May 19, 2021

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This green web hosting site is more affordable than Hostgator and GoDaddy

5 Minute Read

Everything has a carbon footprint.

Yes, even your website.

It’s kinda crazy to think about since it’s not something you can physically see.

But every website runs through a web hosting site which requires electricity to operate. This means there’s a carbon footprint behind every website. Including yours.

Understanding a website’s carbon footprint

The company you use to host your website, like GoDaddy or HostGator, runs its websites through a server farm.

These server farms have lots of servers running 24/7 to ensure your website (and many others) are always live. This requires a ton of energy to operate. Annnndd! These servers also need to be kept in a very cool environment to prevent overheating. Which means they rely on some big-ass air conditioners (aka more energy!) to keep things cool. Think about your laptop when it starts to get really hot. The same principle applies here. If you wanna prevent overheating and data loss, you can’t let it overheat.

All this is to say that server farms have a huge carbon footprint. And that carbon footprint is connected to you if you have your own website, whether it’s for personal or business use.

What can you do about your website’s carbon footprint?

If you have a website, you can actually offset and minimize its carbon footprint by choosing a green web hosting site.

A green web hosting site enables you to offset the energy required to power up your website, making your site carbon neutral. In some cases, you can even make your site carbon negative! Some of these web hosting sites, like GreenGeeks, also streamline all of their processes and coding to ensure their servers require the least amount of energy. This not only means your website’s footprint will be less, but it’ll run faster. The added bonus of this is: you’ll fare better with SEO since websites that load faster are given priority over others. It’s a win-win on all fronts.

Wondering what the heck “carbon offsetting” is?

Just in case that question is looming in your head, here’s the scoop. When carbon is emitted into the atmosphere (via fossil fuel plants, airplanes, cars, etc) that is called a carbon footprint. Ideally we wanna remove that carbon from the atmosphere since too much carbon leads to climate change.

Solution 1 is to stop emitting carbon at all, which in most instances isn’t realistic. At least not in today’s economy with our current global infrastructure.

Solution 2 is to reduce carbon emissions. This is always a good practice and can be done through shortening supply chains and reducing use of things that require energy.

Solution 3 is to offset the carbon, which means that for every unit of carbon that goes into the atmosphere, the equivalent amount of carbon is removed. This can be done by planting trees, protecting carbon sinks like the Amazon rainforest, or even funding carbon sequestration projects like wind and solar farms. The idea with offsetting is that you’re balancing out the scale. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a great starting point until we can collectively and globally switch over to renewable energy sources and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

That’s carbon offsetting in a nutshell.

At this point, you’re probably convinced you want your web hosting site to be more eco friendly and ideally carbon neutral. But you might be wondering which web hosting site is actually green. And you also probably wanna avoid being greenwashed.

This is exactly why I’ve done the research for you and taken the guess work out of the mix. Last year, my web hosting service was up for renewal, and I started researching and sifting through all of the “green” web hosting sites, comparing their initiatives and weeding out the ones that weren’t all that green. I also wanted to make sure that it wasn’t gonna cost me an arm and a leg to make the switch.

That’s when I decided on GreenGeeks. Simply because they’re the leading eco-friendly web hosting site. For every bit of electricity used to power your website, they offset that amount by 3 times, using wind energy credits. Which means your website will not only be carbon negative, it’ll be carbon neutral!! They’ve also completely streamlined their systems, coding and processes to make sure their entire system is as energy efficient as possible. As I mentioned above, this means your site will load a lot faster and rank better for SEO. There are a few other web hosting sites who offset their website emissions like DreamHost and Just Host. But their initiatives aren’t as robust.

HOST YOUR WEBSITE WITH GREENGEEKS

The best part about GreekGeeks web hosting

They’re also one of the most affordable web hosting companies out there. So there’s really no reason not to have a carbon negative website. Here’s a quick comparison of their wordpress web hosting rates compared to HostGator and GoDaddy, which are two of the most popular web hosting sites. As you can see, the carbon negative web hosting option is the cheapest!

SAVE MONEY ON YOUR WEBSITE BY SIGNING UP FOR GREENGEEKS

Conclusion

There are a lot of web hosting sites out there. But choosing a carbon neutral or even carbon negative option is the way to go if you’re conscious of your personal or business’ footprint. If the sustainability benefits don’t convince you, the cost savings and improved site speed certainly will. This is just one of the many ways you can reduce your footprint. But it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

If you’re looking for ways to make your small business or side hustle more sustainable, check out my free guides here. Yes . . . even if you have a service based business without any physical products!