Well, I finally did it.

After months of indecisiveness, I decided to change my Internet web host.  Unfortunately, my prior blog is lost since I misunderstood their cancellation policy.

They cancel accounts within 48 hours, but require a 30 day notice.  So what does that mean?

It means, the site is down within 48 hours, but they continue to invoice you for 30 days.  So, essentially they have a 60 day penalty for cancellation.

My apologies to anyone who’s been looking for my site the past few days.  And to those of you who have so kindly posted comments on my blog in the past.  Unfortunately, the posts with their comments are lost in cyberspace.  Oh, I have the posts on my computer.  And may in the future re-post them, or update them.  But not today.

Today I’m thrilled to have a new host.  One with one click installation of Word Press and files.  I don’t have to fiddle with an ftp host, and try to figure it out.  Amazing!  Thank you, Hostgator.com.

My previous web host had one click installation of Word Press.  Sort of.  It was  Word Press 1.something, and they had absolutely no support for it. And the problem with that version was it doesn’t screen for spam comments.  So, I spent way too much time individually deleting spam comments.

Which is a learning experience all its own.  Some comments were gobblety gook, not just words strung together but also random letters.  Others were obviously XXX-rated, and I didn’t want to read them let alone have them on my site!

From a marketing standpoint, that web host failed several ways:

  1. No 24/7 immediate support.  They would get back to me within 24 hours, but by email.
  2. No support of their Add-ons like Word Press. Upgrading involved either manually installing the upgrade, which I couldn’t figure out how to do or asking them for instructions and having them do it.
  3. Templates outdated and little or no ability to customize, except a couple of color changes.  Maybe.
  4. Cancellation policy ridiculous as I already mentioned.
  5. Not keeping up with their competitors’ packages and upgrades.
  6. Their help desk difficult to navigate, and their tutorials often for software no longer available.

So, with my previous host I’d restarted my blog at least twice, and maybe 3 times.  All I can say is good riddance.  The 60 day penalty is steep, but worth it.