GreenGeeks Review
There are many options on the market today if you are looking for a web hosting provider. In order to operate a successful website, web hosting is a vital component. All these web hosting providers have various features and prices and making a selection can be difficult. GreenGeeks is one company providing this service. They are one of the more unique companies around today.
Founder of GreenGeeks
Trey Gardner founded GreenGeeks in 2008. Gardner had previously worked with several web hosting companies, including iPage, Lunarpages and Hostpapa.
Looking at the Advantages of GreenGeeks
There are many good things about this web hosting provider, but a few downsides as well.
This new company aims to provide a high-quality web hosting service, but importantly, also in an environmentally friendly way.
Environmental Friendliness
It is expected that the web hosting industry will surpass the airline industry in environmental pollution by 2020. GreenGeeks first claim to fame is that they are an environmentally friendly web hosting company. As soon as you open their website, you will notice their ‘green credentials’. From that point there is an explanation as to how they are reducing their carbon footprint.
They are recognized as an EPA Green Power Partner and claim they are the most eco-friendly web hosting provider available today.
How do GreenGeeks help you to become the owner of an eco-friendly web site?
In order to compensate for the energy used by their servers, they purchase wind energy credits. They actually purchase 3 times the amount of energy that is used by their data centers.
Their data centers, which are designed to be environmentally friendly, house the servers. Energy-efficient hardware is used to host site data. In total, they replace 615,000 KWH per year.
The badges that are provided to webmasters spread awareness of their commitment to the environment.
The Importance of Green Hosting
Fossil fuels power web hosting servers, with one web hosting server producing 1,390 pounds of CO2 each year. GreenGeeks provides web hosting powered by renewable energy. All aspects of the business are built to be as energy-efficient as possible.
Technology using the Latest Speed
If your website fails to load quickly, you will lose potential visitors. Although you can do a lot to optimize the performance and speed of your web site, a web host that can help you do this is invaluable.
GreenGeeks ensure your web pages load at great speeds by investing in all the most recent speed technology:
- Files and databases are stored in SSD hard drives, which are much faster than HDD (hard Disk Drives)
- GreenGeeks servers are able to deliver content up to 50 times faster
- Built-in caching technology is customized.
- Website owners are able to use the Free CDN services which are powered by Cloudfare, to enable a fast delivery to visitors.
- HTTP/2 is a fast page loading in-browser, which improves communication between client and server.
- PHP7 support is another of the latest technologies used by GreenGeeks.
GreenGeeks Load Times
On one test, using WordPress, the site loaded relatively quickly – 0.9 seconds, 253Kb page size, and 15 requests.
Because GreenGeeks already use built-in caching, it is not necessary to tweak that setting, but things can be further optimized by compressing some MIME file types:
- Find the software section in your cPanel.
- Tweak the way Apache handles requests in the setting, ‘Optimise Website.’
- Compress the text/html text/plain and text/xml MIME types.
- Update settings.
This improved the load time by 0.3 seconds to 0.6 seconds.
A further step to speeding things up is to install a free WordPress plugin called Autoptimize, and enable the default setting. This reduced the total page size to 242Kb and took the number of requests down to 10.
Reliable Infrastructures
Effective web hosting requires power, speed, and security.
GreenGeeks have 5 data centers, which allow you to select your data center. You can ensure that your target audience receives content as quickly as possible.
Additional features to the datacentre includes city to grid power feeds with backup from batteries, automated transfer switch, and an on-site diesel generator. Temperature and climate controls are located throughout the facility, with 24/7 staff, including technicians and engineers. Security is provided by a biometric key card system, and by a server-safe fire suppression system.
Security and Uptime
When choosing a web host, knowing that site data is secure is one of the major concerns. Alongside that, you need to know your web site will be up and running 24/7.
GreenGeeks uses the following:
- Hardware and Power Redundancy
- Container-based Technology
- Hosting Account Isolation
- Proactive Server Monitoring
- Real-time Security Scanning
- Automatic App Updates
- Enhanced SPAM Protection
- Nightly Data Backup
Firstly, the container-based approach they use means your resources are contained and cannot be negatively impacted by a spike in traffic, an increased demand or a security breach.
GreenGeeks automatically updates content management systems, such as Joomla or WordPress so your site is not vulnerable to security threats. All customers receive a nightly backup of their site.
Each Greengeek customer has their own Secured Visualisation File System, which fights malware and suspicious activity. If something suspicious is found it is isolated immediately and that will prevent additional damage.
GreenGeeks also offers built-in spam protection, to reduce the number of spam attempts.
All their servers are monitored so problems can be identified before they impact customers and websites. This also helps with their 99.9% uptimes.
GreenGeeks Support
Customer Support, Service Guarantees
GreenGeeks guarantees the following:
- Live telephone and chat support
- 24/7 email support
- 99% uptime
- 100% satisfaction (30-day money-back guarantee)
Although they guarantee 99.9% uptime and did respond immediately when uptime history was requested, they were unable to provide this information.
GreenGeeks do have an extensive knowledge base and provide tutorials to assist with setting up, including email addresses using WordPress and eCommerce.
eCommerce
These days, all hosting plans have various eCommerce features.
From GreenGeeks you will receive a Let’s Encrypt Wildcard SSL certificate free. This reassures customers that their information, both personal and financial, is 100% secure. Wildcards are particularly useful because they can be used for an unlimited number of subdomains.
Using one-click install software, you can add a shopping card.
Finally, GreenGeeks services are PCI compliant.
GreenGeeks Website Builder
The GreenGeeks website builder makes creating your site simple. The website builder provides 100% templates that are mobile friendly and responsive. The builder uses drag and drop technology so no coding skills are required. Along with 24/7 support, there is also SEO optimisation.
The Downside
Even great companies such as GreenGeeks will have some downsides.
GreenGeeks Pricing
There are plenty of cheap web hosting programs available, but high-quality companies don’t generally offer inexpensive services.
If we talk about GreenGeeks pricing, Initially, GreenGeeks hosting appears to offer inexpensive web hosting. It basically is, but in order to get the $2.95 per month service you need to sign up for 3 years of service. In this plan only one domain allowed. If you order for two years, the price will be $3.95 per month or if you order this plan for 1 year than the price will be $5.95 per month. Monthly price is $10.95 per month.
In unlimited domains plan, For 3 years, you will pay $5.95 per month. If you don’t want to sign up for a length of time it will cost $7.95 per month.
If you choose the monthly term, you will pay the setup fee of $15, which is waived for longer periods.
Premium Plan is from $10.95 per month for 3 year subscription and $25.95 for per month subscription.
GreenGeeks Refunds – Money Back Guarantee
GreenGeeks 30-day Money Back Guarantee states that if not 100% satisfied you will receive a full refund. In practice, the setup fee, registration fee for domain name, or transfer fees are not refunded. This doesn’t live up to the 100% money-back guarantee GreenGeeks promotes.
GreenGeeks Hosting Plans
GreenGeeks offers various hosting plans and includes some that are shared.
GreenGeeks Shared Plans
Previously, you could have a small, medium or large plan, and put cPanel on a server and start. Today, customers want a package that includes a seamless workflow, speed, uptime, and scalability.
GreenGeeks provides a path to sign up to their Ecosite Starter Plan, which has almost all the features clients want.
GreenGeeks aim is for their customers to be able to focus on the management of their websites, without the need to worry about the technology underlying the service.
Earlier this year they introduced a scalable hosting feature that allows their users to easily add resources such as CPU, RAM, and 1/0 in a pay-as-you-go plan. This eliminates the need to upgrade to Virtual Private Servers.
The following features are included:
- Unlimited MySQL Databases
- Unlimited sub and parked domains
- cPanel dashboard, which is easy to use
- One-click installs of 250+ scripts, through Softaculous
- Scalable resources
- Choice of data center
- Power Cacher caching solution
- Free CDN integration
- eCommerce features – SSL certificate, shopping care
- Free SSH and secure FTP accounts
- Peri and Python support
GreenGeeks Free Services
Upon setting up you will receive a free domain name, free site migration and access to GreenGeeks easy to use site builder. If you pay 3 years in advance, it will cost $3.95 per month, but otherwise it will be $9.95 per month.
They also have Ecosite Pro and Ecosite Premium as options to upgrade.
GreenGeeks Affiliate
GreenGeeks provides great opportunities to Affiliate marketers. You can earn upto $100 per sale. On every sale, one can earn $50. In case of more than 6 sales a month, GreenGeeks provides $100 per sale.
GreenGeeks WordPress Hosting
It lacks a few features but is basically the same as the plan for shared hosting.
Check their website to see if they are the company for you.