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With a wide variety of hosting options and a reputation for excellent customer service, SiteGround is gaining a loyal following. People who are looking for shared, WordPress, cloud hosting and other options are likely to be pleased with SiteGround's offerings.
With so many hosting companies out there, it can be easy for a decent provider to get lost in the crowd. That's why it's gratifying to see more people make the move to SiteGround. It means that people recognize that this company offers a quality product and customer support to match.
SiteGround isn't perfect. Although their initial pricing structure is incredibly affordable, things can get more expensive when the introductory period is at an end. However, with this web host providing such competitive and innovative services, it's likely that they won't have too much trouble inspiring customer loyalty, especially if they continue to demonstrate dedication to improving their product.
About SiteGround
From the moment that customers choose their SiteGround login, they receive superlative service. The company was established in 2004 when a group of students started a venture from their dorm rooms in Bulgaria. Since then, the organization has grown in leaps and bounds.
SiteGround is committed to hiring the best candidate for every available position, as they spend a good amount of resources to provide comprehensive training and guidance ensuring employee success. Siteground's support team is so knowledgeable and valued, they are able to provide superior products and service to their customers.
It's a laudable business philosophy, and it's one that seems to be working. The company is host to millions of websites across the globe, and according to more than one SiteGround review, people are satisfied with the service.
SiteGround: Uptime vs. Downtime
This is one of the metrics at which SiteGround excels. In fact, their record is virtually perfect with an average uptime of 99.99%.
SiteGround's Uptime
When the uptime numbers for a web host are great, this means that website visitors are happy too. They aren't routinely being disappointed by error messages when they try to log on to their favorite website (yours).
How is SiteGround able to ensure such remarkable uptime numbers? They do so by making the most of numerous proprietary technologies that help them to avoid downtime.
Perhaps the most critical of these technologies is the Linux containers. Sometimes simply referred to as LXC, this is cutting-edge technology that uses resources in the most efficient manner possible. Moreover, LXC is incredibly elastic and promises unbeatable stability even when traffic spikes at unexpected times.
SiteGround's own technical experts have made improvements on the LXC technology, writing Linux Kernel patches that are now a part of the company's basic technology.
Uptime also is ensured by SiteGround's proactive monitoring of its servers. The company has built proprietary monitoring technology that, although lightweight, is capable of checking on the status of the servers on a far more frequent basis when compared with other monitoring technologies. SiteGround's system can detect issues as they occur and provide immediate fixes. Moreover, it's able to predict when problems are likely to occur so that steps to avoid these issues may be taken.
SiteGround hosting also features Artificial Intelligence, or AI, that is aimed at keeping out bots. Botnets are being used with increasing frequency in brute-force attacks. This web host's technology prevents on average 500,000 to two million attacks every hour.
SiteGround's uptime further is assured thanks to their account isolation measures. Because of the company's CHROOT account isolation, it's impossible for a problem that affects one website to affect the other websites on the same shared server.
The result is outstanding uptime and reliable servers that function the way they are supposed to.
SiteGround's Speed
Speed is a critical metric for any website. Microseconds count as visitors wait for your website to load. If it takes too long, that visitor is off and running to your competition. This means that you can't afford to go with a web host that can't deliver in terms of speed.
Fortunately, SiteGround has developed numerous technologies that are designed to enhance the speed of all of the websites that they host.
Siteground's speed compared to other providers
Among the technology that helps to ensure SiteGround's speed is their reliance on solid-state drives, which also are known as SSDs. An SSD is the fastest alternative to any other currently available technology. Its access speeds measure anywhere between 35 to 100 microseconds, which is about 100 times faster than the access speed of a hard disk drive. The enhanced speed translates to the ability to load programs much faster. Moreover, an SSD doesn't have any moving parts, which makes it more reliable than other drives while also using less power.
SiteGround goes the extra mile for its customers by providing SSD drives on many of its plans, including all of its shared plans.
NGINX is another reason why SiteGround is able to deliver such impressive numbers as far as speed is concerned. This cutting-edge web server technology loads static data in a flash, can handle more concurrent connections than the competition and balances loads to evenly distribute traffic. The result is faster website load times.
SiteGround also uses SuperCacher to guarantee the best possible speed for loading WordPress, Drupal and Joomla websites. SuperCacher is an innovative caching mechanism that was developed by techs at SiteGround. It's based on NGINX reverse proxy, and it's capable of serving up dynamic content on your website with blinding speed. SiteGround provides a detailed tutorial if you want to activate SuperCacher on your website. It's all accessible via Siteground's cPanel.
Additionally, SiteGround provides Cloudflare CDN technology for free with all of its plans. A CDN is a content delivery network, technology that makes it possible to transfer assets with incredible speed. Many of the largest websites today use CDN technology to ensure that their content loads without any delay, ever time. When a CDN is properly configured, it delivers lightning-fast load times.
SiteGround uses Cloudflare CDN, a highly reliable company that has built security measures into every layer. Cloudflare CDN boasts that it can help websites to load twice as fast while using 60 percent less bandwidth. Enabling Cloudflare CDN is easy thanks to SiteGround's tutorial.
Moreover, people who use SiteGround as their web host will have the advantage of HTTP/2-enabled servers. This technology represents the latest in network protocols, ensuring the fastest website load times. SiteGround further is dedicated to always using the latest PHP technology to give its customers the best speed advantage.
All SiteGround Server Locations
As the SiteGround website boasts, the company has data centers on three continents. The centers in Chicago, Illinois and Iowa are ideal for use by customers in North and South America as well as Africa. A data center in Singapore serves clients in Asia, the South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand. A data center in London and a pair of centers in the Netherlands are designed to deliver excellent services to websites in Europe and Russia.
SiteGround's Server Locations
The closer the data center is to your customers, the better your website's performance is likely to be for them. Crucially, SiteGround enables customers to choose their data center so that they can better ensure service to their visitors.
No matter which data center you choose, you will benefit from electrical systems that have built-in redundancies to prevent electricity outages and top-of-the-line physical security that ensures 24/7 safety of all of SiteGround's servers. Additionally, the data centers use multiple well-known carriers to ensure that network connections are always fast and available.
Bandwidth Capacity
Bandwidth in relation to a website is really about how much traffic and data your website will be able to handle. Most web hosts define maximum levels of bandwidth for each tier of hosting packages. The more bandwidth comes with your package, the faster your website will be and the better it is likely to perform on a variety of critical metrics.
Average bandwidth for small and medium businesses
Ideally, you want a web host that offers unmetered bandwidth. SiteGround does offer such plans, which means that your website can have unlimited traffic. In fact, all of SiteGround's shared plans feature unmetered traffic as an "essential feature."
This is good news, but it's not the only thing to consider. The various tiers of packages also come with limits as far as how many website visits you may have each month. As traffic at your website reaches these limits, performance is likely to suffer. This means that you may have to step up to a bigger, more expensive plan.
SiteGround's Customer Support
SiteGround hosting is notable for the excellence of its customer support. The company maintains an online knowledge base that features a wealth of answers that are commonly asked by customers. Coupled with numerous tutorials, finding solutions is quick and easy.
Siteground's customer support response time
On top of this, customers also are welcome to use the SiteGround phone number to contact support personnel. Most users report only having to wait only a maximum of five minutes to connect with an actual person, which is pretty fast in today's world.
Additionally, customers have the option of using SiteGround chat. This 24/7 customer support service is quick and reliable. Customer experience and more than one SiteGround review suggest that most people are able to connect with a customer service representative in less than one minute using this method. Moreover, most questions are resolved with acceptable speed and friendliness.
SiteGround hosting comes with awesome, 24/7 customer support that won't leave you hanging at the critical moment.
SiteGround Software and Firmware Updates
Any person who regularly uses a computer knows that updates are critical to optimal performance and security. Updates are needed not only for software but also for the hardware that runs it.
SiteGround hosting packages are highly recommended because this company excels at staying on top of automatic updates. Their entire system is configured to download and apply the latest versions of the pertinent software to their servers. This ensures uninterrupted service and better performance. It also means that customers who entrust their website to SiteGround can enjoy enhanced security as well.
Features that Take it Away
As part of this SiteGround review, it's important to note all of the extra features that customers can get with their hosting package. Many of these include essential tools and value added services that you generally need to pay for.
Webmail Account
A SiteGround webmail account is included in all plans. This is important because not all web hosts include email. SiteGround empowers the user to create as many email addresses as they would like. For the right individual or business, this can be a major advantage.
SSL Certificate
Additionally, SSL certificates are included in every SiteGround hosting plan. An SSL certificate is essentially a data file of a relatively small size that attaches a cryptographic key to the details of an organization. A SiteGround SSL certificate is installed on the webserver, and this activates the HTTPS protocol. Accordingly, secure connections from the server to a browser are possible. The presence of a SiteGround SSL certificate means that website visitors can trust that their sensitive information, such as a credit card number or home address, is kept secure when it is entered into a website that is hosted by SiteGround.
After you choose your plan and your SiteGround login, you'll be asked how you want to create your website. If you don't already have a website, then SiteGround provides you with the choice of using Weebly or WordPress to build your own website. Those who already have a website may want to use SiteGround's website transfer service.
Free Website Migration
This website migration service is free to people who choose SiteGround's larger, more expensive hosting packages. They make it quick and easy by asking participants to fill out a migration request form that gives the team at SiteGround all of the information they need. Within about 24 hours, the tech specialists at the company will back up and move your existing website to SiteGround. This is an extremely easy and streamlined way to change your web host.
One of the areas in which any SiteGround review is likely to say that this web host stumbles is with regard to domain names. The company provides an adequate service for registering your domain name starting at $15.95 per year. Considering that this is an expense of less than $20, it isn't a huge drawback.
Still, many of its competitors will pay the domain name registration fee for you for at least the first year. Nonetheless, it's worth being aware of this cost before signing on the dotted line.
Different Types of Hosting
Before you choose your SiteGround login, you'll have to decide which type of hosting is right for you. The company's shared hosting plans are the focus of this review, but it is worth noting that they offer several other hosting plans that may be helpful.
Different Siteground Hosting Plans
In addition to shared hosting, SiteGround provides WordPress hosting, WooCommerce hosting and cloud hosting. WordPress is the most popular content management systems in the world, and SiteGround makes it easy to create a website using WordPress and host it at SiteGround. They also migrate existing WordPress websites.
WooCommerce is ideal for the small business that plans to sell goods and services online. They provide numerous apps that support online retailers so that entrepreneurs can make sales, track inventory and ensure efficient shipping services.
SiteGround's cloud hosting services are designed for power users. Although they may be useful to some individuals, they are mainly geared toward larger businesses that are planning to grow.
Other hosting plans offered by SiteGround include dedicated server hosting and enterprise hosting for the largest commercial clients.
SiteGround Pricing Plans, Fees and Renewal
SiteGround hosting packages come with attractively low introductory rates. Their most basic plan is just $3.95 per month, with more robust plans costing $5.95 and $11.95 per month. These rates are really competitive, but caveat emptor. When you renew your subscription, you may be in for some sticker shock. The prices rise to $11.95, $19.95 and $34.95 per month. That's a really steep hike.
The good news is that by the time you're subject to SiteGround's regular pricing structure, you should have a pretty good idea regarding whether or not the extra cost is worth it to you.
Siteground's Shared hosting plans
The basic Startup plan is appropriate for about 10,000 monthly visits and gives you 10 GB of storage. You're allowed one website, and your data transfers are unmetered. Step up to the GrowBig plan, and you get around 25,000 monthly visits, 20 GB of storage, an unlimited number of websites and unmetered data transfer. The top-level GoGeek package features 30 GB of storage and is suitable for about 100,000 monthly visits.
All in all, these aren't bad plans, though the storage limits do seem a bit restrictive. For the individual, the entrepreneur or the small business, these may be all you need to build and grow your website.
Final Thoughts
This SiteGround review covered numerous pros and cons regarding this web hosting service. Overall, this is a recommended provider because it offers solid speed and security, and customers get some nice extras in the SiteGround hosting packages.
Still, it's worthwhile to keep in mind that SiteGround doesn't offer free domain names, that their storage capacity with shared plans is fairly small and that there is a considerable price hike at the end of the introductory period. Beyond that, Siteground receives a hearty recommendation from the Nomad Intel. If that isn't enough, then check out our Hostinger review.
Frequently Asked Questions
Unlike some competitors, SiteGround does not offer free domains. The cheapest available through this web host cost $15.95. It may be more cost-effective to register a domain name elsewhere.