Website move…

First of all…doesn’t the guy in this pic look like Chris Evans aka Captain America?!?! Yeah, he could work on my website anytime. 😉

Okay, focus…focus… The real point of this post is to say that so far 2018 has been a year of website headaches and moves. Argh! My old website that I used from 2012 to the end of 2017 had given me more than one moment of grief. I was hacked during that time. Twice. The host company that was supposed to be managing my WordPress site, messed things up. Twice. They weren’t doing security upgrades like they were supposed to. The first time, okay, accidents happen. But the second time, only about nine months later…um, I wasn’t feeling particularly forgiving about that one. Especially since my entire blog got corrupted that second time and I ended up having to delete all my old posts because the problems were so bad I couldn’t afford the time it would have taken to go to each individual post (years worth!) and individually fix all the broken image links, formatting errors, etc.  My domain email got hacked both times as well, which was a mess. When that all happened, my search rankings on Google tanked and my website pretty much became impossible to find unless someone first went to my social media pages and followed a link from there. I came up at the top of every other search engine, but Google’s picky, and being hacked obviously put me on a shit list somewhere. After another incident (minor, but at that point I was so done with the BS) in late 2017, I decided it was time to move to a new host and maybe try something besides WordPress for a change of pace.

So I moved. To a different platform completely. One that was fancy and had great reviews. I built a new website from the ground up. I didn’t have as many options as I did with WP, but I was determined to make it work. I simplified my site (since I couldn’t do all the things with ease that I might have on WP, but again, I was determined…) I made sure I had all my boxes checked as far as SEO. I started a new blog (though I hated the comment system on the new platform, but again…I. Was. Determined.) Then I sat back and crossed my fingers. My search rankings on Google did improve some. Not enough, but some, which was better than it had been. But over time I began to realize that I hated not having as much control over my site as I did with WP. Other issues began to crop up, ones the new platform didn’t give me access to fix to my satisfaction. And, so, frustration set in again. If I was going to be paying this new platform significantly more than I had been paying for my WP hosting, then I damn well ought to be able to customize more than they were letting me. Were the issues huge? No. Could I have stuck it out for a while longer? Sure. But after a couple of years of problems with my site already, I don’t think it was too much to ask to friggin’ have this new, more expensive platform offer me a smooth-sailing experience.

Which leads me to now. Yep, I migrated again. I’m back to the Word Press platform because I had sooo missed the customization, so missed the comment system, so missed…well…everything. Different hosting situation this time, though. So far, as I’ve been rebuilding my site, it’s been good! Hopefully I can stay put for a while. *Please, website gods…please!* I’ve also changed my domain in hopes it will give me a fresh start with Google. No idea if it’ll work, but I had exhausted so many other possibilities that I figured my rankings couldn’t get much worse (truly, they were *that* bad). And, who knows, maybe this will actually help. Or not.

Anyway…I’ve added some new content to my site. My Twitter feed is now linked, since I’m active there most days. I’ve added a couple of new pages, and plan to add a couple more over the next few months. Let me know in the comments below if there’s anything else you’d like to see here. I’m always open to suggestions.

Until next time! (Until the next blog post…not the next move. :-o)