered WHOIS privacy protection for free, and they were one of the first providers to throw in such a good perk at the time.
Paying SiteGround via PayPal
If you decide to buy hosting from SiteGround, you’ll discover that they only accept Visa and MasterCard. But I wanted to pay them via PayPal. I told their sales representative that I want to pay them via PayPal.
Their representative told me that I can pay via PayPal, and he told me to fill out the registration form with my info. and leave the payment section blank, and submit the form. After doing that, he gave me a link to pay them via PayPal, and I sent them the payment through the link. After that, I received an email with my hosting account info.
After that, I started to transfer my website from the old host (GoDaddy) to SiteGround, and after testing my website by accessing it via IP. I changed the DNS records in CloudFlare, and the website started to work from the new host with no downtime. If you click on the button below to get 60% OFF + Free Domain for life from SG.
Conclusion
If you decide to transfer your website to another hosting provider or start a new website, you need to choose the new host carefully. Do your own research based on your needs and budget. Look for reviews of hosting providers on reputable, unbiased platforms like HostDean and TrustPilot. Compare your choices and select the one that best suits you.
A helpful thing to do is to make a list of your website needs and your budget first. After doing the hosting research, contact the new host first and ask them to answer all your questions before moving your website.
Feel free to share your thoughts and experience with us in a comment below.
Were you using GoDaddy Managed WordPress Hosting before you moved to SiteGround? What process did you go through for the transfer? Thanks!
No, I have been using GoDaddy shared hosting.
Regarding the website transfer, GoDaddy offers free website transfer or you can manually migrate the website, there are many tutorials, plugins and services for that.
Congrats Ahmed.
I love SiteGround and I like your way of thinking as you bought hosting from GoDaddy for $1/month while your website was still growing. And now you migrated to an optimized WordPress Hosting.
Thanks for your comment Sarah.