GoDaddy vs WordPress

2021. Automattic acquires analytics company Parse.ly



Automattic, the for-profit company tied to open-source web publishing platform WordPress, is announcing that it has acquired analytics provider Parse.ly. Parse.ly gives creators, marketers and developers the tools to understand content performance, prove content value, and deliver tailored content experiences that drive meaningful results. WordPress and Parse.ly already work well together, but the plan is to make WPVIP (enterprise hosting and support to publishers) features available to Parse.ly customers while also making more Parse.ly data available to WPVIP publishers. And there are also opportunities to add more commerce-related data to Parse.ly, since Automattic also owns WooCommerce.


2020. GoDaddy acquired social content startup Over



GoDaddy has acquired Over, the startup behind an app that helps businesses create the photos and videos they need for social media. Over is offering a variety of customizable templates and layouts that should make it faster and easier to create eye-catching visual content. The startup says it has more than 1 million active users of its own, who are using it to create more than 220,000 projects every day. The acquisition follows GoDaddy’s relaunch of its website-building tools last fall under the new name Websites+Marketing, with additional features around email marketing, search engine optimization and maintaining a presence beyond your website, whether that’s on Facebook or Yelp.


2018. GoDaddy site builder integrates with Google My Business



Website hosting and small business marketing firm GoDaddy has done an integration with Google that largely automates the process of setting up and verifying a Google My Business (GMB) profile. GMB registration and submission is integrated with the company’s GoCentral website builder. Business data from the website is uploaded to GMB and verification is compressed from weeks to days. The GMB integration is included with the Business Plus and Online Store hosting plans. Claiming and populating a GMB profile directly on Google is free. GoDaddy will also report on GMB-driven traffic and related actions: profile/listings views, calls, directions requests and website visits. Interesting that Google own service Google Sites isn't still integrated with GMB.


2017. GoDaddy launches Pro managed WordPress



GoDaddy, the world's largest cloud platform for small business, launched Pro Managed WordPress, a new service designed specifically for WordPress web professionals. Pro Managed WordPress bundles together high-performance and highly-reliable hosting, with end-to-end security, and the essential tools necessary to efficiently manage multiple clients and websites. This complete solution for WordPress professionals includes Pro Advanced Care, a new WordPress-centric 24/7 expert customer support service. GoDaddy introduced its first WordPress hosting product three years ago, and today the company is the largest WordPress host globally, serving over four million sites. GoDaddy has been working closely with its GoDaddy Pro Program community, a group consisting of over two hundred thousand web professionals.


2017. GoDaddy launched business phone system SmartLine



Domain and hosting provider GoDaddy is moving into the voice and telephone business with a new app called SmartLine. It's aimed at addressing a basic need of small businesses — more and more of them are using their smartphones for both work and personal calls, but they don’t necessarily want to give everyone their personal phone number. So SmartLine creates a second number that connects to a customer’s iOS or Android device. Other features include the ability to fully configure SmartLine from the mobile app (without visiting a website), to set business hours (so that calls outside of those hours go directly to voicemail) and to receive voicemail transcriptions. And to win over alternatives, GoDaddy plans for more features, like vanity numbers, toll-free numbers and sharing a single phone number between multiple employees’ cell phones. A SmartLine with unlimited calling and texting costs $9.99 per month.


2017. GoDaddy kills off its AWS-style cloud services



Web hosting and domain registration business GoDaddy is making some moves to reorganize its business. It will sell its European PlusServer business to London-based private equity firm BC Partners for $456 million. Besides GoDaddy is shutting down Cloud Servers, a business it launched only last year as an AWS-style service for building, testing and scaling cloud solutions on GoDaddy’s infrastructure. Cloud Servers business was originally launched in March 2016. The idea was to tap into the recent vogue for cloud services, capturing new business from existing customers who were considering or starting to make early moves into cloud-based apps and services, before they made the leap to AWS, Google, Microsoft. So now GoDaddy will focus on competition with Wix, Jimdo and other alternatives.


2016. WordPress.com turned on HTTPS encryption for all sites



WordPress.com is adding HTTPS support for all of its sites without having to do anything. Each website now has an SSL certificate and will display a green lock in your address back. The nice side effect to the enhanced security is that Google tends to favor websites that support HTTPS over HTTP-only website. So your WordPress.com website should rank higher in Google search results.


2015. WordPress.com goes Open Source and gets a desktop app



WordPress.com, the fully hosted version of WordPress, has a received one of its biggest updates. First, WordPress.com is now fully separated from the WordPress core. It is now an admin interface that interacts with the WordPress core just like any other third-party interface and app out there. It uses a REST API to fetch your posts, publish new ones, upload photos and more. Second, the team behind WordPress.com switched to an entirely new stack. Instead of using PHP and MySQL, the developers built everything using JavaScript and API calls. It means that when you go to the website, the server will distribute a fully working WordPress client that mostly runs in your browser. Finally, everything is open source and on GitHub. You can also download a new Mac app to access WordPress.com. In many ways, this app works like the Slack desktop app. It leverages web technologies and desktop features so that you get more or less the exact same thing as on the WordPress.com website, but with a few goodies, such as notifications. Windows and Linux apps are in the works.


2015. WordPress acquired e-commerce plugin WooCommerce



Automattic, the company behind WordPress, has acquired WooCommerce which develops the popular e-commerce WordPress plugin. It lets site owners turn their self-hosted WordPress website into a bonafide online store. WooCommerce is huge when it comes to the online store space, powering at least 650,000 online stores. WooCommerce is easy to use — especially in the realm of ecommerce solutions — but it still requires some hand-holding during the setup process. Easy-to-build shopping solutions is increasingly a selling point for web solutions. WordPress.com competitors such as Squarespace have storefront modules and there are also hosted solutions from companies such as Shopify, Big Cartel and Bigcommerce.


2014. WordPress, Squarespace offer website CMS for Google Apps customers



Website CMS providers WordPress and Squarespace have joined the Google for Work Partner Program to give users access to two of what are arguably the most agile small business content management systems (CMS) on the market. Google for Work already offers website building services Wix, Weebly and Bluehost. The core services of the Google for Work include: Gmail, Hangouts, Calendar, Google+, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, Sites, Admin and Vault. By integrating with Squarespace and WordPress, they also get easy-to-use content management, effectively dealing with most daily needs. Integration with the products from either company is relatively easy too with APIs that enables them build Google Apps into their interfaces.