HostGator Review
Last updated on Jun 18, 2015
I’ve technically been with HostGator for at least 3 years and I manage different types of accounts with them. I say “technically” because these hosting accounts aren’t mine, but my clients’. HG was good the past few years but the quality of their service has declined recently. They’ve deteriorated so much that I’m currently in the process of helping at least 10 of my clients transfer to another host.
Servers are slow. Support is almost non-existent; they take weeks to answer tickets and their live chat isn’t helpful either. Downtimes are a normal thing. In fact one of my client’s site was down for TWO WEEKS last October. Two weeks of downtime is totally unacceptable for any site, especially an eCommerce site like my client’s!
Useless Support is Useless
Here’s a story to further illustrate just how bad their support is. This happened last November.
A client’s WordPress site was loading very slowly and I couldn’t update it at all. This was a new site so it obviously wasn’t an issue about getting too much traffic or using too much resources. I spent an ample amount of time being patient with it and all, but I finally gave up and decided to ask HostGator’s tech support for help.
I went to their live chat platform and a big “Estimated Waiting Time: 30 mins.” was written on the page. What, 30 minutes? That’s like the average time a small to medium issue gets RESOLVED with other hosts. Some hosts even take much less time than that.
After 30 minutes or so of waiting, I had this conversation with their support rep:
System:Customer has entered chat and is waiting for an agent.
(3:07:38am)Darcy D.:Welcome to HostGator Live Chat. My name is Darcy! I’d be happy to assist you today.
(3:07:52am)Brent:Hello
(3:08:01am)Brent:My client’s site, [domain], is very slow today. The site is running WordPress and I can’t save any changes at all. I get a “Server not found” error everytime I try.
(3:08:05am)Brent:Is there a problem?
(3:10:48am)Darcy D.:For security purposes, could you please verify the last 4 digits of the credit card you have on file, please?
(3:11:00am)Brent:It’s not my account. It’s my client’s account.
(3:11:41am)Brent:Why do you need to verify credit cards when I’m simply asking if there are any technical issues, or if the server the site is on is low on resources?
(3:12:04am)Darcy D.:OK.
(3:12:15am)Darcy D.:Without account verification I cannot discuss details.
(3:12:35am)Brent:I just need to know if there is anything wrong with the server.
(3:12:46am)Brent:I can verify I have permission to access the account/website through other means.
(3:12:58am)Brent:Unfortunately I won’t be able to send you credit card info as I said I don’t own the account.
(3:15:03am)Darcy D.:I cannot discuss any matters on the account without credit card verification.
So after waiting for half an hour, I get to talk with a support rep that is no help at all. Two hours later the client’s site started spewing 500 internal server errors. I went back to live chat and as expected, support was not willing to help me unless I provided credit card information. I understand that it’s for security purposes, but this wasn’t even an issue with billing at all. The website was slow and eventually went down, I provided them with domain and other information (cPanel username, client’s email, etc.) but they stood their ground.
More than 24 hours passed and the site was still down. Technical support remained useless. It was when I decided to tell my client to cancel the account and ask for a refund, which she did.
Final Verdict
HostGator (yes I have a link in case you’re stubborn and still want to sign up with them) IS ON THE DECLINE BIG TIME and I don’t think they’ll be able to change for the better. Hosting with them would be detrimental to your site/business and I’d only recommend them if, for some reason, you need THE ultimate source of frustration. Again — speed sucks, uptime sucks, support sucks. Check these out if you don’t believe me and if you think I just made everything up.
So just do yourself a favor and don’t sign up with HostGator. They were good (just good, not awesome), but with EIG’s acquisition they’ve gone downhill really fast. They may be a popular hosting company but since their servers are so slow, I can say that their service is almost comparable to those $1 kiddie hosts. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!
It’s a real pity to see what HostGator has become since the EIG buyout.
Three years ago they were “THE” host, now they are just another crappy service; it really makes me sad.
Hostgator was my first hosting provider, 3 years back when I signed up It provided me with what i needed which were pretty much jsut a place to put my shitty html site, but as my webdev skills progressed and my knowledge of PHP and mysql stated to blossom, and I started to use my own domain for email more and more, I started getting weird issues and slowness, I finally transfered away from these idiots and went with MDDHosting a few months ago.
I’m not sure about hostgator’s current status, but back then it was “ok” for a simple website and email, it was cheap, and I could put multiple domains on one account, I wouldnt use it now though.
There is a way to pay hostgator without Credit card and Paypal. You can use (VCC) Virtual credit card to complete the payment.For more details follow this link: http://www.hostgator-black-friday-2013.com/how-to-make-purchase-payment-for-hostgator-webhosting-without-credit-card-paypal-india
Written to HostGator Support this very morning (July 31, 2015):
I am writing this in hopes a manager of some sort will see this ticket. I have been with Hostgator since 2008 – close to 8 years now. Starting about 2 years ago, support request response times have become intolerable. This isn’t just a one or two time event, this is every support ticket I log. Some of these issues are time sensitive and affect me being able to retain my clients that are hosting under my reseller account. I could handle responses one day later, but some of the responses are coming a week or weeks later. This is just not acceptable. I have mentioned this before in my other support threads. I am not sure what to do at this point and am considering moving all of my sites to another hosting provider.
I am disappointed that the Hostgator I started working with has deteriorated to this level of customer service. It’s a pain in the ass to move all of my sites, but at this point it is better than losing my clients piece by piece while waiting for support responses.
I recently had a very bad experience with HOSTGATOR which is such alarming that I need to share it.
I did everything to get a decent communication with them but they just don’t reply and only grab the money.
For those interested: here is the long story …
I have a valid running virtual hosting account on Hostgator which was to expire in about 4 weeks when Hostgator generated a new invoice for the next two years of hosting.
Reviewing my options, I decided for NOT renewing my account and completed the forms to cancel my hosting
package by the end of the paid period.
After a couple of days Hostgator responded: they were in the process of canceling the account and wondered whether I would be interested to renew the package with 30% loyalty discount.
However before I could reply they already cashed the invoice for the renewal (which I had not ordered or approved) at the full price. That is not ‘loyal’ and certainly not authorized by me.
Of course I got angry and wrote them immediately to cancel that illegal renewal and asked them to reimburse the stolen money.
They did not reply in a couple of days so I handled it over to the Fraud Department of my credit company.
Next I used twitter to get any response to my complaints and that seemed to help (a bit). They credited my credit card, but only partial. So they kept part of the stolen money.
But what is more severe:
they canceled immediately my current paid hosting account which was still valid for at least two weeks. No access to my 200-300GB data any longer while I had planned to transfer them before the end of my paid hosting plan.
I tried to mail them, twitter again, but NO response at all.
I posted on their facebook page but instead of resolving the issue they removed my complaint. Meanwhile I probably lost several hundreds gigabytes of data which was stored at Hostgator ….
So my warning to you all: DON’T TRUST HOSTGATOR …..
HOSTGATOR is stealing your money, destroying your data and do not react properly on complaints. Such a shame!
HostGator no longer have support tickets, only live chat. Via Twitter: “Direct ticket submission has been disabled. Please reach out to our live support for assistance.” I usually prefer live support, but they were “experiencing higher than normal chat volume” and my question wasn’t urgent, but I had no other option but to wait the 45 minutes for chat to pick up because there is no longer email or ticket support!