GoDaddy Acquires WordPress Site Management Service ManageWP

ManageWP, a WordPress site management service founded in 2010 and officially released in 2012 by Vladimir Prelovac, has been acquired by GoDaddy for an undisclosed amount. ManageWP is based in Serbia and has a team of more than 25 people.

The service enables users to manage backups, updates, security, and monitor performance of sites through Orion, the company’s newly redesigned dashboard that launched earlier this year.

ManageWP Orion Dashboard

ManageWP will operate as an independent company under the GoDaddy umbrella, similar to MediaTemple. According to Prelovac, 8% of all websites managed with the service are hosted on GoDaddy.

Some of the premium features in ManageWP will be offered to GoDaddy customers for free. Also, there are plans to deeply integrate the service into the company’s GoDaddy Pro program.

ManageWP is a bootstrapped company that reached a point where an acquisition or partnership was needed to take the company further. “We’ve reached a point where we achieved a lot of the goals we’ve set, but we want to take things to the next level,” Prelovac said.

“GoDaddy with its significant scale and resources will help us put the product in the hands of hundreds of thousands of WordPress professionals while at the same time adding significant value to the product itself.”

With the cash infusion and GoDaddy’s resources, customers can expect to see a renewed effort to internationalize the service to make it available in more languages.

ManageWP Receives Major Backlash from Customers Disappointed with the Acquisition

The news of the acquisition generated more than 100 comments on the Advanced WordPress Facebook Group and the official blog post on the ManageWP site generated more than 250 comments.

I spent an hour reading all of the comments and noticed three distinct reactions: The lack of positive feedback, a number of people who will stick with the company to see what happens next, and an overwhelming amount of negative feedback from people who say they will or have already left the service.

ManageWP’s customer base is composed of a lot of consultants who manage multiple websites for clients. These are the people who deal and interact with webhosting companies on a daily basis.

While GoDaddy is working hard to change its image and perception from the top-down, a subset of people are not experiencing the changes at the service level leading to extreme dissatisfaction. There are also a handful of ManageWP customers who refuse to do business or associate themselves with GoDaddy based on the company’s history.

Both Companies Have a Lot on the Line

Only time will tell if the acquisition is successful but both companies have a lot riding on this partnership. Judging by the comments on the ManageWP blog post, it’s clear the company has passionate, devoted customers who love the service over its competitors.

If the acquisition is going to be beneficial to GoDaddy, it’s important that ManageWP continue to succeed and grow. If the service’s reliability declines or Prelovac exits his leadership role within a year, it’s likely GoDaddy will receive a lot of the blame which could slow progress in changing the company’s image.

If you’re a ManageWP customer, will you continue using the service or have you begun looking at alternatives? Let us know what you think of the acquisition in the comments.