Host Hopping?

After my site was crumpled from momentary Digg frontpage action, I’ve been more and more frustrated with GoDaddy. I’m considering a couple things:

1) Switching to Blogger. It’s free, it supports domain names, and if Digg brings down Google, we’re all in trouble. The downside is I’ll miss all my widgets, BUT Blogger seems to support almost as many widgets if not more. I’m really leaning this way, to be honest.

2) Switching to WordPress.com. Automatix can support the Digg effect quite happily, but unfortunately, domain hosting is not free. I really love the WordPress folks though, so I kinda wanna stick with ’em for the long haul.

3) Paying for a better host. NearlyFreeSpeech.net claims to handle huge spikes in traffic, and you only pay for what you use. I like that idea. (Hat tip to Topher for the link)

Thoughts?

15 thoughts on “Host Hopping?”

  1. Did you ever listen real hard to someone talking a different language cause it just seems like if you listen hard enough you will understand …..and your head starts to hurt cause your trying so hard?? I’m there.

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  2. I think you would ultimately find the lack of control at the root level at Blogger or WordPress.com frustrating. It’s the asp model vs. the self-hosted model – you have to take what they give you, and like it. Stick w/ self hosted wordpress and find a more robust hosting solution.

    Shawn’s mom – you and my mom would get along GREAT – and I’m super glad you’re commenting too!

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  3. I’ve had paid hosting for years–since ’99 I believe. I pay about $100 a year, which is less than $10 a month, which I think is eminently reasonable.

    I’d recommend my current host, but I’ve had problems in the past several months and if the problems continue will look for another host.

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  4. I’m using blogger and it’s ok for the kind of person who just wants point and click options. I havnt gotten in depth with all the site layout options or widgets yet though.

    The nice thing about using a something with a point and click cookie cutter web interface is that it’s one less server to worry about in life.

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  5. I say do whatever is cheapest that works for you. And then block your pages from being submitted to digg(and remove the link on your blog that let’s you do it) and similar sites. You told us that you don’t like digg anymore anywyas 🙂

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  6. Ryder, you have no sense of adventure. 😀

    Shawn, I use blogger. I’m not high-volume, but I know others who ARE who use it and they all have come to rely heavily on its ability to take slashdotting, digging, etc. As you indicated, Google would be a toughie to bring down because someone got happy with the the Digg It! icon.

    Shawn’s Mom, I second the “glad you’re posting” sentiment. I think mine is afraid to even look at my blog.

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  7. I actually switched to Dreamhost from iPowerWeb. I had a little trouble at first (for about a month, there were some server issues with my server), but they gave me three months extra free hosting and I haven’t seen problems since. They give you two GB of space (and I think 10GB of bandwidth) a week, so you never run out of space.

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  8. I would recommend moving to Blogger so you’d have less to worry about – just blog and take care of the other things in your life.

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  9. Je suis avec 1&1 maintenant purement parce qu’il était bon marché ($9/mois).

    I’m with 1&1 now purely because it was cheap ($9/month) and have been very happy but I’ve not been Dugg like SOME of us. If I were going to switch I’d move to DreamHost based on my research and talking to readers (fringe LJ readers are ALL about the DreamHost).

    DreamHost touts an auto-installer for WordPress installation and an auto-upgrader (the latter being moot as it’s really just a WP extension as I’m sure you know and an awesome one at that). Here’s how you can move your WordPress site to DreamHost, http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Move_WordPress_to_DreamHost. Oh and DreamHost has a special running for $7.95/month if you’re interested, http://www.dreamhost.com/wordpress.html.

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