Before this post, the last time I wrote an article on this blog was back in March. Before that happened, I’d been keeping a schedule of writing an article a week to generate more traffic to the site, not necessarily to market any of my products, but because I actually enjoy talking to people who leave real comments here.
I’m back!
Throughout the years, I’ve always tried to stick to writing at least once every couple of weeks. When I started this blog, I was writing almost daily; I wrote 1,000 articles in less than 3 years back in the day; blogging was fun. Because of travel as a consultant, sometimes it was every 2 weeks. But in general terms, I kept my content up to date.
Then I received a message saying that my SSL certificates were about to expire, something most of you don’t know anything about because you probably host your blog with webhosting companies that offer it for free. The thing is, my accounts are with Ionos, which doesn’t have cPanel. They also charge for SSL certificates unless you move your domain names to their site… something I’m hesitant to do.
I got my first domain in 2002; I got this domain in 2007. The first domain was with a different hosting company; Ionos didn’t exist then. In 2005 the original hosting company crashed, and I lost everything, which means both my business website and my business blog. I contacted a friend of mine who recommended 1&1, which was a relatively new webhost, and I trusted her judgment, so I signed up with them. Another friend of mine, who was sharing the same hosting company I was on (he found it initially) was going to switch with me, but he said they didn’t have cPanel, so he went in another direction. I had no idea what that was, and the price was right, so that’s where I went.
Sometime in the 2010s, 1&1 was sold and became Ionos. Also sometime in the 2010s, someone (I blame Google, but I’m not sure if it was actually their fault) decided that websites needed to be more secure than they’d been, and that’s when SSL certificates came about. For a short while, everyone was paying something for them, but that changed along the way… which I didn’t know about since I was traveling for my business.
I also hadn’t been paying attention to how much I was paying on a yearly basis for the right to have secure domain names until some time last year, when I got a bill that I thought was outrageous. However, I didn’t have time to think about trying to find another company, so I went ahead and paid for it, and didn’t think about it again until April of this year.
Overall, I was on a minimal budget at the time, so I needed to make sure I could pay bills and buy some food, and that was about it. The bill came… and it was $112! That was way outside of my monthly budget, so I called the company and talked to them about it. They only offer one free SSL certificate, and I needed that for my business domain, so I had to make a monetary decision; I had to go without the certificates for the other sites for a while.
Some of you might or might not know, but without your site having the SSL certificate, no one can see your content or visit your site via a computer. Using a smartphone, you can see the titles of articles, but you can’t see any of the content. I couldn’t even get into my own sites other than my business site, so there was nothing I could do.
Until June, when I thought it was time to look for a different hosting company to move to. I’m kind of a loyal guy, and I’m hesitant to change, but it was time to make one. I asked a few people, and one of them named a company, which I’m not going to mention in this blog post, but if you’re interested you can watch the video at the end of this article.
The price was right, but I had questions, so I went on a fact finding mission, and came upon an interesting discovery. They asked me about cPanel, and I mentioned that Ionos doesn’t have that. I was asked the same question 4 days later, so I researched the company and didn’t see any mention regarding working with websites that aren’t on cPanel. I asked a specific question: “can you migrate websites that aren’t on cPanel”? The response was “yes”.
So I pay my $30 for the first year and thought things were going to run smoothly… only to discover a week later that they hadn’t even started on it. When I reached out, I was told that I hadn’t answered any of their questions; I wrote back saying I did answer the questions I could, but I didn’t know how to answer all of the questions they asked me about, and I copied the entire email showing that I’d done that and when I did it.
Then I heard nothing for a few days, and I was irked. I tried calling; nope. I tried the text menu; nope. Then I decided it was time to cancel the contract; that only took 15 minutes, and I got my money back 3 days after that.
Luckily, my finances changed, so I contacted Ionos to talk about both my webhosting, which I knew was coming up in August, along with the SSL thing. Everything else will be in the video below, but in essence I’m paying them for another year of SSL certificate coverage and hosting… and this blog is finally back!
The lessons we have to learn, right? I’m going to be doing a lot of research over the next year to see if I have any real choices regarding hosting and SSL certificates, because I know I’m paying more than almost all of you; ugh! lol
That’s most of the story; for the rest, check out the video. Now to get back into my content routine; I’ve missed being here!
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Welcome back, Mitch! I did not know there were web hosts without cPanels or free SSL certificates. I’m too lazy to change hosting companies, and have been with Bluehost since 2013, with few complaints. So far, they have been willing to negotiate renewal prices with me, but we’ll see what happens in November when the contract is up.
Hey Debbie. I never thought about it much, but over the last year I learned about it. I have this loyal streak, so I was good with who I was with, but taking a shot at cutting my costs in half seemed like the smart thing to do… until it wasn’t. The thing is, it wouldn’t have made a difference before we had to worry about web security issues hiding our online presence if our sites weren’t secure until around 2013, while I was traveling for my career; time and changes aren’t always your friend. Good luck with your negotiations.
Hi Mitch, I changed my hosting company a few months ago and had my techie Mayura do it but it was still a ton of work and traffic dropped for a few weeks.
I’m on my 3rd hosting company now, called Quicc. Some new technology for faster speed.
Now it seems to be working well but there is so much involved with hosting and getting the right one as your blog grows.
I hope all goes well now for you with the blog.
Hopefully no more further changes in hosting for either of us.
Thanks Lisa; I just hope I can find the energy to blog for another 5 years or so. As for the hosting issue… I’m feeling like I don’t have an actual way to cover myself… maybe… 🙂
Hi Mitch, I wonder if SSL is even necessary. But before I get on to that, did you consider Let’s Encrypt? They give away SSL certificates, though it is not always that easy to integrate them into your hosting environment.
Secondly, if you are not averse to using Cloudflare (I know they don’t have the best reputation as they used to protect some highly dubious sites), they will give sites SSL protection if they don’t have it. They are pretty easy to use.
But back to my first sentence. In 2022, we added SSL to all websites. I had ignored the whole Google advice for over a decade, which said that non-SSL sites would be penalized in ranking. I always feel that Google is full of BS. But a good friend was willing to help me do it, and set it up on Cloudflare for me.
And guess what? After we went to SSL, we dropped in rankings! My personal site went down for a search of my name, and my company site, which had been in either first or second positions since 1995, dropped below the 30s! The computer “experts” all said to wait as before long, Google would sort it all out and restore them to where they were. Well, it’s two-and-a-half years later, and that hasn’t happened for my company site, still languishing in the 30s. My personal site is back up top.
Once again, Google, the experts, and all the search engine publications were entirely and demonstrably wrong. I don’t know why I take heed of their advice, as it has really hurt the traffic to my work site.
Hey Jack! First, I read about Let’s Encrypt, but it doesn’t get me out of trouble. See, without the SSL certificates, I couldn’t get into my own sites, which was greatly problematic. I couldn’t get into it, and people couldn’t get into any of my articles, even via mobile phones. Ionos doesn’t allow anyone to use a different SSL certificate on their site, which I know other hosting packages allow, so I’m pretty much stuck at this juncture.
As you can see, my problem without Ionos’ SSL certificates is that I can’t get into my own sites without them, and people can’t read any of my content without them either. Because they don’t use cPanel, I’m pretty much stuck where I am. Thing is, I think they’ve offered good service throughout all these years, but I wouldn’t be depressed if my hosting cost was around $60 a year with free SSL coverage. At this point in my life and business, I don’t have the money or the energy to spend time trying to figure everything else out. Thing is, if Interserver knew how to load my backup files from the the blogs (which I have on my computer), this could have easily been done and I’d have moved forward from that point. But they didn’t know how to do it, and losing 19 years of content from my business blog, 17 years from this blog and 11 or 12 from my last blog wasn’t something I was comfortable with, if you know what I mean.
Hi Mitch, as long as those folks give you good service but to me (strictly as an observer) they sound like they are making something, that should be fairly simple, really complicated. It’s not too difficult to export a Wordpress blog and re-import it elsewhere, then point your domain names to the new server. The export-and-import process is here:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-export-a-wordpress-site/
Of course, this all takes time, and it would help to have a computer guy on hand. I totally understand your discomfort in doing the big shift—and it does take plenty of mental energy and time.
It’s the kind of thing I’d have done 10 years ago; now, I don’t have the energy to go that deep into it. Heck, sometimes I forget where the quote symbol is. lol
Having a website is really a cool thing for people who love to write. I don’t know where you might have gone to, but I believe you either had some rest or never had motivation to do so. For me, my website needs good connection with bloggers and their blogs, just like yours. I would like some connections with you
I have 3 blogs and 2 YouTube channels. With that said, I couldn’t pull myself together to write as much as I used to. I was kind of depressed, because this is my “fun” blog, as opposed to my business and local blogs; it messed up my mind and I just couldn’t write. Luckily, I still did my YouTube videos so at least I was doing something. I also started a new job at the same time, so I had to get used to doing that work. Now I need to get back into my rhythm; we’ll see how that goes. Thanks for stopping by!
Glad to see you are back. I have checked in now and then to see what was new.
I keep thinking about moving providers because I don’t get the same use out of it all as I used to but your experience is sort of why I haven’t.
My current provider is pretty good about making sure things keep running and that if necessary I have tech support.
I used to be far more into learning how to do much of this on my own, but I haven’t had the same drive as I did.
Anyway, glad to see you here.
Thanks Josh. The scary thing for me is that I haven’t kept up with a lot of the technology, even older technology. Who would have thought more than 15 years ago that cPanel would catch on like it did; I didn’t have a chance… stupid loyal me! lol