First off, website noob here, really appreciate anyone who has the gusto to help me. I had built websites 20 years ago, but my skills are severely outdated. I have a number of problems I'm hoping to get some help with
ccfly.ca is my shitty new site; for my hobby
Bought my domain at godaddy… (found out how bad it is afterward)
Hosting through wordpress.com – On the explorer plan ~ $120/year
Images don't load… ever. I suspect it is a SSL issue, but can't solve it as my SSL says pending (for a week now), and can't figure out how to change the code as some help files say. Others say delete the CDN in jetpack.. my site says upgrade to access more plugins.
No backups. Apparently a $120 plan doesn't get you back ups. Is this true?
Plugins. Can I only get plugins if I pay the creator plan? Are there plugins that are required even for a basic site?
Themes. I tried multiple themes before picking this one. I think there are remnants of the old themes in my dashboard. Can I get rid of these?
Did I chose the wrong platform with wordpress.com? Any issues I have are stuck behind upgrade buttons and I don't want to pay $300+/year to upgrade to a creator for my hobby
Impossible to link to affiliate sites. I have a lot to get through before I tackle this problem, but thought I'd jot it down anyway in case someone can help.
Cheers 🍻 thank you if you got this far and thank you even more if you have some ideas to help!
Shouldn’t have bought wordpress.com plans, too much restrictions for so much money, not worth it. There are tons of better and affordable hosting.
You need to do some research on hosting. You somehow managed to pick to two of the worst. Get a refund from wordpress.com ASAP.
I would suggest get your wordpress hosting from Hostinger.
I am a developer and I have had very bad experiences with Godaddy. No free ssl, Malware attacks and bad customer support.
I have moved from Godaddy to Hostinger and they have been great.
Wow, Great job picking the worst companies, move your site to a different host and get a refund as bluesix said
Hey, as others have said. The .com is not what you’re after. See if you can cancel and backup the posts via tools -> export. (Must admit that might not be available in this commercial offering).
.com & .org are unfortunately purposely confusing so people do what you did. Understandable. And trust me a source of contention in the community (imho).
If that is a possibility then you want to find halfway decent hosting. We ruled Godaddy out already and you want to stay clear of EIG owned companies as well. If you need some ideas, post here and you’ll get some help or send me a dm.
Then you probably don’t want/need a theme if you want to use a block theme (aka Gutenberg theme) as the one already included is decent and customizable to begin with. The new one (2024) has little to do with web designing / programming anymore but is usable enough for many things. If you want to take it further – again post here and you’ll get lots of answers and possible directions. Generally 3 ways: classic, Gutenberg and FSE (full site editing – mixed bag), and page builder. Too much for this post, I’ll leave it at “play around with the 2024 theme and see if that does the trick.
And when it comes to renewing your domain, mark your calendar 2 months out, you’ll want to find a new registrar as well. GD charges for a lot of things that every other registrar does for free.
Hope this helps but feel free to ask questions.
The r/webhost sub reccos Nixihost and Known Host, you can see them on the right sidebar of that sub landing page if you’re on desktop.
I was already with Nixihost as of a few months ago and they helped me easily migrate with my cPanel backup.
The prices you’re mentioning are next level advantageous to not have basics that come free with most hosting packages. Plugins specifically shouldn’t be behind a paywall, unless you’re referring to some premium option to what you have and SSL shouldn’t take anywhere near a week.
As always, do your own research and good luck.