HostGator (HostGator.

com) has become one of the better known web hosts in the industry by being
themselves. Though nothing they do is completely spectacular or unbelievable, they do what they
should do. That is, HostGator actually answers their phones, replies to their emails, responds to live chat
requests, doesn’t rip you off, and provides quality hosting. It’s actually quite sad that most hosts can’t
seem to get these things right, but it’s great for HostGator as they’ve banked on it and it’s translated
into success.

At first glance, HostGator is not too impressive. They have a fairly generic web site, a logo with a fairly
lame slogan – “we eat up the competition” (the alligator in the logo is eating the “H”) (sorry HostGator),
ordinary copy on their text, an apparent lack of updates on their site, a pretty standard ModernBill
setup, cPanel, and basically everything an average web host has.

However, that’s the beauty of HostGator. They don’t have too many bells and whistles, marketing ploys,
or anything of the sort. What you see is what you get and it’s that simple. HostGator’s terms of service is
pretty standard, as is their order process. Marketing isn’t shoved down your throat at every page and
billing is simple. The order process takes about 5 minutes and HostGator accepts both credit cards and
PayPal (which is always nice), as well as debit cards.

HostGator Support

I found it interesting how HostGator accepts quite a few forms of payments, so I contact them, and be a
little, different. I requested a live chat, and it went like this I was George, pretending to be someone
whose English wasn’t the best.

Chat Information Please wait for a HostGator operator to respond.

Chat Information Welcome to HostGator! You are now chatting with ‘Bueford’

Bueford: Welcome to HostGator, how may I assist you?

George: Hi Bueford!

George: Hi Bueford!

George: I have a question regarding your order process – the process at which you order.

George: Would you be willing to assist me with answering these questions regarding the ordering
process at HostGator.com?
Chat Information Please wait while I transfer the chat to ‘Kafel’.

Chat Information Welcome to HostGator! You are now chatting with ‘Kafel’

George: Hello?

Kafel: sure, go ahead

George: Why was I transferred from Bueford?

George: Never the matter. My question is this.

Kafel: he is tied up with another chat and didn’t want to keep you holding

George: Oh, very well then! tell Bueford I appreciate his kindness.

George: My question is this. I live in another country and I am unable to pay with a credit card or with
PayPal, as my country does not support PayPal.

Kafel: I will do

George: Do I have the ability to “DHL 5-7 Day International Express” HostGator.com a check for the
amount of the total of my order?

Kafel: One moment please…

George: That is fine. I will wait one moment. You’re welcome.

George: Excuse my English, please. English is not the principal language of the country that I live in.

Kafel: yes, you could send a bank check to us and once we receive it we will apply it to your account

Kafel: You could call me on the phone if you’d like

Kafel: and by the way your English is excellent

George: That is okay, Kafel. I do not have a telephone that calls international numbers.

George: That sounds very good, Kaefel! Thank you very much for your help in assistance with helping
and assisting me with your order process at HostGator.com.

George: I will be honored and excited to be hosted by such a company as HostGator.com.

Kafel: Oh ok.. I thought you were calling from within the US

Kafel: Thanks for your kind word. Looking forward to assisting you in the future

George: Have a wonderful day, Kafel! Many wishes to you and your family!
 They handled the somewhat different situation quite well and answered the question (which was not a
standard process, apparently). It’s nice to see companies that don’t always go by the book and offer to
help you, without you having to constantly request their help. I later spoke to Kafel as Douglas and told
him who I was and that he did a very good job in handling the situation.

HostGator’s phone support was just as good, and when I asked the three standard questions (Do you
support mod_rewrite, mod_security, and are your servers Windows or Linux (Linux)) they were
answered promptly. I sent those three questions, along with “Do you support PHP5 and Ruby on Rails?”
at 5:44 PM on a Monday, and got a response about 10 minutes later that said:

“We support PHP4.4 We support mod_rewrite Our servers on Linux this on our shared server but if you
take dedicated server then we installed php5 and mod_security on your server.”

It wasn’t worded too well, but it did answer most of the questions (Ruby on Rails was completely
ignored).

HostGator offers some other services such as web design, merchant services, domain registration, SSL
certificates (which at $75 each, are overpriced), and script installation. They outline all of their upgrades
quite clearly in the Addons section of the Support Center, which is always nice.

The actual HostGator control panel is cPanel. There is absolutely nothing that I can tell that is different
than any other standard installation of cPanel. It has the standard mail and database features. Speed
was good. Everything worked fine and installation of the scripts I tried worked just fine.

Pros: Good support, easy to contact, competitive pricing, plenty of features with cPanel, straight
forward

Cons: Not too many free addons or extra features, no Web 2.0 technology support

Bottomline: HostGator is a solid hosting company that provides excellent support and competitive
pricing without too many frills or marketing ploys.

For those who are interested, I will offer you two free coupons:

Negruitobias1-9,99 $ off
Negruitobias2-25% off

For more infos and bonuses visit:

http://esticuriosintra.blogspot.com/2011/05/compania-hostgator.html