Review of HostGator

Bad experience from Host Gator

I've heard how good Host Gator is till I tried them out myself.

Host Gator is LOUSY in their customer service.

Please see transcript below:-

Chat Start Date: May 23 2010 2:13:19 AM
(2:13:24 AM) Sean Va: has entered the chat.
(2:13:28 AM) Sean Va: Hello, welcome to HostGator.com Live Chat. My name is Sean and it will be my pleasure to assist you today.
(2:13:34 AM) Sean Va: How may I assist you?
(2:13:47 AM) Karen: can you recommend me plan for my requirments.
(2:14:49 AM) Sean Va: I'm afraid that only the Sales Dept can to that, which would require an email to sales@hostgator.com, officially. Unofficially, please tell me your requirements and I'll make an unofficial recommendation, just to give you an idea.
(2:15:14 AM) Karen: i thought this is sales cos i chose sales to talk to...
(2:15:44 AM) Karen: I have selected sales just now.
(2:16:20 AM) Sean Va: We are Technical Support, though we handle many presales questions which is why the chats route to us, the actual Sales Dept is unavailable via Live Chat, I do apologize.
(2:16:50 AM) Karen: but then I did choose Sales just now when I first enter the chat room.
(2:17:42 AM) Sean Va: Yes, we answer many Sales question, despite being technical support.
(2:18:23 AM) Karen: so, please recommend me a plan...because if customer is not allow to talk to chat line for sales related...then please take off sales there.....
(2:19:05 AM) Karen: PLEASE SPECIFY customer can't choose sales when talking to Chat line so that we will know.
(2:19:59 AM) Karen: so, if you have answered many Sales question, why are you not answering my question ?
(2:20:21 AM) Sean Va: Because your request for a recommendation needs to go to the Sales Dept, officially.
(2:20:36 AM) Sean Va: I'm happy to answer your question, you haven't yet stated your requirements for me.
(2:21:07 AM) Karen: Then, Please specify it in your website...... i have stated the requirements before i was entreing the chat...can you check...because this is asked by your chat console !!!
(2:21:48 AM) Karen: i think this is saving time....so the console is designed to ask us to type the question first....dont' you know...are you new or trying to be difficult with me ?
(2:21:58 AM) Sean Va: java on tomcat and database - ms access
(2:22:13 AM) Sean Va: Java is not supported on any Shared Plan, so you would need at least a VPS.
(2:22:14 AM) Karen: There, you know. So, why did you ask again ???
(2:22:38 AM) Sean Va: If by MS, you mean anythign Windows then you would need a Windows Dedicated Server.
(2:23:07 AM) Karen: what is MS?
(2:23:08 AM) Sean Va: Because what I pasted there isn't a clear statement relatuive to your question, it's a list of features.
(2:23:18 AM) Sean Va: Sometimes Microsoft.
(2:23:40 AM) Karen: wat do you mean by Sometimes Microsoft?
(2:24:47 AM) Sean Va: When people say MS, oftentimes it is short for MicroSoft.
(2:24:56 AM) Sean Va: What do you mean by MS, please?
(2:25:22 AM) Karen: I put down MS access, please see clearly...you know...your service sucks....
(2:25:48 AM) Sean Va: So MS Access is Microsoft Access. You need a Windows Dedicated Server.
(2:26:06 AM) Sean Va: Access is a verb as well as a product. You were not clear.
(2:26:43 AM) Karen: I have put down MS access together. Your English is very BAD !!!
(2:27:03 AM) Sean Va: Is there anything else I may assist you with at this time?
(2:27:35 AM) Karen: I'm going to send your name Sean Va to all web hosting reviews website and tell the world your service sucks !!!
 
Actually the tech handled this very well.
Looks to me like you intended to act like a jerk and you succeeded.
They are probably better off without your business.
I know I sure wouldn't want you bothering my tech people.
 
Blue said:
Actually the tech handled this very well.
Looks to me like you intended to act like a jerk and you succeeded.
They are probably better off without your business.
I know I sure wouldn't want you bothering my tech people.
Click to expand...

LOL kudos to that answer! :thumbsup:

First thing that popped in my head after reading that live chat transcript was "Wow..What a JERK!".

Tangara...You didn't even acknowledge the fact that he was trying to answer your question and recommend you a plan, and also explained "perfectly" why they have "Sales" in the live chat. Seems to me you were really just trying to be a jerk to post the transcript here....
 
I have a few accounts with them and have never had any issues also their support is awesome and really is 24/7 not just sometimes on like most hosts.
 
I like Hostgator, help when needed etc. I'm still with them as well, been paying for about a year? I'd recommend this site to anyone. (Using their shared hosting)
 
While HostGator can be good for some things, the fact is that their server ARE overcrowded. You can do a simple WHOIS lookup and see over 200 accounts on a single server sometimes. Their tech support may be 24/7, but how well do they speak English? Why can't you get a hold of the Sales Team within 12 hours?

These were all problems that I had to deal with before starting work with the company I work for now.

HG is great for someone starting a small website with limited visitors. They are cheap and pretty reliable. However, if you need personalized support from a big company like HG....forget it!
 
Stream101 said:
While HostGator can be good for some things, the fact is that their server ARE overcrowded. You can do a simple WHOIS lookup and see over 200 accounts on a single server sometimes. Their tech support may be 24/7, but how well do they speak English? Why can't you get a hold of the Sales Team within 12 hours?

These were all problems that I had to deal with before starting work with the company I work for now.

HG is great for someone starting a small website with limited visitors. They are cheap and pretty reliable. However, if you need personalized support from a big company like HG....forget it!
Click to expand...

I actually have to disagree with you completely. HostGator are by far one of the best hosting companies around at the moment. I have a reseller account with them for my personal site and servers with IGX host for my customers (best to keep them separate). It doesn't make any difference how many accounts are on a server if you don't know the full story. 100 of those accounts may be static websites that rarely get any visitors. GoDaddy is who you should be moaning about as I have heard rumors that they host accounts in the thousands.

As far as support goes we all known that HostGator are one of the top hosts for this. Their live chat is amazing and I haven't had to wait longer than 5 minutes to actually start speaking to someone. Their staff are knowledge and always very friendly. If they can't help you they will create a support ticket for you which does take longer but it's only a rare occasion when their chat support can't help.

Have you actually used HostGator before? If not I don't see how you can comment based on a WHOIS search...

Jack
 
I have been working with hostgator for more than a year.. I have shared account with them.. Even it is a shared account, the customer service is perfect.. Always have an answer.. perfect answers which solves my problems..
 
Their tech support may be 24/7, but how well do they speak English?
Click to expand...

Back some 4-5 years ago they were indeed outsourcing level 1 support to India. But they have been all US based for a number of years now.

You can do a simple WHOIS lookup and see over 200 accounts on a single server sometimes.
Click to expand...

Last I read about it, they put about 300 accounts per server which leveled off towards 250-200 in time due to customers canceling/upgrading. You'll find that other hosts in the market they compete in put a lot more (though the server hardware may be different too in some cases).

GoDaddy is who you should be moaning about as I have heard rumors that they host accounts in the thousands.
Click to expand...

They are using clusters, with separate servers for database servers, email etc. so the number of websites per server may end up being less than initially apparent. That being said, their shared hosting is slow, so they probably are packing a bit too many accounts on them.
 
Very True and it is fine to disagree with me, I actually enjoy when people do. I like making people think about things more deeply.

@Dan-Most website hosting companies really overdo it on the placement of clients on a server. From my years of experience, I would NEVER place more than 50 sites on a shared hosting server. To me, I dont want to deal with the hassle and headache of complaints from those who notice that slight delay in loading time. While we have some pretty powerful servers, we dont keep that many sites per server and we've had no issues. When the old owner owned our company...haha, different story :mad:
 
Setting an arbitrary number of sites on a server makes no business sense at all.
Server load depends on the type of sites and the volume of the sites, not on the number of sites.
 
Agreed, and we do NOT set a number except a MAXIMUM limit (50). We will not go over that, no matter how small the sites are.

However, we may have a shared hosting server capped at 6 people (in fact we do right now!). The load would go above acceptable and we dont want to do that!
 
From my years of experience, I would NEVER place more than 50 sites on a shared hosting server.
Click to expand...

Isn't each add-on domain a "site"?

At an under $10/month price, I would not expect the host to place only a couple of accounts per server. A fair deal means the customer gets good value, and the host gets to make a profit. Anything else can only end up costing the customer more, at a later date. :)
 
Technically it is. I should've rephrased to no more than 50 accounts per server.

It really makes my life easier:

1) I can EASILY track any exploits down and allow only so many IP's into cPanel (VERY SECURE!)

2) Should the server go down for some reason, I only have to explain to 50 accounts, not 500. I feel much better knowing that less people are negatively effected.

Our company's goal is not a lot of profit, but to provide the customer with a fair value and reliability. Since the new owner in 2006, that has been the only goal.
 
I used to host with Hostgator once upon a time, never had any issues and never got suspended for over usage.

I had an 246GB site with them. The only thing is there inode restriction. It dose limit the amount of files allowed on any one account. But if you read the TOS before buying then you can have a good hosting experience with them.
 
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