Dear present Sea to Sky Solutions and former Working Design clients,
As we know, our websites are in constant need of TLC, updates and tweaks.
There is one decision that the security, performance and reliability of your website and email depends on: your hosting provider.
Many of you in the past few years migrated from previous hosting providers to Site5 first and WHC later on because no one could match their quality of service, and their outstanding, fast and reliable customer/technical support system.
Well, that is not the situation any longer. Site5, like many other hosting companies, has been bought by EIG.
Now we are not going into details (very boring and honestly somewhat unclear in the overall marketing operation) but if you want you can read more here:
https://www.reviewhell.com/blog/eig-acquired-site5/ (the latest updates are towards the end of the article, before the comments).
This article is from a reliable source and also, unfortunately, we have been a first hand witness of the disastrous end of Site5.
Now, if you have a little bit more patience and check the list of the hosting providers that EIG absorbed and is bringing down (https://www.reviewhell.com/blog/endurance-international-group-eig-hosting/) you’ll understand why it is hard to find a suitable and affordable alternative.
Our suggested alternative is: us!
S2SS Cloud Hosting!
Our suggested alternative is a Canadian company, independent, solid and with an excellent reputation:
WHC – Web Hosting Canada
Their servers are in Canada, and they have no foreign datacenter. (By contrast, Site5 plans to migrate all their Canadian servers back to the US, so they will only be covered by US privacy laws) .
Customer support is a priority for WHC, and they are fast to respond and fix problems.
Feel free to contact us so we can discuss options and our Docker Cloud Hosting solutions.
Please note that GoDaddy, even if it is not part of EIG it is NOT a reliable option, and we cannot recommend it.
If you are not a WHC, Site5 client please consider this information for future reference.
Non-HTTPS Sites Labeled “Not Secure”
And finally, another recent web requirement that we have to address.
A secure web certificate to encrypt data communication between our sites and our users; we will all need to purchase an SSL/HTTPS security certificate for our sites. Google’s Chrome Browser has been the first to implement a change that will flag all sites without an https:// as “not secure” (FireFox is following), which is alarming and confusing to your site’s audience.
Non-https sites will also be penalized in Google Search rankings.
Find out more here: https://www.wordfence.com/blog
Update: March 1st, 2018
This SSL related article explains thoroughly the importance for your website and business of “secure” HTTPS/SSL connections: https://pixelprivacy.com/resources/ssl-certificate/