ANNUAL PLANS

First, allow me to state that WordPress is an awesome resource.

That being said, DO NOT LOCK YOURSELF INTO AN ANNUAL PLAN UNTIL YOU'VE TRIED EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO BE ABLE TO USE.

THEMES

WordPress' most popular and high performing themes can only be used if you subscribe to their business plan.

SEO PLUGINS

SEO plugins can only be used if you subscribe to their business plan.

Another plugin factoid... When you enter information into these things (like editing a description), be sure you update the page, whether or not you've changed any other element, visible or not.

"NEW SITES"

If you start a new site, you must upgrade that particular site to business if you want to access all their themes and plugins, even if you're already paying for the business plan through your initial site.

UNKNOWNS

Here's something I still don't know: What happens to an Astra or OceanWP site when your business plan expires? Are you no longer able to edit the site, or is it automatically converted to a free theme? (Scroll down for updates.)

BACKUPS

If you change your website's theme, there's a good chance you'll lose whatever contents you've already added to it. - In other words, select the theme BEFORE entering any contents.

Another thing you should know... never rely on their system to restore previous revisions. Manually backup your own content.

PERSONAL PREFERENCES

At this point in time, I don't think it's a good idea to connect my domain to Wordpress' payment system.

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Actually, I don't think it will EVER be a good time to connect my domain to WordPress' payment system.

Another Preference?

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I don't think I'll ever want to lock myself into their annual plan...

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I think I'd have to have paid for the business plan every month for a year before I'd actually throwing down $300...

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Just ONE website...

Whichever way you look at it... you'd have to be making decent money off of this thing.

UPDATE

December 13, 2022

Went online to transfer some money from one account to another...

I saw a withdrawal for $43.20.

.....

Not only does WordPress charge you annually by default, but they apparently also enroll you in their automatic renewal when doing so.

This is the message I got when cancelling my business plan:

Proceed With Caution

If you deactivate your plan, we will set your site to private and revert it to the point when you installed your first plugin or custom theme, or activated hosting features on November 10, 2022. All of your posts, pages, and media will be preserved, except for content generated by plugins or custom themes.

Please confirm and check the following items before you continue with plan deactivation:

Any themes/plugins you have installed on the site will be removed, along with their data.

Your site will return to its original settings and theme right before the first plugin or custom theme was installed.

Would you like to download the backup of your site?

To make sure you have everything after your plan is deactivated or if you'd like to migrate, you can download a backup.

Go to your backups(opens in a new tab)

[Submit and cancel plan]

“You successfully canceled your purchase”

UPDATE

December 16, 2022

This is the message I got when I used the URL I got when I installed Yoast:

https://adrienneharrisxyz.wpcomstaging.com/

Something unexpected happened while accessing this website. It looks like it doesn't have an active domain connection upgrade to link the requested domain name to the WordPress.com site.

If this is your domain name and it has recently stopped working, it's possible that your plan or domain may have expired. Please log in to your WordPress.com account and review the status of your plan and domain.

So, I logged into WordPress...

Log in to your account

adrienneharrisxyz

adrienneharris123@yahoo.com

[Continue]

Clicked on “SEO’ing Made Easy” (upper left corner)

URL: https://wordpress.com/view/adrienneharrisxyz.wordpress.com

Hit the [Visit site] button (upper right corner]…

URL: https://adrienneharrisxyz.wordpress.com/

SO…

There’s our update.

P.S.

All those links I added to make it easier to navigate this website?

YEAH… GOT THE SAME MESSAGE:

Something unexpected happened while accessing this website. It looks like it doesn't have an active domain connection upgrade to link the requested domain name to the WordPress.com site.

If this is your domain name and it has recently stopped working, it's possible that your plan or domain may have expired. Please log in to your WordPress.com account and review the status of your plan and domain.

So you’ve got to go through EVERYTHING, and update ALL your links.

Cute, huh?