Hostgator Review - Hostgator Flaws and Strengths

Tired of reading all blatant Hostgator Reviews? I thought I'd finally write down a truthful Hostgator Review that will tell you the real Strengths and Flaws with Hostgator Hosting. First off, a word of caution. Most Hostgator Reviews in the Market are hyped up to make you purchase Hostgator Hosting through their Affiliate Links, so, don't listen to them. For real Customers' Hostgator Review, visit the Hostgator Forums and go to the 'Customer Reviews' category. I am writing this Hostgator Review as a personal experience with Hostgator webhosting for the last 2 years, and I'll try to be as helpful as possible for helping you make the right choice in purchasing your hosting. I want to start off this Hostgator Review by highlighting the main flaws with Hostgator.

Hostgator Review - Flaws:

1) If you expect your sites to load with lightning fast speed with Shared Hostgator Hosting (which most people buy), then you're wrong. On a Shared Server, you're basically sharing one single server with about 700-800 different websites. Although, their speeds are better in comparison to other hosts, but still it may render a bit slowly for your visitors.

2) Hostgator doesn't have an exhaustive database of answers to common questions related to Hosting and cPanel, etc. Although, you can contact them via a Helpdesk and Live Chat (24/7 Live), where they will answer all your questions, but still it would be helpful to have a good solid knowledgebase.

I mentioned these flaws in this Hostgator Review, as some people do feel that 'speed' and 'knowledgebase' are important factors in considering a host. Now, don't just close this Hostgator Review. I'll write down some Strengths of Hostgator Hosting to complete this short Hostgator Review.

Hostgator Review - Strengths:

1) Hostgator has given me almost 100% uptime ever since I started hosting with them. I currently host over 27 domains on their hosting (all on one account), and I have never had even one complaint from my thousands of daily visitors about any downtime or server issues. I mentioned earlier about speed, but I must tell you that my visitors never faced any problems with the 'slightly' slow speed of page opening on Hostgator Severs.

2) I have tried over 7 different webhosts (all leaders in the hosting industry), and I must conclude that Hostgator Hosting has the 'best hosting features' among all these webhosts. Although, I would like them to offer a 'free domain' with a customer purchase (which is currently provided by many leading webhosts). But, they have done absolutely no compromise on the hosting features. I have various heavy scripts, such as Joomla, Wordpress, and a few Custom scripts (with CronJobs) running on my account, and they all work as smooth as butter.

There are many more points which I would like to discuss here. A few more Hostgator Flaws and Strengths are still waiting to be mentioned. But, I'll write another Hostgator Review for those. I hope this Hostgator Review will help you make a right decision in purchasing your hosting.

Top 10 Web Hosting - 2008

Top 10 Web Hosting — Best Web Hosts (2008)

Independent reviews of the best web hosting providers. Cheap professional web hosting services under $10 a month; all webhosting plans include at least one free domain name registration and 30 day money back guarantee. Review your web host — let other webmasters know the best and the worst!

Rank	Web Hosting Provider	Features	Bonus Features	Hosting Review
1	Inmotion Business Web Hosting	Space: Unlimited Traffic: Unlimited Price: $8.95	Free Domain Name, Host 6 Domains, Top Technical Support	Inmotion Review Host Rating: 98% Review Inmotion
2	Bluehost Editor's Choice Hosting	Space: Unlimited Traffic: Unlimited Price: $4.95	Free Domain Forever, Host Unlimited Domains, $75 Marketing Bonus	Bluehost Review Host Rating: 97% Review Bluehost
3	WebHostingPad Cheap Reliable Hosting	Space: Unlimited Traffic: Unlimited Price: $3.96	Free Domain Forever, Host Unlimited Domains, $100 Marketing Bonus	WebHostingPad Review Host Rating: 97% Review WebHostingPad
4	JustHost Unlimited Web Hosting	Space: Unlimited Traffic: Unlimited Price: $4.95	Free Domain Forever, Host Unlimited Domains, $50 Marketing Bonus	JustHost Review Host Rating: 96% Review JustHost
5	Hostmonster Cheap Unix Hosting	Space: Unlimited Traffic: Unlimited Price: $4.95	Free Domain Forever, Host Unlimited Domains, $75 Marketing Bonus	Hostmonster Review Host Rating: 96% Review Hostmonster
6	Globat Cheap Web Hosting	Space: Unlimited Traffic: Unlimited Price: $4.44	Free Domain Name, Host Unlimited Domains, $55 Marketing Bonus	Globat Review Host Rating: 95% Review Globat
7	Yahoo Reliable Web Hosting	Space: Unlimited Traffic: Unlimited Price: $8.96	Free Domain Name, $100 Yahoo Credit, $50 Google Credit	Yahoo Review Host Rating: 95% Review Yahoo
8	GoDaddy Largest Web Hosting	Space: Unlimited Traffic: Unlimited Price: $12.74	Free Domain Name, Host Unlimited Domains, Free SSL Certificate	GoDaddy Review Host Rating: 95% Review GoDaddy
9	Lunarpages Cheap Shared Hosting	Space: Unlimited Traffic: Unlimited Price: $4.95	Free Domain Forever, Host Unlimited Domains, Free $775 in Software	Lunarpages Review Host Rating: 94% Review Lunarpages
10	Dot5Hosting Cheap Unix Hosting	Space: Unlimited Traffic: Unlimited Price: $3.95	Free Domain Forever, Host Unlimited Domains, $75 Marketing Bonus	Dot5Hosting Review Host Rating: 94% Review Dot5Hosting

Editor's notice: Web hosting providers ranked by the best price-value ratio. Host reliability, uptime, key features, bonus features, customer support, past and current user feedbacks, user-friendliness and hosting awards have been taken into account as well.

http://webhostinggeeks.com/

Unlimited Bandwidth Hosting

Bandwidth is the amount of data transfer that you are allowed to have for a hosting package i.e. Let’s say you have a web page that is 48KB in size, now each time a user opens your site and goes to that page S/he downloads 48 KB of information on to their computer. If a 100 users view that page one time each then there has been a total of 4800 KB of data transferred from the server on which your files are stored for the computer of users.

Size of web Page: 48 KB
Number of users who viewed the web page: 100
Total amounts of data transferred: 48KB * 100 = 4800 KB

Bandwidth is the term that is used to denote the amount of data that has been transferred from your web space.

The amount of bandwidth that you require while choosing a host depends on two factors:

> The size of your site.
> The popularity of your site.

If your site is not very huge and you do not have any audio/video downloads and it’s not very popular i.e. not a lot of people visit your site then you do not really require a lot of bandwidth, on a average a web site uses up only 500 MB of bandwidth per month. Or if your site is small but extremely popular then you might have to go for a web hosting package that offers high bandwidth.

On the other hand if your web site is huge, providing audio/video downloads, as well as being very popular then you would certainly require a huge amount of bandwidth. Let’s say you have a video file that is 150 MB in size and in a single day a 100 visitors download the file. This means that 15 GB of bandwidth will have been used. If you multiply that by 30 days for the month it comes to 450 GB.


The unlimited bandwidth controversy

For some time now a lot of hosting companies are supposedly providing "unlimited bandwidth" for their web hosting packages.

It’s absolutely true, you can have unlimited bandwidth. However, you will need an unlimited amount of money by your side! Jokes apart, if you ever come across such a host it would be best to turn around and run back the way you came from.

Just think, if you can get unlimited bandwidth for $25-30 a month then why aren’t big companies like Sun, Microsoft etc. not hosted there? In fact, why isn't everyone hosted there? For that matter, if unlimited is a standard feature then why don’t all the hosts offer it? Is it because it is expensive and requires better hardware? No, it’s because some hosts are honest and don’t give in to such gimmicks.

Statistically speaking, a T1 Internet connection (huge broadband) equals approximately 500GB per month and costs around $1200 per month. So how can it be possible to get the same or unlimited for $30 a month?

There are a lot of ways you can be duped by these ‘unlimited’ hosts; here are just a few of them:

The secret of ‘unlimited’ is actually buried in the Terms of Service by the host. Do not be surprised to find that unlimited = 15 GB.

The host may restrict the sort of files that you can host on their server. Generally image galleries and audio/video files attract a lot more downloads thereby resulting in higher bandwidth consumption. So if there are no files of this type, your site won’t really require a lot of bandwidth.

Some newly opened hosts use it as a scam. They take your money and after a few months when their server starts to become slow or reaches its limit, they run… with your money!

Some hosts outline in their Terms of Service that you can have unlimited bandwidth as long as you qualify for it. I.e. Your site must use less then, let’s say 2 GB of bandwidth in order to qualify for the unlimited bandwidth feature. As soon as your site goes over that limit they either start charging you for it or cut off your downloads altogether.

In life it’s a universal truth that you always get what you pay for, and it’s no different for web hosting.

If a host is using a cheap advertising gimmick like ‘unlimited’ bandwidth they maybe lying about a few other things too. Their ‘dedicated’ support team could be a single person (the holster itself in most cases) sitting in front of a computer and taking your calls.

Do you really want unlimited bandwidth hosting from hosts that have very limited resources at their disposal? Or, do you want to go for a host that has spent thousands of dollars on setting up a good network infrastructure, servers, and a highly qualified and dedicated support team? The choice ultimately is yours and yours alone.

Dedicated Server Hosting

If you are a business owner or manager, you probably plan to boost your potential market by getting your business online. One question that may bother you once your website is done is whether to go for a dedicated server hosting or not. But first, you have to understand what dedicated service hosting.

Basically, dedicated server hosting is web-hosting solution that allows you to own an entire server. As the name implies, a dedicated server is dedicated solely to you and to your website. But how will you know if that is what you really need?

First, you have to determine if it is practical for you to have a dedicated server instead of a web server. Your daily use of the Internet can help you determine this. If your website has more than 3,000 users daily, then it is more practical to have dedicated server hosting. If you notice that your website is slowing down, you should have the more efficient dedicated server.

After determining your need for a dedicated server, you have to decide which one is best for your business. You have to choose either a managed or unmanaged dedicated server. With a managed dedicated server, it is important to have the equipment you need to help you set up and maintain your business. But with an unmanaged dedicated server, you can opt to buy the server and all the equipment you need to run it.

So once you have figured out your need for a dedicated server and the right kind for your business, you have to figure out now where to get it. The best place to start your search is to go online. There are now lots of server manufacturers and dealers that will offer you a reliable dedicated server for your website. You just have to choose which one will work best for you.

Thomas Morva