If you’ve ever been hacked, you know it’s not a fun time, and the promise of Sitelock is that they can get you back to the way things were. Being a website owner is not all it’s cracked up to be, especially when you become the target of a hacker or group of hackers. They can find back doors to your site that you weren’t aware of and can bring the entire operation down. So does something like Sitelock really protect you from this threat, or will you still be vulnerable?
Overview
Website security is one aspect of site ownership that leaves many small to medium sized business owners scratching their heads. There’s just so much to know and so much that we don’t know, that you almost have to be a hacker yourself if you plan to outsmart anyone. It’s a virtual arms race to try and secure your site against people that have a malicious intent. Since you can’t dedicate you full-time attention to keeping up with full-time hackers, you need to find the next best solution.
The Claim
Sitelock claims that they can remove malware that’s been uploaded or added to your servers. they can also get you taken off a black list if someone has been sending spam on your behalf. They can also help lock down your database so that it’s harder to hack. If you work in network they can shore that up for you too. If your site runs on a blog management system like WordPress, they can make it more secure. If you sell your products via a shopping cart, they can make sure that this process runs smoothly and that there aren’t any exposed weaknesses that can be taken advantage of. They can also help design your website, making it more hacker-proof from the start. And once they’ve got you secure, they can help keep it that way with maintenance programs.
They also state that showing their seal on your site can improve your conversion rate by up to fifteen percent. Depending on how much traffic you get to your sales page, this could definitely pay for itself with just a few extra sales, and then help you make more profit just be building credibility.
The Hype
The hype is that as far as a percentage goes, very few sites end up getting hacked. So while it is a concern to be aware of as a website owner, you shouldn’t get paranoid, or get scared into thinking you have to pay money to protect your site. No matter what sort of precautions you take, if someone wants to hack your site bad enough, they can find ways to do it. Think of all of the high profile sites like Google and Twitter that end up in the new regularly for getting hacked.
The Cost
If you simply want to display the Sitelock badge on your website to build customer trust, they have plans that start at $10 per month and go up to $50 a month. They claim their most popular price point is the $30 per month Premium service. You can try any of the levels free for 30 days. just remember to cancel before that 30 day mark or your card will be charged.
IF your site has been tampered with and you’re currently blacklisted, you have to get a quote from Sitelock because they don’t offer a one-size-fits-all pricing structure for those services. It all depends on what sort of website you have, what the problem is, and how many of their services you want to go with.
The Commitment
No matter which service you go with, there is never any long-term commitment to using Sitelock. You can cancel at any time, and there is very little hands-on action that you need to take. You will need to follow any instructions given, but they have 24 hour customer service if you get stuck. Overall it’s a low commitment level, and compared to going at it on your own it’s much less of a time thief.
Evaluation
Unless it’s your profession, website security is something that most of us don’t really understand. If you end up the target of a malicious attack, you might not know where to turn. A service like Sitelock is nice because that’s all they do is monitor your site and identify where it’s weak, and then make improvements to help strengthen it. The alternative is to do it yourself, find free plugins and resources, and hope that you’ve covered all of your bases.
As the website owner, it’s basically your responsibility to keep the site as secure as possible so that there isn’t any down time. If you don’t have the time or desire to learn about website security, and your budget an afford a dedicated web security guy or gal, you need to have some sort of system in place that handles the biggest vulnerabilities and allows you to getting back to other pressing matters related to your business. So perhaps the biggest draw to Sitelock is the time it frees up from having to do it yourself.
Final Sitelock Review
Even though it would be hard to single out Sitelock as the sole reason why sales conversions go up, some consumers out there do like to see the badges, and even those that don’t consciously know they like it might like it. It just makes a site seem more legit when it’s got a few badges on the bottom showing that it takes an extra step in the security process.
Our Recommendation
If you’ve already been hacked and are looking for a way to bring your site back to its pre-hack days, definitely get a quote from Sitelock to see what they can do for you and how much it will cost. If you are looking for ways to increase your sales and have been thinking that a Sitelock badge might be the way to go, there’s no reason not to give the 30 day trial a go and monitor your sales numbers to see if you notice a boost in your conversions.
Official Website: Sitelock
They are really shady. Too expensive with a lot of hidden fees and they charged my cc without my authorization. Not recommended.https://www.mykinkypinky.com/
They will show false positives for Google Analytics tag, then charge you to remove it, then send you an email saying they were wrong and it was a false positive and that they didn’t actually remove any malware, but won’t refund your money.
simply put – we have been continuously hacked for two years whilst using sitelock. i have cancelled their service and replaced it with a competitor. hacking disappeared after an effective firewall was installed.
I am also victim of the SiteLock scam. I have virtually NO TRAFFIC to my site, maybe 1 to 3 hits a MONTH! Suddenly this week, I surf to my site and get the “Deceptive Site Ahead” message. They claim I have links on my site that might get a persons password or personal info by tricking them into downloading something? What??? I sell eBooks, of course the user has to download.
The smoking gun? I have a 149.00 subscription to SiteLock, the ultimate scam. My site has less than 10 pages on it. They cant scan that few pages and keep them clean for 149.00??? I am going to cancel SiteLock and also migrate away from BlueHost hosting service, because they are in the scam with SiteLock.
Now get this, I CANT EVEN LOGIN TO MY OWN WordPress Console!! These jokers have superceded government control. I am talking about Google and SiteLock, et. al.
Who gave Google regulatory and security authority over the entire internet is my question?
Keep the posts and complaints coming, and spread the word.
really the comment i see is frm 2012 , that is 6 years old. so now my comment here, sitelock is a simple scam , oh i am sure they do some service and might be able to be even good at this but the fact of the matter is that once you signed with them they won you for the next year , their contract only benefits them and their cancellation policy is extortion. stayaway from them you can find better
when you sign with sitelock which hostgator is pushing you for you sign a total one sided contract that only benefits them .
their sales is smooth and promises the world , delivery not so much , they are very expensive and when you decide you want to cancel then agreement which you sign for a year ( which service today signs an agreement for a year?) you can cancel but that is a cancellation fee of 50% of your annual fee. so they took me for 6500 usd
you are not able to downgrade the amount of sites just increase. in short they are a scam , a company that offer you a one sided contract and are going for your money ,
stay away. is like a a marriage you cannot get out of . and there are better alternatives
they are scammers… DO NOT USE SITELOCK!!!!
I would definitely stay away from SiteLock. Their support team is very poor. We had an issue and several times when we sent emails, they did not respond back. We had to email more than once several times just to get a response back. In fact, we have had more than one issue with this company. We were so fed up with them this time that we decided to cancel our subscription. We are losing money by cancelling early. This makes me feel very ripped off but that’s the way it goes. That is the last money they will ever get from me. I have also just cancelled the other services I was using with them for another site. Very incompetent company. Think carefully before purchasing anything from them. SITELOCK IS NOT WORTH HASSLE!
Hi Mitzi,
I am gonna be really honest with you and I want you to trust me that what I say it isn’t about the money I payed to SiteLock but the service they provide and the lousy customer service I have experienced.
SiteLock is indeed a shady company and all they about care is money.
I contacted SiteLock because my webpage was down due to malware.
On the 1/13/2018 I spoke with Naina Arora and she told me I had a malware. I was chatting with her through my BlueHost chat and she said I had a nasty malware that could be removed with the SECURE STARTER plan. I had two website so the contract was $80 a month and she sign me up for 12 MONTHS CONTRACT.
After a week I receive and email from SiteLock saying that the malware wasn’t removed because it needed an upgraded subscription that it would cost more and it would remove the malware and prevent the malware to come back.
FIRST QUESTION: Why Naina Arora sold me a 12 months subscription for a service that wasn’t suitable for my malware. She told me that she scanned my webpage and to clean the type of malware the Secure Starter was good but it was a lie. She only cared about signing me up with a 12 months contract.
I call SiteLock again (from the Philippines) and I speak with Brianna Cartier. She said that yes indeed I am paying 80 dollars a month but SiteLock is now on standby because of the Malware so I either Upgrade and pay more or I cancel and pay $480 cancellation fee. If I keep the same Secure Starter package I basically pay for a service that it isn’t running.
How can SiteLock assume that I can afford paying more?
I tell Brianna that the service was sold to me by her colleague and she failed to understand my problem and sold me the wrong package. I also tell her that if I knew the service I needed was going to cost me $110 a month I would have never signup with SiteLick. She didn’t care. I have a contract so you need to upgrade to the Premium scan and True Shield Premium and pay $110 a month but only 6 months long.I signed the contract on the 1/20/18
She said she will ask an engineer to manually clean the malware and as soon as I sign the contract and send it to her the phone call was cut.
On the 21st of February I receive an email from Brianna again saying that they need info about my host so I call again and tell them my password and username. They start cleaning my website and install the shield and I receive and email saying that everything was clean and the malware was removed.
I scan the website with another software and I still see the malware plus my webpages is now down because of the Shield firewall and DNS pointing to a different host. The engineer messed up my website. I call BlueHost and ask them to remove it! (another phone call).
SECOND QUESTION: How is it possible that from the moment SiteLock worked on my webpage I had a ton of login problems as well as webpage down, DNS changed and pointing to a different host and websites not indexing on Google? They don’t know how to work and clearly don’t care about it.
On the 27th of February 2018 I call SiteLock again and I ask to close the account. I am willing to pay the cancellation fee to get rid of the service. I am speaking with Ronni Chambers and she said that if I want to cancel I will have to pay $480 cancellation fee. I remind her that I have a new contract signed a week after so my cancellation fee is now $330 but she said THAT BRIANNA CARTIER HAS PROBABLY LOST MY NEW CONTRACT SO I HAVE TO PAY THE CANCELLATION FEE ACCORDING TO THE FIRST CONTRACT I SIGNED. I tell her that the documents are stored inside the DocuSign system they use but she can’t access it.
I tell her that I will send the new contract again and without even apologize she put me on hold and after 15 minutes she said that the contract was cancelled then the phone call was cut.
She cut the call same stile as Brianna Cartier. They are probably trained like that by SiteLock so that they don’t waste time with clients who want to cancel and they are back on the phone trying to scam the next poor victim.
I find the whole thing to be a real scam.
SiteLock is a legalized criminal who steal money from poor customers who have no knowledge about malwares and firewalls.
This whole game costed me $410 plus a ton of money of phone calls and time wasted.
After the whole story I go online and I found hundreds of reviews that look like my story.
Clients tricked to sign up a contract in the first place then ask to upgrade and then having problem with DNS and firewall. Without mention the fact that my contract was “lost” and I was lucky to have it in my email.
SITELOCK IS A LOUSY COMPANY with the worst customer service trained to STEAL as much money they can from customers who are clearly desperate to have their webpage back.
I am happy I learned and asked BlueHost to delete everything from them. I don’t even want to free service they provide.
I had sitelock over three domains for few months now. in the first attack the whole system collapsed. I got simple DDOs attack on my server and the whole website went down. I lost 2 days of business. reporters were calling to ask me what happened to the website.
I called sitelock to help they assured me all was ok. However, website was down. My team checked logs and we were under DDos attack from China. Firewall couldn’t even stop it although i am paying for premium firewall.
I called sitelock for a refund cuz their system didn’t work and i was nice didnt claim any damages for lost business. The representative was so rude to me and said at the end the service doesn’t cover DDOs. I told her i didn’t know attacks come on a la cart that i get to chose from. Save your money. They are the worst company u could deal with.
SiteLock is pure scam.
We spend hours creating content, striving to get new clients then here they come, SiteLock scammers!
They changed my DNS and the webpage was down for 24 hours.
They locked me in with a 12 month contract at $80 which after 3 days wasn’t good anymore and I had to upgrade to $110 a month.
They cleaned my webpage manually yet after a week they found another malware and ask for $200
I cancelled and payed a cancellation fee of $330 yet after 10 days from cancelling my webpage was down because they chaged my DNS.
I lost money, revenues and time due to a shady company who doesn’t care about anything else but money.
Worst scam ever.
Hi, Marco here.
I signed up with SiteLock for an antivirus service they provides.
I singed up the first contract on the 14th of January 2018. On this contract it says that if I cancel I will have to pay half of the amount as early cancellation fee. The contract is 12 months and the cancellation fee is around 500$
On the 20st of January 2018 I needed to upgrade the service plan so we made another contract which is only 6 months but costs a little bit more. The cancellation fee is 300$
Now I am trying to cancel but they are saying that the early termination fee will be from the first contract (which is the more expensive).
Is the first contract still valid and can they charge me the cancellation fee even though we made a new contract?
Marco
SiteLock Review, Avoid this company at all costs. This Company is incompetent, You will have more trouble with your sites using them than you will without them. If you don’t want to come to work on a Monday morning with voicemails from your hosting clients complaining their site is down, Avoid SiteLock!
Hi Alfred. I am a customer of siteLock. I have exactly the same problem with siteLock that you had. The above is exactly my story. What is the solution you found? I appreciate if you share your experience with me. Thx
Actually, it’s not true, the part about “there is never any long-term commitment to using Sitelock. You can cancel at any time, and there is very little hands-on action that you need to take.”
In point of fact, when you sign on for the paid service, Sitelock:
1) hides (makes it difficult to find) the fact that they default auto-renew (you can’t sign up without agreeing to have them automatically bill your credit card every year);
2) hides (makes it difficult to find) how to stop auto-renew:
a) you can’t just stop auto-renew from your billing panel, the way you can with reputable businesses;
b) you have to hunt their web site for a link (in extremely small font) to the page which contains instructions for cancelling;
c) when you get to that page, turns out it’s the 5000+ word “Terms of Service” document which you have to scour to find the – get this – PHONE NUMBER you have to call and get put on hold… you get the idea.
The service may or may not be OK, but be forwarned that it’s not easy to get out once you’re in.
– Dunstan Morey
The website is down because of attempts to redirect pages and because of links to videos that weren’t mine. My website was targeted; this hack was not random. Sitelock was disabled and I enabled again each time it happened. The scan said I was clean bit the advisories showed “is_mobile” and “is_redirect” cookies. SiteLock said that advisories are just informational. Security blogs disagreed with them. Edits to the htaccess file were gone, the seal disappeared. On 19Jun2017 I removed the page that had the redirect cookie. On 20Ju2017 I deleted the other pages leaving only the Homepage and asked the sales department to take down the website. On 22Jun2017 the website was still up. On 25Jun2017 I discovered a fake website was being constructed from my home page. Dot5hosting support took down both my site and the under-construction fake site. The whole thing was real nightmare.
Stay away from Sitelock. I experienced what appears to be a scam. Sitelock offered me a three-month website protection plan for $50 per month and said that a 30-day advance notification would easily cancel the service at any time. When I tried to cancel the service early, Sitelock informed me that I had signed a 6-month service agreement and would have to pay $150 cancellation fee. Ultimately, Sitelock misrepresented the original, stating that they do not write three-month agreements. I cannot prove it, but Sitelock knowingly offered me a three-month agreement but enrolled me into a six-month agreement. This practice appears to be a scam to me!
O boy! I had to take time and do this. Today finally got an opportunity. It’s been quite a crazy experience with SiteLock guys, something that was recommended to me by my hosting company Hostgator. I paid -> Upgraded -> paid again -> upgraded and kept on getting hacked throughout. Please avoid using these people.
I would really like to agree with one the guys up here, now I am using astra security guys and these people are legit. They have a great support and finally a solution that works, no questions asked! Here’s their website: http://www.getastra.com . Hope it helps and someone from SiteLock reads this and refunds my $500!
Another scam company with unbelievable prices. Everytime you call them, they try to make you upgrade the service. I have called them multiple times with website issues, they were never able to answer my questions. All they say is your files have malware. I know there is malware, dude, guide me at least to the folder or how to resolve this. I would give no star if there is a such option.
Didn’t meet my expectations! I wouldn’t suggest them.
All above customer review are 100% true about site lock. But i am lucky I escaped from sitelock Scam and extortion. I was about to renew a plan of site lock. First they give there plan 1540/INR with hostgator then your site hacked being injected lots of malware every single days despite having sitelock firewall malware protection and tones of feature,Then they do nothing but negotiat you to take 199 $ plan and sign there agreement and give all credit card detail. They Mail you daily and inject virus daily to your site thats the bussiness of site lock. there is no any custmer support they dont interested in answering your question but they force you all the time to sign the agreement. My mind was disturbed by lots of malware and phising content on my site. I have gone to all possible option of websecurity Then i found getastra.com the only website security which firewall is compatible with SSL certificate in my buzat. I read all the blog about website owner and mail him they setisfied me to answer all my question then I took Essential plan just 6000/inr per year lowest price on google, And what they did its magic I gave them to cpanel credential and my every problem solved I had to do nothing they deploy firewall on my website and setup my account and after everything is done they give me my username and password. In site lock I had to istall my own so called worthless and usless fire wall. And now my website is running like jet aroplane without any threat thats the real peace of mind in low buzat. I realy not able to Pay 199$ that doesnt mean I have no right to get best security. But getastra provide me and I am 100% setisfied by there responce. when others leftme no option but ruin myself then someone support me at my term there is nothing but a happy custmer.
A lot of people should know that their hosting providers have the responsibility of ensuring the security of their own hosting servers without ANY outside third-party vendors being involved. Especially when I’m paying for a secure server https: For the best protection, I purchase domain names with one registrar and pay for my hosting monthly with a different company. If the hosting company were to have problems hosting my website, I simply go to the registrar and point my domain to different hosting servers with a different hosting company. This whole website security scanning is nothing but a SCAM. I such problems about 12 years ago and this is the way I permanently fixed it. Just a note that it is interesting that I can move the exact same website files to a new host and there are no longer any hosting problems or security issues or malware on my website. Hmmm.
Scammers. High pressure sales. Hard to cancel. Google their reviews.
My web host has some agreement with them where they check to see if you’re hacked and then try to upsell you. I don’t doubt that they catch some infections, but all I’ve seen in recent years are some very stupid false positives.
They scared me just the other day by sending me one of these automated emails saying that one of my sites had been hacked. The only files SiteLock was identifying as “hacked” were some gzipped database backups where one of the (valid) internal articles in a security-related newsfeed included the text “hacked by”. There was absolutely nothing in the database that indicated a hack: no new pages, no new posts, no links offsite, no new users, no nothing. Ran scans of my site with multiple other tools and they all said it was clean.
Had javascript turned off website wanted me to verify my self, i put in codes and wouldn’t continue put me off using website
https://arstechnica.com/security/2013/04/former-employee-arrested-charged-with-rooting-2700-hostgator-servers/
then i read this LMAO..not really as this is the company that denies they have been hacked LOL
Let me tell you about sitelock…SCAM!!!!! 25 years in the business and i agree with all the above who have been scammed…2 weeks after i declined their services i got hacked for the 1st time in 25 years i was with another host for 9 years (NEVER HACKED)…i switched to HG…LMAO…then in jan 1st 2017 the emails from sitelock started to appear as if by magic” after all 131 sites were hacked on my VPS account! oh we noticed you got hacked”…LOL…GEEEE wonder who hacked me after 16 years with the same host…Hostgator.com so what did i do? SSL and dedicated host…yeah …hack me now? i have an ssl on all sites and a host i have control over 2300USD later…good scam HG!!! Thumbs DOWN SITELOCK.COM what a scam! cost me allot of money!
I wish I could give them zero stars because they are the biggest scam on the internet. Site lock is a horrible service. They make you sign a 12 month service plan that you can not cancel, Now I am forced to keep the service for 3 more months or pay a $180 disconnect fee. STAY AWAY……
I contacted Sitelock on Jan 22, 2016, and February 8, 2017, via telephone and informed your staff that I was being billed for a website that no longer exists and requested a refund and for them to cancel my account. Despite my many requests via email and telephone, Sitelock continues to bill me.
I spoke with and agent via telephone both in January of 2016 and on February 8, 2017, who were unable to help me. Sitelock’s email correspondents, clearly indicate that Sitelock was aware of my cancellation request and knowingly continued to charge my credit card without my authorization. I find it very concerning that Sitelock was able to charge my credit card which expired on 08/16, without any CVV verification and using incorrect billing address.
I asked them for a written statement explaining their company’s position and what they will do about my complaint. They sent me a satisfaction survey!
This company is a SCAM
Disclaimer: I am founder of WPHackedHelp.com
SiteLock is a respectable service. We know people who have used it. They are too expensive, but do clean the website up. However, we have also noticed that they don’t do a deep clean and don’t do much in trying to help you keep your website clean after its hacked.
I am posting this because I feel Bluehost is pushing their hosting customers to use Sitelock forcefully. We did a clean up about 24 hours ago, and Bluehost is still pushing us to SiteLock. Overall, SiteLock marketing practices are shady.
The company SITELOCK.com is a company nobody should be doing business with. My website was compromised and was nervous about getting something like this to begin with. They protect your site from themselves. They charge a ridiculous amount of money to give you the service and are laughing all the way to the bank.
I just tried cancelling my service and had a very hard time finding the actual credit/debit card I used and said they only way to cancel is if you verify the cc. Well I have 13 business account and 22 different cards and once I gave them all the info… they said it needs to be within 30 days prior to cancelling so that they dont charge my card again. That took the cake. It took me a couple days and that was less than 30 days before it got cleared up.. so they charged me again. HORRIBLE, simply horrible. SCAM, Scammers, Hoax.
Got malware on our server and had to contact Sitelock to get us up and running again.
Not only did they charge us a ridiculous price for the privilege but they made sure they tied us in to a 6 month contract at a stupid price because they knew they had us bent over a barrel.
7 month’s later and I’ve been trying to cancel the contract for an entire month. They don’t answer the support emails, if I call they put me through to answer machine and worst of all, I had to clean most of the malware from the website myself as their software is shit.
AVOID THIS COMPANY LIKE THE PLAGUE!
we had it; it didn’t protect us. we still got hacked again. I’m ready to leave it and go to something that works.
Well…this has been worthwhile. Hostgator had recommended sitelock for my suite of horrendously hacked sites. They then took my sites down and instead, replaced it with a “parked” page of their own so that they got the benefit of my traffic.
After reading this Thread, I am now more confident about the actions i need to take, and that does not involve dealing with these two companies.
They’re support is horrible though. Can’t even get a reply when I send multiple emails to them. I tried ringing and the phone literally rings out. I am not sure if there are real people even working at this company.
i hope all customers understand if sitelock is useless.
How is SiteLock still in business? Just had a horrible experience after we were referred to them by Host Gator to deal with a malware problem on our site. As stated in previous comments, their reps are sweetness and light when they start out, but it’s really a hard sell disguised as enthusiastic customer service. The emphasis is always sales first, service later (maybe). Three days AFTER selling us a 6-month, $774 subscription package ($129/month) to clean one site that they assured us would be up and running with no problems, they then informed us that the site would continue to be infected by two other sites we owned–unless we purchased subscriptions at $120/month for each of those site as well! Of course, if they had told us that before we signed the first contract, we wouldn’t have done it. There are just too many far less expensive site security alternatives. Trying to cancel the original contract resulted in a two-hour phone battle, with a SiteLock “manager” (yes, we got “escalated”) trying to justify us being charged $387 (half the value of the contract) for one cleaning of a site that was almost immediately reinfected, and only 3 days after signing the contract. I only wish I had checked for SiteLock complaints online before dealing with them. But, as also stated in previous comments, SiteLock does it’s “best” work with non-tech savvy small business owners desperate to get their sites back up. By the way, as I type this, ours is still not functioning. Fortunately, we’ve found a far less expensive solution from a truly service-oriented provider.
sitelock only for build trust from customer who don’t understand what is it. i hope all customers understand if sitelock is useless.
standard sitelock is nothing but a scam, does nothing, worthless. the only thing sitelock does is place a badge on your homepage so that your users THINK that your website is protected. I used wordfence from wordpress and it constantly caught things that sitelock never did. sitelock is just a feel-good thing but in reality you get nothing more than a sitelock badge on your homepage. just use a reliable website plugin like wordfence and set your preferences. I constantly get alerts from wordfence about them locking down peeps who tried to use the wrong user name to sign in (such as admin, administrator, or the name of your website), sitelock did nothing to stop this. btw, I am not a paid employee of wordfence, I am just telling you what works. however, I do not think that even wordfence will stop malware, so you might want to look into a malware plugin or 6scan (execellent peeps out of Israel). just talking from the real world folks, but I am telling you that the standard sitelock is nothing more than a badge, they do not even scan the inside admin of your site which is where the problems start. you are paying ONLY for the sitelock badge and are fooling your customers that they will not get infected by your website. like it or not, this is the truth.
Cannot recommend sitelock at all. When you have an intrusion, all they do is send you a google search of what the problem is, and then tell you to pay more to remove the problem. This has happened 3 times to me (2 viruses, 1 fake login)
I deleted malware off a client wordpress website – about 20 pages were injected with code and I was able to delete it, and resubmit the website to Google and so I had it gone in about 5 days. Then, the client website got hacked again in a completely different way. Thousands of pages of bad code came out of nowhere and it would have taken me days to delete. Yes, we signed up for the $99/month package, but they cleared the virus in a matter of hours and fortified our website. I am more of a creative type who can build websites and fix some things, but hardcore hacking is WAY over my head. $99/month sounds expensive but if I had tried to do in manually, I would have charged my client hourly for several days and cost them a lot more than $99. If I had known they were so good, I would have hired them for the first round of hacking, too.
The biggest problem with sitelock is once they get your credit card info they start running charges that are very hard to stop. You end up spending a lot of time trying to cancel service meanwhile they just add charges for as long as they can get away with it
Very hard to get a refund.
Very profitable way to do business but a big waste of time and money for the customer
Please do NOT sign up for their service.
They were relentless in getting me to sign up when my site was infected. The sales staff emailed me almost everyday. I was impressed, misled into thinking the customer service was great. They made me sign up for an almost USD200 per month cleaning.
Well, after making payment, the sales manager didn’t bother to reply to my emails anymore. My website is still infected and down after almost a month. I’m calling up my credit card company to cancel my credit card as they still have my CC details and can charge me every month for doing nothing.
Do not sign up with them!
To date, they are still not replying my emails.
I had a service with this people for my website.they did clean it but all my content were gone.
since I was disappointed I tried to call the billing department to cancel the service I could not get hold of them. they did bill me and when I requested the cancellation they did not mention that it need to be 30 days before. They did it anyway, I called them later for refund man they told me they could not.
I did send a notification to them but they did not consider it.I don’t recommend them they are just a band of thieves and poor customer service
ha ha ha ah a, good one Carrot 🙂
Very true. They have it everywhere. Too Expensive while others like SUCURI are able to offer it at a fraction. It is like negotiating while we are in a disaster situation. No monopolies now, the industry is wide. Keep looking for new comers.
I agree, very push salespeople and not very helpful, I bought a plan that I thought would remove the malware from my site, but I have to buy an even more expensive plan with them to remove the malware from my site
Over the past year, a few of my client WordPress sites have been hacked. No one product all by itself will ever completely protect the sites. And no is safe – just ask the director of Homeland Security whose e-mail was recently hacked.
Our standard WordPress hosting now offers daily backups held for 30 days. Once per week, we get a copy of the website database and files, held on our local server for a minimum of one year, and we offer SiteLock as an option ($17.88/yr) which gives us a report that tells us what page has been hacked and where the malicious code is inserted, then we can clear it out.
For those who are paranoid about the security, or if they have been hacked and want the extra security, we can install a firewall product at $10 per month. Everyone needs to be aware that the hackers who REALLY want to break in, will break in. Best bet is have your assets covered!
Do not use them!!! Run away! It’s a scam.
Not only they didn’t fix my site but they messed it all up! My site can’t even display properly right now, there are codes on the homepage, all my clients information database is gone!!
I got hacked…BAD…this weekend! I manually deleted some of the files at the server level, but it was awful. All my sites went down, 40GB of email in que on a VPS server, so it was a nightmare. I donated $29 to Got MLS Brute Force Malware remover and it removed it automatically for me. Best money I ever spent and I’m merely a customer. I have no association, and it runs a malware scanner, login protector and the developer emailed me within minutes of having a problem figuring the software out. Super impressed and it works great!
My company’s website was recently hacked and had malware on it. In addition there was a re-direct hack in place. Not only that, but we recently discovered other domains we own were also hacked (DNS records were changed). SiteLock’s program was able to remove the malware, and their engineers were able to fix the re-direct hack. We have also installed their firewall and so far, we are very happy with them. They have been extremely helpful. Much more helpful than our web hosting provider and our domain host. They came highly recommended to us by several sources, including someone else who works in the online security industry. So I recommend them.
Found the sitelock shill.
I just received the same notice, and something feels off about this. I think this is a scam, and that they have added this to my site so I can purchase their plans. I went and downloaded another program and currently scanning for viruses…however at 70% of the way through…nothing bad has been detected.
I cant stand these scare tactics and plan to complain to the BBC on both companies if they suspend my site.
I purchased Sitelock through my web host (Powweb) as a hostage since they took down all my sites across multiple domains advising all had been hacked. Hey, I’m a businessman and rely on my sites for income, so I paid the fee with assurances my sites would again be available “shortly”. Hard for me to believe that my six domains were infected in one day – whatever. If anything, sounds like the host server was hacked – not my sites. Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics are reporting no problems with any of my sites/domains. After purchasing Sitelock, all their confirmation emails go to my spam box – not a good sign, in my opinion. This appears to be a scam, we will see.
SiteLock saved my site from a bad script install. Fixed for free, site is still malware free.
And no, i do not work for them or get paid to give good reviews, even though, it would be some easy money.
Hi, I have been using iPage for the past 2 years. I never had any issues until now. I setup a new test site that I am building and when I logged in today, my website is blocked by iPage. I received an emailed me saying my site riddled with malicious files. They recommended me to delete all the files and replace them with a clean files.
The problems is the backfiles that I have are from ages. And I dont want to loose them. There was an Option 2. Sign up for Sitelock! I signed up for a monthly basic plan. Then they said they can fix my website for US$200, one time fix.
When I contacted the support , they said they can’t guarantee full recovery.
What should I do?
Hi!
I use SiteLock via my hosting provider. And please note the prices you have mentioned is not even close!
$14.95 / Year – Site Lock Plus: You pay this for them to tell you there is a problem.
$89.99 / Year – Site Lock Fix: You pay this for them to fix “few small” problems.
And you don’t have Plus when you buy Fix. So, I need to buy both plans!! I am spending 14.95+89.99, that’s 104.94 / year!! For a normal hosting plan with popular providers.
But you need to pay more for them to fix any major problems and none of the above claim to protect you from threats! You need to pay more for that , oh yes, it doesn’t stop!
I think siteLock is a rip off ! Who will have a plan to tell you that there is a problem!! I know there is a problem when my site is down!
I had a bad experience with a WordPress plugin with vulnerability and it was never fixed with Plus+Fix. I had to do lots of reading myself and took help of forums to fix it myself.
I guess it’s better checking other providers before you make this investment. Most hosting providers are supposed to provide basic security anyways.
Hope this helps!
It is true that hacks are usually non-discrimatory. Most hackers do not add malware, though – which is the story SiteLock scares people with.
One of the most common attacks I have seen is to add hidden links for the SEO benefit. This is usually by updating a theme file after admin access has been gained, and so not something any malware scanner would detect.
SiteLock does not appear to make any security measures to prevent this sort of access, which would usually have to be bespoke – such as patching a content management system and its plug-ins, or checking for badly written code. Keeping a website and its plug-ins patched (and making regular backups) seems a far more valuable approach to site security than what they are offering.
As other people have said, Google Webmaster Tools provides *for free* a service to inform of any malware detected on your site.
From the comments I have seen, it sounds like your SiteLock money goes on sales/marketing (the above seems to be an example of reputation management) and not security experts.
Oh, and “65% of small business’s that get hacked go out of business 6 months later” – citation required, and, if true, proof that the hacking is the cause.
What are some recommendations on a service to use? Kyplex and Google Webmaster Tools have been mentioned so far.
I am a beginner website designer and I host some of the sites I create. I would like to offer my customers some basic security.
Used them for about 1.5 years after I got hacked. I thought I was ‘protected’ until I started getting my email accounts frozen because of spam being sent. Upon investigation, I learned my directories were riddled with malicious files, many of which had been there for over 1.5 years. Sitelock is garbage! When I complained, they replied that I only had the ‘premium’ (middle) package….. but with the ‘Enterprise’ package…………. I am done with them. Full stop. Period.
Sitelock is an ass hole. My site is down and the hosting site asked me to resort to SITELOCK. I paid them USD150 for one month, and 20 days past, they did nothing, nobody contacts me and solve my problem. I went to their site to complain with their live talk section and nobody even type one word after I saying out my problem. SITELOCK is totally a cheat. They are very sweet and kind before charing your money, but after that they did nothing and only your money will be locked, I think they should be called “MONEYlock”. kEEP AWAY FROM THIS CHEAT.!
You guys have started to catch on to the basic Sitelock scam:
1. They sell your their basic malware protection package (often bundled with Godaddy/Gator/Bluehost)
2. They install malware on your site
3. They tell you that your site has been infected by malware and ask for ~$300-500 to remove it.
Sitelock itself is MALWARE. It will install malware on your site. Period.
The more people spread this word the better.
How much does Sitelock pay you to spam these overpositive comments?
I agree. My site got hacked and my hosting company “tech support specialist” was “educating me” on necessity to have sitelock. I could feel heavy commission behind sales pitch right away.
Well guess what? I have been using Sitelock for less than a year and my website has been corrupted. I had to go to an IT guy and he also found over 800 anonymous users on my site. I have not idea how. If that is the sort of protection they are offering, forget it. I will cancel my subscription.
Made the mistake of doing this thru GoDaddy. I had no problems with the site but their scan reported malware on nearly every page. They offered to fix it for between $30 and $300 per page. My main tech – a real firecracker – looked at the whole site. No problems. I went back and did research and found how poorly sitelock was rated and saw others’ problems. I went to Godaddy and, to their credit, they canceled the contract and refunded the money. Funny thing that one day later, there was a “This Site May Have Been Hacked” slug on Google. Checked the site and, sure enough, a truckload of malware was on the pages. Took about 6 hours to clean. So, my advice is simple: Don’t go anywhere near them.
Google Webmaster Tools can help you block unwanted hits, Google Analytics shows you where hits are. I signed up for a cheap $19.99/year plan with Sitelock through my hosting company. Sitelock claimed over 80% of hits on my site were from “hackers in Russia and Ukraine”. They use HARD SCARE TACTICS to upsell their “cleaning service.” They can never seem to show anything in writing about recurring charges such as a CONTRACT or agreement … they just started charging $120/month. SCAM.
Actually hackers are non-discriminatory. The hackers send out bits just like the search engines that look for vulnerabilities. It happens automatically. Today it isn’t a matter of IF you’re going to get hacked, it’s WHEN. Just a matter of time. If you’re trying to run a business online, a good fact to know is that 65% of small business’s that get hacked go out of business 6 months later. SiteLock offers the most affordable and efficient technology to protect your site and it’s all track able through the SiteLock dashboard.
Horrible customer service. there is no support what so ever except trying to sell you more. They cannot manage to get anything done. Now im just trying to get my money back. It has been a huge hassel and nightmare with these people.DO NOT USE.
Didn’t work, always reported that it passed, but my site was infected. Don’t waste your money.
SiteLock offers more versatile and comprehensive website Security than any other company I have researched into. They were very knowledgeable about the products each company provides (Host, Security, Domains) so I wasn’t overcharged for the same services. They may be a little pushy on the phone but they have a very good point for the urgency. I didn’t think it was going to benefit my business until they really explained things to me. Maybe try calling in and just asking for information so you don’t feel as intimidated. They really do help and no one else on the market did the work as efficient as they did for me.
Does it provide SQL injections and XSS protection????
It just scans or it fix the security problems as well?
If you’ve got a good online business or a website that’s showing lots of potential, then trust me, you’ll want to do something about your security. Hackers don’t hack websites that are going nowhere, they like to hack big websites that get lots of traffic, so their virus or malware can infect as many computers as possible. That way they get their data back about their email, password, surfing behavior and such, to which they can make a boat load of money. Protect your website or the aftermath can be very ugly and expensive.
Kyplex Is the new thing, can restore you site in two clicks. Scanning is also done
Do not expect any reasonable support from this company. Product has marginal marketing value only to feel you better.
Too expensive. Pushy sales people. Wouldn’t recommend after checking out other security scanning types of services.
I think the badge does make a difference with visitors and customers. Been using SiteLock for a bit now and overall great service. Also provides peace of mind – sure I probably won’t get hacked anytime soon or ever without it but prevention is the key if you ask me cause when it does happen, you can lose a lot of sales and money and time getting everything running normal again
I run an estore, it’s not a large estore and doesn’t get much traffic so to me each and every customer makes a difference. I wasn’t going to start putting these types of badges on my site until i got hacked and found sitelock. They sorted me out and i know display the sitelock badge – since then (after a couple of customer surveys) it appears people are more confident when buying from my site…. i’ve since put a couple more ”secure’ type badges on their too.