Reconstructed Website is Live

When you visited DomainInvesting.com this morning, you may have noticed that the website looks a bit different. I relaunched a revamped website very early this morning, and while the look and feel is very similar to what it has been for several years, the back-end has been totally reconstructed.

Several years ago when I rebranded and redesigned DomainInvesting.com, the website’s heavily customized WordPress theme was overhauled. This allowed me to design the site the way I wanted, but it also made it more challenging to update WordPress and various plugins without causing problems.

In addition to the redesign and rebrand, I also migrated my hosting to GoDaddy. The website was set up on a server using one of the older WordPress hosting plans that is no longer offered by GoDaddy. As with most technological things (like an iPhone or laptop), it was great until the back end of my site essentially became obsolete.

For the past year or so, the site operated on a version of PHP that is no longer updated or supported. When something stopped working or broke, the team at GoDaddy (led by Spike) worked to patch it as best as they could. Because of the dated and heavily customized theme I had been using, it was not easy to make changes that didn’t impact or break other parts of the website. Additionally, some functions would not work on the newer versions of PHP. As you may have seen in July, when I updated an essential plugin, the site went down for almost a day and I needed to use a backup to restore the website. Despite the fact that my site has been operating a very outdated back-end, the site managed to have almost no downtime, which I credit to GoDaddy’s assistance.

With an outdated theme, several older plugins that couldn’t be updated, and an unsupported PHP version, it became necessary to totally reconstruct the back-end.

For this project, I engaged Tim Atkins of Walnut Hill Design. Tim has done work for my family, managing another website for years. I chose Tim because of his WordPress knowledge, his commitment to a tight deadline, his trustworthiness, and the fair price he quoted for the job. Throughout this project, I have appreciated Tim’s prompt responses to my emails and phone calls, as well as his ability to execute the plan.

Tim used a popular WordPress theme and customized it to look pretty similar to how it was before. As I have mentioned many times over the years, I am thankful to have supportive advertisers who pay in advance for banner placement. This made it necessary to keep the design the same, although I didn’t really have an interest in redesigning the website either. Using a popular theme will allow me to update WordPress, plugins, and PHP whenever necessary. As you can see, the site seems to be loading faster than before.

I have been very happy with GoDaddy’s hosting and hosting support, so I am continuing to use the company for my hosting. I opted for the Enhance plan, which is part of the company’s Business Web Hosting plans.

Throughout the reconstruction process, GoDaddy’s hosting team members stayed in contact with Tim and me, and they offered advice and assistance when requested. Their support was very helpful and appreciated.

If you see anything that looks out of place, please let me know in the comment section. There are multiple components to the reconstruction of the website, and it is quite possible I missed something. This is especially true on smaller devices since I almost exclusively use my desktop, laptop, or iPhone rather than a tablet.