Review of Hostgator’s Services
Following my previous blog post on How To Choose A Great Website Hosting Company, someone on Goodreads asked me if I had used Hostgator before and what I thought of them as a company. Because of this, I just had to do a review of Hostgator’s services.
WhoIsHostingThis.com
On the 23rd of November 2016, Hostgator had 507 reviews with a 3.5 star average rating on the whoishostingthis.com website. SiteGround (my current host) on the other hand has 930 reviews with a 4.5 star average rating. To me, this means that more people prefer SiteGround to HostGator.
HostGator Live Chat
I attempted to use Hostgator’s live chat facility around lunch time in the UK and got a message saying that the expected wait time was around 8 minutes. When I tried again around 9pm UK time, the wait time was less than a minute. Going by this, I would assume that they have less staff outside of their own regular office hours. For people based in the US, that would work fine. However, if you are in a different time zone eg 8 hours ahead, this may become a problem if you have to wait up to say 10 minutes before you can get to speak to someone.
Comparison with SiteGround
When I signed up with SiteGround, I was given a free domain and told it would remain free for as long as I have a hosting account with them. Hostgator does not give a free new domain but you can get a free domain transfer.
Website Backups
After my website was hacked, one of the steps I took was to restore the site to a point from before it was hacked. Whilst it is great to do your own manual backups, it’s always reassuring to know that your hosting company also does the same.
Unfortunately for those who use HostGator, this is not a service provided by the company. You will need to make even more regular backups of your website.
Check out this infographic I attempted to put together.
So what are your thoughts on this Review of Hostgator’s Services? Do you think it is important for your website hosting company to do regular back ups? Please leave a comment below.
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