The Curious Migration of WindyCityParrot.com to Woocommerce Ep1

Robt drawing on transparent panel

Update 6/1/2021 ~ When I asked developers quoting me $2500 and 2 weeks, how they would be doing this procedurally, they always deferred.

In that (9) migrations never took more than 6 hours 2, weeks was a red flag. Two competent developers I use, would’t touch it.

This non~coder is going it alone.

Anyone can migrate a WordPress site, including me – this ain’t your mother’s migration.

We think telling stories is more fun than asking for “migration quotes” while building our content creation library.

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Should I Be Worried About Cross-contamination of My WordPress Sites?

Skull and crossbones contamination label

 

Regarding SiteGround AI security

Your Chat Transcript on 14/12/2019

Mitch Rezman: windycityparrot receiving following error intermittently Service Unavailable

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later. Additionally, a 503 Service Unavailable error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request. Apache/2.4.29 (Unix) mod_hive/6.27 OpenSSL/1.0.1e-fips mod_fastcgi/2.4.6 Server at www.windycityparrot.com Port 443

Mitch Rezman: This question is related to account: birdandparrot.info

Mitch Rezman: sure – spike in core usage over the past 30 minutes

Lachezar U.: it could be as the site is loading fine on my end now – url:https://prnt.sc/qalk2c

Mitch Rezman: yes – buts crashing every 5 – 10 minutes and then recovering – I’ve had the site for 17 years – something is wrong – there was no traffic spike but there was a spike in core usage over the past 30 minutes – what would cause that?

Lachezar U.: that is strange, I do not find obvious reason for the spike, so let me post a ticket to our advanced techs for further investigation

Mitch Rezman: that would be great – I am waiting for my developer to mitigate a bot attack by installing Recaptcha – this is a zencart store (trying to move it to woo – https://www.screencast.com/t/q3aBaOe9

Lachezar U.: the ticket is just posted now and will be updated with more details in 15-20 minutes

Ticket 3380418 for account birdandparrot.info
Posted: 13 Dec, 2019 18:47 CST Status: Resolved
Ticket Subject: Technical Issues
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Why is Elementor Not Suited for Woocommerce Shop Designs?

keyboard-enter key saya shopping cart with red X over it

Spoiler alert – The two “nails in the coffin” with respect to Elementor not being compatible with Woocommerce are:

 

Why you can’t use Elementor to create Woocommerce categories

 

From Elementor support

 

What the other support teams were saying is essentially right.

The plugin (Elementor pro) won’t recognize it as an endpoint because it isn’t actually an archive page generated by WooCommerce (or WordPress for blog posts).

The plugin searches for archive and single pages (whether blog or product) and adds them to the breadcrumbs.

Standalone pages aren’t added since that’s not a part of what the plugin looks for.

In order for this to be recognized, you’ll have to create actual categories in WooCommerce (since you’re working with products) and create a template to display these within Elementor and that will ensure that the pages get picked up but look the way you want them to at the same time.

 

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Why Open Source Is An Experts Choice For Ecommerce Vs Hosted Platforms

open source globe on hand

If I were a cockatiel my crown would stand up straight when reading articles comparing web hosting sites like Shopify to WordPress.

cockatiel with crown up

 

There are other examples but to start because it appears that many people don’t understand the cord differences.

 

Shopify is a hosted platform.

 

You rent their servers, use their templates and are beholden to their support.

 

I think Shopify has about 600,000 stores right now.

 

WordPress is open source – it’s free, anyone can start a WordPress site although they will lead a host with the server to mount it on.

 

There are about 77,000,000 WordPress sites globally – about 1/3 of all internet sites.

 

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When Did Woocommerce Stop Offering Support

I am sharing this Woocommerce support thread because it is troubling.

 

Spoiler alert – I paraphrase “this as expected but there is no documentation”

 

Obviously, I question “how would one know what to expect – when there are no instructions, knowledgebase articles or documentation on the subject?

 

Woocommerce support  is so out of touch, I’m sent a WORDPRESS document and told to figure it out

 

When I click the View link on my test site, I am redirected to the Shop page on the front end of my site. (This is as expected.)

 

When I click the Edit link, I am redirected to the user’s profile in the admin area. That’s where I would change a customer’s address or any other information.

 

We do not have documentation on this. It piggy-backs on the WordPress User system. Here is more information on that:

https://codex.wordpress.org/Users_Screen

 

I’m building my first Woocommerce store possibly migrating my 17-year-old ecomm store that does mid 6-figures

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Why You Don’t Know Jack About WordPress Migrations

Computer specialist working in a bright office

We are migrating our WordPress blog to a new host.

We will add the Woocommerce plugin and then migrate all the data from our current zen cart ecommerce store to the new woocommerce store

 

my short list is

 

https://getflywheel.com/pricing/

https://pressable.com/pricing/

https://www.greengeeks.com

https://www.dreamhost.com/website-builder

https://www.a2hosting.com/solutions

https://www.inmotionhosting.com/wordpress-hosting-promo?

https://www.siteground.com/speed

 

I didn’t see pricing on hyve.com

 

I may go with 2 hosts because we have 4 

‘hobby” sites that are really small but our current site gets 100,000 page views/mo and I like dedicated servers.

 

Flywheel is cool (I thought) because you can build your dev site on your desktop for free and when you’re ready to go live you can just push it to their servers  – no muss no fuss,

 

They also have something called “Blueprint” which maps out any number plug-ins that you use on a regular basis.

 

They (the plug-ins) can be added to any new site with a single click

 

Stay tuned

 

I’m old enough to have a Medicare card

 

Yet I Lord also over a dozen websites on three hosting platforms.

 

I make my living in have done so from e-commerce for 15 years.

 

Have 400,000 social media followers because of my expertise in captive bird husbandry.

 

I still have a thirst to learn something new every day.

 

My day gig is WindyCityParrot.com, which has been around since New Year’s Eve 2002 when my wife Catherine launched it.

 

Since then I’ve built dozens, maybe a hundred or more websites.

 

You get the picture. I know e-commerce.

 

3 WordPress hosts – reviewed 

For a convoluted set of reasons, our current eCommerce platform is a hybrid WordPress/Zen Cart.

 

This combination is not working on a number of levels especially for SEO.

 

There are many reasons for it but I’ve suspected several which I’ve recently confirmed.

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