HostGator Reviews

Today I am going to take a moment with you to highlight one of HostGator’s great reseller web hosting packages.  They offer five packages, ranging from $24.95/month to $99.95/month.  The one I will be discussing is their first and cheapest package, called “Aluminum”.

But first, before I get into the features, let me first quickly describe how reseller hosting works with HostGator.  You have Web Host Manager, a reseller hosting account control panel. You go to WHM to create new customer accounts or modify existing ones. After supplying the pertinent information, you click “create” and this will instantly set them up with their very own control panel called cPanel. This is where they will go to manage their website. Once they are logged into cPanel they can do many of the same things you can with a standard web hosting package (depending on what privileges you’ve given them), like create sub domains, email addresses, change passwords, and much more without requiring any help from you or Hostgator.

Now let’s get into the details of “Aluminum.”  This package offers a total of 24gb of hard drive space, which is a good amount for a starter account - you’ll find that you probably won’t need to give out too much disk space to each client unless they are planning on running a site like image or file hosting.  Next, this plan comes with 250gb of monthly transfer - again, not bad for a starter reseller package.

HostGator also provides a lot of features that are perfect for resellers.  This package (as with all of their reseller packages) comes with the ability to use private name servers, which means that if you don’t want them to know they will never find out that you are reselling through HostGator.  Also, HostGator provides a free billing system, which is really handy, and a load of free templates.  As with all their plans, they also offer 24×7 support, instant backups, 99.9% uptime guarantee, and a 45 day money back guarantee.  Setup is free and instant, and there is no contract.

Aluminum also comes with the ability to add unlimited domains, sub domains, POP3 email accounts, MySQL databases, and FTP accounts - definitely a good selling feature for you!  The HostGator servers support CGI, PHP 5 with Zend Optimizer, MySQL 4+, Perl, Ruby On Rails, Python, SSH, SSI, Cron, FrontPage, Curl, GD, and Image Magick.  You can also optionally add Site Builder and Chillisoft ASP if you’d like.

All of their accounts come with the following email tools: web mail, e-mail alias, auto responders, mailing lists, catch alls, spam assassin, mail forwards, IMAP support, SMTP.  Also, cPanel comes with Fantastico, Soholaunch, multi language, hotlink protection, phpMyAdmin, ip deny manager, custom error pages, redirect url, web based file manager, instant blogs, instant forums, instant guest book, and password protected directories.

The following statistic options comes with all accounts, too: AWstats in real time, webalizer, raw log manager, referrer logs, and error logs.  As for e-commerce, HostGator provides shared SSL, private SSL, agora cart, osCommerce, ZenCart, and CubeCart.

As you can see, this is a very powerful hosting package, provided at $24.95 a month.  I’ve been hosting with HostGator for a couple of years now, and I’ve experienced 99.99% server uptime, great customer service, and no glitches.  I highly recommend this plan if you are looking for reseller web hosting.

A heads up to anyone looking to purchase hosting, HostGator is offering 20% off of your initial order until May 1st if you use the coupon code “SPRING” while purchasing. This can add up to a lot of savings - for example, if you purchase their Baby-Croc webhosting plan at 2 years for $8.95 which totals to $215, 20% off of that would be $43, bringing your new total to $172 - now that’s a good deal!

This coupon applies to all their offers - webhosting, reseller, dedicated, etc., so browse around!

I’ve been in the website business for about five years now, and switched to HostGator last year. For the first four years I went through a couple of hosts, and always had the same problem - bad customer support. It ranged from taking days to respond to my questions, to not knowing what they were doing, to being rude and unhelpful. Although I came across some good hosting packages, the lack of customer support would always mean game over.

I’m not too technically savvy, and so this was even a bigger issue for me. I didn’t know how to transfer my site from one host to another and sometimes I would get confused setting up the name servers. I expect a hosting company’s customer support department to be able to help me out with this sort of stuff - not just reply back saying to “look in the faq”.

So about a year ago I was getting really fed up and found myself looking for yet another host. This time, though, I was going to take my time and pick out a winner. I researched for a couple of months, emailed many webmasters, and talked to many of my friends. There were so many possibilities, and many of them were talked highly of. However, one stuck out the most - had the most good reviews, the best things to be said about them, competitive prices, the whole nine yards. That host was, as you might be able to guess, HostGator.

Long story short, I signed up with them after confirming that they could transfer my site over for me (which they did right away), and haven’t looked back since. Their customer service department is fantastic - quick responses, always helpful, always polite. Their hosting packages are very competitive and are some of the best in the business. Their uptime is as close to 100% as you can get, and they’re always adding more features.

I’m extremely happy with HostGator, and to anyone who is looking for a new host, whether they’re not satisfied with their current host or they’re first-timers, I highly recommend HostGator.

-Pat Skinsky

I run a web design business that has been becoming more and more successful. Recently, my friend suggested that I set up a hosting service for my clients if they needed it, to make some extra monthly cash. I was interested in this idea, so I started looking around for good reseller hosting companies that would provide what I needed, without emptying my wallet. I spent a lot of time on forums and talking to webmaster friends who had more experience than I did in regards to hosting.

Well, after about a week of research I had narrowed my choices down to just a couple - among them was HostGator. I visited their sites and checked out their plans. Out of them, HostGator had the most powerful and flexible reseller hosting plans, for the overall best prices. But from experience, that is just half the battle - a host must also provide good customer service and great server uptime to even be considered. So I did some more research on them, and found out that last month their total server uptime was 99.998%, and the previous month was even greater - wow! They are a large company, and that kind of uptime is amazing.

My next task was to test their customer service department, so I emailed them asking some basic questions that I had. Within one hour, I had a friendly reply back from HostGator that answered all of my questions. From their server uptime stats, quick customer service, great reseller hosting packages, and good reviews that I read around the web, I was sold, so I ordered a reseller hosting plan from them. They helped get me set up and answered all of my (dumb) questions about setting up multiple accounts and managing payments, etc..

That was a year ago, and now I host over two dozen clients on my account and everything is running smoothly. The uptime is indeed 99.9%, and any issues that I have had have been solved within a matter of hours. My experience with them has been great, and I highly recommend HostGator to anyone who needs reseller hosting, or just shared hosting, or even a dedicated server.

-Jonathan Milde

As I mentioned before, HostGator has 12 hosting plans to choose from - shared, reseller, and dedicated. They have a couple of Windows hosting packages (more coming soon, they say), but mostly run on Linux. Today I will be going over HostGator’s basic shared hosting package, called “Hatchling”. This plan is a great way to get started if you are not looking for tons of bells and whistles - it does, however, offer considerable amounts of space and bandwidth.

The Hatchling plan comes with 350 GB of server space - that’s gigabytes, not megabytes. Wow! I doubt that you’ll ever need any more than that unless you are running a file hosting site or something. It also comes with 3,000 GB of bandwidth, which again is tremendous for a starter shared hosting package.

The only real limitation of the Hatchling package is that you are only allowed 1 domain, so no add-on domains. However, you are allowed unlimited subdomains. It also comes with a variety of one-click install scripts, like Fantastico, Soholaunch, PHPnuke, hotlink protection, forums, guestbooks, counters, and much more. Along with these scripts, HostGator provides a site builder, instant backups, unlimited MySQL databases, and all sorts of programing language support, including:

• PHP 4 & 5
• ASP
• Python
• Ruby on Rails
• CGI
• SSH
• Perl
• SSI
• Curl
• GD
• ImageMagick

As for email, HostGator offers unlimited POP3 email accounts with auto-responders, forwarders, spam protection, webmail access, and IMAP and SMTP support.

Some additional features that HostGator provides with their Hatchling plan is shared SSL, Agora Cart, osCommerce, Zen Cart, Cube Cart, AWStats, Webalizer, and 24×7 support (chat, email, phone).

Now these are some pretty great features - so what are the prices? Not bad, not bad at all. The prices are:

• $8.95/month if you pay monthly
• $6.95/month if you pay yearly
• $5.95/month if you pay every 2 years
• $4.95/month if you pay every 3 years

These are great prices for what you are getting - and I wouldn’t be afraid to pay yearly or every 2 years, either, since I don’t think that you will be leaving HostGator (I haven’t after 4 years). So, if this shared hosting plan sparks your interest, go check it out on HostGator.com.

I signed up with HostGator two years ago, after about thirty days of research into possible hosts. I really wanted to be sure of my choice this time, as the last year was quite a roller coaster ride as far as my hosting was concerning. My websites experienced constant downtime and numerous other problems, which did horrible things to my traffic. I needed a reliable host, that truly had 99.9% uptime like most hosts guarantee but few deliver.

So, with this in mind, I read and researched for a month, reading through all the major host review sites and forums, and I encountered many reviews on HostGator. The vast majority of them were all positive, good experiences. People said that HostGator had great shared host plans, which is what I was looking for. I didn’t need the resources of a dedicated server, but I did need a decent amount of space and bandwidth.

After reading many opinions on HostGator, I started looking through their website, looking over their shared hosting plans. I immediately found just what I needed - 600 GB of space, 6000 GB of bandwidth, and unlimited domains for $7.95 a month. Now that’s a good deal! Of course, I was wary, as that is quite a lot to offer at only $7.95. But after more research and talking to webmasters who are hosting with HostGator, I was confident that HostGator was actually good for their word, and could provide me with what they promised.

Confident now that I was with my decision that HostGator was the host for me, I only had one other problem - I had no clue how to transfer my site from my old server to my new HostGator account. I contacted their customer service expressing my concern, and I got a very friendly and helpful response back - they would transfer everything for me, free of charge. And indeed they did. Within a day of purchasing my new hosting package, my site was up and running smoothly.

Now, after two years, I am still with HostGator, and just as happy. My sites have indeed experienced 99.9% uptime, customer service has always been quick to respond, and the deals only get better. HostGator just recently updated their server software to the newest versions, like PHP5, which went very smoothly. I have multiple sites hosted with them, and will soon be purchasing one of their dedicated servers. I give HostGator a 10 out of 10 - great prices, great customer service, great experience.

-Tom Schnider

Hostgator is offering a great St. Patrick’s day deal if you sign up with them in the month of march - get 20% off your total price! This coupon expires April 1st, so be sure to sign up soon. Use the coupon code LUCKY when you register to receive your 20% off.