Yesterday, Godaddy joined the throng of companies offering specialized managed WordPress hosting. I was among 142 people that attended their online launch which was held as a Google hangout.
The two Godaddy WordPress Support guys presenting clearly knew their stuff and outlined the characteristics that all managed WordPress managed hosts offer.
WordPress Managed Hosting – Key Features
- Higher security as it is tuned to specific WordPress threats
- Better performance as it is tuned to specific WordPress characteristics
- Nightly backups for data security and easier restores
- Temporary domains to make it easy to test before going live
- One click install for new sites
- Automatic WordPress Core updates
- Database Access
- SFTP Access
- Dangerous Plugin Protection
- Malware Scanning
Godaddy Managed Hosting – One Important Missing Feature
During the presentation Liz, my partner, asked if an dedicated IP address was provided. The answer was no, although it is something that might be offered in the future.
This is a show-stopper for using the service for a business critical site. If the IP address gets banned due to the dubious content of another site on the same IP address, then there is a risk that some temporary collateral damage to your site will take place. Your site may lose all or some of its traffic until Godaddy remove the culprit and get the IP address unbanned.
Godaddy Managed Hosting – Best Feature
Well of course, the best feature of this service is the price, which is $6.99 per month. This is around one quarter of the price offered by most of their competitors. Godaddy have positioned themselves as a no-brainer as far is price is concerned – the question remains is what the quality of service is like. The only way to find out was to try it. So I did.
GoDaddy Managed Hosting – Our First Site
I signed up with the 25% discount code, and tried to move an existing site using the 1-click migrator.
Initial impressions were not great. The migration failed with an invalid WordPress login even although the details I entered were correct. The site I decided to migrate was not on Godaddy so I think the migrator only works when moving sites from one Godaddy host to another. It looks like I will need to do a manual move using the WordPress Importer Plugin. I will write again once I have the site operational.
