However I was wrong. In fact what I learned is that some shoppers are interested in knowing the company’s details before they order their hosting package. So for friends who asked me to cover more on Hostgator’s company details, here’s the information.

Hostgator Homepage

Who’s the boss behind Hostgator?

Brent Oxley is the founder and current CEO of Hostgator.

When Hostgator started off their business?

Hostgator started off their business back in year 2000. Hostgator’s current success is quite an amazing story as the company is actually an one-man-operation company based in Brent’s (the founder) university dorm room at Florida Atlantic University.

What is the size of Hostgator at current time?

Hostgator grew fast, very fast. They were first started with just 3 servers and are now running on over 5,000 servers. The company’s HQ recently moved into a new 20,000 square foot office building in Houston, Texas and has added more than 150 employees.

The success of the company is recognized when they were named one of the fastest growing private companies in United States (ranked 21st for nation and ranked 2nd in Texas) by Inc. Magazine.

How Hostgator achieved such level of success?

I’m not a professional business analyst thus have no accurate answer for the question. But in case you want my opinions, here’s it.

Features wised, Hostgator hosting solutions are very comprehensive. Generally, no matter what is your purpose of getting web hosting, they have the right solution for you. At the time of writing, Hostgator offer hosting services in three major categories: Shared Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, and Reseller Hosting packages. Each of these hosting package offers powerful features which include good storage and bandwidth as well as other supporting features.

Listed above are the tangibles features that can be compared and reviewed. However, from the user’s point of view, I think “treating the customers right” is what brought Hostgator to today’s success.

Hostgator are, by now, the best hosting companies in my list (yes, it outranked Bluehost by now) – the kind of attention I’m getting in term of customer supports and needs is abnormally high. Hostgator had been improving their users experience in the past and they are now still doing the same thing (in fact they recently just invested in cPanel upgrading and customer tickets system). Sure the price of Hostgator is a little higher than the rest – but the service quality is worth every penny of it.

Hostgator’s Web Hosting Features

I would like to pull in Hostgator’s hosting features as the end of the article. Readers who get interested in Hostgator are recommend to click here and place your orders. (Yup, that’s my affiliate link and please – that’s the only way I earn the income to support my writing and hosting fees for this blog. Why not do me a favor since it’s not costing you any extra.)

You can check my previous post for Hostgator’s shared hosting plan; while here are the dedicated and reseller hosting plans for Hostgator.

Hostgator Dedicated Hosting Plan

Dedicated hosting is a kind of hosting service where you rent the whole server as your own. You can run multiple websites on a dedicated hosting but you’ll be the only client using that particular computer.

More details on Hostgator’s dedicated hosting.

Hostgator Reseller Hosting Plan

Clients who take up reseller hosting account can, well, resell their hosting capacity. You would be amazed how easy and cheap it is to become your very own web hosting company. Hostgator offer you all the tools and support needed to have you up and running in just a few minutes time. All of our reseller hosting plans allow you to create unlimited web sites under your own packages, prices, and brand.

More details on Hostgator’s reseller hosting.

Hostgator User Reviews

HostGator: You Had Me At ‘Hello!” – kevo777 @ 03-03-2009

After coming from such a bad experience at GoDaddy I had to post and share how really great HostGator has been just in the few days I’ve been a member.

I so very much appreciate the minimalist design with HostGator’s web presence, including the home page and cPanel. Anyone who has a domain or host account with GoDaddy knows how busy their site is! It’s a mess IMHO.

Maybe I’m just imagining it but I really think my site with HostGator is snappier. True, the account is only 3 days old and it wasn’t a site transfer; just a clean fresh WordPress install. But even when my site was fresh with GoDaddy there seem to be some lag. Perhaps they install more accounts per server on their shared hosting then HostGator does? At any rate, thank you HostGator!! WOOHOO!!!

Ref link: http://forums.hostgator.com/hostgator-you-had-me-hello-t46399.html

Completely awesome – logbert @ 14-03-2009

I used to host with GoDaddy and hated it. So awful. So I switched last year to HostGator. Even if you guys didn’t offer way more features and better support, you’re still like 9,000 times better because your administrative interface isn’t a confusing mess.

Anyway, I’ve been hosting here for about a year now and am really happy with it. I’ve seen virtually no downtime, support has been great, and as dumb as it seems, I’m most happy because I don’t have to pay extra to see totally normal things like raw Apache access and error logs and accessing a database remotely.

Thanks for the great service.

Ref link: http://forums.hostgator.com/completely-awesome-t46959.html

Very happy! – seaspiritnw @ 14-03-2009

I have been with HG for just one month but I have to say I am very pleased so far. There were a few questions and a couple of problems I had and chat support was great… they walked me through what I needed to do. My being new at using Joomla and not knowing what was wrong..they found one of the problems was actually with Joomla, and found a link to what I needed at Joomla to fix that issue. If not for them I would probably still be pulling my hair out..lol..

In my opinion they went beyond what I expected to help me out, and were patient with my crazy questions and very nice. My first regular payment just came out and it was so nice to see it went smoothly and was exactly what they said I would be billed…just as the first month was really only 1 penny!

Thank you HG for making my first paid hosting a nice experience!

Ref link: http://forums.hostgator.com/very-happy-t46941.html

Favorite Hostgator customer feedbacks

Of all the reviews I read at Hostgator’s forum, this forum post comes with the best detail and it’s especially helpful for those who wish to switch their current web host.

Host Gator Saved My Business! – marko1 @ 14-03-2009

A giant Thumbs Up to Host Gator…

About three weeks ago, I learned my existing host was being bought out by a larger company with a terrible reputation that planned to migrate all sites to their ‘advanced’ platform.

The old host was excellent – good service, good up-time, competitive prices, personal support and so on. The reviews on this new host are probably the worst on the web. My decision was easy that I had to find somewhere else to host my sites or I could find myself out of business very quickly. I had read stories online about this company loosing entire vps’, providing empty backups and having downtime measured in weeks.

I had almost 100 sites under a reseller plan with the previous host and searched the web to find either a new reseller plan, vps or dedicated server. I decided that the Windows Elite Dedicated Server from Host Gator was the way to go. It took less than 48 hours for Host Gator to prepare the server and I have spent the last two weeks, night and day transferring my web sites and preparing the server.

Even though I transferred my sites, I have not told that new company yet. I am watching as they attempt to migrate my sites and can see the errors and problems I would have to deal with if I stayed there. They even go as far as changing your code to work on their new platform – totally unacceptable!

I am extremely pleased with how smooth this migration went to Host Gator and will be purchasing a Linux Reseller plan this week for several of my Linux sites and as my business grows I can see another Windows Dedicated server in my future. I did encounter one problem on my new server which was answered within 20 minutes from a Host Gator tech through the ticket system.

Keep up the good work!

Ref link: http://forums.hostgator.com/host-gator-saved-my-business-t46935.html

In case you are still wondering about Hostgator hosting service, my only advice is ‘JUST DO IT!’ Hostgator provide 45 days money-back trial period. You can get full refund if you’re unhappy with them during this period.

For your inforamtion, here’s a quick view on Hostgator’s recent server status. Everything seems fine and I’m especially happy with its server load level.

Yeah, Hostgator sucks. That’s true according to all the haters who contribute their input here: Search Google: Hostgator Sucks.

But if that’s how you judge the quality of a hosting company then Hostgator, apparently, doesn’t suck at all. Results on Google searc for Hostgator Rocks outnumbered the search results by more than 10 times and there are hundreds of thousands of Hostgator lovers leave positive comment on the company.

So does Hostgator suck?

Well, it depends. There are tons of reasons why a hosting company gets complaints. Not every bit of the reasons are valid and sometimes, people are complaining just because they are expecting too much from a good thing.

More of the time, I think people on the Internet just like complaining. They think they will get extra by putting up hate words and rants. Hostgator, as one of the fastest growing hosting companies in United States operate hundreds of thousands websites online. With that much of clients being served, I think it’s fair to say that the hosting company can’t please everyone to the max.

Should I go with Hostgator hosting?

For those who’re worried by the negative comments, note that Hostgator offer a long trial period where you can test Hostgator service risk free. The best hosting review you can get is by reviewing the hosting company yourself. If you are unhappy with any part of their service, simply resign from the subscription and you’ll get your full refund back.

Isn’t better?

And after all, not everyone thinks Hostgator sucks. As mentioned earlier there are more fans than haters for Hostgator. Take me for example, I had been operating websites for years and I’m happy with their services all the time.

Hostgator sucks? Never in my dictionary.

Guest Articles:Hostgator Hosting Review

In the circle of web hosting companies, Hostgator has emerged as one of the most popular company around. They achieve this because they deliver what they promise. It is as simple as that. Their customers are pleased with their service because they pick up the phone and solve their problems every time. Not only do they answer phone, they also reply email enquiries, respond to live chat as well. No wonder they get such high rating from their customers. When you have happy customers, it is hard to say no to success.

However, if you just glance through HostGator, you would not feel that this provider is something that you would be interested in. Their generic website is dull with a slogan which is also dull. It says ‘We eat up the competition’. It uses a cpanel and standard set up which is an average for web host companies.

This simplicity is the key to their success. They seem to be transparent and let you know everything about them. So, you won’t feel like there is a marketing ploy or any undisclosed terms about them. What you see is what you get. Their terms of service with HosGator are as simple as their order process. You can order your website with ease and it only takes up around 5 minutes. Their billing details are displayed so you can track it in every page of your order. Finally, you can pay via credit card, paypal or even debit card. All this features makes HostGator such a user friendly provider among its competition. Below is a review on the feature and performance on HostGator.

Hostgator’s Features Review

HostGator uses the Linux system. This means that they can only provide Linux hosting. Nevertheless, it is heard that they are planning to improve their service by adding windows system hosting in their services. They provide all their features in all their packages and this is what consumers need to build a serious website. For consumers who may need additional domains, their Baby and Swamp package allows unlimited domain add-ons. This gives you the ability to have multiple sites. HostGator uses cpanel, the best controlled panel available in the market. Furthermore, you will also get Fantastico script installer which let you open most of the open source scripts with just a few clicks. They also support PHP4 and PHP5, SSH, Cron jobs, Python, Ruby on Rails and so on. The packages also include sufficient POP3 accounts.

Hostgator’s Performance Review

All the websites hosted by Hostgator is placed in their Dual Xeon servers. These servers are located in their data center located in Dallas. The data center connects to 10 backbone providers providing 99.9% uptime with a standard industry guarantee. A test done on a website hosted by HostGator using a third party uptime monitor shows result that HostGator provides 99.98% uptime. This test was done from February2008 till the end of April. For more than 3 months, HostGator was able to provide unchallenged performance by other host companies. This is the proof that Hostgator has to say that they are the best in the field.

Article by Phil Anderson – experienced web writer.

Now you might already knew Hostgator’s based in Houston, Texas; and they have just won themselves #21 spot in Inc. Magazines Top 5,000; what you might not know is the figures about the company’s past three years growth.

Hostgator Company Profile

Check this out, Hostgator company profile according to Inc. Magazine:

The company actually grew nearly 5,300%, started out of a college dorm room with literally no budget to a company with 155 employees, in just three years! The numbers are really remarkable and I have my highest respect to their founder Brent Oxley.

Funny rules in Hostgator

Also, what you might not know is that HostGator has a full-time chef who cooks meals for the employees on all shifts (wow!). But only if they meet their call quotas. If employees don’t meet their call quotas, they are taken off the list for the day.

No wonder the supporting staffs are so helpful!

Much, much more higher.

From Google Insights, it seems that Hostgator related searches (such as Hostgator hosting, Hostgator coupons, and Hostgator reviews) are mainly coming from Asia countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, and India. Singapore – a small nation with 4.5 millions population, topped the table for Hostgator’s regional interest for year 2008. (Google Insights data shown here)

Why is Hostgator much wanted in Singapore, and other Asia countries?

I was searching around Asia based forums and articles but couldn’t draw any solid conclusion on the question. However, I do come up with a few explanations based on my searches, Hostgator’s much interested in Asia countries might because of:

1. Load time factor vs website targeted audience

One, websites hosted in United States load faster for United States users.

Two, while globalization’s already reshuffling world’s economic standings; United States remain as the biggest spenders for online shopping.  Affiliate network (like CJ.com and ShareASale.com), Google Adsense, AdBrite – major e-commerce networks are based in United States.

Combining the factors above, it’s reasonable to believe that Asians who wish to start their home based business would focus on U.S. market and hosting with a U.S. based web host.

2. Hosting cost

Check this out, a Baby-Gator hosting package at Hostgator cost $7.95/mo for 600GB/6,000GB disk storage/bandwidth, unlimited addon domains; a standard hosting plan at Singapore based PozNet cost $9.5/mo (S$160/yr) for 350MB/35GB disk storage/bandwidth.

That’s right, you gotta pay extra for less features for Singapore hosting. The pricing is more or less the same with other Singapore based hosting, for example: Vodien cost $17/mo (S$24/mo) for 10GB/unlimited disk storage space/bandwidth; CyberSite cost $10.5/mo (S$15/mo) for 200MB/unlimited disk storage/bandwidth, HostSG cost $8.5 (S$12/mo) for 2GB/20GB disk storage/bandwidth.

So should you go with Hostgator if you’re from Singapore, or Malaysia, or Indonesia?

It’s obvious that hosting with Hostgator save you more money. Unless your website’s targeted audience are mainly local (for better loadtime); else I don’t see why you should limit your hosting choice within the local region.

$7.95/mo for 600GB/6,000GB disk storage/bandwidth, reliable web hosting server with long uptime, strong customer supports – I don’t see why you shouldn’t go with Hostgator – regardless which part of the globe you’re staying at.

Well the answer is “not much different” according to Google Insights. A quick check on these three hosting companies for the past four years draw a conclusion that all three of these web hosts are interested by searchers more or less the same recently.

It’s obvious that iPower was leading in the beginning of year 2004 (as they were one of the pioneer); Hostgator and Hostmonster grew exponentially quick and hence, the search trend shown in the graphic below.

Where will Hostgator be in the next 2 years?

Summing up with Hostgator’s recent move in Going Green (using renewable energy to power their servers); I’m expecting the hosting company to continue its strong grow trend and leave the other two behind in one or two year time.

Since Hostgator started its business, it able to offered services for high traffic sites, in which this thing was considered mission impossible at that time, but Hostgator could perform it nicely. Three years ago, it was still a small scale web host which only has hundreds of clients. At the time of writing, Hostgator’s customer base exceed thousands and named as one of the fastest growing companies in United States.

Below are some of the attributes which attract customers to choose Hostgator:-

Customer/Aftersales support

A reliable and promising supports and after sales service which not many web hosts can give. Hostgator provides professional solutions to tackle all type of problems in order to let customers do their business without any obstacle. Customer service is always being the first thing they look into before getting any business from customers. They provide a free guidance to their customers. Most of fundamental services are provided to customer free.

Web hosting servers

The simplest way to justify whether a web host is strong or not can be differentiated by numbers of servers. Meaning, the stronger web hosts will have bigger numbers of servers. For Hostgator, it has about 800 servers up to today.

Customer satisfaction

According to reviews and surveys obtained from forums and articles, Hostgator wins a lot of good comments and appraisals from customers not only on packages provided, but also on services given.

Market leader

Hostgator always looking forward to be the market leader in web host business. This spirit has drive to them work hard to provide more satisfying services to customers.

Reseller Service

Hostgator helps customer to get more savings through reseller service which allow hosting of 12 domains.

Zero Downtime

After years of improvements, downtime almost achieves 100% no downtime service.

Free of Charge Account Moving Service

Hostgator provide a free of charge service to customer for moving 20 accounts.

Effective Business modules

Hostgator help customers to overcome problems of setting up business modules. Until now, a lot of business modules were being set up by Hostgator and all of them are proved to working perfectly.

As a conclusion, Hostgator is your good choice for web hosting company. Since established until today, tons of good comments have clearly proved that Hostgator is a well known, prominent and reliable web host. Plenty of strengths like large web space, strong supports and zero downtime are again convincing you that Hostgator is your ultimate choice.

Minor negative comments like only answers provided during live chat and problems accessing to email. However, such negative comments are just contributed to a very small ratio as in compare with junks of strengths which Hostgator offering.

Lastly, your choice is around the corner – Hostgator. Be a smart buyer and choose the best for you. Hostgator definitely is the one for you.

Well, it’s not just me who think Hostgator is good. There’re tons of real, satisfied, customers leaving positive feedbacks on Hostgator. I find some of these reviews useful and thought it might be good for your references.

So, here goes.

Nick7268: A very good experience!

Customer complimenting Hostgator’s customer supports and asking for more bandwidth for the reseller account.

A very good experience

I have to make this post in special for give thanks to the people of hostgator.com they make me easy to start my webhosting initiative, that was not easy to me in the past. to many bad companys and worse technical suport.

i arrive in hostgator after a good coincidence, one friend of mine was in need of hosting of one of their sites because her old provider was hacked situation that put her in high stress. i make my research and found that hostgator was the right one for her. she buy an account then i make the review so i found it was i look for for me then i decided to make the jump so i am here. the service is better i have no doubt and always have received answers at time of my technical problems.

maybe i have a sugestion for the resellers, when a persona grows in need you have a roof top on 100 gigas of space and perhaps someone found that this is not enough. the other thing is the transfer, it will be a nice thing to have bandwith more higher for reseller hosting.

Thanks hostgator.com

– by nick7268, 08-15-2008 08:39 PM

James G.: Great Value, Fast Support!!!

Customer who bought baby-gator hosting plan and is extremely happy with the tech support given and thinks that Hostgator offer great value of service.

Great Value, Fast Support!!!

I’ve been using Host Gator for my personal sites for about 5 months now.
(just recently upgraded from the ‘hatchling’ to a ‘baby’ account so that I can use the ‘addon domain’ feature).

Tech support is great and fast!!!
(often getting a response and resolution within minutes)

After upgrading to the ‘baby’ account, I had some problems figuring out how to go about controlling my sub-domains within the addon-domains. Tech Support recommended I use the x3 theme for cpanel… after my request, they changed my cpanel theme over to x3, and things are good

Thanks to all the staff who’s helped me out these past few days… and I hope Host Gator continues to offer this level of 24 hour support!!!

To be perfectly honest… I try to support my local businesses, but so far, Host Gator is the most competively priced host (and all my sites are non-profit). If I ever switch, it will be because there is a canadian host that can ‘match’ Host Gators value and service.

Thanks,

– by James Gerber, 09-09-2008 12:43 AM

SoftwareCandy: Almost 4 months now – HostGator rocks!

Technical guys who got help from Hostgator’s supports in Perl module installation.

Almost 4 months now – HostGator rocks!

For my soon-to-be-launched web site (Software Candy), I needed a Perl module that is critical to one of my products. I couldn’t find it in the installed list, so I opened a ticket requesting that module to be installed.

Within less than an hour, HostGator’s support (thank you Bill H.) installed that module, flawlessly, smoothly and without any problem whatsoever. It works so nicely.

For that, HostGator receives a PERFECT 10 out of 10!

– by softwarecandy, 09-09-2008 11:06 PM

Ron: Thanks for four years and counting…

Long term customers commenting on Hostgator services.

Thanks for four years and counting…

I have been on a dedicated server since Feb 07 with HostGator. Before that on a shared server since Apr 04.

Through all of these years, I only experience only a few issues. Hostgator was especially helpful to me when I was on vacation and someone had installed a spammer’s script on one of my sites. They locked down and cleaned up the “problem” for me while all I could really do was send emails of “Thanks Guys!!!” from a public email account until I got back home. I have found it easier to send an email / ticket to the support team and let them do what they do best…. that way I don’t screw up something because I think I know what I am doing…and not have any headaches.

For the most part, I have little interaction with the support team. Which, is a quiet good thing. It quietly means that months after months go by without a burp on the hosting service. When I do need something, like an SSL certificate installed or some other request, I have to go back in the archive email folders to figure out my Hostgator login and password to create a ticket…

My experience has been a favorable one here and I thank the Hostgator support team for all of their assistance throughout the years.

– by Ron, 07-29-2008 04:35 PM

Well that’s all for the moment. I’ll be checking Hostgator feedbacks online from time to time and will share more with you in case I found any good ones. For the time being, in case you wish to have your words about Hostgator spread, why not email me at jerry [a] hostgatorsecretrevealed.com.

I’ll be more than happy to publish your useful comment here. Till then, cheers!