If you would like to know about SiteGround review, then this review article is best for you!
Numerous companies have embarked on a platform, trying to reach out to the masses with the provision of Web hosting services, as they are expanding with time and experimenting with their proposals to offer the users.
There’s no doubt that several such companies are lined ahead to choose from, but one such Web host provider which currently has grabbed our attention and needs to be emphasized upon is the SiteGround Web host.
Like other Web host portals, SiteGround also comes up with many provisions to offer in various ranges, which we shall be entering into the details.
SiteGround was established in 2004, after which it has seen a wide expansion throughout, thereby reaching a position of being considered amongst the well-known Web hosting companies.
Having it headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria, with offices reaching four locations, and data centers in three continents, the company has seen a surge in the number of employees and hosting. Its current strength of employees all around is more than 500, and it simultaneously hosts more than 2,000,000 domains.
Basically, there are many variables taken under consideration when the selection of Web hosting process undergoes.
There may be features which the general customer could look out for ( like storage and pricing) or which serve the business-bound users ( like e-commerce and server location). And to be precise here, SiteGround seems to cater to both these requirements efficiently.
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Detailed SiteGround Service & Features
Find below the detailed services and features of SiteGround hosting provider:
Choice of Data Centres
Like a few other web hosts, SiteGround lets one choose the data centre the user wishes to host its website from. Centres under consideration: United States (Chicago), Europe (Amsterdam, Milan, Germany), Asia-Pacific (Singapore), United Kingdom (London), and Australia (Sydney).
If someone is concerned over the data privacy and retention laws, one can opt for a European data center. If any of the users belong to Asia, they might opt for the Asia-Pacific data center. A default US server could be the other option as well. Not all businesses would be in need of this provision, but it’s more of an advanced option for the newbies to look out for.
Plans Offered
Each of the plans offered by SiteGround has a high monthly price. And one can reduce the cost by using introductory deals and annual sign-ups. Below are the plans offered to look out for:
Start up plan
It starts at $6.99 per month, incorporating a package of one website, 10GB of storage capacity, suitable network traffic for roughly 10,000 visitors a month, a one-year free Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate, daily data backups, unlimited email, support for Cloudflare and WordPress.
GrowBig plan
It starts at $9.99 per month and acts as an additional plan to the former plan. Apart from the former tier’s base, it further includes plus support for unlimited websites, unlimited databases, 20GB of storage capacity, site staging, and network traffic suitability for approximately 25,000 visits a month.
GoGeek plan
It starts at $14.99 per month and is mainly intended for still-larger sites. It goes to the next level by including 40GB of storage, suitable network traffic for approximately 100,000 visits a month, priority support, white-label support, and a Git repository.
An additional note to be made is that SiteGround also makes discounts on StartUp ($6.99 per month); GrowBig ($9.99 per month); and GoGeek ($14.99 per month) plans, especially for those people who sign up for new annual plans. SiteGround claims that it could deal with more visitors other than the limited ones that are listed, but that too only for one- occurrence a month.
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Cloud Hosting Provision
SiteGround does not make provisions for VPS Web hosting anymore, instead boosts Cloud hosting. As a Linux -based platform, it draws resources from several servers, specifically designed to auto-scale with the traffic surges, which in turn enables the users site to stay intact without losing the power.
Now coming to the Cloud hosting plans, it begins at $80 per month for 4GB of RAM, provides 40GB of storage, and 5TB of monthly data transfers. It maximizes up to $240 per month for 10GB of RAM, provides 120GB of storage, and 5TB of monthly data transfers.
There is a lot of space for growth. One can also customize one’s Cloud hosting plan if the need for power arises. It also includes a free one-year SSL certificate.
Shared Web Hosting
For users seeking out on a low-cost Web hosting service, Shared hosting is something one cannot miss providing. With the use of Shared hosting service, several websites club together on a single server, thus reducing the overall costs.
Having said that, multiple sites share a common server’s computing power, which might have the possibility of impacting one’s site, if the other manage to gather a traffic surge. This could be the only drawback to Shared Web host services.
If one is able to take up the risk concerned, given the low cost, this provision can be given a thought to utilization.
WordPress Web Hosting
Similar to its counterparts, SiteGround also offers WordPress hosting. SiteGround supervises the users installation with an optimized managed WordPress hosting.
It is a service that grants one’s website with improved security, automated daily backups, page caching, staging, along updates relating to the automatic content management system. It comes with a provision that offers one-click installation, with a free account transfer.
SiteGround has stopped offering a free domain name, but it alternately gives substantial discounts for registration purposes. The plans happen to be similar to the company’s shared hosting plans with regard to pricing.
The WordPress tiers provided by SiteGround includes the following:
StartUp starts at $9.95 per month, and offers a meager 10GB of storage, a mere 10,000 monthly visitors, and the ability to host just one WordPress site
GrowBig, on the other hand, starts at $14.95 per month, and expands the storage to 20GB and monthly visitors to 25,000, while letting one host unlimited WordPress sites.
GoGeek, The top-notch plan, starts at $29.95 per month, with its 30GB of storage and 100,000 monthly visitors. All plans come with unlimited email and monthly data transfers.
SiteGround happens to put forward several free WordPress themes. SiteGround comes with a package of many useful in-house tools for building one’s WordPress site, which includes WP Migrator, SG Optimizer, and SuperCacher.
SiteGround further comes up with a handful of WordPress plug-ins, meant for improving the site-creation experience. WordPress Starter walks one through curated themes, with the most common site features.
It is specifically designed to meet the needs of the users where one could choose exactly what one requires, and launch the website quickly. WordPress Migrator, which acts as the company’s migration tool, facilitates data transfer from an old site to one’s new SiteGround powered site.
SG optimizer works besides with SuperCacher and helps in enhancing the site’s performance by optimizing images, Javascript, CSS, etc.
Once logged into the SiteGround’s WordPress setup, one could create posts, pages, and galleries as one would with any other self-hosted WordPress site. If the user wishes to set up a non-manageable WordPress site, one could do that, too.
Reseller Web Hosting
SiteGround has cut down on offering the Standalone reseller hosting packages. Instead, what the company does is that it allows GoGeek and Cloud hosting subscribers to give client access to their site management tools by using the client white-label option.
Additionally, Cloud plans let the users create custom hosting packages for each of the clients who depend on the needed resources. The reseller delay with the hosting support and billing, and charges the clients.
Setting Up Website
SiteGround leverages Weebly as its website builder of choice. It is certainly a better movie, as Weebly has a lot to offer. It slows the users to make attractive web pages without having to sacrifice much time. Weebly also makes it simpler to add text, video, and images to one’s test pages.
SiteGround also has a WordPress Starter, which acts as a simple content management system. It has a curated selection of free themes and plug-ins. It’s specifically designed to transfer the user’s personal or business website online, promptly.
E-Commerce and SSL
Apart from Weebly, one could also set up a site from the get-go and e-commerce software such as PrestaShop, CS-Cart, and Magento. The Control Panel has icons for these platforms, given under AutoInstallers, making it easy to find them.
One can either visit the Softaculous and pick one out of the 30 available options, including Zen Cart, ShoWare, OpenCart, Axis, etc. Magento additionally can be used to create an attractive store by using its feature called drag-and-drop store builder.
If one wishes to see products online, one is ought to have a Secure Socket-Layer(SSL) certificate. SiteGround offers Wildcard, which happens to be a premium SSL certificate, that helps in securing one’s top-level domain, as well as unlimited subdomains.
The wildcard is considered as a free, one-year bonus feature if signed up for GrowBig or GoGeek packages. Otherwise, it’s $60 a year.
Security Features
SiteGround puts forward various security options for the users, including the SG Site Scanner, which helps one know whether the site is under some attack, thus providing them with antispam tools SpamAssassin and SpamExperts, hotlink protection, and IP address blocklists. It scans all the links on one’s homepage to make sure the site is clean and safe from any threats.
SiteGround also provides an interesting feature, called Leech Protect. This lets administrators prevent users from revealing or publicly posting their passwords to the portions of the site.
It is to be found that SiteGround actually integrates with the Cloudflare content delivery network (CDN) service for encouraging better performance and security.
While any site owner can easily sign up with Cloudflare, the integration would mean that more people who weren’t aware of this option, will now be able to get all the benefits out of it.
Another helpful tool that needs a mention, is SiteCheck. This automatic software scanning tool checks one’s website to scrutinize if there happens to be any malware in the code or on the site.
Running it periodically is a better option since nobody would want their email box brimming with messages from irate users stating that visiting the website infected the computers. SiteGround also has free daily backups for safeguarding the data.
Excellent Uptime
Website uptime is one of the most important aspects of any hosting services. If a user’s site is down, the clients or customers will be unable to find him/her and will not get access to his/her products or services. From certain observations and trails, it is to be found that SiteGround’s uptime rate is stable.
Customer Support
SiteGround is of the view that its main focus lies on customer service, and its services show many knowledgebase articles, and tutorials. Customer support is available through a ticket-based system, live chat, and a 24/7 telephone support system.
Based on some trials, it has been found that responses made by SiteGround’s online chat box are quick. Connecting to the representative takes a few seconds. Not only the responses are prompt, but it is clear to follow as well.
The telephone service is also worth a mention. The representatives patiently and clearly help one walk through the process.
Provision for Newbies and Small Business
SiteGround is clearly on the path for positioning itself as a favorable service provider amongst the newbies, and especially within the small business newbies.
Having scrutinized the information regarding the services provided by SiteGround, right from its features to support resources, these are specifically designed for the mom-and-pop stores, sole proprietors, and independent businesses, that do not excel in advanced web skills.
Additionally, SiteGround’s surprising number of security features indicates that it has more preferences for small businesses.
Small businesses or the nascent ones generally remain vulnerable to website attacks, and this might also compel them not to invest much in a site scanner to look for malware or a cloud provider to protect them from a denial-of-service attack. And the fact that SiteGround does it for them, makes the small business rely on the company as a partner.
Still, if you need greater storage and bandwidth allotments, or high-powered VPS, or dedicated hosting, consider moving to Others.
SiteGround Pros & Cons
Find below the Pros and Cons of SiteGround Hosting provider:
Conclusion
The information laid above has somewhat given an overall clarity on what SiteGround has in store. It reflects on what SiteGround stands out at, and what it is lagging behind, to work upon.
Right from having provisions of WordPress, Cloud, and shared Web hosting, to preferably, the best customer care services, security services, e-commerce sites, reliable hosting plans, and providing favorable service for the nascent and small businesses, SiteGround could be a top-notch choice to opt for.
Despite this, if some are in search of better storage capacity, with proper bandwidth allotments, and high-powered VPS or inclusion of dedicated hosting, one could even think of moving to some other available choices. It completely depends upon the users choice of categories, which they are seeking out for.
