Why this Hosting Giant is still one of the Best Web Hosts that can be found out there
Here is a genuine HostGator review by a former customer…
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Let’s face it, the world of Affiliate Marketing is pretty big, which serves as motivation for some of the overly glowing reviews that are floating all over the internet. Unfortunately, as many people have found out, there is hardly any truth in some of the things that are written by people who, after all, are looking to get paid for driving customers towards a particular product or service. That is where our reviews differ from the rest. Although we are going to be paid should you sign up for hosting with HostGator by clicking on the any of the banners that are on this page, we have resolved to tell it as it is, whatever the consequences. All of our reviews are based on our own genuine experiences and on the experiences of our readers.
Genuine HostGator Review: We are Former HostGator Clients
A while ago, we hosted one of our Websites through HostGator and can, therefore, give you a genuine review of this great web host’s products and services. Although the site was, as these things go, set up as an experiment (we were new to Web Hosting and wished to try things out), it ended up running for a whole year. During that time, we learnt quite a lot about the company. We can therefore, give you a heads-up through this genuine HostGator Review. That should enable you to take the plunge.
About HostGator
Like most of the large technology firms that dominate the world today, HostGator’s beginnings are humble. The company, whose founder is Brent Oxley, was started in a dorm room at Florida Atlanta University. Today, it is based in Houston and Austin, Texas. We won’t bore you, however, with the rest of the company’s history. If you are reading this genuine HostGator review, you probably only wish to find out whether or not this is a good company with which you can host your website. Network Bees is going to lay it out straight for you in this review;
Is HostGator a Good Web Hosting Services Provider?
If the above question is what you are here to find out, the answer is a resounding YES! No, we are no longer customers, but in the year that we used their services, we were impressed by the way that the company treated us. In fact, we were so inspired that we have set out to write this genuine HostGator review! Of course, there were some annoyances during our time with this great web host, but, we can assure you, you will find those with any hosting company. Think we are lying?
- You only have to browse across the internet to find the tons of disparaging reviews that have been left by irate customers about almost every web hosting company that is out there.
- If you deal with so many people, you are bound, in one way or the other, to ruffle a few feathers and we have to admit that ours were sometimes ruffled during our time with HostGator (As we said, this is a genuine review). However, the company delivered on most of the things that matter, as you shall find out by reading the rest of this review;
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What attracted us to HostGator?
Price
The thing that attracted us to HostGator was, we have to admit, price. If you know anything about web hosting, you will be stuck by our naivety. Price should, we have soon found out (and you can find out by reading this article), the least of your concerns when choosing a web host. (Read this article to find out what you should look for in a web host). Needless to say here that the differences in the cost of hosting your site are so negligible from one company to the other, that this should hardly be a major consideration for you.
- In any case, we were attracted to HostGator by the issue of price. There were other things, including the unparalleled marketing, but, as you will see by reading the rest of this genuine HostGator review, price was the primary of our concerns.
- The company was, at the time, running one of those special offers that it is always running, and we jumped at the chance of building our own site for free.
- We had already build the thing on Localhost using Joomla, and were excited to finally be able to claim our stake at greatness by putting out our thoughts for the entire world to hear (oh, the naivety!).
- The free for a month offer was all that it took to have us jump onto the bandwagon. We have to admit that we only had the vague idea that we would have the website up for only a month before calling it quits. As mentioned earlier, we ended up sticking with HostGator for a whole year!
Was the Price Offer Genuine?
The one thing that we need to warn you about, if you are a beginner, concerning the prices that are advertised by all Web Hosting companies, including HostGator, is that they are, almost always, never genuine. Think you are going to get you site up and running for free, or for a dollar?
- Well, you need to think again. There are other costs that are associated with web hosting, that you need to take into account when choosing a web host. Additional costs include the cost of a domain and site security.
- As mentioned earlier, we jumped onto the HostGator bandwagon, thinking that we would not have to pay anything for having our site hosted for the offered one month.
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Domain Costs at HostGator
As it turned out, we did have to pay $12.95 for domain registration through HostGator, which, as we learnt later, put the costs of having our site hosted by the company above what we would have had to pay with the company’s competitors, including Bluehost and InterServer. These companies offer free and almost free (respectively) domain registrations for the first year.
- It has to be pointed out, however, that domain registration, after the first year, automatically reverts to an average of $14 a year for most of these competing Web Hosts.
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Current HostGator Prices
As you can see in the above screenshot, you can currently launch your website with HostGator beginning at $3.95 a month. However, there is another caveat, even here, and this is pretty much universal with every other Web Hosting company. The only exception to this rule appears to be InterServer.
Most Web Hosts only advertise the monthly price for the 36 months package
Not all web hosting companies offer you the chance to have your website hosted for only one month. Bluehost, as an example, does not have this package. HostGator does have the option, but, in their case, the price rises from the advertised $3.95 per month, to $10.95 per month.
Additional Costs
In addition to the cost of Web Hosting, we also soon discovered that there were additional costs that are associated with securing your website. While these are all optional, who, in their right frame of mind, would choose not to have their site secured against hacking?
Our Year with HostGator
Again, we have to point out that though there are hidden costs, these will, in no way, break the bank. You will also find them at any of the other Web Hosts that are out there. So, what was the year during which we had our Website by HostGator like?
100% Uptime
Admittedly, we were running a simple website, but during the time in which it was hosted by HostGator, it never went down. As many of you will understand, reliability and uptime are some of the major considerations when it comes to choosing a web host.
Pages Load Speed is Good Enough at HostGator
We can’t say that our now defunct website was lightning fast, during the time that we had it hosted at HostGator (Again, this is a Genuine HostGator Review). All that we can say is that it was fast enough. It had a lot of pictures and we never did anything to optimize it for speed. The fact that pages could load in a respectable amount of time is, therefore, definitely a plus. In fact, our site was probably faster than it would have been with the competition.
HostGator has the Best Support
The one thing that really impressed us during our time with HostGator was the level of Support that we were offered by the company. If you have browsed across the internet and have read other reviews, you will have come upon horror stories from people who have had problems in this area. In our case, however, everything went smoothly. Whenever we had questions they were answered quickly and professionally. You will see what we mean by reading the next section.
One of the Negatives: Continued Automatic Billing
The one thing that we found to be rather uncanny during our time with HostGator (and we are going to mention it since this is a genuine HostGator review) was the fact that the company automatically continues to bill you even at the expiry of your chosen hosting period. As an example, if you have chosen to host your site with the company for one year, you would think that they would pull it down at the end of the year, should you not renew your subscription. However, that is not the case.
- HostGator continues to bill you, even if your site is no longer available (they don’t forget to put it off air at the expiry or your term.) When we failed to renew our subscription, our site was promptly taken offline. Okay, that is, perhaps, an exaggeration. We were given several warnings that ran for several days.
- However, despite the fact that our site was subsequently taken offline, we were still billed for the in-existent service.
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How We Dealt With the Issue
Here is the reason why we highly recommend HostGator and are very happy with their Support Service;
Our Bill was sanitized
We contacted HostGator about the continued billing and, in no time at all, the problem was resolved. We were lucky in this regard that our listed credit card was no longer in use, which meant that no money had been deducted from our account.
- As such, we did not lose anything, other than the time that it took to complain. In any case, we got the feeling that HostGator is used to encountering this issue, and has come up with quick way through which it can be resolved.
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We Highly Recommend HostGator
In any case, Network Bees highly recommends HostGator to those who are looking for a web host. While we will get paid for doing it, this is, indeed, a genuine review. Our experience with the company was, if not stellar, good enough. That is what has inspired us to write this genuine HostGator review. You should not that we weren’t even using one of the cloud services that are now available at the company (cloud hosting is faster than traditional hosting). In order to explore that amazing array of options that is offered by HostGator, feel free to click on the banner that is below;
