Why I Left Hostgator for SiteGround After 8 Years

Last updated on February 17th, 2018 at 09:04 am

It’s official I am finally moving from Hostgator to SiteGround. As of the 13th of this month, my Hostgator account of 8 years will finally be no more….why the move?

I know you have read all those posts about Hostgator vs SiteGround and are probably tired of it. Well I was too. After all most of those people who say that SiteGround are most likely trying to pitch you their affiliate link.

Well I didn’t believe any of the things, all I knew was that my sites were starting to load slowly on Hostgator.

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Not only that, but whenever I needed support it was taking longer and longer to get anyone to answer my live chat support tickets.

I have had a HostaGator account since 2008. I didn’t only have one account, nope, I had 2 reseller accounts. So I was paying $60 per month, especially, since they recently raised their prices.

As you can see from the billing history below, I have paid my fair share of hosting fees with Hostgator.

So anyway, once they raised their prices I decided that enough was enough.

Site Migration Can Be A Headache

One of the reasons that I have prolonged moving my websites is because it can be a time-consuming task. Who really wants to spend a weekend or a week migrating websites from one hosting account to another?

I didn’t, I guess that is why I stuck it out with Hostgator for so long.

I had read so many articles about people talking about them being an EIG company. Well to tell you the truth, I didn’t pay it any attention.

Finally, when they raised their prices from $24.95 to $29.95 for one reseller account, I thought it was finally time to find someone else.

That’s When I Found SiteGround

Now, I’ve been on the Internet working with WordPress since 2008 and I had heard of SiteGround before. But like I mentioned before….I didn’t want to be bothered with moving my sites.

Related: My SiteGround Review My Opinion From A Happy Customer

Well I finally spent a day reading articles and finally deciding that it was time to move my sites.

I think the article that helped me make up my mind was this one. To tell you the truth, I spent a whole afternoon reading and trying to decide if it was the right fit for me.

Do You Due Diligence When Looking For A New Hosting Account

Don’t take my word for it or anyone else, make sure you do your due diligence before you make the jump.

After all, the last thing you want is to move to a hosting account you are not happy with.

See, I’ve been working in SiteGround for over a year. One of my clients has a SiteGround Cloud Hosting Account. So I knew my way around the inside of the cPanel.

However, I needed to know if the SiteGround would work for me.

So I got on Support and started chatting with them. They were extremely fast in responding to my ticket.

In fact, the guy that was helping me logged into my cPanel accounts to see if I should go with the GrowBig or the GoGeek.

Well after he checked my sites quotas and the AWStats of my sites, he said that the GrowBig account would work for my sites. So I moved over my sites as well as some of my clients sites.

Yes I use my hosting account to host some of my clients websites.

Will SiteGround Migrate My Websites From My Old Hosting Account?

Migrating a site is very easy and I will cover that in another post…but for now if you don’t know how to migrate a site, you will be happy to know that they will move the first site as a courtesy transfer.

Every other site after the first one is $30 or more.

Now, that can get expensive, depending on how many sites you have.

I didn’t use the courtesy migration. I ended up moving all my sites on a weekend.

How Much Does SiteGround Cost?

One of the firs things everyone wants to know…me included is how much is it going to cost me?

Well one of the great things about SiteGround is that they have different plans that you can choose from.

The downside is that the hosting plan you are currently paying for is most likely a monthly payment.

Siteground plans require you to pay on a yearly basis. I am not sure if they offer a monthly payment option…if they do then I missed it.

Anyway, you get the biggest discount when you sign up for more than 1 year.

So I went ahead and signed up for the 3 year payment option…which is the most you can sign up for.

I wanted the biggest discount possible and as I mentioned earlier, I was already familiar with their hosting package as one of my freelance clients uses them.

So I already knew that they had great customer service and the websites hosted on their servers are faster than my Hostgator sites.

The 3 year plan works for me because I knew that I already liked SiteGround. You of course may not want to commit to 3 years right away.

They do offer a one month trial, but what they don’t tell you is that there is a $24.95 fee to set up the account.

When you pay annually, you don’t have to worry about the setup fee.

Does HostGator Suck?

No it doesn’t. I was happy with them for over 8 years and never experienced an unusual amount of down time.

So why did I leave?

As I mentioned their support sucked. Plus I had my accounts for over 8 years. I was paying for 2 reseller accounts, when I really didn’t have to.

It was time to do some Spring cleaning of my websites and start fresh with a new hosting company.

If you’re happy with Hostgator then I wouldn’t bother looking for another Hosting account.

However, if you’re looking for one that has great customer support and can improve your website load time, then I would take a look at SiteGround.

Just be prepared to pay a little more for hosting.

With the GrowBig Plan if you get more than 25,000 visitors per month, you will be forced to pay more. I haven’t reached that point…but I’ll let you know what happens when I do.

Has SiteGround Made My Sites Load Faster?

I’ve only had my SiteGround account for a few days…so it’s still too early to tell if it has made any improvement in my sites in the search engines.

I personally have noticed that my sites are faster…especially after turning on their WP Super Cacher.

Still I am very happy that I made the move. My hosting account is less cluttered than it was on Hostgator, I got rid of a lot of sites I no longer manage or work on.

I should’ve cleaned house a long time ago.

 

Are You Happy With Your Current Hosting Account?

Everyone who has a website online pays for hosting. The only question you need to ask yourself is are you happy with your current hosting account?

If so then you have most likely built your website on a solid foundation and you won’t have to worry about moving your websites.

If NOT…

Then you may want to consider taking the time to do your research to find the right hosting account for your business.

I’m not saying that SiteGround is the right choice for you. But anyone who has been online for a while, has most likely read a lot of great reviews about them.

So let me know if you are happy with your current hosting account and if now, what has prevented you from moving? Are you worried that you may make the wrong decision on choosing a better hosting account?

Or do you just not want to take the time to move your websites from one hosting account to another?

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Need help moving your sites, then don’t hesitate to contact me, I can help you out…reach out to me and we will provide you with a reasonable quote.

Or ask a quick question below and we will help you out as best as we can.