Facts About Hostgator

• All of Hostgator’s shared and reseller servers are powered and cooled by wind power in Texas.
• Accredited by the Better Business Bureau
• 21st fastest growing company in America as reported by Inc. Magazine.

Hosting Plans:

Oh momma, these are the plans that we personally love. You have maximum flexibility with Hostgator and their plans that are designed to be an entry point for every business or individual.

Shared hosting comes in three flavors at Hostgator: Hatchling, Baby and Business. We chose to highlight the Baby plan, because it simply is enough to power most sites out there! It has several advantages over the Hatchling plan, like unlimited domains hosted, compared to only one. You can also add private SSL and a dedicated IP address, which you are not able to do on the cheaper of the three plans. Baby hosting only costs $7.95 per month compared to the cheaper $4.95, or premium $12.95 in the Business variety.

Don’t ignore the Business plan however, just because it’s not our all-inclusive pick. There are some definite plusses to this plan, even if they do not equate to mass-need or appeal. Business packages give you a dedicated IP and SSL for FREE. You’ll also be able to compensate for the current lack of Windows hosting with Chilisoft ASP, anonymous FTP – the best for last: your own toll-free number!

Broadening your horizons and making a little change in the meantime is also an option using one of the five Reseller Hosting options from Hostgator. With plans ranging from $24.95 a month for 24 GB, to $99.00 a month for 100 GB. That’s a lot of potential customers! Really the only limitations between these reseller accounts is the disk space and transfer monthly. The gates are wide open otherwise with unlimited domains hosting, private name servers and free billing systems. You get 24/7 support, instant backups and best of all no contracts! Perhaps the steadily decreasing cost of hosting these days is what is making reseller hosting accounts so few and far between, but the fact that Hostgator provides one makes us happy!

Hostgator is not completely without a Windows solution. Although they are working on a shared hosting product, they do offer four different Windows Dedicated Web Hosting plans to mirror their four Linux Dedicated Hosting plans. Pricing is identical on the Windows and the Linux servers which is highly rare, since Windows servers normally come attached with a premium, thanks to Microsoft Licensing and specially trained technicians to handle a dual environment. Dedicated hosting starts at $174.00 a month for a nice rig and 5 IP addresses, escalating to $374.00 for the highest performing devices and 10 IP addresses.

Technical and Customer Support:

Personal experience with Hostgator doesn’t bias us much, but their customer support is definitely worth mentioning. As stated above they also maintain SEO Hosting, which is really a testament to their knowledge and skill at running a network of significant size.

Phone in and online chat support are pretty superficial and handle minor problems and are frequently limited to the kinds of information or problems they can solve. However what they lack in actual hands on access or knowledge of your account, they make up for in getting it in the hands of the right person, right away. Answers are not instant, but total turns around time to successful outcomes are very short.

Through the primary support page on the Hostgator site you can access the wide range of communication and information tools like the forum, Hostgator Blog, ticketing system, billing system, and requesting contact either by phone, email or instant online chat. Also through this page you will find the Hostgator upgrades section, where you can upgrade an existing account with add-ons. Some of the better Shared Hosting add-ons are the SSL certificate and SSL certificate installation, Request ASP which will move you to a Chilisoft Asp server, and our favorite of the add-ons is Transfer Account, where you can pay Hostgator to move your web site from some other host to their own servers. For when “you’ve got a headache THIS big” and it has Hostgator written all over it. Good thinking guys.

Features:

Hostgator features have widely been discussed above with all the options and plans, so we’ll continue with the add-ons for Reseller Hosting accounts. Although its listed in the add-ons, it actually comes with your Reseller Hosting account for free, the WHMCS Billing System, with AutoPilot. Manage your hosting plans and your customers all in one convenient control panel.

Want more free goodies? How about living la vida loca with Free Site Builders, Free Site Studio Account, Free Enom Account (for reselling domains). This short yet powerful list of free add-ons are not limited to reseller hosting though, they are also available on the Dedicated Hosting packages! These combined into your hosting account really are a life saver, if not a time saver alone. Signing up for the multi-tools, especially the Enom reseller account can easily save you hours of down-time and wonder if you will be approved and if you have to make a deposit or not. All handled quick and dirty. YES.

All Shared Hosting plans come with CPanel and Fantastico, which means you will be able to get a dynamic site powered by WordPress (for example) up and running in less than five minutes. Since most of the shared plans also allow you to host unlimited domains, you can begin your world domination one website at a time, with ease!