Our Review of: HostGator

Overview:

Founded in 2002, HostGator has quickly grown from it's headquarters in Boca Raton Florida, into one of the largest and most respected names in the web hosting industry. Once outsourcing web hosting services from The Planet, they now control their own datacenter located in Houston, TX, also with offices in Austin, TX. Today, with more than 8,000,000 domain names, 12,000 servers and last but not least, 850+ dedicated employees, they're one of the top web hosting companies out there.

They specialize in low-cost shared web hosting, that caters to newer, smaller web sites. This doesn't however mean that they aren't as advanced, or professional as other more expensive and exclusive companies. Their web hosting plans are among the cheapest and most feature packed out there.

Don't let their ultra low prices scare you away, as they have a great track record for delivering the utmost in hosting reliability for the cost. We found they have a very good uptime and support record to date. That said, we think they deserve a high rank in our web hosting list and a second look as your next web hosting provider.

Pros:

• Can host monthly - No long term committment
• Over 850 employees ready to assist.
• Multiple hosting plans up to full dedicated servers.

Cons:

• Weekly Backups - Not Daily.
• Heard of some tech support issues.

Features & Specials:

HostGator has a number of uniquely named hosting plans, all offering ample storage and bandwidth allowances for small to medium web sites. From the starter plan called "Hatchling", they all offer the typical features found at other shared web hosting companies. They also specialize in reseller hosting, for those interested in starting their own web hosting business, or private label service.

On to price, the one thing that really sticks out about their shared web hosting plans, is the ability to host month-to-month, with no long term contracts. Most web hosts only offer yearly or higher contracts. You can also cancel at anytime if you aren't happy with service, along with the adequate 45-day money-back guarantee.

Some notable features with each hosting plan, are free domain name, free setup, unlimited e-mail addresses, free web site installs, unlimited sub-domains and a plethora of free scripts and website builder software. Lastly, to get visitors rolling in to your new site, they also offer $100 Google Adwords and Bing credits.

Reliability & Speed:

HostGator manages its own world-class secure datacenter, located in Houston, TX. With over 12,000 servers in operation, for sites around the World, they're needless to say, among one of the larger web hosting franchises out there. Their systems are monitored 24/7 by a trained staff of over 850 and offer redundant fire suppression and electrical backup procedures.

They're connected via industry leading OC-192 backbone connections, to ensure each server has adequate connectivity, for quick loading web pages. We found web page loading speed is adequate to fast, compared with other web hosts. However, if you have a resource intensive site, you may want to look at upgrading to a higher performance plan they offer, to ensure the fastest loading pages.

HostGator touts a 99.9% uptime guarantee and we've found them to have among the industry average uptime and reliability ratings. For the price, you really can't go wrong, especially for a new or growing web site. They also provide free weekly backups of your web site data, in case of unforeseen accidents. If you need daily backups for more frequently updated data, that's also offered, at a small premium.

Support:

When it comes to customer support, HostGator has what it takes to help keep you and your web site happy. They offer multiple support choices, all available 24/7. They can be reached via live chat, phone, or email based ticketing system. We found that the easiest and best way to contact support and get answers is via the online ticketing system. The response time is on average with other low-cost hosting companies and they also offer an extensive knowledge base of searching help topics. For U.S. customers, they offer a completely U.S. based technical support staff.

One thing unique to HostGator, is their ability to offer support in both Chinese and Russian languages, for customers in those countries.

Average Support Wait Times:

Chat Wait Time 30-seconds

Phone Wait Time 2-minutes

Control Panel:

HostGator accounts utilize the now industry standard cPanel control panel interface, which makes everything about managing your web hosting account as easy and quick as possible. You can configure domain names, e-mail accounts, databases, setup scripts and website traffic statistics, among others.

They also offer a unique reseller oriented control panel interface called Web Host Manager, or WHM for short. This is great for those who want to manage their own reseller web hosting company, or have a lot of domain accounts under their account.

What sets them apart?

Summary:

HostGator was chosen as the #3 rated web host, not only because of their extremely attractive feature packed and low priced web hosting packages, but because of their quirky, catchy hosting plan names and slogans. But don't let all these odd names and slogans worry you into thinking that HostGator doesn't take things seriously. They're a top notch hosting contender, worth a second look. Their 400,000 customers world-wide are proof!

HostGator Ratings ChartScore: 96%