Tried to create it online on my own. It basically got into a never-ending loop. Called them up. Got their new Philippines Call Center. They were good. Admitted that it was best IF THEY set it up, rather than I trying to do it myself. They went ahead and set up a site for me. Took about 30 minutes. I was OK with that.
I had forgotten how much work it is to get a WP site up and running. But, I have been using WP, DAILY, for 20 years! So, I got a basic site up. Got the NameServers updated at GoDaddy. So, to be fair, I had it up and running …
THEN the troubles started. Biggest issue was that new updates to the site were NOT getting propagated. I would make changes to the home page and PUBLISH it. I would be able to see the CHANGES on my Chrome browser BECAUSE I am always logged onto WordPress. But, the changes would NOT show on other systems!
Had to call HostGator. That was a hassle. They fixed it initially and said it was a CACHING issue — and that I should just clear the CACHE. I had been told this, on this site, a few months ago. I was OK. They AGAIN showed me how to clear the cache via SETTINGS. I was cool.
Problem happened again a few hours later. Clearing the cache didn’t fix it.
I WAS DONE.
I did some research and decided to TRY ‘Google Sites‘. I did NOT need a Blog. So, that was not a factor.
I changed the GoDaddy nameservers back to ‘PARK’ & this morning started on ‘Google Sites’. I am delighted.
NO MORE WordPress with HostGator.
I hope I can keep this site running OK. Fingers crossed.
Click to ENLARGE. Two ‘WordPress’ ‘Jetpack’ messages overlayed on ‘HostGator’ banner.
To be fair, as far as I can remember this is the FIRST outage of any note I have suffered on this site/blog in 2023. But, in a way, that is also why it comes as a JARRING shock when it happens. You get lulled into a sense of complacency & then, ‘BANG’, you get a message saying your Website is down.
I pay BIG BUCKS (& I am not joking or being facetious) for ‘WordPress’ ‘Jetpack‘. One of the key things it does is regularly monitor Website availability.
Getting a message from Jetpack saying that the site is down is not pleasant. Your first reaction is to check it, i.e., check the site. They were right. WOW.
All sorts of bad scenarios go through your head. Has the site been HACKED. What will it take to restore it.
I tried hard to be patient. So, rather than continuing to check repeatedly, I decided to wait. That paid off. But, NOT fun. Just glad to have it back.
Click to ENLARGE. Screenshot of my CHAT transcript with HostGator support.
This is becoming concerning. Second, major & lengthy OUTAGE at Hostgator within 16-days. As I documented here, HostGator shared hosting was up-and-down during all day Thanksgiving, i.e., November 24, 2022. It was pretty obvious that they were doing some sort of maintenance using the holiday as a cover.
Then this afternoon this site went down again. WordPress Jetpack informs me whenever it detects a Website outage. They started sending me notifications. I also discovered the outage, to my cost & chagrin, when I went to check the stats.
This site was down for over 2 hours.
The first person I spoke to at HostGator DENIED that it was a server issue. That was bad. It was pretty obvious it was. I quickly terminated that chat. It was a waste of time.
Tried again a few minutes later. As you can see above, the second person, quite quickly & readily admitted it was a server issue. Well, I knew that. Just wanted confirmation.
Not happy. HostGator was, till recently, immaculate. Now … Plus, support is nowhere near as good as it used to be.
I would like to think that they were doing some server maintenance or possibly even an upgrade — trying to sneak it in during the holiday hoping that only a few would notice. If that was the case, it would have been nicer & more professional if they had given us a heads up. C’est la vie. It is done now — I hope.
I get these automated messages from ‘WordPress‘ ‘Jetpack‘ whenever they detect a site outage. I got at least 4 of them yesterday, the one shown above the last. Per these messages at least 2 of the outages lasted for over an hour. So, I think, in total, I suffered close to 4 hours of downtime, if not more. Not happy, but not much I can do.
At one point, late in the afternoon, during the 3rd outage I contacted ‘Hostgator’ support via chat. To begin with they were not aware of the downtime. Then they confirmed that it was a server issue at their end. That I knew. I knew it wasn’t MY Website, i.e., this one (you are reading).
I am just basically documenting this. As I said before, not much I can do.
To be fair, Hostgator outages, SO FAR, have been few & far between. I hope it stays that way.
Maybe I have been spoiled. ‘Hostgator‘, in my experience over the last 14-months, has been very reliable & stable. It has always been there.
So, this afternoon, just after 1pm (Eastern) when I could NOT login to access this blog it was scary. My immediate reaction is that I have screwed up or something has gone wrong on my end. I deleted the 29 Hostgator cookies on the PC. Still no luck.
Tried to call them. After negotiating their INFURIATING automated call screening system I was told that I would get a call back in 31 minutes. That was over 110 minutes ago!
Managed to get through on CHAT by claiming that I was a new customer. Couldn’t get through as an existing customer because LOGIN wouldn’t work. Not good. They confirmed that the problem was theirs — at their end. That was a RELIEF.
Just managed to LOGIN. Yes, I kept on trying.
What a RELIEF. Yes, it is distressing when I can’t get to this BLOG. SMILE.
At least in my case I see too many ‘hits’ on my site, i.e., this Website, from bots. They totally distort my traffic stats. I don’t do these posts for bots! I do them for human consumption.
Yes, as you can see from the second image above I already use a plugin to eradicate SOME blogs from this site. But, it doesn’t seem to be enough. How else can you explain all the visits I get from Azerbaijan. I am sure it is a lovely country & the people are stellar, BUT for the world of me I cannot see what folks in Azerbaijan find so intriguing about my posts! I get more hits from Azerbaijan than I do from Canada or any European country bar my native U.K. That somehow does not seem right.
I would love to learn what percentage of WordPress traffic is bot generated.
Click to ENLARGE. Link to WP description of this plugin.
I won’t mention the details for obvious (i.e., ‘security’) reasons but I had been noticing some incongruous traffic to this blog over the last few weeks. I had been waiting until I had some spare time to look into this. This afternoon, I did. I started by calling the OUTSTANDING, EXEMPLARY phone support at my hosting provider, ‘HostGator‘. [I am so glad that I picked HostGator as my new hosting company. They offer some really great support.]
They explained to me that this was probably BAD BOTS! I had never even thought of that. Yikes, BOTS visiting this blog. Is there nothing sacred?
They told me about this WP.org provided plugin: ‘Blackhole for Bad Bots‘. I checked it out. It is NOT a 3rd party plugin per se. WP.org supports it. I was game. Looked like exactly what I needed.
The only thing was updating the ‘robots.txt’ file. I needed help with that. HostGator AGAIN stepped in & did it for I. I am delighted.
Now, I have to wait & see if it works.
Just letting you know since this might be of use to YOU.
‘GoDaddy’ & I, as I talked about in this September 2021 post, go back 22-years.
I was a huge fan & promoter of GoDaddy. At one stage, c. 2010, I probably had 35 ‘products’ — viz., registered domain names, hosted sites & e-mail accounts — at GoDaddy. I had ALL of my ‘Web’ stuff with them (without exception) & tried to get most of my clients to move their stuff over to them too. I swore by GoDaddy — but the swearing had to do with how great they were. My yearly invoices from GoDaddy, as I would be reminded each year as I filed my taxes, ran into the thousands.
GoDaddy, under the legendary founder ‘Bob Parsons’ was good to I & I was grateful. It was not always smooth sailing, but boy, ‘oh, boy!’, did they try. Their support used to be so responsive. They had a highly technical group called the ‘Tiger Team‘. If you were a ‘preferential customer‘, either because you had highly technical needs or you bought a lot of products, your technical issues would be escalated to the ‘Tiger Team’. They were good. They would get on the phone with you.
Well, this is BUT nostalgia.
GoDaddy is a shadow of what it used to be in its heyday. ‘Blake Irving‘, who became their CEO, in 2013, in my opinion, changed the company forever — &, alas, not for the better. I was never a fan of his. I guess this 2017 post was not that subtle as to how I felt. SMILE.
Click image to access my 2017 post at my old blog.
Well, alas, this is not the first unfortunate data breach that GoDaddy has endured. They had another one just 2-years ago! Yes, just two years ago — October 19, 2019.
I started this, my latest (& hopefully ‘greatest’) website/blog in June of this year. I spent weeks looking for the right hosting company for I — & I had decided I was going to use WordPress. I had had 20 (or more) managed WordPress sites at GoDaddy. But, this time around I barely spent 5 minutes thinking about them as an option. I went, in the end, with ‘HostGator‘. So far, they have been immaculate.
I am, of course, delighted that I am NOT a GoDaddy WordPress customer. This data breach will be such a pain for MILLIONS as they scramble trying to change passwords etc. This was NOT acceptable on the part of GoDaddy.
