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We've been a paying customer of GreenGeeks for over a year now. During that time, we've been monitoring their performance uptime, page load times, customer service quality, etc. The ideas presented in this article rely heavily on the various test data we've received.
What is GreenGeeks
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Founded by Trey Gardner in 2008, it currently hosts over 300,000 websites and operates its own data centers in the United States, Canada, and Amsterdam. Founder Trey has a unique background in the colocation industry as he holds eight different hosting brands in his hands: iPage, StartLogic, Dot5Hosting, Globat, Lunarpages, Hostpapa, and now GreenGeeks.
So, how does GreenGeeks' service really work? Does it have reliable uptime and customer support services? Can it be as good as they advertise? To find the most realistic answers, we purchased GreenGeeks' shared hosting plan and set up a simple WordPress test site to test performance over the course of a year.
Benefits of GreenGeeks
As a reassuring web hosting company, GreenGeeks has a lot to offer, including reliable hosting performance, fast customer support, and useful free services, as detailed below.
- Reliable uptime
Earlier, founder Trey Gardner claimed they were able to guarantee 99.9% uptime, and our in-depth testing proved it, averaging 99.92% over the last 12 months.
Without any downtime, GreenGeeks has been running consistently for 7 months straight, which is truly impressive. If it weren't for the individual months being below 100%, then they would easily be our top choice.
- good page load time
GreenGeeks' page load time is better than the industry average, about 50% faster than the competition.
- Fast customer support
For web hosting, customer support is an important consideration. When testing live chat, we were able to get in touch with a customer service representative within a minute, and then they answered our questions quickly and concisely.
In addition to 24/7 human support, GreenGeeks offers an extensive online knowledge base where you can find solutions to most problems. This is a great way to go if you prefer to do your own research rather than ask a customer service representative for help. The knowledge base has a large selection of different article categories and subcategories, including sales issues, general hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, billing issues, video tutorials, and more.
This way, even if GreenGeek's live chat feature goes offline for some reason, you can always get the help they offer.
- Free domain name and website migration
GreenGeeks offers free domain name registration and website migration services. If you get a domain name through a web hosting plan, then it will remain free for as long as you use their services. If your website is hosted with another company, then they will help you migrate to GreenGeeks' servers for free.
- Green
GreenGeeks is a veritable green business that buys three times the amount of wind energy credits to make up for the energy consumed to power their customers' sites. In all those years of business operation, they have replaced over 615,000 kilowatts of electricity per year. While we're not sure exactly what that means, it sounds impressive.
In addition, they are a recognized green energy partner of the U.S. National Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
- 30-day money-back guarantee
If you are not satisfied with GreenGeeks, then you can get a full refund within 30 days, which may sound simple, but when you actually do it, you will find that most companies are much more complicated than GreenGeeks.
- Nightly backup
Sometimes bad things always happen, maybe they are self-inflicted or maybe other people try to crack it. Either way, GreenGeeks will provide you with free nightly backups. As for other security measures, they also offer real-time security scanning, automatic brute force detection, spam protection, SSL secure servers, and password protected directories, among many other features.
- multiple high quality server locations
GreenGeeks offers the following data centers.
- Chicago, USA
- Phoenix, USA
- Toronto, Canada
- Montreal, Canada
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Choosing the right server location will have a positive impact on the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of your website, in addition, you will experience faster loading speeds if you choose a server that is closer. greenGeeks promises that they use the following configurations to keep their servers in optimal condition.
- Never oversell
- Gigabit network connectivity
- The latest generation of energy-efficient Intel Xeon processors
- At least 64 GB ECC registered memory
- Famous brand server accessories
- RAID-10 SSD Storage Array
- Solid State Drive (SSD) Acceleration
- More than that, each data center contains the following features.
- Biometric and keycard security systems with manual traps and rack-level locking mechanisms
- SAS 70 Type 1 certification (audit report available upon request)
- FM 200 server safety fire suppression system with early pre-fire detection mechanism
- Twin city grid power, and battery backup, including automatic transfer switch and on-site diesel generator
- SingleHop data center 7×24 online engineers and technicians
- Automatic temperature control system with temperature and humidity sensors throughout the facility
- Free CDN
We interact with content delivery networks (CDNs) every day, whether we're viewing news sites, social media pages, or shopping online.
GreenGeeks offers a Cloudflare CDN for all users, which is great news for website optimization, especially if you have a global reach. Of course, the better news is: this service is completely free.
Disadvantages of GreenGeeks
Unfortunately, it's not always the gold that shines, it can also be the green leaves in the sun. Despite the many benefits of GreenGeeks, there are some caveats you should check out before making a final decision.
- Industry standard pricing
While the $2.95/month price may seem wonderful, it is only available if you purchase a three-year plan. Otherwise, if you want to pay monthly, then the price is $9.95/month.
- Questionable refund policy
Many companies offer domain names for free when you purchase a new web hosting plan, and GreenGeeks is one of them. However, if you request a refund within 30 days, then a $24.95 domain name registration fee will be deducted.
Price of GreenGeeks
The following is a brief overview of the hosting plans offered by GreenGeeks.
Ecosite Starter
$2.95/month
- 1 free domain name
- Unlimited Sites
- Unlimited Traffic
- Unlimited SSD storage
- Unlimited Email Accounts
- Free Let's Encrypt SSL Certificate
- Free website builder
- Free Website Migration
- Free night backup
- Standard Server Performance
- Send up to 100 emails per hour
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- Ecosite Pro
- $6.95/month
- 1 free domain name
- Unlimited Sites
- Unlimited Traffic
- Unlimited SSD storage
- Unlimited Email Accounts
- Free Let's Encrypt SSL Certificate
- Free website builder
- Free Website Migration
- Free night backup
- 2×Server performance
- Send up to 300 emails per hour
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- Ecosite Premium
- $16.95/month
- 1 free domain name
- Unlimited Sites
- Unlimited Traffic
- Unlimited SSD storage
- Unlimited Email Accounts
- Free Let's Encrypt SSL Certificate
- Free website builder
- Free Website Migration
- Free night backup
- 4×Server Performance
- Send up to 500 emails per hour
- Advanced Wildcard SSL Certificate
- PCI Compliance
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- Domain name: free for life
- Account registration: very easy
- Payment method.
- Account activation: very fast
- Control panel and dashboard: cPanel
Summary
In addition to web hosting, GreenGeeks has a larger mission. This company may not be the best we've seen, but they do offer consistent hosting performance and good customer support, making it a very good option to consider. Note, however, that if you want to get the lowest price, then you need to sign up for a long-term hosting plan.
- Established: 2008
- Lowest price: $2.95/month
- Uptime: 99.92%
- Page load time: 530 milliseconds
- Hosting plans: web hosting, VPS, reseller hosting, dedicated server, WordPress hosting, Drupal hosting, Joomla hosting, cPanel hosting, CMS hosting, Magento hosting, PrestaShop hosting, OpenCart hosting
- Customer support: live chat, email, phone, knowledge base
- Control backend: cPanel
- Payment method.
- Money back guarantee: 30 days