As 2017 comes to a close, it’s time to take a look back at the web hosting events of this year. Cleary the biggest emphasis was on making life easier for website owners—a direct result of the competition from website builder companies (Wix, SquareSpace, etc.). In fact, many hosting companies released their own website building platforms as an alternative. DreamHost, GoDaddy, iPage, and many others have either begun offering new website builders or have improved upon their existing site creators. On the WordPress front, the BoldGrid site builder continued to expand with A2 Hosting and Jaguar PC joining InMotion Hosting as official BoldGrid Hosts. We would definitely expect the website builder trend to continue next year.
Speaking of WordPress, the other big focus of web hosting companies was on managed and optimized WordPress hosting plans. Again, in order to simplify life for WordPress site owners, these managed and optimized plans provide extra premium features that handle updates, backups, security, etc. They’re also designed for increased site speed and performance. InMotion Hosting, GoDaddy, Bluehost, GreenGeeks, and HostGator are just some of the web hosts that are offering new or revamped WordPress optimized hosting.
We were also happy to see that a number of web hosting companies expanded their data center locations. As we’ve seen that the location of your data center can have a definite impact on your website speed, it’s always nice to have more choices from around the globe. For example, both A2 Hosting and GreenGeeks added an additional data center location in the U.S. And both SiteGround and WP Engine have added data center locations overseas.
On a more personal note here at WebHostingCat.com, we’re really excited about celebrating our 5th anniversary next month. Since 2013, we’ve done our best to provide the news, reviews, and comparisons you need to make your web hosting decisions. As we head into our 6th year, we’ll strive to continue to help those of you looking to create new websites as you search for the right web hosting.
Happy Holidays!
