Dotty Scott answers Carolyn's questions about managed WordPress hosting versus shared hosting. Managed hosting handles security updates and malware removal, while shared hosting leaves you responsible. Scott describes a real case where managed hosting support cleaned and restored an infected site.
So what I do now is called managed WordPress hosting. You can get it through me or you can get it at— there's 5 or 6 places online. If you Google that term, you'll find it. Don't use GoDaddy's. I will tell you that up front. And generally what you're getting is a server that's configured specifically for WordPress. That means that your site will run faster, and in theory, it will be more secure than a shared environment.
Can I ask you a question? It's Carolyn. Yes. So if I have Squarespace, are you saying, just so I understand the term, I've not heard this shared hosting, that I'm obviously using their server?
Right. If you have Squarespace, then this is an irrelevant conversation for you because you have to use what they offer.
All right. So as far as this hacking and such, I'm counting on them to prevent it from occurring because I'm using them pass-through.
Correct. And you're counting on them to fix it for you if it does happen.
Great. Thank you.
Which I don't know if they do or not.
Understood.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. But for the people that aren't on a platform like that, it's a very real thing.
I can absolutely— I'm feeling like, wow, yes, I could see that happening.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's a scary world out there when you're in shared hosting. So again, some of the things that I offer my clients, and here's— this happened like a month after I went and, and went this path for hosting. Um, I had moved a client onto the server, and I got contacted one morning from hosting support, and they said, uh, this website had an issue last night. I need you to go in and change everybody's password, make sure everything's updated, and let us know when you've done that. That took me like 5 minutes to do that. I went in, did that, contacted them, and they said, okay, we'll fix the problem. And they— whatever happened, they cleaned it off the server and restored the site back to functioning. And it hadn't been functioning prior to that. And they— all of this happened behind the scenes, and the owner of the website never knew about it until afterwards when I contacted her and said, hey, this is what happened. Don't worry, it's already fixed for you. And that's included in the price of your hosting. And so that's what I provide and the service I bring when it comes to hosting. What normally would have happened is if her site had been infected the way it was, she would probably have hopefully noticed it that day if everybody goes to their websites at least once a day, and that she would have seen it had a problem. She would have panicked. And then spent probably the rest of her entire day fixing whatever the problem was, or, or dealing with phone calls back and forth with support and on hold, or however you wanna look at that fixing word. Uh, and now whatever she had planned for that day didn't get done and it got pushed to whatever, you know, into the future. That's the interruption that can happen when you have shared hosting. And most business owners, especially small service providers, can't afford those interruptions, especially if it means you're rescheduling clients.
