Upgrading website

I looked at Bill's Wife's website and came away with some observations. It is built using Go Daddy Website Builder from Starfield Technologies. This is different than hosting most people are used to using cPanel (Linux) or Plesk (Windows) control pannels to upload and manage a site. It seems, from what I can find so far, that the only access is through the "Website Builder" interface on the Go Daddy website. They have pre-built templates that you can modify and then drag and drop pictures and stuff. The user CAN NOT build a whole page with HTML but can insert small bits of HTML. The Website Builder then wraps it all in server side PHP code that the user can not see. The PHP code then delivers HTML code using bits and pieces (text, pictures, layout) gathered on the fly as a person looks at the webpage. It is a good system for artists that know design but don't need to waste time learing learning all the "tech" stuff.

There is some interesting reading about Starfield Technologies HERE

I would also be "upset" at having to throw down $300 for something the hosting company does. Sounds almost like ransomeware. I think Go Daddy is very good at the Gotcha stuff.

I am still looking at ways to retrieve the content. Linux programs like WGET or Curl can get the content in HTML form. more later ....

Go to Hostgator.com and look halfway down the page. It states:

Transferring From Another Host?

Our dedicated Migrations Team is standing by to transfer your existing content from your prior host and configure it to perform optimally on our platform. We can also transfer domain registrations from other registrars in order to provide you complete management of your entire online portfolio all in one place!

Note the part about transferring your existing content - this includes pictures. I believe this is your answer.

Hostgators rates are very reasonable and usually cheaper than GoDaddy. Their customer support is unmatched - you can call them directly or do a chat session. I have several Drupal sites with them, and I'm blown away by the help I get with them.

Transfer your domain away from GoDaddy as well. They are really not top notch as your current dilemma proves.

Good Luck!

Part of the 'p....s off" is she's been building it and modifying it for a couple years. Now, the host is forcing her to re-do everything or charge $300 ...

It's not the value of charging $300, maybe that's reasonable ... but Go-Daddy is charging her because GO-Daddy made a change, not that she made a change. She's been paying them every year as host and believes they should not charge her because Go-daddy suddenly makes her work obsolete. As one (both of us) lack tech skills, it becomes more difficult.

It's not specifically the price / value of the change - it's once again the tech world forcing a person change something she does not choose to change. She's perfectly happy with what she has now.

Just because they are "not supporting her template" does not mean it isnt usable. That would usually mean there aren't any more updates to the source. She could possibly keep on updating pictures.
As someone posted, go to the forum and find out.

it seems very strange, that she has to do one at a time
i was always able to do a bulk upload of a folder full of pictures or documents
via FTP into the host server

Considering that folks who build websites charge upwards of $1000 a day, $300 for a transfer sounds reasonable, since you know that rebuilding it yourself will take "lots of time."

I don't really know the details for GoDaddy, since I'm not there, haven't used the easy-build templates. Of the dozens of websites I've built, I coded them all as HTML 2 or HTML 3.2 and uploaded (or copied, inside the corporate intranet) them to my web servers. Mine don't didn't do anything fancy, they just present information.

Without knowing how to actually code for the web, being at mercy of templates and not even knowing how the templates work, paying someone who does know how sounds reasonable.

She's not as much concerned about the site info as about the time it takes to upload so many images. The site itself is fairly simple - but uploading one image at a time is very time-consuming. It's not difficult, but she'd like to transfer all the images at once by "cross-loading" (?) directly into a new website without doing it one image at a time.

I think she's resigned to uploading one at a time tho - we just hoped there was an easier way to transfer all images at once into the new site. :( :(

I maintain a web site for an organization that is also hosted on godaddy.com . Our site is Linux based. So we don't have to worry about proprietary code or templates or anything like that. It's all open source. Maybe she should look into a Linux site? She would have to download all of her images and web pages and then upload them to the new site. But after that, she won't have to deal with any other issues.

Is there a go daddy's user forum
Have her login, and find out if this has ever happen before
If yes, she might want to fine a new web host,
If this is the second or third time, they will do it again

You can bet go Daddy has already written the trans code scripting for the new template, no body will be involved in individually changing each of their millions of websites one by one, this is a way to make from their customers

There should be a way to export all her pages, the complete site as HTML pages and save them to her PC, preferably on a flash drive

This may help rebuild on a new site if neededI haven't built any websites in about 10 years and I know the coding has changed, with lots of built in server scripts which won't be in the export

Would a Google Site work? It's free.