HostGator will Eat You Up and Spit You Out, but will do it with friendly and professional support.
October 29, 2018
HostGator will Eat You Up and Spit You Out, but will do it with friendly and professional support.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with HostGator
HostGator provides the company with internet hosting. The company started using HostGator several years ago on a shared server, and gradually upgraded to a dedicated server. It hosts my website, and the websites of some clients. It was chosen based on price, as the business owners were capable of providing their own tech support.
- The pricing is a big feature for this hosting company
- Every three years when the hosting contract is coming to an end, they offer a reduced fee to upgrade your server plan, which is more cost effective than renewing at the regular rate for whatever plan you're currently using.
- The customer service workers are professional and friendly.
- The technical support is very deficient. If you are going to be relying on your host for all things technical, HostGator isn't a great choice for you. They're professional and friendly, but when you actually run into an issue, it will be a challenge to resolve.
- During the latest server upgrade HostGator was to handle the migration of all sites on our Windows based server over to the new Linux based server. While doing so, the technicians left open a gap for hackers to infiltrate the old server which was then partially encrypted with ransomeware. A half a dozen sites hadn't yet been fully migrated at that point. HostGator said nothing about not finishing the migration - we figured it out when specific sites weren't working properly. They then said it wasn't possible to migrate them. Fortunately, one of the business owners had the technical capability to migrate 4 of the 6, and then rebuilt the two that were lost.
- Unless you have a solid technical background, you're going to be disappointed with HostGator. They often can't determine the cause of technical issues, or claim it's impossible to fix the issues. However, the business partner always ends up solving the issues.
- HostGator has provided the business with affordable hosting.
- HostGator has offered great financial incentives (through special pricing on contract renewals) for upgrading every three years, which means our sites have been hosted on increasingly better, faster servers, which improves customer satisfaction (no waiting on page load speeds).
- HostGator's lack of quality tech support has meant the business owners have had to do more technical troubleshooting when there have been issues rather than focussing on some other aspect of the business.
I haven't used any other hosting providers.
Using HostGator
3 - The business Owner/CEO uses HostGator to provide a dedicated server on which to host client websites and for staging new sites as they'rebeing built and tested. He is the person who makes the purchasing decision to use HostGator. In house Tech Support uses the server provided by HostGator to build sites for functionality and to maintain updates to client sites, while troubleshooting, and fixing any technical issues that crop up with any of the sites or on the server directly. The Administrative Assistant uses he HostGator provided server while maintaining and updating the visual aspects of the business sites.
1 - One of the business owners is responsible for tech support, which includes keeping the servers running smoothly. He does this by troubleshooting whatever issues crop up related to the server, which is hosted by HostGator. He has a strong technical background.
- HostGator provides the business with server hosting on a dedicated server.
- The server is used to host the business websites and client sites, ranging in size from small charity groups to an international organization.
- The server is also used as a staging area when developing new sites or new site features for clients who have their own hosting. That way the new features and changes can be fully tested prior to releasing to the clients.
- I don't think the business has used HostGator in unexpected or innovative ways. It's server hosting, and we've used it for that purpose.
- The biggest standout feature is the price point, which is why the business keeps using this provider.
- The use of their servers won't change over time. The business has contracted with them to provide a server, and that's the extent of the need.
- In the future, providing the rates continue being at the right price point, the business will likely continue to upgrade the servers every few years.