Siteground Review: 10 Reasons Why I Left Godaddy for Siteground Hosting
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Web Hosting is one of the most important aspects of your online business. There are many reasons why choosing the right web host is crucial to your success.
Back in 2008, I experienced my first lesson in choosing the proper hosting. I was using Bluehost at the time and lost over $1,500 in revenue when the Bluehost web server went down for over 48 hours.
It showed me the importance of not owning finding a good web host, but picking a host that has 99.9% uptime and provides 24/7/365 customer support. Quality is more important than price because you want help when sometimes goes wrong (and eventually something will).
Before I switched to Siteground, I owned a Godaddy VPS server for a little over a year. Godaddy is great for managing your domain names but really lacks in the web hosting department.
I suffered many problems including sites being down, javascript errors in my WordPress database, corrupted WordPress installations, and too much spam to deal with.
So far, I’m using the Gogeek plan for Siteground and I’m very pleased with it.
Also, Siteground has the best customer support I’ve ever seen. You get a customer support agent within seconds and I always get my problem solved.
There are more reasons why I switched to Siteground and I’ll share them blow.
#1 – Free Website Migration from Your Old Host
Let’s be honest: moving your website to another web host is annoying and often dangerous if you don’t know what you are doing.
For complete beginners, you could end up breaking something on your site or losing all of your data. I think fear of messing up your site is one of the biggest reasons why most people never switch hosting (even if they are unsatisfied).
Another reason is not knowing how to migrate a website to another host. It’s tricky and complicated. However, Siteground provides this service for FREE to all new web hosting accounts.
Give them your Cpanel username/password or hosting account informaton and they will migrate ALL your sites at no cost. Your Cpanel username must be 8 characters or less for them to migrate your sites.
Most hosts charge a fee for this service so I appreciate Siteground understanding that most people want to make money with their sites, not worrying about all the technical stuff.
#2 – Your Website Loads Really Fast
Godaddy, in all its arrogance, blamed my slow loading web sites on my WordPress installation. My sites were so slow. I used a caching plugin like WP Super Cache, but nothing really worked.
When I asked Godaddy about my VPS server, they mentioned it was a shared hosting environment. That’s when I realized that Godaddy simply puts too many sites on 1 server. They are extremely greedy with all their upsells and don’t really care about your site performance (they offered me another upsell to speed up my site).
Once I moved my sites to Siteground, I noticed a HUGE improvement in site speed. My pages loaded faster. Things that used to hang over like Adsense ads appeared within seconds.
My Google Pagespeed test showed significant improvement. Web hosting affects your site speed a lot. If you want to speed up your website, then I suggest choosing a better web host.
Siteground has 4 major datacenters all over the world, and they don’t put so many sites on 1 server. Your site will load much faster, especially if you are using a much better web host like HostGator, Bluehost, or Godaddy.
#3 – SuperCacher Speeds Up Your WordPress site without needing a plugin
This is another benefit for WordPress users because you are probably familiar with caching plugins like WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache or WP Fastest Cache.
I’ve used all 3 plugins and each one has its own strengths and weaknesses. If you aren’t using a caching plugin, then I recommend WP Fastest Cache because it’s the easiest for complete beginners to set up.
The question is: Why use a caching plugin if my web host understands the importance of site speed?
Siteground offers ALL hosting plans a cool feature called SuperCacher. SuperCacher is a built-in caching plugin exclusive to Siteground users. It works for all types of websites: static HTML, WordPress, Drupal or Magenta.
Best of all, you can activate it using 1 click and you don’t need to install a 3rd party plugin.
It’s a nice benefit for me because I need 1 less plugin and can manage my caching for all my sites under my Siteground dashboard.
#4 – Free WordPress Staging Saves You Time & Embarassment
Staging is a feature that allows you to clone a WordPress site and move it to another location with 1 click of the mouse. This feature came in handy when I accidentally installed WordPress in the wrong domain.
I built a new WordPress site and began adding content to it. It was early in the morning and I wasn’t paying attention when I selected the domain in Siteground 1 click WordPress installation.
Anyway, I added 5 posts then started sharing them on Facebook. That’ when I noticed something odd. I installed WordPress on the wrong domain!
I panicked and prepared to move everything over manually from the wrong domain to the new one. But it’s not easy. You have to change everything in your wp-config.php file and other stuff. It’s a pain in the you know what.
Bingo! I remembered the Staging feature and Siteground moved the entire WordPress site to the correct domain without breaking anything. This saved me at least 30 minutes of unnecessary work.
It’s also a great feature if you want to test a theme or plugins on your WordPress site. Clone your WordPress site then move it to a fresh location. You can make all your theme changes, etc. When you are ready to update your site, just move the updated WordPress site to your domain!
Now you have an updated site that’s working properly! It’s mostly useful for developers or people who manage a lot of sites like me. I love this feature and thank Siteground for adding it.
Staging is only available to GoGeek plan users so be sure to purchase the GoGeek plan if you want this feature.
#5 – No CDN Needed! Store Your Site in Chicago (USA), London (UK), Amsterdam (NL), or Singapore (Asia)
Do you know where your site server is located? I asked Godaddy where their server was located and they refused to tell me. Shocking, right!
I’m paying you monthly yet you won’t tell me where my server is located. I suspected Scottsdale, Arizona but wasn’t 100% sure.
Storing your site at a datacenter that’s close to your visitors is a great way to make your site load faster to your most important customers.
Let’s say you are a luxury real estate agent who serves mostly wealthy investors from China. Most of your visitors access your site from China looking for real estate to invest in. I recommend choosing the Singapore data center because your site will be closer to your visitors.
If you operate a Yoga studio in New York City, then choose the Chicago data center. It’s a small feature, but really helps you save money on a CDN (Content Delivery Network).
A CDN is a 3rd party service that stores your site on their server then loads your site as close to your visitor as possible. If you operate a major site with visitors all over the world, then maybe it will work for you.
I know most of my readers operate niche websites and get the majority of their traffic from a few countries. Siteground will save you money by storing your site as close as possible to your target market!
#6 – Customer Support Answers Your Question Quickly and With Instruction!
After using many web hosts, I think Siteground offers the best customer support I’ve ever experienced.
They have a few advantages over much bigger web hosting companies that allow them to offer the best customer support in the business.
- They are a smaller company headquartered in Bulgaria
- They only sell web hosting (unlike Godaddy who offers 1 million services)
- They use Live Chat to answer simple questions much faster
- Phone Support is fast and has zero long wait times
As an Ex-Godaddy user, I spent a lot of time waiting for a customer support again. Last year, Godaddy experienced a hosting outage and I waited over 30 minutes for customer support until I finally gave up!
Siteground offers both Phone & Live Chat to answer any question you have. You will talk to someone in less than 1 minute plus they teach you how to do stuff as well.
I needed to fix my WordPress installation and a Siteground customer support agent sent me a screenshot with instructions. Incredible!
Another customer support agent showed me how to change my Cpanel password even though it’s the easiest thing to do if you know where to look.
I also like Live Chat because I see the following things:
- Their Picture
- Their Full Name
- # of requests they have answered
- Their 5 star ratings
Siteground offers a personal touch that many web hosting companies lack. Every other host is like a faceless corporation that’s only interested in getting more of your money.
Siteground only answers my questions and NEVER asks me to purchase additional services. I wish I had switched to them years ago. My online business would be running much smoother but it’s never too late to do the right thing!
#7 – Access All Your WordPress Sites in 1 Location
Another cool feature that saves time is Siteground’s dashboard setup. They show all your WordPress installations in 1 place so you can go straight to your WP Admin Dashboard with 1 click.
There are entire 3rd party services like ManageWP that offer this same feature for a monthly fee. Siteground offers it to all accounts at no additional charge.
If you manage multiple WP sites, then this feature is a huge time saver.
Need an additional WP site? It’s easy to add it with just one click. Most of you won’t need this feature, but if you’re a pro blogger with many sites, you will LOVE Siteground because they save you time and money. No 3rd party assistance needed!
#8 – Feel Safe and Secure with Free Daily Site Backups
Backing up your website is the most important technical task that most people ignore. I learned my lesson the hard way when I lost one of my first WordPress sites.
I spent years building up the site & traffic until my web host cancelled my dedicated server without notifying me. I had a backup of my site but it was an older copy.
I lost so much data that I closed down the site permanently. It was in the video game niche, but I don’t play video games as much anymore. I would’ve outgrowned the site eventually but I wish I backed it up so I could either keep the archives online or sell the site for a profit.
Godaddy offered me daily backups for a $5 monthly charge. Are you serious, Godaddy? How greedy can you be? Daily backups should be FREE!
Make sure you have daily backups for your website because you never know when something could go wrong.
Never worry again about losing data or accidental problems. Gain a peace of mind as a Siteground customer.
Siteground offers FREE daily backups no matter which plan you sign up for. This is a must for any website owner. Backups not only keep your site safe, but give you the option to resell your site if you lose interest. Don’t let your site get deleted if it gets traffic.
You can sell it on Flippa for a nice profit. If you site gets traffic, then it’s worth something to the right person. Always keep backups so you don’t lose everything you worked so hard for.
#9 – My Site is Always Online! Finally, A Truthful 99.9% Uptime Claim!
If you’re looking for a new web host, you will see 99.9% uptime claims everywhere. Let’s be honest: Most of these claims are complete lies.
You probably don’t monitor your uptime so you have no idea how much you’re getting screwed over.
If you want to know the truth about your website’s uptime, then sign up for Uptime Robot. It’s a free service that emails you whenever your website goes down.
My Godaddy server used to go offline a lot. In fact, I had to reboot my website all the time. There was a period when I rebooted my server at least once per week.
Uptime Robot showed me that my sites were down too many times. I’ve added many client’s site to their tool and their sites were down a lot.
Here’s the truth: There are lots of shady web hosts looking for your money. In fact, many of these hosts don’t own any servers and act as middlemen.
You need to be careful because your online reputation is at stake and nobody likes a down website.
Not one of my Siteground sites have been down so far. Finally, a 99% uptime claim that rings true!
#10 – I Finally Like my Web Host After Years of Disapointment
I spent years being unhappy with my web hosting. I was too lazy and scared to leave Godaddy because they manage all my domains. I chose the easy path instead of the correct path.
You should be happy with your web host. Don’t suffer like I did staying up early in the morning to fix issues that should have never happened.
Siteground is the perfect web hosting for me and my online business. They make things easy for me and solve my problems with ease.
They don’t upsell me on extra features or blame me for my website problems. Instead, Siteground fixes my problems then shows me how to do it in the future. They treat me with respect and not like a customer number (I’m talking to you, Godaddy!).
I know my customer support rep by Name and see their faces online. My sites load faster and my traffic is up. Facebook likes are up, shares are up, comments are up. Everything is going up!
I wish I switched much sooner!
Signing Up is Easy
Here’s how you sign up:
Choose Your Hosting Plan
Siteground offers 3 plans to choose from:
- Startup – Perfect for you if you have 1 website
- GrowBig – Perfect for you if you have multiple sites and get more traffic
- GoGeek – Perfect for Ecommerce, Affiliate Marketers, Developers and people with larger sites. Offers more benefits like Staging and places your site on a server with fewer sites
Choose Your Domain
Siteground offers free domain registration (Saves you $15 per year) or you can use an existing domain.
Review and Complete
Siteground offers a 50% discount if you purchase hosting anually. You save a lot of money if you purchase 1, 2 or 3 years in advance. The discount applies to all billing levels as well, not just a long term plan.
HackMonitor is optional if you want to prevent hackers from installing spam scripts on your site. I use Sucuri to protect my sites so I leave it unchecked.
Now, click Submit Order and your account will be setup!
You will receive a confirmation email along with your login information to access your Siteground dashboard. Siteground provides tutorials and documentation (text + video) to help you navigate their Admin panel.
If you already have an existing website, don’t forget to use their free migration service.
Go to My Account -> Support -> Transfer My Website
Send them your Cpanel or Hosting username and password to get your site moved from your old hosting to Siteground. It should take between 1 to 6 hours depending on the size of your Cpanel account.
That’s it! I hope this article helped you understand the benefits of using Siteground and why I switched to Siteground from Godaddy.
If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments. I’d love to help you succeed and spread your mission online.
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thanks for your analysis,i am looking out for info on which hosting is best and after reaading your article i have a good idea on site ground
Hello,
From last 8 months, I have been using SiteGround to host my big coupon sites as well as my amazon micro niche sites and i have been very much impressed with their service.
Specially their support, as they have very good staff with good technical knowledge.
A few months ago, I got some technical issues with my WordPress website, so iI had to contact SiteGround Support staff for the help and within few hours of opening a support ticket, my problem was solved.
So, after 8 months, I can say, SiteGround is one of the best when it comes to Reliable Web Hosting. I also written a review on my website to tell more people about this hosting company so that they can leave all those ugly hosting companies and migrate to SiteGround for better service.
And I must say, you have written your points very clearly in this review. Great Work Done.
Regards,
Julie Schrier
It’s not true that they do the tranfer for free. they do the first for free the others are to pay for. I have a problem with them suggesting to pay more than $200 to remove malicious program. Where is the saving if you have to buy a $200 yearly cleaner otherwise they stop your account. Seems a racket to me.