HostGator
- From the company
HostGator is one of the world's top 10 largest web hosting companies with more than 2,200,000 hosted domains. We have over 260 employees to provide you superior around the clock support. We are the perfect choice whether you are looking for business, personal, or even Fortune 500 hosting.
Every web hosting plan comes with a 45 day money back guarantee, 99.9% uptime guarantee, and is fully guaranteed by the owner himself. If you ever have a problem with the regular support, just ask that your ticket be assigned to Brent and he will personally take the time to give you the VIP attention that you deserve.
About.com 2010 Reader's Choice Awards
HostGator is proud to announce that we have been recognized by About.com's web design
community as the Best in Reseller Hosting, Cheap or Free Web Hosting, and Best Linux/UNIX
web hosting provider for their 2010 Reader's Choice Awards. We appreciate all of
you as our customers coming forward to nominate us during the initial rounds of
voting and then to again take the time and effort to select us from our competition.
Without you we couldn't have managed to take such prestigious awards from About.com.
HostGator Windows Beta
Did you know we are beta testing a Windows shared program? Any active HostGator
client is eligible to participate at no cost. Windows beta accounts provide the
following:
- Domains: 5
- Subdomains: Unlimited
- Disk Space: Unlimited
- Bandwidth: Unlimited
- MySQL Db: 5
- MySQL Db Quota: 5000MB
- MSSQL Db: 5
- MSSQL Db Quota: 5000MB
- Mail Accounts: Unlimited
- IPs: 1 shared
- ASP .NET 2 , 3 , 3.5
- ASP 7.5
- PHP 5.2.12 CGI / FastCGI / Isapi
If you've ever wanted to test out Windows based hosting or just play around with
ASP .NET this is the perfect opportunity. We require that you have a domain or sub-domain
resolving to your beta account and the account needs to be actually doing something
such as displaying a page or using resources in order to remain active. Please understand
that this is a beta program and should be used for testing only. This program is
subject to end at any time.
HostGator
Expert Review- From the Editors
HostGator.com is a privately held hosting company that is based in Houston, Texas.
The company was founded in 2002 by current President and CEO Brent Oxley, who started
the company from his dorm room at Florida Atlantic University. Since then, HostGator
has grown from a small hosting company with just three servers into a world leading
and industry recognized hosting provider with more than 7,000 servers under management.
There are 2,500,000 domains hosted by HostGator, and that makes up approximately
1% of the world's Internet traffic. This Guru Review is written by one of our expert
webmasters who used Hostgator for more than 2 years
Sales (10/10):
when I decided to go with Hostgator, I was still confused about their support.
I decided to test it before making any payment to Hostgator. I went to their live
chat & connected with sales. Operator connected to me within 5-10second only, I
was surprised. I started getting information about their packages. He was very friendly
& helpful. All my questions were clearly explained, to the point & in truly manner.
Mostly hosting doesn’t disclose their hidden restrictions on their plans & even
in TOS, but that guy clearly explained everything. I was totally satisfied. After
that I submit some tickets & got reply in 10minutes on average, but not more than
15minutes. After conclusion, I decided to sign-up with them. Everything went smooth
on order form, no hassles. Payment was done & I started waiting for my account.
(I will give them 10/10 for their sales).
Setup (8/10):
I got my account shortly, forgot to note that what time exactly they took to create
account. Anyway, I read my “Welcome Email” thoroughly & did everything step by step.
Everything went fine & I start(ed) uploading my website.
After few hours, I was shocked to see that my account had been suspended. I was
totally confused that why my account had been suspended. I received an email about
this issue. They asked me that I would have to verify my account. I submitted a
ticket to support & inquired about my issue. They asked me to provide all information
to verify my identity. They required me these things whether by call or by fax.
- My Full Name
- My Address on file.
- Last Four Digits of Credit Card.
- My security answer
- My Contact Number
- My NIC number.
However, I called them. It took around 9-10 minutes for connecting to operator.
Anyway, he took all information from me & activated my account within 2-3 minutes.
My account was active without anymore hassles. (I will give them 8/10 for their
sales).
Billing (7/10):
I am not sure why I faced this issue with almost all my hosting companies. I select
Hostgator’s baby plan. I got coupon “hgc25”. My first invoice was of $0.01. I was
surprised to see that I received 2 invoices of total $19.91 for the next month while
I had just 1 account with them. I contacted them & they confessed, “Yes, there is
something wrong, I will fix this”. On the other day, I got invoice from Hostgator
& this time totally shocked, there was one invoice which was good, but amount was
same, he created 1 invoice but amount was $39.82 totally funny. However, this time
I called them & they corrected this one on call. I would like to mention this here
that their billing support is not good also not fast, I got reply after 24hrs. (I
will give them 7/10 for their sales).
Pricing (8/10):
Hostgator prices are great, bit higher than competition but you get for what you
pay. Their plans are starting from $4.95, but this is not monthly basis, you’ll
have to pay for full month. So, per month price will be $4.95 but you will have
to pay for full year (otherwise price is $8.95/month). This is ($4.95x12=$59.4)
which is totally unfair. They should have monthly contract system for beginners,
I personally will recommend you to get their baby plan, on that plan you have an
option for monthly contract. So, go with monthly contract, in case you are unhappy
you will be able to leave them without waiting for refunds etc. Overall, there prices
are reasonable & you get more than its price. (I will give them 8/10 for their sales).
Reliability (9/10):
They are reliable. There servers are fast & have good configuration. Your site opens
with excellent speed. However, I had some issues with them regarding speed. My site
had just few pages build in HTML & had just 50-70 unique visits per day. But my
site was taking about 30 seconds to load just 5kb page. I contacted with them &
they told me that they had server overload issue, which would resolve soon. However,
this soon took over 24hours. After that, I never found any speed issue with them
in 2 years. (I will give them 9/10 for their sales).
Support (10/10):
Their support is awesome. I just love it. Average response time is just around 10minutes
on ticket supports. They provide me support even on third party softwares, like
phpBB, gallery2. They installed several 3rd party scripts on my request. They never
refused any reasonable request. You always get relevant answer within little time.
Their servers are very well managed, mostly you don’t need to get support, but if
you need some support they are 24x7 available for your help & they don’t mind to
assist you on any relevant issue. (I will give them 10/10 for their sales).
Uptime (10/10):
I was with them for more than 2 years, I was monitoring my website through Host
Uptime premium monitoring services & average uptime for 2 years was 99.9997%. This
is great. Just 2-3 hours of downtime in whole 2 years period. It is really very
good uptime. (I will give them 10/10 for their sales).
Bottom Line:
Advantages:
- They are professional. Their clients are more valuable for them than anything else.
- You get 100% uptime.
- Great Support whether on Ticket or on Live Chat. They always request you for ticket
if you have account related issue, its good.
- They are 24x7 available for your help. No matter what the time is.
- They are user friendly & assist you till your satisfaction.
- There servers are good & fast enough.
Disadvantages:
- They don’t have their own data center. They use Theplanet.com datacenter. If there
is some serious issue, they will have to contact with theplanet, which consume more
time.
- Their phone support is not fast; usually you connected to operator more than 8 minutes.
Yes, they resolve your issue, but connection timing should be reduced.
- They have many hidden restrictions like, (limits on numbers of files, limited MySQL
Queries can execute per day, Corn Job timing is 15minutes minimum, very little server
load allowed.
- They oversell their servers. They mentioned Unlimited Space with Unlimited Bandwidth.
But they are well protected in their TOS. You can never use over in 2 digits gigabytes.
Your account will be suspended for some reasons or in some cases can be terminated.
I will never recommend you to use shared hosting if you think that you will get
good traffic.
Overall Guru Rating = 9 Out Of 10