Last week I mentioned some issues I was having with my web host in regards to certain WordPress files using too much server resources. I also mentioned how my immediate solution was to move the site to a VPS. I’m happy to say the move is complete and wanted to give you a quick update about what I did and something I’m still planning to do.
Assuming I generally did things right (a pretty big assumption I know) you should be seeing this post on the new server. While I did change a few things in how the site was developed, for the most part I opted for doing the minimum to make the move. I thought it more important to get the site running with comments now and deal with some of the things I wanted to change later.
The bigger development changes were mostly to convert pages of the site external to WordPress into actual WordPress pages.
In a perfect world everything will now be as it was before the hosting issues, but realistically I expect there to be a few things not working that I missed while making this move. If you notice anything not working properly, please let me know. I’ll be digging into the site as well, but the more eyeballs checking the better.
Blogging the Redesign
One of the options I mentioned last week was a complete redesign. It should be obvious looking at the site that it didn’t happen. However I do plan on redesigning the site in the not too distant future (I hope). In fact I thought it might be interesting to redesign things somewhat in public.
Instead of working behind the scenes and springing the new design on you when complete, I thought I’d blog about the redesign as I’m in the process. Ideally sharing my design process while still in that process will prove valuable to some and give you a chance to offer some feedback along the way.
It’ll be a few weeks before I can get started, but once I do I’ll share with you the early documentation for what I’ll be trying to achieve as well as early sketches and wireframes all the way up to the finished site and how I develop different parts of the site. Hopefully you’ll find the window into my thought process helpful in your own designs.
Let me know if you like the idea of blogging the redesign or if you’d prefer to just see it when it’s ready.
Thanks
Thanks again for being patient this past week or so. I’ll do my best to get you a tutorial post later in the week and again if you notice anything not working like it should please let me know. I’m sure I missed a few things here and there while moving.
Download a free sample from my book, Design Fundamentals.
So I’ve been reading your posts on the small business forum, you know your stuff cold my friend. We are always looking for bright gents to come to the team. Anyway, with this hosting issue, I had a client site hosted on GoDaddy on a shared IP, that had just about maxed out the amount of domains I’d ever seen on one block of IPs. So I switched their hosting to another shared server on Hostmonster, and within 2 weeks their rankings have improved significantly. (the reason for the move was because their site just seemed to get no love from Google, yahoo and bing we could care less about)
Thanks Adam. I saw you joined the forum as well.
Interesting that the server move helped their rankings. The only reason I can think why is maybe it led to them being on a different C block and some links that had been coming from the same C blog were now coming from a different block.
Have the rankings remained and do you have other thoughts on why the rankings might have improved.