Had figured it would take me a year to find a good replacement for my new upgrade to the $300 Business plan at WordPress.com, but it appears I ain’t gonna leave WordPress.com at all. I may downgrade next year if my financial situation becomes drastic, but for all that WordPress.com offers at just $300 a year (that’s only $25 a month) I will be staying wid ‘em.

It’s not just about what WordPress.com offers either, but also the ease of their entire packaging, i.e. from Free to eCommerce, to removing most concerns of a blogger, easy to find answers ‘n solutions, to their prompt support (thanks again, Rina N @ Automattic!), the product transparency/openness, etcetera etcetera. For example, I just mentioned the possibility of having to downgrade in the future, and wondered what might happen to my blog if that happened…thusly, ran a quick search ‘n found – Manage Purchases, Renewals & Cancellations:

No biggie for WordPress.com – totally open about what you can do, and what would happen depending on your choice/s. For me, my Classic Editor plugin would be gone ‘n easy backup/restore gone too ‘n that 200 GB’s of storage space would go back to 3 GB’s ‘n etcetera. However, my blog would be OK…like it was about 7 days ago. They easily moved my blog from the Free to Business plan, and I found only one minor detail missing on the wp-admin page – probably/possibly caused by the big free upgrade to Jetpack. Also, I was told that WordPress.com had recently added a “new navigation that merges the two previous systems into a single one,” and that “was the default WordPress.com navigation (known as “Calypso”) and the other, the classic WP Admin navigation,” if I understood what support told me. Basically, Jetpack apparently handles my stats now, and a lot of other ‘Thangs.  😉

Yeah, this search ‘n research project on Web Hosting didn’t take me nearly as long as I first imagined. Started with the total lack of knowledge on my part – then, the seemingly lack of openness ‘n lack of transparency ‘n tricky sales techniques ‘n unanswered questions ‘n confusion were everywhere during all of this – *NOT* from WordPress.com, but the entire Web Hosting topic seemed shrouded in a purposely confusing atmosphere, IMHO. 😦

I admitted out-the-gate that I was a novice on the subject of Web Hosting, and I’m not saying now that any of the Web Hosting sites are bad or untrustworthy. Basically, WordPress.com just has it all, and the search for another Web Hosting site for my blog was very educational ‘n revealing.

I ended up going back to DreamHost for a second try – this time with a $35.40 one year plan (already have that refund back). I also looked at Bluehost who doesn’t do PayPal which ended my checking them out more closely. Looked at SiteGround briefly, but their prices were going to be close or higher than my WP Business plan. Those are the Top 3 Web Hosts recommended by WordPress.org. Also tried a $35.88 Hostinger plan (looks like they will be a little slower with their refund).

In some 17 years with WordPress.com I never worried about or even thought about security; however, in this search I was too much of a novice to fully understand what ‘n which kinds of security measures I needed!?! SSL Certificates were being offered for free in some plans, they cost in others plans, but what other security did I need?!? What about Domain Privacy protection? That can run another $1 or so a month. What is a Single Domain SSL?! That can run $3.33 a month!? What is Codeguard Basic at $2.99 a month?! Is it better than Jetpack security or another one?! SiteLock Security Essential is $2.99 a month. What is Unlimited CDN?

Here’s an example of a 12 month plan being offered @ $2.95/mo:

Free Domain Registration (if you stay the year) ‘n Free “Let’s Encrypt SSL” (whatever that is!?). Then they throw out a partial list of Packages (yes, there are many more packages available that are not mentioned at this point). $2.95/mo for 12 months is a basic plan ‘n then that jumps to $9+++/mo on renewals, depending on what site is offering it. Sign up for 36 months ‘n the deal can get better…or in my case, maybe look better because I’m not sure what I have missed. I believe there will be extras needed, but am not sure…other than the costs are going to jump after bargain offer’s time period ends. What happens to your blog if you move it again, to another bargain being offered by another Web Host?

DreamHost has a Dreampress plan for 1 year @ $203.40 and DreamPress Plus @ $299.40 for a year, and some other sites’ “managed” blogs are in the same range, but others can be a little lower or a little higher. Some can get really high. Is DreamPress Plus @ $299.40 for a year better than the WordPress.com $300 Business plan? I doubt it.

Maybe someone with more knowledge ‘n experience in Web Hosts can find lower priced deals that also include needed security features, but I found it difficult to navigate thru the entire confusing Web Hosting atmosphere outside of WordPress.com. Some articles I read seemed to be by writers with even less Web Hosting knowledge than I have, and it was obvious they were ‘Winging’ it in order to get their article out on time. For me – keep it simple!

Guess I started this search thinking that – The Grass is always Greener on the Other Side:

Meaning

  • to think that other’s part is better than mine
  • to believe that someone else’s life is better their own
  • to think that the other person has it easier in a direct competition
  • to think that own job is harder than someone else’s

 

Origin

In herds when grazing, there is movement towards what seems to be greener pastures. When people maintain gardens outside their house, they want the grass to be as green as possible. But the truth is that when you look from far away, the grass on the other side looks greener. When you go near it, you find out that it was only an illusion. The phrase originated in the 19th century and is considered a modern day saying.

 Our blogs are important to us, for a variety of reasons, and we want stability ‘n security; however, stability ‘n security need to sorta stay out of the way whilst we focus on blogging. Like I mentioned earlier, that ‘I never worried about or even thought about security’ in all my years of Free blogging, but WordPress.com had apparently been providing it silently in the background of my Free blog/s.

OK…almost at the end of page 2, so I want to squeeze in another problematic area I found in moving yore WordPress.com blog to another Web Host.

WordPress Themes:

I couldn’t get the same Themes I use in WordPress.com blogs over at any of the other Web Hosts I tested. Yes, they all had the Rowling by Anders Norén theme I use here at Linux Newbie, and also the Apostrophe 2 by Automattic theme used at Swamp Hermit’s blog; however, those themes ended up missing at least one important option over there – the customizing “Content Options”:

That’s reached by Appearance >> Customize and then Content Options looks like this:

It handles Featured Images on my posts ‘n pages!!! I could not find any Themes at the other Web Host testing sites that offered the “Content Option” choice. You could click on a setting in the actual post for a Featured Image, but I never got it to work right…besides, I want one setting for all my posts – first image in the post also gets displayed on the Front Page of the blog. I tried importing the posts XML Document, and on one earlier try had images on the Front Page, but the posts had two of the same images in the actual post (something that I fixed at Linux Newbie recently).

I also tried the Automatic Migration app, but screwed it up and then the migrating key wouldn’t work after that. Hey, I was worried about destroying my new $300 blog accidently!!!  😉

Not having the Theme I wanted was a deal breaker for me. Someone with more experience could’ve probably got it all to work, but actual Blog Management was going to be expensive…migrating help was $99.

Conclusion:

First, a $35.88 refund from my Hostinger plan test was in my PayPay account this morning, so they are a little slower than DreamHost (who is IMMEDIATE at refunding!). Hostinger had a $0.99/mo plan, which was about the lowest I had seen, but I had went with their $2.99/mo for 12 months. All the Web Hosts who advertise the hosting of WordPress blogs are gonna have to be reliable, IMHO.

I could see using one of the WordPress Web Hosting sites if I were starting a new blog ‘n didn’t want to deal with the Block Editor. Even a novice could feel safe at starting a DreamPress $16.95/mo ($203.40/year) blog, and/or probably even do OK paying another $99 to have their WordPress.com blog moved to DreamHost.

Someone with experience could probably go to any of the Web Hosting sites ‘n pick the right package/s that was/were safe & secure. It’s still gonna cost some money, because I didn’t see any of the sites offering a WordPress.com Free plan.

At some point in the future, I may try this again, but moving would be too much for me right now. Just the Web Hosting topic research was too hectic for me!  😉

Will add this post to the Web Hosting Info ‘n Ideas page…

LINUX IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES – you never know what you’re gonna get!

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