I’m in need of clarity. Being mostly clueless to the concept of file management and hosting in general has led me here by way of looking to publish more then one blog. That, and after spending far too much time with “online and phone help” with what should be a simple domain name transfer for Yahoo to Godaddy, I’m at my wits end. Word to the wise. If someone offers you a domain name for $1.99, don’t bite.
Here’s the deal. I have a “deluxe hosting account” with Godaddy which runs me, I think, around $6.50 a month and gives me what I need. ( I know your bluehost mediatemple whatever is better and that’s not the fix here ). Focus.
When I started another blog, I created a new database via my SQL database and now this blog lives in a folder under the main account as well (see below).
So from what I gather, with 25 databases I can run 25 different sites under this one account, right? The databases (sites) just become sub-files of the main account. If I’m off, just let me know.
One other thing that puzzles me (utter ignorance) is the file placement in my directory. I was going by the intructions given to me by the help desk at Godaddy, and what you see is what I ended up with. Could you all give me a little insight to whether this looks OK or not?
Assuming that everything is set up right so far, my next question would be, what is the advantage of opening up a separate account for a new site? With each and every domain I purchase, I am offered a free “Economy hosting account”, which of course will not allow you to host WordPress. To do this, I would need to open another “Deluxe hosting account”.
Any insight here would be appreciated. I plan on helping my wife with her own site and hosting and I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to get her set up separately or just run hers with mine.
Many thanks. If I get somewhere with this, I have one for Engenu one next. These are the kind of mental stumbling blocks that hold me up for days.
ryan hartman says:
Can you expand out that “northwaterfronviews folder?”
🙂
It looks like that folder is chilling next to another wordpress install, which should be fine, but leads me to think maybe you’ve got that folder sitting in the wrong spot?
You didn’t mention what the specific problem is? (Site seems to be firing up fine right now?)
May 8, 2009 — 5:10 am
joe spake says:
I am hosting 8 sites with godaddy, and your configuration is like mine. the most recent 7 are sub-directories of the first one I set up. That is the master account and the way godaddy maintains the heirarchy. The WP folders you see are for the main account, so you have to add WP or whatever to each of the new sites.
This looked strange to me at first, too. Sooooo, I thought I would just use Filezilla to “fix” it like i wanted it. Godaddy charges you $150 to fix problems you cause, so if you don’t really know what you are doing, don’t mess with the structure or the SQL databases.
It didn’t take long for me to get used to the structure, and I am very happy with Godaddy. Excellent customer service and FAQs with some very patient CS folks.
May 8, 2009 — 5:10 am
Geno Petro says:
Brad,
I clearly have no answer. I’m just dropping by to say hello.
G
May 8, 2009 — 6:13 am
Greg Swann says:
This is all about how other software finds your domains. You think it’s using your unique IP address, and this is true — outside of Godaddy. Inside Godaddy, you’re sharing that “unique” IP address with 13,000 other nice folks, and Godaddy uses its own internal tools to distinguish one of you from another.
When you created the NorthwaterfrontViews folder, you (or Godaddy) used the add-on domain tool in CPanel to tell Godaddy how to associate the domain name with the folder. CPanel will do that as many times as you want (or as many times as your account permits).
> Assuming that everything is set up right so far, my next question would be, what is the advantage of opening up a separate account for a new site?
None. What you have is perfectly adequate and massively extensible. You’re fine for your wife’s site, too, or any others. The only need to upgrade would be if your traffic shot way up, and then Godaddy will be very gracious about asking you to pay more.
The only other advantage to upgrading to much more expensive hosting is to get your own actual unique IP address. The trouble with shared hosting is that one spammer makes all 13,000 of you (or whatever) look like spammers to the rest of the net.
> If I get somewhere with this, I have one for Engenu one next.
Each one of those separate domains (it’s what they are, even though they just look like folders to you) will need it’s own separate engenu installation. But that also means each one can have its own unique skin.
May 8, 2009 — 6:40 am
Al Lorenz says:
Brad,
There are three types of accounts at Godaddy, the free one that won’t run WordPress, the economy plan which only allows one URL per account, and the Deluxe, which allows multiple URLS in folders like you have set up.
I also have extra hosting accounts from before they allowed the multiple domains on one account. No big deal, just a bit of extra $ per month until I get it changed, unless I’m missing out on some SEO juice.
I’m wondering if I get better SEO benefit (maybe just traffic count?) if I host my blogs in subfolders from my main real estate site, like the Bloodhound Blog is set up. If that’s so, it is much more important for me to get everything on one account more quickly.
But, what you have looks fine to me.
May 8, 2009 — 12:00 pm
Mark Madsen says:
Brad, great question. I just started launching some of my own blogs as well over the weekend and had similar questions.
Greg – thanks for the clarification.
I’m confident in my blogging / SEO abilities once the site is live and one of my programing partners assigns me an admin user / password. However, I wanted to have the complete power and knowledge of launching my own blogs at any given moment.
The common theme that I took away from Unchained (which I’ll write about in my first BHB post) was education = freedom.
Part of that learning process is just knowing the right questions to ask. So Brad, thanks for sharing your challenges / thoughts in this post.
mm
May 8, 2009 — 12:08 pm
Brad Coy says:
> Can you expand out that “northwaterfrontviews folder?”
Ryan – It seems that I’m set up just fine based on feedback. The problem is a personal one. I have a fear of moving forwarrd without knowing I have things set up properly from the get go.
Joe – Thanks for confirmation on the structure. I’m not changing a thing that I don’t have to 🙂
Geno – Ciao!.. loved your director work in the Bloodhound movie.
> What you have is perfectly adequate and massively extensible
Greg – Great! Thanks for the clear explanation. If my traffic grows at some point and I need to cross that bridge in the future, I’m sure that Godaddy makes the transition a cake walk.
> Each one of those separate domains (it’s what they are, even though they just look like folders to you) will need it’s own separate engenu installation. But that also means each one can have its own unique skin.
So if I follow you here, to install Engenu for Northwaterfrontviews.com, then I could FTP the software right under that same folder (domain) where WP lives. If so, from here I can create pages in Engenu that have the Northwaterfront.com domain name as well, right?.. or am I going astray?
May 8, 2009 — 12:25 pm
Brad Coy says:
> … unless I’m missing out on some SEO juice.
Al – that was in my thinking as well. Thanks.
MM – yeah, I’m kind of getting over feeling like a numbskull for asking questions 🙂 Just because I have a blog and blog here and there, people talk to me like I understand this stuff. Sounds like I know more than I know…. but it sure feels better moving forward with assurance, huh?
May 8, 2009 — 12:41 pm
jay seville says:
Knowing how to do all thiis stuff would be great. I took an online course on dreamweaver but it did not get me far. very frustrating.
I should look for online courses in WordPress….
I’m adding blogs to my domain–JustNewListings.com–for surrounding cities/markets, but to do each one I have to pay my most incredible webmaster of all time about $350 to get the blog up with its extraordinary CMS,tags,etc.
I have other aspirations though and really wish I knew how to do the Wpress thing like others. You all talking about it all the time makes me feel stupid–haha.
WordPress for Dummies II is out–maybe that would be a start. Sounds like it was written for me.
With my business and family it’s hard to have time to learn something big and new….I already have the domains reserved though for my other ideas.
May 8, 2009 — 12:42 pm
Cheryl Johnson says:
Brad, just one thing for the moment, you can indeed run WordPress with GoDaddy’s “Economy” hosting service.
I have 8 economy GoDaddy accounts, all running WordPress (yeah, yeah, I’d probably save money if I combined them all, but that’s a job for sometime in the future, and for now it’s nice and simple just the way it is.)
FYI: http://www.queenofkludge.com is running on a GoDaddy “economy” account.
@jay learning Dreamweaver is ~way~ more complicated than learning basic HTML. 🙂
May 8, 2009 — 6:29 pm
Brad Coy says:
Cheryl – I see that. It’s the “free Economy hosting” that differs. btw, I can’t remember what the terms were, but before I posted here, I googled something and of course came across queenofkludge on page one 🙂
May 8, 2009 — 8:52 pm
Jay Thompson says:
The “free” hosting with GoDaddy will place ads on your site — and you have no control of either the content or the placement.
Never, ever, host your blog on the free account.
Your setup looks fine. While NortWaterFrontNews LOOKS like a folder, it’s really a domain with (as you’re showing it now) WordPress installed on it. You’re next domain, say BradsWonderfulBlog.com, will “install” as a “folder” as well.
There are ways to run multiple WordPress installs on one MySQL database, but I suspect it’s painful, and I’ve never really understood the point (perhaps if you were reselling blog installs it would make management easier. Greg or someone better versed technically than I am could probably explain, but suffice to say, I don’t think you need to worry about it.)
May 9, 2009 — 11:20 am