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HostGator Review

Host Gator - HostGatorIt’s a tricky business writing an online review of a web host.  Search for hosting reviews, and you’ll find hundreds of reviews lauding the merits of one webhost or another.  Of course, these are just fake reviews designed to get you to click on their affiliate link and bring a little change into their pocket.

If I wrote a scathing review of Host Gator, hardly anyone would complain.  But the minute you give a company a glowing review, you’re accused of fakery.

Unfortunately, I happen to like Host Gator.  I have personally used Host Gator for years, and because I am a full-time Internet marketer and content writer, I deal with Host Gator practically every day of the week.  So, at least no one can accuse me of having no experience with Host Gator.

Let’s start with the bad stuff.

Host Gator:  Bad Points

Bare-Bones Approach

Host Gator assumes that you already know a bit about webhosting.  Yes, Gator does provide some nice Flash instructional videos, but many of them are outdated and not very well organized.  In fact, there is really no cohesive learning program offered by Host Gator.  Piece together what you can from their scattered tutorials or from your own pre-existing knowledge.

No Integrated Interface

After you sign up for hosting with Gator, you get dumped into cPanel.  cPanel is the most popular form of web hosting interface on the planet.  Go to any other web host and you will probably end up with cPanel.  But it’s a real shock to your system, as a newbie, to go from the warm, caring environment of the sales pitch–into the harsh reality of cPanel.  cPanel is not intuitive.  cPanel is not friendly.  cPanel takes practice.  And yes, you will learn cPanel eventually, but I could easily live in a world without cPanel.

Terrible Name Registrar

When I first signed up for Gator hosting years ago, I made the mistake of using their domain registration service.  At that time, I was so naive that I thought that HostGator would actually be registering the domain for me.  Wrong.  In reality, it is a separate service called Registry Rocket, with the Host Gator name branded on top of it.  That doesn’t bother me so much as the fact that Registry Rocket is terrible.  The prices are high, and their interface is so difficult and impossible to use, that in the Fall of 2006, I even lost a fairly lucrative domain registered with Registry Rocket.  It expired, and I got no notification that expiration was impending.

You get no special advantage for using Host Gator’s name registration service.  Zero.  No deals.  No bargains.  No integrated interface.  Do not use Host Gator’s name registration service!  Stay far, far away.

The solution for me was to register domains with GoDaddy and then transfer them over to my Host Gator hosting account.

Host Gator:  Good Points

Bare-Bones Approach

If you’re paying attention, you know that this was one of my earlier complaints.  Yes, if you’re a beginner, you’ll have quite a learning curve ahead of you.  But if you have any experience with web hosting, you will appreciate the simplistic, stripped-down nature of HostGator.  HostGator is all business.  They step out of the way and let you do your job.

Tons of Free Goodies

A while back, I wanted to set up a WordPress blog on my Host Gator hosting.  Naturally, I approached this with some fear and dread, since I rarely set up server-side software.  The last time I set up software on the server (i.e., that’s why it’s called “server side”) is when I set up my Build a Niche Store, which I found difficult.

But lo and behold, Host Gator has a section called Fantastico, with lots of freebies such as automatic WordPress setup.  All I had to do was press one button, as the saying goes.  It was as easy as that.  A few weeks later, WordPress came out with a new version.  I figured that I might have to wait a month or two until Host Gator set up the new version.  But that wasn’t the case.  Within days, they had the updated version.

No Annoying Sales Pitches

Once you have a Gator hosting account, they leave you alone.  They don’t try to upsell you on all kinds of annoying crap that you don’t need.  Contrast this with GoDaddy.  Every time you want to do anything on GoDaddy, they pound you with yet another sales pitch.  No such worries with HostGator.

Awesome, Amazing Technical Support

Host Gator’s technical support deserves special mention.  Here’s why:  most web hosts have terrible support.  In fact, most everybody has horrendous customer support.  Host Gator is an exception.  Whenever I have a question, no matter how dumb, I just get on their Live Chat service and ask the question.  As long as I am within business hours, I have never waited more than 5 minutes for help to come on.  In practically every case, HostGator tech support was able to answer my question.

What if they don’t know the answer?  I have even had them put me on hold for a few minutes while they went and asked someone else.

Sure, there is a bit of lag time between questions.  But that’s reality.  These tech support people are usually juggling lots of chats and phone inquiries.  I can accept that.

So, in the end, it doesn’t matter if you are a beginner.  Whatever gaps in your knowledge you might have can always be answered by HostGator’s tech support.  They are very patient and will even answer the dumbest questions.

Summary

Recommended.  As an intermediate marketer, you will like Host Gator’s “business-only” approach.  As a beginner, you may have a bit of a learning curve ahead of you.  But by the time you get more experienced, you will be glad that you signed up for a “real” web hosting account, rather than some bargain or freebie garbage web host.

DISCLOSURE:  THIS REVIEW CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS