Blogging: Rebranding and Moving Hosts - There's a lot involved in choosing a new WordPress Host

Who takes on moving a website and rebranding during the busiest time of the year? This girl! Why? Beyond the fact that I think I’ve gone insane, the name MiscFinds4u never fit. It was a leftover URL from my eBay selling days and one I happened to own when I decided to give blogging a try.

I never thought I’d be blogging full-time. In the beginning it was just a way to create some of the product reviews I was doing on epinions.com, on my own site instead of theirs. My “real” job was an online retailer.  I didn’t mind the name then, because it sort of fit what I was doing.

But then my focus changed and I became a full-time blogger and I closed down my online store. By then I’d grown a following of very kind readers (thank you)  and been awarded a Google Page Rank of 4, which in the blogging world is like gold. So I decided that in order to preserve my audience and my ranking, I’d live with the name that I’d grown to loathe.

Blogging: Rebranding and Moving Hosts

So why then have I changed my mind and decided to re-brand starting with a new name and URL? It’s because the blog has grown beyond me. It’s a family blog now with my husband, two sons and their wife and girlfriend, my two nieces, and two blogging friends that have become like family, contributing more. Oh and John, the random seatmate on a flight from California that I bonded with instantly over a love for tech a year or so ago.

It’s also because I’ve grown tired of my webhost and their inability to host a blog powered by WordPress. Their official company line when pressed, is that they’re WordPress-friendly; I can tell you from experience that they’re far from it.  There are too many Live Help chats that start out friendly and helpful, only to switch tones to terse and rude, when they realize I’m running WordPress. They then start pushing  automated “Optimize Your WordPress” urls to me and ignoring my pleas for assistance. Ironically, many times my problem is not related to my WP installation at all. But once they see my WordPress blog, they switch to automatic “it’s WP that’s the problem, not us.”

The problem with that though is that I’d already done all of the optimization that they required and then some. I hired a private coder to go over my code and compress it, I was careful to upload photos and files in appropriate sizes. I manually went through my uploaded files and removed unwanted thumbnails left over from changing themes and auto-generating new thumbnail sizes. I installed CloudFlare  to block bots and cache my site. In all, I spent a thousand dollars and two weeks of time working to make sure I was fully in compliance.

But still they sent the “optimize your site” info and washed their hands of my problem as soon as they saw realized I was WordPress site. It had become a never-ending problem of trying to make sure I didn’t have too many plug-ins running when my site was attacked by bots (that my host never could recognize as such until they restricted my site and I spent time on the Live Chat explaining to the tech that it was there problem and not mine), or when I had a spike in traffic. They penalized me for something I had no control over, and something they could have easily recognized and blocked, or allowed me to upgrade to something between what I was paying and their dedicated servers which started at $120 and were much more than my site warranted, or that I could afford.

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook (which I hope you do!) you’ll have seen my valid rants about my current host and their inability to embrace WordPress, which is used by billions of blog the world over. So yes, as part of this makeover we’re making-over our host as well.  I want this to be the last host move I ever have to do, so this time I chose a hosting company that actually ENCOURAGES and SUPPORTS WordPress users.

Optimized World Press Hosting

My new host has Optimized Word Press Hosting, which means I’ll be able to use all of the features that will make our site better for you – it’ll be faster, easier to navigate, and there will be more ways for you to interact with us. My new host is Blue Host and I’ll be sharing  my experience with them over the next year.

Yes, my hosting price has increased, but I BEGGED my current host to provide the service I needed. I was willing to pay more, instead they told me go dedicated or  offer you less. Neither were an option for me.

So I’ll be moving the site and have already updated most of our Social Media accounts. Rebranding isn’t easy and there are so many pitfalls still to conquer, so you may find some discrepancies throughout our blog and social networks for awhile. But I hope you’ll make the journey with me over to Baby to Boomer Lifestyle (www.babytoboomer.com) where we’ll be expanding our infant and children section and sharing more about what it’s like to be entering our “golden years,” because after all, if you’re lucky. you’ll be following behind shortly.

I’ll also be sharing more about the rebranding process, what it entails, where some of the hidden issues are, and how to get a fresh start on a new host and leave some of your WordPress problems behind.

Thanks for your patience while we make the move to Blue Host and here’s to finding new adventures and fun on our new site.