In the 14 years since purchasing ariherzog.com, I’ve paid several companies for web hosting. From GoDaddy to Tubu to HostGator and probably others in between, SiteGround is the latest — and I’m pleased to share why.
To the uninitiated, content doesn’t exist on its own but resides on servers that are connected to the internet and eventually can be seen on your computer or mobile device. I don’t know any blogger, company, or website owner that operates their own server. Everyone — person and business — rents space for a monthly or annual period of time with a hosting provider.
For the past three years I hosted my site with HostGator. They’ve been in business for over a decade; and are among the most popular providers out there for shared hosting environments. My three-year promotional rate was set to expire this month; and they were unwilling to offer me a discounted rate to renew. I also grew dissatisfied with increased incidents of downtime and longer-than-usual responses to my support questions.
With the help of a WordPress user group on Facebook, a lot of people suggested SiteGround. I communicated with their sales reps through several internet chats before saying yes.
It was a cinch for them to transfer my website files and databases, a service they offer for free to new customers.
It’s worth noting that HostGator operates data centers in Texas and Utah in the United States; whereas SiteGround has them in Chicago, London, Amsterdam, and Singapore.
The more data centers (where servers are located), the more likely people closer to those centers get faster page loading speeds. Considering only about half of my blog visitors are in the U.S., it was important for me to enable you to have a faster connection wherever you live in the world.
P.S. There are no affiliate links in this post. Feel free to click what you want without worrying it’s a sales pitch. I just want you to know about a company that has me as a new customer.