Why would you ditch a proven CDN with a massive network (Cloudflare) for SiteGround’s CDN which only has 14 locations and requires you to use their DNS which was blocked from Google?
Dynamic caching? Then use Cloudflare’s APO or FlyingProxy. Or even better, switch to a host that actually offers a performant/reliable CDN like Cloudflare Enterprise or QUIC on LiteSpeed.
One mistake with your CDN/DNS can destroy your website – as we’ve seen when SiteGround customers got their sites completely deindexed from Google and lost SEO rankings. Do you really trust SiteGround over Cloudflare? Judging by their previous incidents, my vote is nope!
Save the $7.49/mo and put it towards an established/performant CDN with more locations.
1. You Have To Use SiteGround’s [Unreliable] DNS
You have to use SiteGround’s DNS to use their CDN. Here’s the issue that happened:
- SiteGround’s DNS got blocked by Google.
- SiteGround originally said “there is no blocking on our end.”
- They eventually admitted the problem, but blamed it on Amazon/Google.
- Finally, they “implemented a fix” (but never advised people to move their DNS).
- Customers lost Google rankings and some got deindexed from Google completely.
The question is, why wouldn’t you just use Cloudflare’s free DNS? It performs great on dnsperf.com. But hey, if you want to trust SiteGround with your Google rankings, go for it.
Status Update: We are glad to inform you that we have implemented a fix for the Google bot crawling issue experienced by some sites. Websites are already being crawled successfully. Please allow a few hours for the DNS changes to take effect. Thank you for your patience!
— SiteGround (@SiteGround) November 12, 2021
The lack of responsibility you are taking here is incredible. If this was simply Google’s fault, surely other hosts would be facing issues? Clearly something has changed on your set-up that has caused an issue. Are you aware just how damaging this is to many of your customers?
— Kim Snaith (@ichangedmyname) November 10, 2021
You should be advising people to move to an external DNS to resolve the issues if it is causing them massive losses in business. I have just sorted our connectivity issue in around 25 minutes by moving to googles DNS. If you had let us know 4 days ago, we wouldnt be £20k+ down!
— Jon Bunce (@thejonbunce) November 11, 2021
If you move to your Google Search Console > SETTINGS > CRAWL STATS you will, if unlucky like me, see something like this :-( pic.twitter.com/ocBEkWKsaw
— Tristan Haskins (@trishaskins) November 12, 2021
2. Tiny Network Of 14 PoPs
Compare this to Cloudflare (200+), BunnyCDN (110+), and QUIC.cloud (75+).
If you really think a CDN with 14 locations is going to outperform these, it won’t. Plus, SiteGround has little to no data centers in many areas of the world, so make sure you know where your visitors are from – because SiteGround might not even have a PoP close to them.
3. No Security Features
Other CDNs offer DDoS protection, settings to block bad requests, or even bot protection to prevent spammy bots from hitting your site and increasing CPU usage. Besides configuring HTTPS, SiteGround’s CDN has zero security features. Cloudflare has many settings to reduce CPU usage like crawler hints, rate limiting, and Argo Smart Routing. SiteGround’s CDN doesn’t.
4. No HTTP/3
QUIC and Cloudflare use HTTP/3, so this is another disadvantage. Enough said.
5. SiteGround’s Products Have Compatibility Issues
Remember when SiteGround released Site Tools and basically used their customers as beta testers while they squashed the bugs? Or have you seen the constant compatibility issues with SiteGround Optimizer which they usually blame on other themes/plugins? Between these and their DNS getting blocked, I simply don’t trust SiteGround products, and the CDN is no different.
6. Conclusion: Stick To Cloudflare + APO Or FlyingProxy
| SiteGround CDN (Paid Plan) | Cloudflare | FlyingProxy | Rocket.net’s Cloudflare Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unlimited | 100GB | Depends on hosting plan |
| PoPs | 14 | 200+ | 270+ | 270+ |
| Dynamic caching | ✓ | APO | ✓ | ✓ |
| Brotli | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| HTTP/3 | x | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Argo Smart Routing | x | Paid feature | x | ✓ |
| Load Balancing | x | Paid feature | x | ✓ |
| WAF | x | Paid feature | ✓ | ✓ |
| DDoS protection | x | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Price | $7.49/mo | $5/mo with APO | $10/mo | Included with hosting |
Cheers,
Tom
