Best Review Guide / Articles / Services / Web Hosting / GreenGeeks features Reviewed

GreenGeeks features Reviewed

Mitch Avatar By: Mitch | Last updated August 6, 2021

website hosting


Introduction

Climate change is real and it's happening at a faster rate than what most scientists predicted. Anybody who says otherwise is either ignorant or a troll. We can't get into all the details of what caused it in this article, but one thing for sure, mankind has a major role in it. 

When it comes to the things that we as a people do that cause global warming, most people would quickly point to several things. The carbon dioxide from millions of cars, the HFCs from regular household fridges, and the methane from intensive animal farming.

But there is also one other thing that contributes to the overall climate change that rarely, if ever, gets mentioned. The internet. In this article, we'll talk about how the internet pollutes the environment, the company that tries to change it, and whether or not we should use their services.

How the internet polluted the environment

While the internet itself is a virtual space, the foundation that makes it possible for it to stay on all the time is a physical space called data centers. Data center is a massive room full of tons of servers put inside rows of racks. 

If you ever use a computer, you'll know that it will get hot upon extensive use. Well, the servers in the data centers are pretty much the same. In order to keep the internet online all the time, the servers keep on working day and night. And that generates a massive amount of heat. 

The energy needed to cool those servers down accounts for 40% of all the energy used to power the internet. Today, there are more than 8 million data centers around the world and it will only keep on increasing. 

Today, it accounts for 2% of worldwide carbon emissions, similar to the airline industry. If the trends of growth and expansion continues, it will reach 14% by 2040, similar to the carbon emissions of the United States of America.

Who is GreenGeeks?

Greengeeks is a web hosting company that promises to provide you with eco-friendly services while still maintaining the speed, stability, security, and reliability that your website needs. Greengeeks is one of the best solutions for those of you who have a website and care about the environment as well. 

In 2005, Trey Gardner found out about the truth behind the internet and its carbon emission and he wanted to do something about it. In 2008, he founded Greengeeks in order to be the most eco-friendly web hosting company in the world. 

And in 2009, Greengeeks managed to be recognized by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as their official Green Power Partner. Not only that, they also received an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.

How Greengeeks save the environment

Just like any other web hosting company, Greengeeks also use data centers. So how do they become an eco-friendly company, you might ask. Well, they do it in two ways. The first one is by offsetting the energy that they have used, and the other one is by working directly to save the environment. 

They achieve the first one by working together with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) in Portland, Oregon. At the end of every fiscal year, Greengeeks will tell BEF how much energy that they've used that year. BEF, on behalf of Greengeeks, will then purchase Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) three times as much as the amount of energy that they've used and put it back into the grid.

The second one is by working together with the One Tree Planted organization to directly plant lots of trees. Greengeeks has made the commitment that for every user that signs up to any Greegeeks hosting plans, they will plant one tree.

Features of GreenGeeks
  • SSD storage arrays. While you may appreciate the green technology, as a website owner, you certainly care a lot more about speed and security. Greengeeks used Solid State RAID-10 Storage Arrays for fast page loads and also for maximum redundancy. 
  • Best speed technologies. Other than the SSDs, Greengeeks also has lots of other ways that could help improve the speed of your site significantly, such as LiteSpeed, LSCache, MariaDB, HTTP/2, PHP7, and even free CDN that you could implement to your website.
  • Built-in Scalability. As a small business, one of your biggest concerns is surely scalability. There will come a time when you'd need to scale up your business. Greengeeks is aware and addresses this issue by providing an easy scale computing resource whenever you need it to seamlessly upgrade your hosting plans.
  • Advanced security. Other than environmental issues, one of the main concerns of every web hosting user is security. Greengeeks implements advanced security for your websites by using custom security rules and zero-day vulnerability fixes.
  • Stable hosting platform. Beside their commitment to the environment, Greengeeks also devote themselves to provide a stable hosting platform. By signing up to Greengeeks, you'll be able to use their container technology, account isolation, proactive monitoring, and daily backups.
  • Expert 24/7 support. If you ever encounter any problems when hosting your website on Greengeeks, you can visit the FAQ sections of their website. If you need further help, you can also contact their team of experts 24/7 through the live chat, support tickets, and phone calls.
Greengeeks pricing plans
  • Wordpress hosting. This is the plan for professionals and bloggers who simply need reliable web hosting for their particular purposes. This plan started from $2.49/month.
  • WooCommerce hosting. This is the plan for small to medium businesses that need to set up online shops through WooCommerce. This plan also started from $2.49/month.
  • Reseller Web hosting. This is the plan for those who need to own multiple hosting accounts whether for personal or business reasons. This plan started from $29.95/month.
  • Virtual Private Servers. This is the most premium plan from Greengeeks and it is suitable for those who need a fast SSD-based VPS hosting platform for website or application. This plan started from $39.95/month.
Conclusion

As we spend more time on the internet, the number of people and businesses who created new websites keeps on increasing every day. Unfortunately, there's a bad side effect through this rapid development that not many people realize. And that is an increase in energy consumption and carbon emission. 

In order to combat those grim developments while still fulfilling the needs of the people, Greengeeks appears as the most eco-friendly web hosting solution. They offer fast, secured and reliable web hosting while also leaving a positive impact on the environment. You should definitely give our Greengeeks review a read if you are interested in lessening your carbon footprint while hosting your website.

SUBSCRIBE