When it comes to web hosting, HostGator is a name that you’re going to hear a lot about. HostGator has been around since 2002 and is based in Houston, Texas. The founder of the company started off hosting sites on just three servers and ran the company from his dorm room. From these humble beginnings, HostGator has flourished to become one of the Internet’s top web hosts and about 1% of Internet traffic goes through HostGator’s servers. HostGator currently hosts an astonishing over 2 million domains and nearly a quarter of a million customers. No matter what your criteria for a host is, HostGator is a company that must be considered for hosting your web site.
What exactly is web hosting?
In order to choose a good web host, it’s crucial that you understand what a web host is. To put it into simple terms, a web host is basically the computer that hosts all the files that make up your web site, from the graphics to the code to any scripts or programs. All these files must be hosted on a computer. When a visitor comes to your web site, the web host basically serves them the files to display in their web browser. The computer that hosts the files is called a server and that’s what HostGator has over 7,000 of, in order to serve all your visitors the pages of your web site. The name says it all actually, a web hosting company like HostGator literally hosts the files of your web site and hosts the visitor when they visit your web site.
Another way to explain it is that your web host is like a waiter in a restaurant. A customer comes to your restaurant (your web site) and when they do, your web host serves them the files that they ask for, whether that be a certain page of your web site, a file download, a form, a forum or whatever else is included on your web site.
Why choose HostGator?
Since HostGator has been around so long, in Internet years anyway, they have built a strong reputation for providing a high quality service. Not only does the company have a stellar reputation on all the most visited web hosting forums, but they have consistently high ratings on all the most reputable web hosting review sites. Not only do these sites think highly of HostGator, but the company has won a number of prestigious awards from web hosting review sites and blogs.
Serving millions of web sites requires thousands of servers, and this requires lots of electricity. With HostGator, they are proudly an eco-friendly company with all their servers powered by wind, yes, WIND!
What package should I buy?
The company offers several main flavors of web hosting and it’s important to know the difference between each one. Here’s a primer:
Shared Hosting
Their main web hosting packages offer web hosting for a single web site for as low as $4.99 a month. This particular package, called the Hatchling package, includes just about everything you’d ever want or need to host most web sites. This is a fantastic package if you have a blog or a relatively simple web site of a few pages. With this package, you get the same control panel and nearly all of the features of the higher cost packages.
The next step up is the Baby package, which is HostGator’s most popular package. Baby is popular for good reason, unlike with Hatchling, you get to host unlimited sites with the Baby package. This is the main difference between the packages, but it’s a HUGE difference, and well worth the extra $3.00.
The next package up from this is the Business package, and this package is great if you are starting a new online business. Not only do you get to host as many domains as you want, but you get extras like a toll-free business phone number, a dedicated IP address and free private SSL. The toll-free number is excellent if you are starting a real business and want to be able to take orders or provide support over the phone. The dedicated IP address is generally better for business web sites since you don’t have to share the IP address with other web sites that are located on the same server. For example, if another web site on your server gets blacklisted at AOL for spamming, then this may effect your emails that go to AOL customers. AOL may reject your emails as well. Lastly, free private SSL is excellent if you are going to take credit cards or other personal information via a shopping cart or forms. SSL basically insures that you are keeping your customer’s personal and financial information private and secured from hackers and this is something that should be important for you and your customers.
Reseller Hosting and Dedicated Servers
Reseller hosting is also available from HostGator. Reseller hosting is simply a more powerful hosting option that is made for people, usually web developers, designers or aspiring web hosts, who wish to sell hosting to their customers. Reseller hosting basically includes things like private nameservers, a reseller control panel that allows you to create new hosting accounts and a billing system so you can easily charge and keep track of your hosting customers.
Another hosting option is a dedicated server. This package is reserved for web sites that get lots of traffic or have extensive needs or are very resource intensive. With a dedicated server, you have a single server dedicated to one thing, hosting only your web site.
The Importance of Support
Support is a component to choosing web hosting that cannot be underestimated. When you choose super cheap web hosting from a company that has no reputation, you get what you pay for. If you should have a problem, with cheap hosting, you are left out in the cold. With HostGator, they provide award winning support, including a 24/7 toll-free phone number with an actual human on the other end, live chat support and email support. If you have any type of problem, HostGator is there for you, day or night.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.