Comments on: Is Sitelock Worth It? – A Closer Look!

By: Nigel

Nigel — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 08:00:12 +0000

We were using SiteLock Essentials – came as part of the Hostgator package for $70 odd a year.
Then suddenly recently it would not load in Hostgator Dashboard. I got in touch with HG support, end they told me it was no longer “compatible” and actually refunded us the yearly fee which we had just been charged.

HostGator still provide it as an option – which you’d think they wouldn’t if it wasn’t compatible!

We are using Jetpack in WordPress – so hopefully that will be sufficient for now, but I wonder…

By: Pablo

Pablo — Wed, 16 Jun 2021 03:43:29 +0000

I know someone who worked at SiteLock briefly. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the “technicians” as they call themselves are paid a commission when a customer is referred back to the hosting company and signs up for whatever service they’re offered. From the description I heard about how this place operates, it sounds like a typical tech support scam, i.e., pay for services you don’t need and receive support that does nothing. It’s definitely an interesting “partnership” that SiteLock and EIG have.

The insider I knew summed up SiteLock very well. It’s like one of those add-ons you see when installing a program on your computer that is selected by default and is usually just some adware trash. SiteLock is the website equivalent of this.

By: Seth

Seth — Thu, 06 May 2021 21:32:09 +0000

These other experiences are sounding similar to my own. They hooked me when I was with Powweb. My low traffic site that only friends and family know exists was somehow mysteriously the target of a malware attack. I identified the infected files, removed them, and they were back the next day like whack-a-mole. As long as these infected files appeared on my site, it was blacklisted and inaccessible, and to get it up and running again I had to pay for Sitelock to “fix” it and then monitor it for $9.99/mo indefinitely To this day, I’m not convinced they didn’t plant the malware there to force me to use their product. I switched my hosting services over to Bluehost only to find out they were also owned by EIG and pushing Sitelock, but at least they only charged my $3.99/mo so I did save some money making the switch. Total scam though. I’m sure of it.

By: Goya

Goya — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 17:48:15 +0000

Thank you very much for your great article about SiteLock!
Honestly, I got scammed by them through HostGator hosting plan even though I had NOT signed up with them, somehow they pretended as if SiteLock is included to my hosting plan (I thought it was at first due to the way hostgator shows you on your hosting plan).

Here’s what happened to me.
About 8,9 months after hosting at HostGator, I got an email from SiteLock saying “Your website got malware but do not worry! we scanned and removed it for you”. (strange…. did I sign up for their service? oh maybe hostgator is cool that they included it to my plan. thanks!)

Then I went to cPanel file manager to check all files are fine.
I found a strange file called “Kill” something, so I deleted it from my site. then Bam!! that kicks in!
Now my site is “really” hacked and got another email from SiteLock saying you got malware and need to remove from your site blah blah blah for $249 or $399 or something for repair.
then I went to talk with HostGator customer service asking “What is this junk?”
HostGator said “Ok, we will investigate blah blah..” I asked “Can I get the website backup?”
Long story short, they did give me the clean back up files before “the hack” (or setup), but they also claimed a lot of money like SiteLock did to repair my site completely, I did not go for it since I smelled some setup is going on.
After some time without any action by HG that I got an email from “a senior manager” from HG saying “. Sorry for taking a long time to respond, for that reason, we cleaned and fixed your site and you do not need to pay for it”
then in the same email, “but instead Give us feedback how the manager is doing great job”

I found other hosting company and canceled altogether which does unethical practice for money.
So I suggest to even not use HG and Bluehost which I hear, does the similar stuff.
Stay away.

By: Seepi

Seepi — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 23:44:30 +0000

Worst company ever sitelock… Use wordfence plugin instead. Under sitelock i had my site taken down because of malware it didn’t catch. not once but 3 times. They should never do business and shut down there services.

By: Misti

Misti — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 20:45:37 +0000

In reply to Mohammed. You can cancel it by setting it to expire under products and services. Go to home then on the right hand side you can go to my products under account. The three dots on the right hand side allow you to upgrade your Sitelock service or you can set it to expire. I didn't see an option to cancel, but that should help not renew automatically. I just got my bill for rewewal and was floored because of the price. Turns out it has a lot to do with the $32.04/month SiteLock renewal.

By: Pawww

Pawww — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 01:21:35 +0000

My negative review about SiteLock The backstory: I use HostGator hosting. I had an additional service connected, the SiteLock addon, which monitors the security of the website. Yesterday morning I received a message from SiteLock that malware was detected on my site. The day before, I had inserted the advertising network code, which is often scolded by antivirus because of its specifics. This code is not actually malware, but to experiment, I decided to remove the code from the site and restart SiteLock scanning. I also enabled the "SiteLock CDN/Firewall" feature in my personal account at HostGator. The same evening, I discovered that my site had become unavailable. Chrome was showing an error: "This site can’t be reached. The webpage at https://******/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address. ERR_SSL_UNRECOGNIZED_NAME_ALERT" It also turned out that the site is successfully opened via VPN and mobile network. I googled the problem, found some ideas, tried to apply them (in particular, to clear the DNS cache, reboot the router, etc.). Nothing helped. I decided to write to HostGator support. It is noteworthy, that I like their technical support: always friendly consultants, available 24/7, solve problems quickly. I wrote to "Malware/Security" section. I explained the situation (that SiteLock was scolding at the advertising script, that it wasn't malware, but I removed the script anyway; I specified that the site is not available only on my network and that I recently enabled SiteLock’s CDN/Firewall). A SiteLock representative Brandon Becke joined the chat room, requested my website name, and then started asking me absolutely unconstructive questions: - Do I feel that the malware has been removed? - Do I know how malware works? - Do I understand what he says? Then he started talking that the viruses will come back unless I protect my site "for just 40 bucks a month". At this point, I probably should have become really scared and gave Brandon money immediately (LOL ). I had a strong feeling that Brandon thought he might intimidate me and hit me up for money. But the trick is that I am aware of what kind of scripts I placed on my site. I also think I can tell the difference between malicious code and other problems with access to the site. If the malware had crashed my site, the site would have been unavailable from any network, not only from my home network. So I silently closed the chat with Brandon. And after 30 seconds I received a catch-up email from him : “Here are the details of the services to remove and prevent malware: Website Scanning TrueSpeed CDN TrueShield WAF I look forward to your feedback on this service for $25 per month.” After that, I decided I no longer want to use SiteLock services and disabled their add-on (which costs $3 a month) on my hosting . The problem with the site has not disappeared and I decided to write again to HostGator technical support, but in another section - Tech Support/SSL. This time I was answered directly by a consultant from HostGator. He asked permission to access my cPanel, and found a problem with the A record there. The record was changed from my domain name to ***.sitelockcdn.net . Because of this, SSL did not work properly. We changed the record to the original one and the site soon started working. Conclusion: As I understand it, the A record changed because I clicked the “SiteLock CDN/Firewall enable” button. While the update came into effect, my site was unavailable. Maybe the next day everything would have been fine, but my experience with Brandon Becke convinced me to say goodbye to SiteLock forever, because nothing annoys me more than trying to hit me up for money and make me look like an idiot without even bothering to figure out the situation . Ironically, the problem was caused precisely because of SiteLock's actions, which did not warn me that my site might be unavailable for a few hours after the firewall enabling.

By: Susan

Susan — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 10:56:14 +0000

I paid 10.95 a month to HostGator and have for years. I thought this bought me protection. It said it did when I signed up but now they’ve changed all the write-ups on their website since I originally signed up about 8 years ago. Then my website was hacked and has malware on it and Flagged by Google. I called HostGator for help and they sent me to sitelock who told me it was going to cost over $300 to fix my site. I immediately realized that once I fixed it they could hack it again and then want me to pay again and it would be a vicious cycle. I’m going to try to download all of my accumulated information and just have a WordPress account. I’m hoping the downloads they’ve always promised at HostGator are available so I can still retrieve my eight years of information. The internet is becoming unusable and just a big moneymaker for anybody who wants to try to screw you over. Or silence you. It seems like as with everything else these days they are just making things harder and charging money for the problems they are creating.

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 23 Mar 2019 08:55:31 +0000

My website hosted by JustHost was reported as having been hacked with malware and taken off line. Sitelock contacted me and tried to push package to correct. I stated that I would have expected the host server provider to have “protected” my website and why is this cost being pushed towards me. They stated that they have this discussion with many people ever day ” who don’t know better”. Quite insulting.
The sitelock solution was to promote a $300 cleanup fee and $50 a month to protect the site! Not viable at all !
I am now looking to find another hosting company for my site and well Sitelock….very hard sell tactics at extreme prices. It felt like I had been hacked by them and then they wanted protection money……very poor .

By: Tom Simon

Tom Simon — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 00:44:50 +0000

My first experience with Sitelock was in December, 2016. My WordPress site was hacked and they said my webmaster would have to fix it but that I should purchase SiteLock to protect this from happening again I purchased “SIteLock Deluxe” for $719.64 for 5 Year Plan. I felt ripped off in the way you do when you have to buy something that you had gotten along fine without, that you didn’t know that you need and don’t understand it.

Fast forward today, 2/11/2019. My customers could not reach my website. I contacted GoDaddy, said that I needed to speak to SiteLoc to correct a DNS issue. I contacted Site Lock and they said that there was an error code indicating that I hadn’t paid a bill. I emailed them the bill I paid in 12/2016. They said that didn’t cover what the current issue is. That only handled malware, I need something ore robust and it costs $40 per month. I said why don’t you have your tech people fix the problem and then I’ll talk to you about purchasing something more robust. After keeping me on hold for a long time, the salesperson came back and said that they can’t fix the problem without me agreeing to pay the $40 per month and they would throw in the clean up of the site at no charge. I said so you’re holding my website hostage until I pay? They said no, not at all, and explained again what I needed and how much it would cost. Not knowing any better, I paid and now I hope they fix my web site. We’ll see. I’m not a tech guy; I’m just trying to run a business.