Trusted WordPress tutorials, when you need them most.
Beginner’s Guide to WordPress
WPB Cup
25 Million+
Websites using our plugins
16+
Years of WordPress experience
3000+
WordPress tutorials
by experts

When Should You Change Your WordPress Web Hosting (Top 7 Key Indicators)

Editorial Note: We earn a commission from partner links on WPBeginner. Commissions do not affect our editors' opinions or evaluations. Learn more about Editorial Process.

Many users have asked us how to find out if they need to change their WordPress hosting provider.

Often, users who are unhappy with their WordPress hosting provider don’t know when it is the right time to switch.

Sometimes, it is poor customer support, slower servers, or unreliable uptime. Other times, a website has outgrown the hosting resources and needs an upgrade.

In this article, we will talk about the key indicators you should look at to decide if it’s time to change your web hosting.

Key reasons for changing your WordPress hosting company

Overcoming the Fear of Changing Hosting Platforms

Most beginners are afraid to switch hosts.

Why? Because it requires technical knowledge to move a website without any downtime.

If you are somewhat savvy, then you can probably follow our tutorial on moving WordPress to a new host without any downtime.

Even though it doesn’t require any code, it is still scary for many beginner users.

Thankfully, most top WordPress hosting companies will migrate your site for you (especially if you ask nicely).

How much will they charge? That depends on how big your site is. In most cases, it’s free.

Sometimes, you may pay a small fee. But this service is definitely available even if it’s not advertised. You just have to ask.

Now that you are relieved of your biggest fear, let’s look at the top reasons why you should change your web host.

1. Frequent Unexpected Downtime

Frequent downtimes

Downtime is harmful to the overall reputation of a website (SEO rankings, traffic, and more). Nobody wants to visit a site that doesn’t open half the time.

If your site is down multiple times a week, it clearly indicates that you need to switch.

How to tell if your site is down? Since you are not visiting your site 24/7, it’s hard to know without using a monitoring service.

Thankfully, there are services like Uptime Robot available that help you monitor your site’s uptime for free. For details, see our tutorial on how to monitor your website’s uptime.

Uptime refers to your server system being online. Downtime is when your server cannot be reached. So, if you see 99% uptime, then it means that your site experienced minor outages that month.

Once set up, Uptime Robot will send you alerts when your website is down. We recommend monitoring it for at least a week to gather enough data.

You can always ask the hosting support staff about downtimes that occur. If they are not convincing, then it’s time to move.

2. Error Establishing Database Connection

Error establishing database connection

If you regularly see errors about establishing a database connection on your site, then it means that you are outgrowing your host servers or have a bad plugin.

It is also possible that your hosting provider is sharing the database server with too many users, which is slowing it down and causing issues.

In any case, your host support should be able to help you. They can move your database to a different server or point you in the right direction to reduce database requests.

However, if they are unable to help, then you should switch to someone who will.

3. Bizarre Internal Server Errors

internal server errors

Internal server error is one of the most common WordPress errors and perhaps the most frustrating one. The error message itself is unable to point the user in the right direction to fix it.

If these internal server errors are becoming too frequent on your site, that’s a bad sign. Find yourself a WordPress hosting provider that knows how to configure their servers for WordPress properly.

4. Site Suspension

Web hosting account suspended

Most web hosting providers reserve the right to take down your site, especially if there’s illegal activity going on.

However, certain hosting companies suspend accounts without notifications for silly things such as overages.

Your host should care about your website because you trust them with your digital real estate. If a hosting company suspends your site without notification, you need to have a serious conversation with them.

If that conversation doesn’t go anywhere, it’s time to switch to a company that cares.

Also, it’s essential to keep backups because these web hosting companies may hold your data hostage.

5. Poor Customer Support Service

Poor customer support

You’ll never find a host with a 100% great customer service record. It’s just impossible to keep everyone happy. Not to mention, only the angriest users leave web hosting reviews.

Having that said, good customer service is crucial when it comes to web hosting.

You need to ask yourself the following questions: Is your hosting support staff quick to respond? Are they knowledgeable and helpful?

Sometimes, the hosts deny assisting with WordPress, claiming their support policy doesn’t cover software. If you don’t get good support, then it’s time to move.

6. Slow Page Speed

Strangeloop case study

Speed is crucial for a good user experience on your website. It also affects your search rankings and website traffic.

Usually, slow sites are caused by too many requests or users on the server. In that case, your hosting provider can help you determine what’s slowing down your website.

If the issue is too many requests, it can be fixed with some tweaking, whether removing a plugin or further optimizing the server.

However, if the issue is too many users, the host will ask you to upgrade your plan.

You can optimize your website by following our WordPress performance and speed guide. However, if you are simply getting too much traffic, then you can’t delay upgrading your hosting plan.

7. Your Site Has Outgrown Your Host

Upgrade your hosting plan

If you have been managing your website for a while, then your site may have outgrown your hosting plan.

On a shared hosting platform, your site shares the server resources with many other sites hosted on the same server. While you can control and limit the resources you use using caching + CDN, you have no control over what other sites do.

If your site is much busier than others on the same server, you will be slowing down other sites. Many shared hosting providers will then start terminating your resources without any warning.

If you start having issues with slow sites or finding yourself spending more time explaining the problem to customer support, then it’s probably likely that you’ve outgrown your host.

Ready to Switch?

Chances are, if you are reading this article, then you have probably considered switching your web host.

Are you looking for a host that can deal with all the scenarios, provide rock-solid uptime, and top-notch support?

We recommend using SiteGround. They are one of the top-managed WordPress hosting companies and can easily handle your growing website traffic.

We have first-hand experience of their service, as WPBeginner is hosted on SiteGround’s enterprise infrastructure. Read our case study explaining why we switched to SiteGround.

Their servers are highly optimized to run WordPress, offer built-in caching, have a CDN integration, and the support is truly the best in the industry.

Best of all, it won’t break your bank as they have a plan for users of all levels. WPBeginner users get an exclusive 81% discount on Siteground.

If you want to shop around, consider looking at other managed WordPress hosting providers like WP Engine.

We hope this article helped clear any doubts in your mind about when is the right time to change your WordPress host. You may also want to see our complete WordPress security guide to protect your website against common threats and our expert picks of the must-have WordPress plugins to grow your website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. See how WPBeginner is funded, why it matters, and how you can support us. Here's our editorial process.

Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

The Ultimate WordPress Toolkit

Get FREE access to our toolkit - a collection of WordPress related products and resources that every professional should have!

Reader Interactions

13 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
    Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
    You can get more details about the contest from here.
    Start sharing your thoughts below to stand a chance to win!

  2. Dennis Muthomi says

    Great overview of the key signs that it’s time to switch WordPress hosting providers. I particularly agree with the point about slow page speeds being a major red flag. In my experience, site speed is crucial not just for user experience but also for SEO and conversions. Even a 1-second delay can significantly impact bounce rates and sales.

  3. Moinuddin Waheed says

    Nice indicator for when it’s time to switch the hosting account for sure.
    database connection error and account suspended and slowed speed of the websites are some of the indicators that we would never know is because of the shared hosting plan.
    so, this guide is must have for anyone who is starting with shared hosting and want to scale their business. Scaling would require you to change hosting for sure.
    Thanks for the guide.

  4. wani says

    you’re offer didn’t work link may expired or broken think so, please resest you’re affilate link

    • WPBeginner Support says

      This is an older article so SiteGround may have updated their pricing but it should still bring you to our page with our best discount for SiteGround.

      Admin

  5. Shawn Buck says

    Great post for beginners. I’m planned to migrate my site to another host. I read all of your guides, but I have some fear about site ranking. Anyway sure I will move my site. Thanks for the motivation.

  6. Emma says

    Thanks a lot for sharing such an incredible info. Most of the people can’t get it that when to switch their website’s hosting. Keep sharing :)

  7. Satish says

    Nice article, now its the time to change my hosting. Can you let me know what package you are using for list25 site?

  8. Jordan Smith says

    Thanks for the siteground recommendation. I looked into this and am going to try it out for a high traffic site I’m transferring from SquareSpace to WordPress. Do you guys have any discount codes / affiliate links for their dedicated servers that I can use?

  9. Saumya Majumder says

    Wow you guys are really great. Does this hosting companies pays you to write this article? I shared my experience and you guys didnt put it on your site, tough it was a complete legit experience with some other host rather than what listed in the above article.

  10. Ricardo says

    Thank you for this article and the recommended hosting providers, but you didn’t talk about security and the hosting’s commitment to server maintenance. Around half of today’s hacks are through the hosting. It would be nice to know how to identify what hostings are doing it right and which you recommend. I understand that some hosting companies leave the maintenance to the customer and that’s fine too.

Leave A Reply

Thanks for choosing to leave a comment. Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated according to our comment policy, and your email address will NOT be published. Please Do NOT use keywords in the name field. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation.

WPBeginner Assistant
How can I help you?

By chatting, you consent to this chat being stored according to our privacy policy and your email will be added to receive weekly WordPress tutorials from WPBeginner.