Things To Know About The New GoDaddy WordPress Hosting

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About a month ago I migrated all of my sites from BlueHost back over to the new GoDaddy WordPress Hosting platform.   It’s funny how things go around, because when I started blogging I hosted on GoDaddy then and to be honest it was awful.  That being said they have released a new WordPress Hosting platform that looked to be interesting.  I manage all my domains and DNS there so I wanted to see if I could get things back in one place.  I won’t go over the actual migration but I wanted to provide some input into the platform now that I’ve been using it for a bit.

GoDaddy WordPress Hosting – Price

Compared to the dedicated WordPress package on BlueHost I was using the price is on par.  Bear in mind the prices they usually show are the initial “Sale” price but the regular pricing is what you need to be aware of.  I made that little mistake when I initially ordered the Pro Plan because the price looked so good, then I realized it was going to bill the next month for almost double.  This is a long time practice of GoDaddy that I have never been a fan of, those sale prices are sneaky.  For my purposes I setup the business plan, but I have another site I setup for someone that the basic plan was good enough.  Be sure to look at the feature comparison before you choose as the basic plan does not provide the “Staging Site” option.

  • Starter Plan – $6.99 / Month
  • Business Plan – $19.99 / Month
  • Pro Plan – $69.99 / Month

GoDaddy WordPress Hosting – Performance

I can tell you out of the gate compared to their old offering the performance is MUCH better so far.  One thing they have integrated is built-in caching so you don’t need to use other caching plugins.  They have a custom “Flush Cache” option in the Admin bar based on a multi-use plugin they wrote and install in each site.

I also have a couple WordPress sites running on their standard Linux hosting and I can tell you there is a pretty big difference on noticeable performance.  I did that just to compare and those sites are even very small.  It’s also where I can host my InfiniteWP installation for multi-site management.

GoDaddy WordPress Hosting – Management

For me who also hosts my domains there this was a nice capability to spin up a site on a temporary domain, then assign the domain name on my account to it.  That allowed me to test and stage the migration easily before cutting over the DNS A-Record.  The only thing I did not like was all passwords are randomly generated and you cannot change them.  You do have phpMYadmin access as well as SSH available on the Business and Pro plans but not the starter plan.

godaddy_settingsYou can also see the other options included are:

  • Backups
  • DNS
  • SSH & SFTP
  • Databases
  • Staging
  • Remove Site

GoDaddy WordPress Hosting – Tuning and Customization

One thing I found on BlueHost with my Virtual Fitness website was that the menus had so many objects that I needed to change the max_input limit and that was not easy on BlueHost.  I found out after I saved the menu changes and lost a ton of content.  Something I found and confirmed IS supported with GoDaddy is to place a php.ini file in your root WordPress directory and alter settings like the max_input and upload_file_max_size settings yourself.  I was VERY pleased to find out this not only worked but it was also in fact supported to do so.  This gives you a lot of PHP control when you need to change a few minor parameters to meet your needs.  I just found a stock php.ini file, used SFTP to upload it and made my changes.

In some cases the changes take effect right away, and on others it seemed to take some time but they always took.

GoDaddy WordPress Hosting – Give It A Try

One thing I always say is it’s always fun to just give something a try.  In this case I’m a little impressed with the offering itself and the flexibility of it.  I’ve even had a few email exchanges with the product team to offer suggestions and roll up some of my findings and they have been pretty responsive to me.  The only thing I’d like to see is multi-site support officially on this platform for some of my other uses, but they say that may be coming as well.

Have you tried it already?  If so what are your thoughts?

About Chris Colotti

Chris is active on the VMUG and event speaking circuit and is available for many events if you want to reach out and ask. Previously to this he spent close to a decade working for VMware as a Principal Architect. Previous to his nine plus years at VMware, Chris was a System Administrator that evolved his career into a data center architect. Chris spends a lot of time mentoring co-workers and friends on the benefits of personal growth and professional development. Chris is also amongst the first VMware Certified Design Experts (VCDX#37), and author of multiple white papers. In his spare time he helps his wife Julie run her promotional products as the accountant, book keeper, and IT Support. Chris also believes in both a healthy body and healthy mind, and has become heavily involved with fitness as a Diamond Team Beachbody Coach using P90X and other Beachbody Programs. Although Technology is his day job, Chris is passionate about fitness after losing 60 pounds himself in the last few years.

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