HostGator boast that they now host over 200,000 domains on there servers maybe the reasons there so popular is the fact they promise 24/7/365 telephone support, 99.9% uptime and give you a 30 day money back guarantee on there packages. Your site will be hosted on top of the line Dual Xeon server that provides instant backups of your site. HostGator also claim they have a control panel that can’t be beaten, that includes over 39 scripts that can be installed in just one click of the mouse button.
Hosting Plans
HostGator have 4 different plans, Hatchling, Baby, Swamp and Semi dedicated, these range from the lowest at $4.95(paid yearly), $7.95, $12.95 up to $74.95. All packages have the standard tools you would expect in a web hosting package such as site builder software, email support including pop 3 and web mail. The hatching plan gives 350GB of disk space, 3000GB of bandwith for $4.95/mth. I focused on the features of the “Baby” package.
HostGator baby package gives you 600GB disk space with 6000GB of bandwidth for the monthly price of $7.95. A feature called site studio with which to build your site and which HostGator say is so easy to use an eight year old can build and have a site up and running in less than thirty minutes, site builder includes over 500 templates/ colour schemes. Instant back up is provided by Raid 1 and they also have weekly offsite backup, your account is free to setup and will be setup in 15 minutes or less.
You have unlimited FTP accounts, unlimited domains and sub-domains. Support is enabled for MySQL, CGI, PHP, PERL, PYTHON and Frontpage amongst others.
E-Mail features include pop 3 accounts, web based, auto responder and spam assassin.
Access to your account is through what HostGator call there CPanel, this allows you to monitor the amount of bandwidth you use along with space used, create e-mail accounts, databases and more instantly and with ease. Alongside the CPanel is Fantastico this allows you access to over 50 scripts which can be installed instantly some of these are blogs, forums and shopping carts.
Support
Support is available 24/7/365 by several methods of which include e-mail, telephone or by clicking the live chat button on there web page. They also have an extensive knowledgebase which may hold the answers to your questions and feature a long list of flash movie tutorials based on how to do different things in the CPanel. HostGator also have online forums in which users can chat to discuss issues and help each other.
Additional Benefits
The site studio is a big plus with over 500 templates/ colour schemes you can have your site up and running in thirty minutes with the easy to use built in script function it takes the hassle out of installing shopping carts e.t.c.. Free module installation is another plus, if you need a special module for a program to work HostGator will install it for you free of charge within 24 hours.
Conclusion
HostGator Baby package is a solid all-round winner combining ease of use with an extensive variety of features and a solid customer support service that gives that extra peace of mind when choosing your hosting package. Well worth taking a look at.
