New Host, New Domain, and New Version of Wordpress

Sunday, March 30, 2008, 19:25
Ramblings, Tech
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16 comments

I’ve been with Godaddy for almost two months on an economy plan and I registered my first domain their too. You can’t say no to their $1.95 domain promo when you buy a non-domain product and their retail pricing option sealed the deal. You might think the reason for moving is their poor customer service, or their lack of Cpanel, or a sluggish load time but, no. It wasn’t that.

Godaddy is a good host, for beginners. 10 G of storage and 300 G of bandwith per month is more than enough for startup blogs. Load time is at par with those hosted on Bluehost and Hostmonster too. The lack of Cpanel was never an issue then cause I don’t even know what a Cpanel is until I went to Holdfire. They don’t have live online support though. That’s a bummer for international subscribers. We have to wait for a day for our emailed queries were responded. 5 days ago, I finally decided to bid farewell to Godaddy, and move to a new host. I would not say my new host, Holdfire, is better . In fact, has lesser storage space (4 G) and bandwith (125 G). The catch is on the unlimited MySQL Database, unlimited subdomains, unlimited parked domains and 5 (yes 5!) add-on domains. All these and more costs only $45 dollars a year. However, since I used the Holdfire promotional code, HOSTIGG (all caps), I got a year’s hosting only for $20!

Since I go with the idea that “a penny saved, is a penny earned” and that a good entrepreneur always invests his savings, I invested $6.5 to register a new domain and start my own social network. It’s not like I’m gonna compete with Facebook, Friendster (Freindster, Frienster, Freinster. heheh just optimizing keywords) and Myspace. I’m making one for our city, the Amish-like community where I live. I called it MaasinSii a combination of its name and the famous local expression, “sii” (wee don’t have any translation for this). I’m gonna tell you more about it later on.

The transfer of hosts has not been easy. I just kept gazing at my monitor, clueless of what to do next. Thanks to Google search that provided a ray of light into database backup and restoration, DNS propagation, FTP configuration and shell commands, and ultimately, database migration. I could have opted to simply go to the Manage Tab in Wordpress and hit Export but there are a lot more data than just posts, comments, and custom fields that should be migrated. I needed my Statpress Stats, Popularity Contest stats and the Pageviews too.

My first look at the database using phpMyAdmin sent shivers to my spine. It was a whole new world for me. I never seen such commands before. I managed to do the SQL export based on my manual then had 2 copies of it in my hard drive then proceeded to changing my name servers. I was prepared to call it a day already since per instruction, it would take 24 hours of more for the new IP to propagate on the net but after 5 minutes, the ping already showed a new set of IP details. My dilemma didn’t end there. Some of my plug-ins weren’t working and my custom fields are jumbled up. Apparently, my database backup was corrupted and I can’t do something about it cause I already deleted the old one. I spent 2 days manually fixing it and just as I finished, Wordpress 2.5 arrived. I was back to the backing up databases, backing up files, deleting old installations and turning my site back on again. This time, I did it with lesser sweat.

What can’t kill you only makes you stronger, according to old adage. In my case, it also made me wiser too. With a little bit of patience, a creative way of searching Google and an analytical mind open for new inputs, I can and will, survive cyberspace!

Tags: database, dns, domain, domain transfer, Features, ftp, godaddy, holdfire, how to transfeer wordpress to anther host, php, pypmyadmin, registration, server migration, server transfer, sql, ssh, ssl, transfer hosting, transfering wordpress, update, upgrade, web hosting, wordpress 2.5

About the Author

Bendz has written 179 stories on this site.

A youth leader on hiatus. Currently striving to finish his degree, manage a business, write a blog, watch his favorite TV series, attain world dominion and look like the guy on the picture. He's a Filipino who likes to think of himself as a citizen of the world.

16 Comments on “New Host, New Domain, and New Version of Wordpress”

bloggista wrote on 30 March, 2008, 21:57
i signed up for bluehost too last week. Unfortunately, I am still learning on how to transfer my Wordpress database to bluehost. Although Im proud to say, I just had my first AdsServer. hehehe. Check it out working at bloggista.org. Im still stuck with iPower. Could not make the transfer until i know how it is done. Poor me.
bloggista’s last blog post..The power of EntreCredits: Buys me a new logo and banner
Rome wrote on 31 March, 2008, 5:57
Hi bendz! haha congats!

Rome’s last blog post..Unlimited Calls Free - Is There Such a Thing as Unlimited Calls?
Rome wrote on 31 March, 2008, 5:58
bendz. ang ako comment. plhug nlng. akismet. hehe
bendz wrote on 31 March, 2008, 11:20
@bloggista

transferring database is a breeze heheheh. Just look for the resource on google

@ Rome

Sent you an IM at yahoo.
Michael Aulia wrote on 31 March, 2008, 11:34
phpMyAdmin is good. The best freeware program ever
Michael Aulia’s last blog post..Wordpress 2.5 release!
maline wrote on 31 March, 2008, 14:47
I am still on a look for another host. currently i am paying Php413 a month for 7.5GB traffic and 300MB space. i was about to transfer to philhosting and already paid 550pesos for 1 year, but i won’t continue the transfer coz i read lots of negative reviews about them. hay, sayang ang 550.

nwei,i am planning to upgrade to wp 2.5 but afraid to mess up my blog. coz the other site i made, i used 2.3 and up until now, i can’t make the comments work and can’t edit the theme even if i changed permissions already.hmm.. but reading from ur blog, i think it’s just a breeze.

maline’s last blog post..WORDLESS SUNDAY #11 - PERSEVERANCE
Bendz wrote on 31 March, 2008, 20:54
You should consider Hostfire or Godaddy. I’m an advocate of the “Buy Filipino” Movement but most of pinoy web hosts sucks and they suck big time!

Perhaps by now, you have 20 dollars in paypal. go to holdfire.org and do as I did, use HOSTIGG as promocode and get your 1 year hosting for just about 800 pesos. If you could spend a bit more, go for Bluehost.

Blogging is business and everyday, a new player joins the bandwagon. The best way to gain competitive advantage in this business is to ensure quality web resources and 300 MB of space and 7.5 GB of bandwith is not quality.

Oh my! Papatayin na talaga ako ni Yuga nito. heheheh
bloggistar wrote on 1 April, 2008, 10:01
Anak ng… Hirap din pala mag transfer sa BlueHost! Ang dami hinihingi! Kelangan pa tawagan para maka pag transfer amp goodness. Im still stuck with iPower. Although in terms of space and bandwidth, pareho lang sila, tig 5Terrabaytes ang space tsaka 15 Terrabytes ang Bandwidth. Just in case you want bluehost, you can sign-up using my referral and will rebate you 35USD. Hehehe.

bloggistar’s last blog post..Does Outsourcing of Jobs hurt Americans?
Bendz wrote on 1 April, 2008, 10:13
I’m an afiliate too. heheh. It could have been easier if you didn’t opt for the Cpanel to Cpanel transfer and did it yourself.
Enivob wrote on 6 April, 2008, 10:50
I just tranistioned my website to vDeck 3.0. I wish I hadn’t because everything broke. IpowerWeb has a window where you can preview your site before and after the transition. Everything looked fine, so clicked the transition button. Then all my datbase connections broke.

I discovered that some of my databases were not transitioned at all. So I figured out that you can no longer use ‘localhost’ you have to go into the control panel, click on the mySQL icon, then grab the name of the mySQL server from the bottom of the database box, typically “myDomainPrefixName.ipowermysql.com “. This got me an SQL connection, so popped up all the wordpress 2.5 files and ran the install only to see that the include files for the install were being treated as text and displayed on the screen. This happened to me on GoDaddy.com a few years back with postnuke, so I have seen it before. It is a security lockdown on PHP itself. I was unable to get GoDaddy to fix the problem so I switched to IpowerWeb. I am not even going to bother calling ipower, I am simply going to chose another hosting company.

My advice to the hosting companies of the world is “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
Bendz wrote on 6 April, 2008, 11:33
Hahah nice advise. I haven’t had that problem on my host yet. Even added several domains now and it’s doing well so far.

I still have plans to transfer to Bluehost, though.
Zang wrote on 8 April, 2008, 10:54
you can try out my webhost if you want. i am really satisfied with their service. they have a lot more to offer than holdfire. read my post about it.

Zang’s last blog post..My Vincent Bueno is on Asian Journal!
Artemije wrote on 6 November, 2008, 13:18
Somewhere I have seen … And if on that very much.
WriterMyk wrote on 29 November, 2008, 5:26
nice post bendz. thnx 4 sharing your experience on moving to a new host.
pero pansin ko lng, there’s something wrong yata with the Holdfire link..

WriterMyks last blog post..Do You Reduce Quality with Outsourcing?