What is web hosting?
All websites must “live” on a special computer system called a “server” that allows the website files to be accessed via the internet. This is the same for every website in the entire world and also other data sites including social media sites, email and cloud storage services like Google Drive. Millions upon millions of servers are needed to handle all this data on large, industrial settings called “server farms”.
What is the environmental impact?
It’s estimated that as of 2021 there are over 6.8 million of these data centers and server farms in the world. Each of these farms uses a huge amount of electricity not only because each server needs power to operate but mostly to keep all of those banks of servers or “stacks” cool with air conditioning. Interestingly enough, many of the farms are located in the middle of deserts…
In fact, these centers use so much power that they currently account for 2% of the world’s total carbon emissions! This is the same amount as used by the entire world’s airline industry. This amount is expected to increase to a whopping 14% by the year 2040.
How can you make your website more green?
One powerful way to help offset the carbon footprint of your business and personal websites is by choosing a web and data hosting service that offsets their energy consumption and carbon footprint. The way this works is that the hosting businesses purchase Renewable Energy Certificates (REPs) to cover or exceed their carbon footprints. In turn, the money generated from the REPs goes to support renewable energy projects like wind power, solar and geothermal energy and also forest and water resources management.
About GreenGeeks Hosting
The hosting service that RedSpiralHand uses for personal and client websites is GreenGeeks. GreenGeeks is a 3x Carbon Neutral company which means they purchase enough carbon certificates to offset their own carbon footprint plus 2 other companies of their size.
We must admit, though, that we started using GreenGeeks several years ago and were so impressed with their customer service and wordpress hosting service that the green hosting feature was just a nice value-added. We were SO impressed that we finally moved all our own websites over and they are the only hosting service we use for any sites we host ourselves.
We’ve been referring all web & marketing clients to GreenGeeks for several years and have heard only good things from them all. It took us a while but a year after GreenGeeks approached us to become affiliates we accepted with the caveat that if anything happened and we felt we could no longer recommend them highly to clients that would end that arrangement. But happily, it’s been a great ongoing relationship and they continue to improve and offer more services as part of their wordpress hosting suites and we couldn’t be more pleased.
A great partner for open-source solutions
One sticky wicket we encountered with other big-name hosting companies was that they push proprietary (paid) solutions and do things to discourage the use of open-source (free) website resources. We at RedSpiralHand are huge open-source proponents and in fact WordPress AND the Linux server software that WordPress sites are built to run on are BOTH successful examples of open-source solutions. We also wanted to be able to offer a stable and reliable way for client websites to utilize the free, open-source Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates (for https sites). GreenGeeks supports this feature in a way that makes our jobs so easy…basically 3 clicks and minimal twiddling and sites are (ta da!) running https.
Here’s a short list of the things we love most about GreenGeeks:
- Stellar customer service that never fails to bowl us over every time
- They love and embrace open-source solutions (yay!)
- Pricing is very economical
- They don’t push unnecessary products on our clients (a biggie!)
- WordPress hosting tools that make our jobs easier
- Our friendly relationship with some of the company execs
- Oh yeah, that 300% carbon neutral, green hosting thing
- And they plant a tree for each new customer who signs on!
Check out GreenGeeks WordPress hosting services >>
RedSpiralHand would be happy to help you move your website over to GreenGeeks like we have with dozens of others. The process is simple and safe (we create an exact copy of your site on the GreenGeeks server) and can be accomplished with little or no noticeable interruption to your current “live” website. We will get you up and running in no time with free or paid https, automatic site backups and tools like CloudFlare to help your site run as fast and efficiently as possible.
Resources:
10 Facts To Know About Data Centers
Your “cloud” data is making noise on the ground
The Secret Cost of Google’s Data Centers: Billions of Gallons of Water to Cool Servers
Amazing Advantages and Little-known Disadvantages of Server Farms
Why data centres are the new frontier in the fight against climate change
Best green web hosting of 2021
How Green Web Hosting Works (and Which Eco-Friendly Providers to Consider)
What You Can Do To Reduce the Carbon Footprint of Your Website