HostGator Web Hosting Review

Hostgator was started in 2002 and is now a top-ranked shared hosting company. They rank consistently high in user reviews and on web hosting review sites. What seems to make Hostgator stand out from the rest of the shared hosting services is their high level of customer support and satisfaction. Apparently the president of the company, Brent Oxley, might even be the one to personally handle the problem if it can't be resolved by customer support services.
Another aspect to this web hosting service that makes them so popular is that they are joining the corporate trend to go "green". Hostgator is the first hosting service to take this step by pledging to buy 130% of their power usage in energy credits. This will only help to boost their acceptance among today's eco-friendly web users.

Hostgator currently offers three hosting service plans, and all are Linux-based platforms. The single site customer can choose the Hatchling plan for $6.95 a month. This plan provides 1 domain with 350 GB of space and 3000 GB of bandwidth. For customers who use more than 1 domain, the Baby plan and the Swamp plan offer unlimited domain support. The Baby plan provides 600 GB of space and 6000 GB of bandwidth for $9.95 a month, and the Swamp plan offers unlimited bandwidth and 1000 GB of space for just $14,95 a month.

Although Hostgator only offers Linux platforms at this time, they are reportedly planning to offer Windows-based hosting very soon. They offer the cPanel feature, which is known to be the best control panel going, along with the Fantastico script installer which will support nearly all of the open scripts available with a minimum of clicks.

Of course, e-mail applications are very important features of any web hosting service. The Hatchling plan provides twenty POP3 accounts, while the others offer unlimited POP3 accounts. This is another feature which only raises the bar for customer satisfaction.

The touchstone of any web hosting service is their server capacity. Hostgator uses state-of-the-art Dual Xeon servers at their data centers in Dallas, otherwise known as the Planet. These data centers can handle the traffic, because they are connected to ten backbone providers for constant flow. Although any web hosting service will claim a 99.9% uptime, Hostgator can actually guarantee it.

In an independent test online, Hostgator was assessed by an outside monitoring service that watched their service performance over an eight month period with an actual customer in real time. Their calculated uptime average was an impressive 99.93%, with the longest recorded down time of only ten minutes. That is the kind of service that any website is looking for, and Hostgator proved their mettle.

As to any factors on the minus side, the pricing plans will soon change to two year and three year pre-payment offers, which reduces the monthly charge but includes a set-up fee, which in the long run actually costs more than the one year plan. And the unlimited bandwidth and expanded space that Hostgator advertises is balanced out by a limit to CPU use and file numbers allowed. But to be fair, any website that has millions of page hits per month really shouldn't be on a shared service anyway. Limiting customers to server use is for the greater good of all their customers, and this is a common practice among shared hosting services.

Finally, the customer service response is fast and dependable. Hostgator offers 24/7 toll free customer support year round, and their Ticket System usually will kick back an answer in two hours or less. Together with their available tutorials and reference database, they can rightfully claim the highest level of customer support and satisfaction. All in all, Hostgator looks to be a top contender in the web hosting game.