£250 charge to migrate website hosting.

[Justin Smith]

The guy who helps me with my website (and has always hosted it using his account at the hosts) has advised me my site has grown sufficiently that I need a faster hosting service,which I agree with as it is becoming a bit slow. Because I am also concerned what would ever happen if he ever "fell under a bus", he has also advised me to pay for the hosting directly, and I think he us right on that too. He also said it'd be cheaper if I dealt directly with the host provider. However, I was a bit shocked when he said there would be a £250 fee to sort out the "VPS account sign-up, setup and then the migration". Is it a big job and is £250 reasonable ?
Lastly will a faster hosting service significantly speed it up ? And is speed still a ranking signal with Google ?

 

[WebDesires]

It depends, we charge roughly £100 - £150 to move a website if its cpanel / plesk (easy transfer) but it could be more if either side doesn't use cpanel/plesk or if we are handling other things like setting anything up / sorting transfer issues.

 

[KM-Tiger]

As said it depends on exactly what is involved. £250 is not outrageous IMHO.

 

[fisicx]

It all depends on your host. But they need to create the VPS, configure, migrate, test and go live. £250 isn’t a lot.

As to speed, the VPS might be faster but not enough to make a real difference. If you want a faster site you need to fix all the on-site issues and a bunch of server configurations. All usually quite simple if you know what you are doing.

Note also that your monthly hosting costs are going to increase as well. A VPS costs more than shared hosting.

Try testing your site. Google will tell you what needs fixing:

PageSpeed Insights

pagespeed.web.dev

 

[HostXNow]

It depends on what your site is powered by. Is it a static website i.e HTML files? If so, very easy to move the site. Even if the site is using something like WordPress (PHP/MySQL) he only needs to provide you with a compressed zip of the files usually from /public_html folder, a copy of the MySQL database and maybe email accounts. Even easier if you use 3rd party email service like Google Workspace or Zoho. If you provide the files and database to a new web host they can/will restore the website for you at no extra cost i.e you only have to pay for the hosting account which could be around £2.95/month. A VPS/Dedicated server is usually only needed for compliance reasons such as an eCommerce store and even then a VPS/Dedicated server is not needed if no card information is stored on the server. Stripe uses tech so tokenization is used, therefore no card information is stored on shared/VPS/dedicated server.

Also, you can find shared web hosting accounts that are hundreds of times faster than VPS/Dedicated servers.

VPSs tend to be hosted on servers with lots of cores/threads so VPS providers can make more money, but those VPS hosted on VPS nodes with high core/thread counts have a slower clock speed. Single-threaded apps like WordPress run faster on servers with the fastest single-core processors like AMD 9 Ryzen 5950X/5900X and you can find shared web hosting providers who use them and only charge around £3-20 plus a month.

TL;DR VPS is not always more secure/faster than shared. VPS is mostly needed if you require root SSH access to the server only.

£250 may or may not be too much depending on the answers to the things I mentioned.

 

[ServWise]

Since he is asking you to work directly with the hosting company, have you considered asking them how much they would charge to migrate to them? Many hosts have a free or low-cost migration option they offer to entice new costumers which may be significantly less than 250 quid.

As to if the price is a lot, totally depends on the complexity of your hosting now, if you need dedicated resources then that would indicate that your site has grown to a certain point where the cost would not sound unreasonable. Migrating emails, files and databases take a lot longer if you have a lot of them. Configuring a dedicated server or VPS is a lot more involved than setting up shared hosting space etc

 

[Justin Smith]

It all depends on your host. But they need to create the VPS, configure, migrate, test and go live. £250 isn’t a lot.

As to speed, the VPS might be faster but not enough to make a real difference. If you want a faster site you need to fix all the on-site issues and a bunch of server configurations. All usually quite simple if you know what you are doing.

Note also that your monthly hosting costs are going to increase as well. A VPS costs more than shared hosting.

Try testing your site. Google will tell you what needs fixing:

PageSpeed Insights

pagespeed.web.dev

The VPS hosting is about £360 a year, direct to Ionos.

The website is pretty large, particularly in the database, but the images are generally medium or fairly small size

 

[Justin Smith]

Since he is asking you to work directly with the hosting company, have you considered asking them how much they would charge to migrate to them? Many hosts have a free or low-cost migration option they offer to entice new costumers which may be significantly less than 250 quid.

As to if the price is a lot, totally depends on the complexity of your hosting now, if you need dedicated resources then that would indicate that your site has grown to a certain point where the cost would not sound unreasonable. Migrating emails, files and databases take a lot longer if you have a lot of them. Configuring a dedicated server or VPS is a lot more involved than setting up shared hosting space etc

The thing is my man helps me - for a fee I hasten to add - with the odd issue (e.g. installing Jetpack*) I have with the site so I don't really want to damage my relationship with him.
If the consensus is £250 is not outrageous I'll probably just go with that.

* I am sure that web developers on here would say that's easy you can do it yourself, but stuff like that is easy if you do it all the time ! If you have to learn (or relearn if it's only a yearly thing) it all each time you do anything it takes a lot longer !

 

[dx3webs]

Most offers offer free migration these days. Ask the new host?

 

[fisicx]

The VPS hosting is about £360 a year, direct to Ionos.

The website is pretty large, particularly in the database, but the images are generally medium or fairly small size

Well I’d move away from ionos. They are at the bottom end of the hosting spectrum.

The size of the database is irrelevant. You probably don’t need a vps if the site is properly configured.

And you don’t need jet pack either. It will make things worse.

 

[HostXNow]

Well I’d move away from ionos. They are at the bottom end of the hosting spectrum.

The size of the database is irrelevant. You probably don’t need a vps if the site is properly configured.

And you don’t need jet pack either. It will make things worse.

Agreed. I know some who don't like the billing setup or performance at Ionos. I'd rather choose OVH over Ionos. Or use a web host who uses OVH as OVH hardware/network is one of the best.

How big is the database exactly? 500MB to 1GB? If so, not that big. If you talking 2GB plus then, yes, it might be more resource heavy especially if it has lots of rows in tables etc. NVMe SSD and a faster CPU will help load MySQL faster.

I also recommend not using JetPack. It is known to be a resource hog.

Best to use a web host who uses LiteSpeed Web Server (better performance) and Imunify360 (better security) all done at the server level. Using lots of different custom caching/security plugins that run on PHP/MySQL causes bottlenecks and can slow everything down.

 

[antropy]

Is it a big job and is £250 reasonable ?

Some new hosts will get your site over to them for free as part of a fully managed service (we do that for our £50/month and upward packages), so you could investigate that, but otherwise it's quite a lot of work and £250 isn't extortionate.

Paul.

 

[UKcentric]

I don't think £250 is outrageous. It is perhaps half a day's work, and you'd pay similar to any experienced engineer such as a plumber or electrician. Yes he can do it from his home, but the skills and experience needed to get migrations right are worth paying for. It's easy to stuff up a website migration!

 

[Justin Smith]

And you don’t need jet pack either. It will make things worse.

It always used Google Analytics (though it's a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut....) but isn't that ending ?
Will the new "Analytics 4" be the same and will it need any work on my part to get it working on the site ? My IT man seemed to imply it would, which would cost me for him to do it

 

[Justin Smith]

How big is the database exactly? 500MB to 1GB? If so, not that big. If you talking 2GB plus then, yes, it might be more resource heavy especially if it has lots of rows in tables etc. NVMe SSD and a faster CPU will help load MySQL faster.

It's a Wordpress site and the (compressed ? ) BackUpBuddy files are :

Database only 100MB
Full back up 573MB

>>NVMe SSD and a faster CPU will help load MySQL faster.<<

Is that English ? ! ?

 

[Justin Smith]

Agreed. I know some who don't like the billing setup or performance at Ionos. I'd rather choose OVH over Ionos. Or use a web host who uses OVH as OVH hardware/network is one of the best.

The problem is my man recommends and uses Ionos so if I start saying I want it on another server, knowing him (he's a bit sensitive...) it'll wind him up.

The problem I have is my site (aerialsandtv.com) is so extensive and (usually) gets updated so often) I have to do it my self, and indeed I do the vast majority of it as it is totally impractical to get a website designer to do it. I have found it hard to find the sort of website guy that'll let me do that but be available for questioning about stuff I don't understand, and, in fact do the stuff I don't know about. I get the impression he does the whole lot for all his other clients so dealing with me is a bit unusual for him. For instance when he was saying the PHP needed "upgrading from 7.4 to 8.0" I was questioning him on it (esp as he was charging me to do it ! ) and I doubt he gets that from anyone else, and I don't think he likes it !
It's the old, thing isn't it, people who know a bit are the biggest PITA ! I would have thought that most people in his business either want to deal with an out and out expert or a novice who leaves it all to them without question.....

 

[fisicx]

It always used Google Analytics (though it's a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut....) but isn't that ending ?
Will the new "Analytics 4" be the same and will it need any work on my part to get it working on the site ? My IT man seemed to imply it would, which would cost me for him to do it

GA will just carry on as before. No need to change anything.

It's a Wordpress site and the (compressed ? ) BackUpBuddy files are :

Database only 100MB
Full back up 573MB

That’s not large. I have clients with bigger sites than that running just fine on shared hosting. Fixing the many issues with the site will make it faster.

 

[Justin Smith]

GA will just carry on as before. No need to change anything.

I don't need to do anything ?

 

[fisicx]

I don't need to do anything ?

Nope. You just won’t have access to all the new gubbins. That being said, there are far better analytics platforms than GA.

 

[Paul Carmen]

I don't need to do anything ?

That's sort of true!

You don't immediately have to do anything, but after July 1st the old cookie based version of Google Analytics (GA) will no longer collect any data, at all.

In theory in March 2023 at some point it will attempt to auto migrate you to GA4, using the same main tag, and add events for any further site tags you have setup (e.g. goals, conversions etc).

You'd be advised to do this yourself, or at least check what it does, if you want reliable metrics going forward.

There are other options, some that are easier to use etc, but, if you run any Google ads and integrate GA with search console or any other Google tools then you need to migrate to GA4.

 

[HostXNow]

The problem is my man recommends and uses Ionos so if I start saying I want it on another server, knowing him (he's a bit sensitive...) it'll wind him up.

The problem I have is my site (aerialsandtv.com) is so extensive and (usually) gets updated so often) I have to do it my self, and indeed I do the vast majority of it as it is totally impractical to get a website designer to do it. I have found it hard to find the sort of website guy that'll let me do that but be available for questioning about stuff I don't understand, and, in fact do the stuff I don't know about. I get the impression he does the whole lot for all his other clients so dealing with me is a bit unusual for him. For instance when he was saying the PHP needed "upgrading from 7.4 to 8.0" I was questioning him on it (esp as he was charging me to do it ! ) and I doubt he gets that from anyone else, and I don't think he likes it !
It's the old, thing isn't it, people who know a bit are the biggest PITA ! I would have thought that most people in his business either want to deal with an out and out expert or a novice who leaves it all to them without question.....

Upgrading PHP from 7.4 to PHP 8.1 or PHP 8.2 is just a matter of clicking a button if the web host is using CloudLinux PHP selector. Unless you mean your guy updates code on your website to make it compatible with the newer PHP version. Usually, the developers of the plugins update the plugins, not the webmaster. Either way sounds like you can stick with what you have or check with a web host to see if they can do the things you mentioned. £250 does sound a lot fot what meeds to be done.

Ps I don't use GA. RankMath wordpress plugin works great. GA can slow the website down too.

 

[makeusvisible]

The guy who helps me with my website (and has always hosted it using his account at the hosts) has advised me my site has grown sufficiently that I need a faster hosting service,which I agree with as it is becoming a bit slow. Because I am also concerned what would ever happen if he ever "fell under a bus", he has also advised me to pay for the hosting directly, and I think he us right on that too. He also said it'd be cheaper if I dealt directly with the host provider. However, I was a bit shocked when he said there would be a £250 fee to sort out the "VPS account sign-up, setup and then the migration". Is it a big job and is £250 reasonable ?
Lastly will a faster hosting service significantly speed it up ? And is speed still a ranking signal with Google ?

It very much depends on the platform the website is built on, and what the hourly rate of the developer is. If his hourly rate is (£80 for example), it's totally feasible that the work involved in migrating and testing could take a few hours. Add in the logistics around swapping accounts over etc and the time will soon add up.

In terms of speed. Yes, Google considers it a ranking factor. Google page insights are your best tool for testing this, as it's effectively Google telling you what you need to know about it's perception of your site's performance (inc speed).

However, keep in mind that the speed of your site isn't dictated purely by your hosting performance. If there are elements badly coded (not saying there are), then migrating the site isn't going to resolve those issues. If you have slow scripts, render blocking content etc etc, then migrating wont resolve those.

Hope that helps.

 

[dx3webs]

It's a Wordpress site and the (compressed ? ) BackUpBuddy files are :

Database only 100MB
Full back up 573MB

>>NVMe SSD and a faster CPU will help load MySQL faster.<<

Is that English ? ! ?

Hi there

Your site is tiny. How many visitors are you looking at?

 

[Porky]

You really don't want the hassle frankly.
Just pay the £250, let them get the site up and running and working effectively and be done with it.
Keep contact in case you need their support in the future.

As for it being quicker, too many elements to know, possibly but depends on the code, structure, what is being requested etc etc etc

Good Luck

 

[Justin Smith]

You really don't want the hassle frankly.
Just pay the £250, let them get the site up and running and working effectively and be done with it.
Keep contact in case you need their support in the future.

As for it being quicker, too many elements to know, possibly but depends on the code, structure, what is being requested etc etc etc

Good Luck

My site is in the process of being migrated but the developer has had many problems he says which has taken much time and "we'll have to talk about the price later".
Now, here's the rub. Let's talk generally, basically one is paying someone for their knowledge and if they end up spending far longer doing a job because they didn't have the full knowledge, should the customer be expected to pay extra for that time ?
As an example, I used to be a TV engineer, and the first time one got a particular repair in (i.e. a fault you had not had before) it could take ages, and even longer if one was not a good engineer ! If one then has the same fault in again it's a much quicker job, but is it fair to expect the first customer to pay far more than subsequent customers because the engineer just happens to have not had that fault before (and you as the engineer did not have the knowledge) ?

 

[antropy]

If one then has the same fault in again it's a much quicker job, but is it fair to expect the first customer to pay far more than subsequent customers because the engineer just happens to have not had that fault before (and you as the engineer did not have the knowledge) ?

Depends if you're paying for their time or a fixed cost for the job but if paying for their time, it would be totally unreasonable of the customer to say "well if you were any good you'd have seen this exact issue before".

Paul.

 

[Justin Smith]

Depends if you're paying for their time or a fixed cost for the job but if paying for their time, it would be totally unreasonable of the customer to say "well if you were any good you'd have seen this exact issue before".
Paul.

How does that answer my question ? :

As an example, I used to be a TV engineer, and the first time one got a particular repair in (i.e. a fault you had not had before) it could take ages, and even longer if one was not a good engineer ! If one then has the same fault in again it's a much quicker job, but is it fair to expect the first customer to pay far more than subsequent customers because the engineer just happens to have not had that fault before (and you as the engineer did not have the knowledge) ?

Whether one is paying a fixed price or an hourly rate, the principle is still the same. I used to write off most of the extra time on "first time I have had that fault" type jobs as it was me learning really, and one had to hope that new knowledge paid off in the future.

 

[fisicx]

My site is in the process of being migrated but the developer has had many problems he says which has taken much time and "we'll have to talk about the price later".

That suggests incompetence rather than problems. Site migration is a 5 minute job. There are umpteen plugins that will do the job for you.

 

[antropy]

is it fair to expect the first customer to pay far more than subsequent customers because the engineer just happens to have not had that fault before (and you as the engineer did not have the knowledge) ?

Yes. Who knows if that problem will come up again. The customer wants your time right? They want your years of experience to fix the issue. Is it your fault you haven't come across it before? No. Is it your fault they might have a rare and unusual TV with a rare and unusual problem? Also no.

I used to write off most of the extra time on "first time I have had that fault" type jobs as it was me learning really, and one had to hope that new knowledge paid off in the future.

That's your choice if you chose to write it off and "hope for the best", but I prefer to get paid properly for my time.

Paul.

 

[Justin Smith]

Yes. Who knows if that problem will come up again. The customer wants your time right? They want your years of experience to fix the issue. Is it your fault you haven't come across it before? No. Is it your fault they might have a rare and unusual TV with a rare and unusual problem? Also no.
That's your choice if you chose to write it off and "hope for the best", but I prefer to get paid properly for my time.
Paul.

It must be nice to have an open ended quote for any job !

I still think it is unfair to expect the first customer to pay more, possibly far more, than the others.
And that's before one even gets into the area of how much or not the engineer (IT or TV) actually knows (as he charges you per hour......), as Fisicx alluded to above.

 

[antropy]

It must be nice to have an open ended quote for any job !

Well that's the difference between an estimate, a quote, and time & materials, which should of course be agreed in advance and everyone should be clear.

I still think it is unfair to expect the first customer to pay more, possibly far more, than the others.

What if there are no others? I still think it's unfair not to pay someone (who lets say is very experienced and knowledgeable) for all of their time simply because it was an unusual issue.

And that's before one even gets into the area of how much or not the engineer (IT or TV) actually knows (as he charges you per hour......), as Fisicx alluded to above.

Of course this only applies to someone who's experienced and known to be knowledgable in the work in question. For someone less experienced it's reasonable for them to make some allowances.

Paul.

 

[MBE2017]

I used to be asked to fix water damaged phones a lot, and I was the only place in my area that insisted on payment whether the repair worked or not. There was no way to guarantee a repair, you try the method, cleaning all the components etc and hope it works.

All my competitors offered a no fix no fee arrangement, at my price. If they are happy to work for free that is up to them, personally I charge for my time, my equipment, chemicals etc. I used to get most of the work in my area, because I had a much higher success rate than others. I used to repair phones that had already been cleaned, just not well enough.

The same applied on unlocking phones, I was the only place that guaranteed success, or a replacement phone, because I had the “official software” to unlock the phones, not free stuff off the web.

In life, you tend to get what you pay for.

 

[antropy]

All my competitors offered a no fix no fee arrangement, at my price. If they are happy to work for free that is up to them, personally I charge for my time, my equipment, chemicals etc. I used to get most of the work in my area, because I had a much higher success rate than others. I used to repair phones that had already been cleaned, just not well enough.

Exactly. If you know you're being paid for a proper job then you do a proper job. If you start to think you might not get paid for it, then of course there's a temptation to say "no, sorry, couldn't fix this one"

In life, you tend to get what you pay for.

Usually, but not always, and some places do just rip people off. Equally you can sometimes find incredible value if you look hard. But yes, generally you do.

Paul.

 

[Justin Smith]

The guy who helps me with my website (and has always hosted it using his account at the hosts) has advised me my site has grown sufficiently that I need a faster hosting service,which I agree with as it is becoming a bit slow. Because I am also concerned what would ever happen if he ever "fell under a bus", he has also advised me to pay for the hosting directly, and I think he us right on that too. He also said it'd be cheaper if I dealt directly with the host provider. However, I was a bit shocked when he said there would be a £250 fee to sort out the "VPS account sign-up, setup and then the migration". Is it a big job and is £250 reasonable ?

He is wanting to charge me £500 now.
I accept there had been problems, but, as discussed earlier, who is to say how long they should take to sort out ?
TBH I would have a bit more sympathy were it not for the fact he is infamous for wanting to charge me extra for everything. I pay him hundreds of pounds a year yet changing a setting which takes 5 minutes, that's an extra £25 thanks.....

 

[antropy]

He is wanting to charge me £500 now.
I accept there had been problems, but, as discussed earlier, who is to say how long they should take to sort out ?

Why don't you get a second opinion i.e. another developer to take a look like @fisicx ?

Paul.

 

[UKSBD]

He is wanting to charge me £500 now.
I accept there had been problems, but, as discussed earlier, who is to say how long they should take to sort out ?
TBH I would have a bit more sympathy were it not for the fact he is infamous for wanting to charge me extra for everything. I pay him hundreds of pounds a year yet changing a setting which takes 5 minutes, that's an extra £25 thanks.....

Are you sure it's not just his polite way of saying - Go away I don't want to do anything for you anymore and get whoever you move to to set everything up for you.

 

[antropy]

Are you sure it's not just his polite way of saying - Go away I don't want to do anything for you anymore and get whoever you move to to set everything up for you.

Sounds like it. Not very polite though tbh. In this situation I'd say "you need to find another developer to help you with this as we're currently too busy".

Paul.

 

[UKSBD]

Sounds like it. Not very polite though tbh. In this situation I'd say "you need to find another developer to help you with this as we're currently too busy".

Paul.

The previous politer hints were probably ignored, the £250 still didn't work, it's now escalated to £500

 

[Justin Smith]

Why don't you get a second opinion i.e. another developer to take a look like @fisicx ?

Paul.

The transfer is all done now though.
I do not want to all out with him, we have been working together for four years or so, but even if £250 was reasonable, £500 is twice as much. He originally said that although the transfer "can be a tricky one to manage time wise" he also went on to say "that cost should cover it as I am all too familiar with the Inonos control panels etc".
I would also point out that the fact the site was down and/or everything was on a redirect for a few days (i.e. not all direct links worked properly) cost us visits and money. On one day during the process we only got 66 visits, about a fifth of what we usually get. Plus a load of images were temporarily lost, I am a big believer that all websites should have a picture on the screen at all times, even if it's only small, most people do not like seeing a big page of just text.

Incidentally, if Google happened to be trying a trawl at the time would that have affected our ranking ?

 

[fisicx]

As I said in an earlier post: it smells like incompetence.

None of the issues you listed should ever happen. Migrations and redirects are instant. If Google visited the site while it was down your ranking will be affected. And it can take months to recover everything.

If you are still with ionos you have achieved nothing. Moving to vps won’t fix anything.