HostGator Green Quality Web Hosting

Why? Month to month plans, 45 day satisfaction guarantee, really excellent site builder with clean web templates, 4,500 html templates, 24/7 phone support, lots of storage and space, unlimited domains on most plans, shared SSL certificate, lots of fantastic software for blogs, stores, and more. And now they are Green - Carbon Neutral

Cool features not found elsewhere!

HostGator’s slogan is “We Eat Up the Competition” and they have a good reason for stating that: they have a mother load of features in their three plans: Hatchling, Baby, and Swamp. Some of those cool features are the 4,500 free web templates (and they are really polished) and their awesome site builder. There’s some samples and more details below. Unlike other hosts, HostGator makes moving from your old host easy. They will handle the complete site transfer (including the scripts and databases) from another cPanel host, free. In addition, they have a month to month plan, and there is no set up fee at all.

Satisfaction

HostGator has a generous 45 day satisfaction guarantee and month to month plans with no set up fees! HostGator support is available 24/7 via phone or online. They get back to fast on Live Chat, we didn’t try the phone. They also have 99.99% uptime, which is independently verified. Visit HostGator

HostGator has only one drawback in an otherwise excellent review — and they are among the vast majority of other hosts — they do not pro-rate your refund if you cancel after the 45 days. However, with their month to month plans and no set up fee, they’re hardly a risk in this respect. Read the following transcript of our live chat.

Transcript on February 17, 2008:

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

WHA: If I sign up for 3 years and after 1 year I decide to leave or some other circumstance ends my hosting with you, what is the refund? Is the difference pro-rated?

Nasser: Well there isnt a refund after 45 days under our money back guarantee.

Nasser: But if you cancel within the 45 days

Nasser: We give you your 3 years back as theres no contract.

So what do you do? Well you could go with a host that offers a pro-rated refund. We’ve only found two so far: BlueHost and HostMonster. Alternatively you can get the lowest term on the plan. Since HostGator is a rare host with month to month plans with NO SET UP FEE, there is no major risk here. Plus they have all the awesome templates and a really rocking site builder!

All hosting companies list their lowest price per month based on pre-paying for 1-5 years of service, HostGator is 1 month - 3 years. The list below shows how much you will pay up front for each of their plans. This stuff is hard to find on their site (only if you mouse over the plan price). Since we don’t like to be surprised, we’ve listed them below, lowest up front cost to highest.

Prices and Plans

Dedicated and Reseller Hosting

Please vist HostGator to learn more about their dedicated and reseller hosting plans.

SSH

Secure Shell (SSH) access is standard with HostGator plans. SSH gives those who are technically inclined the ability to use UNIX/Linux command line instructions to administer their website. It is a very, very handy feature. Not to worry for those who don’t know how to use SSH — FTP is available. Pluse with cPanel, you can also load files through the File Manager — super easy.

Getting a Web Site Up

You don’t need to know html to use HostGator’s Pro web site builder. This builder comes with tons of professional templates. Take a look at the templates that come with HostGator’s site builder.

In addition, HostGator has 4,500 professional web templates to choose from. When you use their hosting, you can use their templates. That is a sweet deal. Take a look some of the awesome templates. Now these templates are separate from the site builder templates. They are for people who know html and photoshop (to edit or change the photos). Another way to use them is to provide the template to an html freelancer and have them update it with your content.

HostGator also has auto installers of about 52 of most powerful open source applications out there — all FREE! These are impressive scripts. If you want to create a blog, a content managed web site, a photo gallery, a forum/bulletin board, or an online shop, you can easily install these scripts in a few clicks. And for low or no cost, many of these scripts have themes, skins, or templates available through their respective web sites or through other users. These scripts are not part of the site builder or part of the templates they have, just so you don't get confused. We say this because HostGator offers so many things, that it’s easy to get lost. Visit HostGator

Unlimited Domains in one Account

(on the Baby and Swamp Plans)

With HostGator you can host unlimited domains under one account with their Baby and Swamp plans. The Hatchling plan comes with only one domain hosted and some other limiting features. That’s why the Baby and Swamp plans are so much better. Plus, you can pay month to month, which rocks! When you have the ability to host more than one domain in one account, they are called addon domains. A lot hosts charge 2.00 - 5.00 extra per month for them — or they don’t offer them at all. Addon domains come in handy for web developers and just business people with more than one domain registered. You cannot resell these add on domains due to security and a variety of other reasons, but you can host multiple blogs or have different web sites for members of your family or different areas of your company. Visit HostGator

Space and Bandwidth Information

HostGator’s plans are packed with features and come with plenty of space and bandwidth (transfer). Since there are three different plans, there are three different configurations of bandwidth and storage. Here’s a break down:

Hatchling Plan

• 350 GB Disk Space / 3,000 GB Bandwidth
• Get this plan only for personal web hosting of one domain

Baby Plan

• 600 GB Disk Space / 6,000 GB Bandwidth
• Get this plan for $9.95 per month. Pay month to month!

Swamp Plan

• 1000 GB Disk Space / Unmetered - Unlimited Bandwidth
• Get this plan for $14.95 per month. Pay month to month!
  

Most sites don’t need more than 1-1.5GB of bandwidth (or transfer) a month. Learn more about bandwidth here.

E-commerce / Online Storefront

HostGator has a nifty autoinstaller that allows you to install any of the following, popular, powerful, shopping cart packages on your hosted account: OsCommerce, ZenCart, CubeCart and AgoraCart. HostGator provides a shared SSL certificate. A dedicated IP address is $2.00 a month as of this writing.

Please read more about e-commerce hosting.

Datacenter Location

HostGator DataCenter (WebHostingBuzz also uses this location for one of their three datacenters)
Dallas, Texas

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