Is your website is running slow and you need to move it somewhere else so it runs faster? Or, maybe your web server has been hacked and now you’re faced with a decision of where to move it where it?
Well, I have a lot of experience in this area, so I’m here to help!
Being a professional web developer myself, I’ve used a lot of web hosting companies over the past 20 years or so. So, lets get into it…
My Experience with BlueHost
The hosting company I used personally for the longest time was BlueHost. When I first got setup with them, I thought they were pretty good. They were never really fast, but I tried to make up for it by using WordPress caching plugins. Well, as the years went by the sites on my BlueHost account got slower and slower until it was almost completely unusable without caching turned on. That meant that the front-end of the websites would load in a decent amount of time (not really fast, but not horrible), but the really bad part was managing these websites from the WordPress back-end.
So, I went on a search for a better hosting company.
Web Hosting Company Conglomerate: EIG
I dug up some interesting facts along the way that I thought I would share here. It turns out that one big conglomerate called Endurance International Group (EIG) owns the vast majority of the web hosting companies out there. Bluehost was one of them.
I guess they realized that people tend to get fed up with their current web host for one reason or another and move to another hosting company. So, they bought up as many of those companies as possible so that they could essentially keep their customers by letting them migrate from one brand to another, but still under the EIG umbrella.
I’ve also heard some pretty bad things from people who worked at EIG brands that they really don’t care that much about the quality of their hosting since they’re not so worried about people migrating.
That’s when I found out that SiteGround is one of the most popular and well-reviewed web hosting company that is NOT part of EIG.
Migrating to SiteGround Web Hosting
Well, the first part of my migration was this website. I setup a new account at SiteGround, and migrated KinkeadTech.com over to it. Huge difference! The performance was great!
Over a year later, it because obvious that I needed to move the other sites off of BlueHost. I setup another SiteGround account and move some sites on there, and again it was “night and day” better!
Notable SiteGround Features
Full cPanel Capabilities
If you know anything about the various kinds of web servers you could get, you are probably a fan of cPanel. Plesk is one competitor, but cPanel is really the dominant player in the web server management interface arena.
So, if you are familiar with cPanel from a previous web hosting company, you’ll feel at home with a similar interface. Plus, you can feel confident that it will offer all the robust features you’ll need.
SG Cache & SuperCacher WordPress Plugin
SiteGround has built its own caching features with a companion WordPress plugin that allows you to configure the caching right from within the WordPress admin area. It also gives you an easy button to click to clear the cache if you need to.
The cache settings in SiteGround’s cPanel lets you configure static cache, dynamic cache, memcached, and even HHVM (I believe only available with the cloud hosting plans).
These features make it even easier to make your website load as fast as possible, which is very good for SEO.
Free One-Click SSL Certificate by Let’s Encrypt
Now, more than ever, SSL certificates are very important to have, even if your website doesn’t collect any personal information. That’s because Google is now using SSL as a ranking factor. So, if you want to rank as high as you can against your competitors, you should have an SSL certificate to give you any edge, or so you don’t fall behind.
But, have you ever wondered why SSL certificates are so expensive? I mean, it’s a virtual, intangible product that doesn’t seem like it should have much cost.
Finally, there’s a free SSL provider. Let’s Encrypt is a free, automated, and open certificate authority made possible by the non-profit Internet Security Research Group (ISRG). SiteGround is one of their sponsors.
SiteGround has a feature in their cPanel that lets you install a free certificate with the click of a single button… it’s awesome!
Conclusion
If you wish to dive deeper into the SiteGround service specifications, there is an in-depth Siteground evaluation you could check out on hosting.review.
I don’t have all those fancy benchmark graphs comparing the two hosting companies’ performance. But, I have personal experience and can vouch for it.
Give SiteGround a try, and I’m sure you’ll be happy with it.
Do You Use WordPress?
Check out my other blog, WPForTheWin.com, for a bunch of awesome tips to supercharge your WordPress site.
