Didn’t notice, did you? Good!

As stated somewhere in Murphy’s Law, “A Web server will run smoothly every day, for days on end — until the Webmaster takes a few days off.”

Well, I got a little tired of my office-based Web server going down when I went away for a few days and decided to do something about it. I’ve begun moving my Web sites and the other sites I host off my Web server and onto a Deluxe Hosting account on GoDaddy.com.

GoDaddy.com is a domain registration/hosting company that is either loved or hated by everyone who knows of it. I happen to be on the love side. The rates are incredibly low, all account/server maintenance can be done remotely without contacting a GoDaddy representative, and online help and technical support are reasonably good (although I admit far from perfect).

I’ve been hosting theflyingm.com on GoDaddy for years now. I don’t use it as a Web site. I use it for reliable e-mail and to host the podcast files for Maria Speaks and KBSZ-AM.

The Economy hosting plan, which should be good enough for 95% of Web publishers, offers 5 GB of hard disk space and 250 GB of bandwidth per month. theflyingm.com was using up about two thirds of the disk space and maybe a quarter of the bandwidth. (Remember, I’m hosting podcasts, not high-def movies.) That cost $3.99/month, but you can get a 10% discount if you sign up for a year at a time. The Economy plan also includes subdomains (for example, maria.theflyingm.com) mapped to their own folders on the server (I didn’t use this feature) and 5 mySQL databases. There’s some other stuff, too, but I don’t use it.

The Deluxe hosting plan offers 100 GB of hard disk space and 1000 GB of bandwidth per month. I think I’m paying $6.99 for that each month. The same discount applies and there are higher discounts for longer renewal periods. This plan supports subdomains as well as multiple domain hosting. So although my account is set up for theflyingm.com, it can also host aneclecticmind.com, wickenburg-az.com, etc. It also supports up to 15 (I think) mySQL databases, making it easy for me to keep individual databases for all of my WordPress-based sites. I can set up all of my sites on one account, so I can shut down my pesky server without spending an arm and a leg for hosting.

And, as Miraz told me the other day, if you use the coupon code DIGG when checking out, you can save another 10% on the purchase. Unfortunately, I got that message too late to use it. (Next time.)

You can learn more about GoDaddy’s hosting plans and features on their Web site.

So now I’m in the process of moving my sites to the new setup at GoDaddy.com. aneclecticmind.com and MacCowboys.com are both done. wickenburg-az.com is next.

I will be writing a detailed article about making the move as a how-to article for our WordPress VQS book companion Web site (which will also be moving soon). It’s a relatively tricky process, but not difficult if you know what to do.

Now if you’d like to comment about your experiences with GoDaddy.com, please use the comments link for this post. If you’re a hater, try to keep your temper in check and explain why you don’t like GoDaddy.com. If you’re a lover, tell us what you like best. If you’re sitting on the fence or have questions, don’t be shy about speaking up.