As a web developer, it is important to choose a great web hosting company for your sites. There’s nothing worse then paying for traffic to a site that is currently down. I’ve tried several different webhosting companies, and the host I recommend to most people is Hostgator.
Hostgator is extremely reliable, cost effective, and they offer great support. In this Hostgator review, I’m going to share with you why Hostgator is so popular among internet marketers.
Hostgator offers all the standard hosting plans that everyone else does, including shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS and dedicated hosting services. I been hosting sites with Hostgator for over 3 years and recently moved this site and others to them.
In all that time, I can only think of one or two times where I’ve experienced any downtime at all. Hostgator boats a 99.9% uptime guarantee and I definitely believe it. It is very rare with hosting companies to experience their advertised uptime, but Hostgator manages to do that. This is the number one factor that I look at when choosing a good web host.
Hostgator offers several hosting plans, so which one should you choose? If you just want to run a handful of websites that get a moderate amount of traffic then I would recommend the Hostgator Baby plan. This is Hostgator’s most popular plan because it strikes a good balance between affordability and performance.
The Baby Plan is just $7.96 a month and you can save even more than that by pre-paying yearly or applying one of the many Hostgator coupon codes out there. Plus, if you find yourself ever out-growing your shared hosting plan, you can easily transition to a Hostgator VPS or dedicated server by submitting a simple ticket request to support.
For managing your web hosting accounts, Hostgator uses cPanel. cPanel is very easy to use, and it allows you to easily add any new domains to your server, setup email address, and setup 3rd party software via Fantastico.
I mainly install WordPress for my sites, and Fantastico makes it a very simple process to do. But if you want to use an alternative CMS like Joomla or Drupal you can do that too. You can install more than 50 different popular web scripts using Fantastico.
As a web developer, I install a variety of different scripts on my Hostgator account and they always work out of the box. Hostgator installs the latest version of PHP which ensures that everything runs smoothly.
While I don’t really recommend installing it on a shared server, I’ve also been able to successfully install Prosper202 on my Hostgator account. You do need to contact support though to have them whitelist your Prosper202 domain and turn off mod_security for you though.
Speaking of support, Hostgator support is the best I’ve found. They offer 24/7 web hosting support and they are very fast and responsive. You always get to speak to a live person on the phone, or you can just use their live chat on the website to get answers as well.
I’ve used the live chat to contact Hostgator numerous times for various issues, and I’ve always come away impressed after talking to their support people. They are knowledgeable and patient, and they have always been able to answer any of the questions I have had.
Never downplay the importance of responsive support when it comes to web hosting. I’ve had experiences with other web hosts where I’ve had to wait a day or two to receive any response. There is no worst feeling in the world when your site is down, and you can’t get a response from support to tell you what’s going on.
While Hostgator is certainly not the cheapest webhost in existence, they are still competitive in price if you use the right coupon codes. Luckily, I’ve managed to get a few Hostgator coupon codes for you to use:
- mattytemple25 – Save 25% Off Any Order.
- mattytemple10 – Save $9.94 Off Any Order.
- mattytemple25r – Save $24.94 Off Any Reseller Packages.
Hostgator is probably the most recommended web host, and for good reason. It’s fast, reliable, and offers exceptional support. That’s really all you need from your hosting company. So if you are in the market for a web host, be sure to check them out.
