Hostgator

[WebHost Admin]

Comments are mixed, but generally favourable.

The first line support is sometimes outsourced to an Indian company, so you may find initial support requests have fast response times but are not necessarily all that useful.

Usually the servers run fine, but there can be small niggling issues - for example, some of their servers have outdated SSL certs, so you can’t use secure logins for ports 83 on CPanel or 87 on WHM.

I’ve also had issues with double billing, so be ensure to check your costs.
The company has recently increased its overselling significantly while maintaining low prices. Additionally, all of the company’s shared hosting accounts now offer multi-domain hosting.

In the short-term this means that even shared hosting offers some pretty amazing deals for hosting a number of sites - but the concern is that in the longer term this may lead to servers becoming too stuffed full and efficiency suffering as a result. There is already the suggestion that Hostgator are becoming even more strict than many other hosts as to what software applications may be run, so as to free up further processor resources.

However, all that aside, Hostgator seems a generally stable company with a good business plan, and seem driven by a supermarket-like philosophy that delivers decent products at very low prices to a very wide marketplace.

Hostgator also command a good number of servers, so you should be able to cover multiple IP ranges if your requirements are not too high.

Overall, Hostgator can be a very good company for long-term SEO hosting purposes, especially where a wide range of IP’s is required, but be prepared for small annoyances.

[WebHost Admin]

Okay, to update -

1. I've had repeated instances of being double billed, sometimes for months, at different intervals. Corrected the issue, but it should never have arisen in the first place.

2. I keep getting sent random invoices for random amounts - I've received 16 this month. Hostgator says they can do nothing about it and I should just put up with it. I don't really think that's a professional reply.

3. One of my domains was accused of suddenly taking up 25% of server resources and was suspended. Even though it was my main reseller domain, they were good enough to suspend only that domain, instead of all of the accounts on it. However, they keep trying to sell me a semi- or full dedicated server for a domain that averages 5-10 uniques a day - MAX.

There's not a chance in hell this domain is causing problems, unless it's been compromised from another account, or else is being repeatedly hit by proxies. In either case, and because of the relatively common reports of accounts being told to upgrade, I see this as a Hostgator problem, not user problem.


I have about 13 reseller accounts with Hostgator, and problems like these mean I'm left seriously reconsidering my position with Hostgator - I really don't consider this a professional level of hosting and feel that my accounts are at risk.

[TWD_Tony]

I have a reseller account with hostgator which hosts a few personal site's plus one of my business site's - just because it is in a different DC than my servers at present.

I must admin that I have been bit by the strange invoicing "bug" a couple of times, normally I just see strange entries in my modernbill account with them - like invoices and payment that I have never heard of?

I have never had to deal with HG's support dept so I couldn't really comment - although the "you will have to put up with it..." attitude isn't very professional

[WebHost Admin]

I had a pretty scathing post I was going to post in WHT - but I figured against posting in anger, and instead will simply start migrating my accounts out.

I expect to migrate 4-5 over the weekend, and close one entirely, which will leave just 7 or so to work with - maybe will leave a couple, but I'm feeling pretty sore at the moment.

[monaghan]

With all these accounts you're migrating, perhaps I should start that UK based cPanel server I've been thinking about

[WebHost Admin]

I'm always shopping for UK CPanel reseller accounts, though IP range is always an issue. Just make sure your server isn't in a range I've already got something in.