Finding a good review about Hostgator is easy. Simply just head to google.com and type “hostgator review” and you will find 70% of them write good things about this web hosting.
Why?
Probably they are really good but also there is a possibility that these reviews are meant to make money via Hostgator Affiliate Program.
To be frank, I was one of them who tried very hard to sell Hostgator web hosting through the affiliate program but I stopped recommending anymore after my bad experience to them and will only recommend you to take on Hostgator ONLY if you are looking for personal web hosting to start up a blog or website.
In order to proof my point further, here are 20 more articles from 20 bloggers that had bad experience with Hostgator as well.
1. Why you should avoid Hostgator by Joost de Valk, YOAST
You can say that Yoast simply don’t like Hostgator because his plugin was to blame in one of the support request raised by Hostgator customer.
However, I’m on his side and I strongly believe that any support request should have the objective of solving problem, and not pushing the responsibilities around.
Yoast is not a big fan of Hostgator and he is hosting on Synthesis.
2. Honeymoon Hell with Hostgator (Shockingly, Hostgator Sucks!) – Claire Diaz Ortiz
Whenever you are on vacation and need to update some blog post or check some comments, you will surely have limited time because most of your time should be spent on your vacation instead.
Here is Claire’s honeymoon nightmare with her sites being hosted by Hostgator previously.
3. HHM is Back Online & Hostgator Sucks! – Mark V, Hip Hop Makers
This article features 10 reasons why Hostgator sucks and it is not just one reason, but many why the website is no longer hosted on Hostgator.
In one of the point, Hostgator actually suggested HHM to go VPS while their site is just getting about 1k visitors a day. What a joke!
4. More Downtime for HostGator and BlueHost Customers as Router Issues Plague Utah Data Center – Nicole Henderson, WHIR
There was once my site was down for almost a day. I bet this article refer to the same downtime that I experienced.
During this migration, it was so bad that until the support system is down and no one could contact Hostgator to even file a complain.
5. Hostgator Lies About Uptime – Garen Arnold, TBWHS
This article has a list of articles as well about Hostgator bad stuff.
I personally experienced the same as Garen where I had already filed a couple of downtime complains to claim for free web hosting credits. It wasn’t fun even though you get to enjoy free web hosting for a month.
Garen is now hosting on InMotion.
6. Why I Left Hostgator? – Nile, Blondish.net
No one can tolerate downtime especially when your site is getting lots of visitors and most of your revenues rely on your website.
Not only that, what if you were being told by one support staff to buy a CDN solution while the other support staff from the SAME company told you to remove it?
I feel for you, Nile.
Blodish is now powered by A2 Hosting.
7. Goodbye, Hostgator & EIG! So Long And Thanks for the Headaches! – Just Ask Kim
For your info, this article mentioned the article above by Nile of Blondish.net and they are probably best friend.
But anyway, one note that I would like you to take from this article is to check the rest of web hosting that are under EIG simply because they should have the same uptime, performance and reliability.
8. Why My Company is Leaving Hostgator (and why you should too) – Gregory J Schoppe, Gschoppe.com
I don’t have the number to proof here but I am sure ever since EIG took over Hostgator, there are availability issues and even performance issues.
On top of that, Gregory is extremely unhappy with Hostgator technical support where the support line simply just apply fixes without checking out customer’s feedback.
9. The cause of the Hostgator outage and how we feel about it – Joker Media
No surprise to me another customer who is unhappy on Hostgator outage.
I read the Hostgator Reseller eBook and they should have learned from one of the point they pointed out themselves in the eBook that is ‘one unhappy customer leads to many unhappy customers’.
10. See You Later Alligator? Why I’ll Stay with Hostgator for Now – Michelle Phillips, Codefetti
Well, Michelle didn’t stay with Hostgator although the headline is a little mislead here because in the updated post, she had already moved to A2 hosting.
Support response time is important especially during critical moments such as when the web hosting service is not available. They should have someone standing by 24×7 to answer questions on why and how long the service will be unavailable.
Codefetti is now running on A2 Hosting.
11. Hosting Affiliate Programs: My Peculiar Experiences with WP Engine & HostGator – Max Spiker, DMAD
This article does not really complain about the performance or availability of Hostgator.
Instead, it is the affiliate program that is being complained here where one affiliate program which is not from Hostgator overpaid him and the other which is the Hostgator affiliate program underpaid him.
As a result, Max prefer to sell WP Engine rather than Hostgator.
12. Why I’ll never use Hostgator again! – David Perdew, NAMS
David Perdew shared his experience about how crappy the marketing terms such as “Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space, unlimited everything”.
None of them are true because there are always terms and condition to those benefits.
NAMS is now powered by Liquid Web.
13. Hostgator Sinking Like Titanic – Angela McCall
I have to say, nice headline and image there, Angela.
In her article, she shared about the bad Hostgator experience and now she is having a better sleep by moving away from Hostgator.
14. Hosting Disaster: How Hostgator and Google Almost Doomed My Business to Hell? – Wong Chendong, The Bad Blogger
Interesting story from Wong Chendong where he shared his experience on Hostgator reducing the number of crawls from Google. Why?
Since it is a shared hosting, having Google crawled less time probably will help the hosting company to save more resources and bandwidth.
The Bad Blogger is now hosting on Site5.
P.S.: Some of the images in this blog is NSFW and that’s the way The Bad Blogger do it =)
15. Why I’ll Never Use Hostgator… – Stuart, Kungfu Copywriter
I wish I could read more from Stuart’s experience with Hostgator but it was sad that he didn’t even manage to buy the service from Hostgator.
Seems like Hostgator is not a big fan of China and have a separate kind of email template to reply for China leads.
16. How a Hosting Company Can Kill Your Google Rankings Without You Even Knowing – Karok K, New Internet Order
The experience from Karol is something really new to me.
It was about a forum that existed under his domain and he totally had no clue about that. On top of that, it was filled with followed links to spam sites.
The New Internet Order is now powered by IIX Webhosting
17. Hostgator is Unreliable And No Longer Recommended – PCRoger, Wealthy Affiliate
PCRoger is another customer who complained about the uptime of Hostgator.
It seems that up to now, almost 70% of Hostgator ex-customer complained the same thing.
Wealthy Affiliate is now hosting on Media Temple.
18. Why I Dumped Hostgator – Scott, TGCDesign
Another Hostgator ex-customer talks about Google Webmaster Tool with proof that Hostgator is limiting the number of crawls from Google Bots.
It is supported further in the same screenshot that Liquid Web, their new hosting is allowing more crawls than Hostgator.
19. Why HostGator Lost A Fiercely Loyal Customer – Michael Carusi
Up to now, EIG sure had made many of their ex-customer extremely pissed off about their downtime.
Here’s another story from Michael where he wrote about Hostgator trying to cover up their downtime.
20. This HostGator alternative SCREAMS performance! (My StableHost review) – Shane, Side Project Profit
Last but not least, Shane from Side Project Profit moved to Stablehost after major performance issue from Hostgator.
From his article, you will see that he had quite a detailed comparison before and after EIG takeover.
Side Project Profit is now hosting on Stablehost.
Conclusion
Most of them share the same experience.
They used to be Hostgator loyal customer and very happy with Hostgator all this while in terms of performance, availability and support.
EIG sure had just screwed an awesome web hosting company.
So unless you are just starting a personal blog or website, avoid Hostgator especially when you are running a business site.
Here is an article that guide you on starting a blog properly.
If you have a bad experience with Hostgator as well, why not share with us below.
Angela McCall says
Wow Alan,
You have compiled all of these sites that hates Hostgator. Great research. Great job on reading on each of these guys regarding Hostgator being a sucky hosting company. It’s a shame.
…and yet Hostgator claimed that the reason why they agreed EIG to take over was, EIG wanted that same quality customer service which to me, it’s all B.S.
Yeah. They emailed me right away because they saw my post on Twitter. Trying to lure me not to quit and that they are better than ever. Again, lies…lies…lies…
Never Again,
Angela
P.S. Thank you for the mention of my post in your blog. Appreciate it a lot. 🙂
Angela McCall recently posted..My First Guest Post
Alan Tay says
Hi Angela
It indeed took some time to gather these amount of articles but it was worth at the end of the day because it is being appreciated by you and other bloggers as well.
Thanks for dropping by there!
Alan Tay recently posted..Which World Cup 2014 team has the most Twitter followers?
Ernest says
This is really a great compiled review of hostgator, I appreciate your good effort in compiling these reviews together.
This is the best review concerning hostgator which I have read so far.
Alan Tay says
Thanks for the comment, Ernest.
Alan Tay recently posted..Which World Cup 2014 team has the most Twitter followers?
suresh says
i am using hostgator hosting last 2 years and getting good service.so i recominded to this hosting.it’s service and support is so great and nice hosting service.
suresh recently posted..Top 10 Tallest buildings in the world
Alan Tay says
Probably you are one of the lucky ones :).
I have seen a lot of good reviews for hostgator as well and there is no doubt that you felt the same.
Alan Tay recently posted..How to start an internet business today
Kenneth Sweet says
I prefer Godaddy to Hostgator for one reason. Backups. Everytime I do something I shouldnt and make a huge mistake on WordPress, I can rely on Godaddys backups to bring back my original work. Highly reccomend. Cheers!
Kenneth Sweet recently posted..Mid-Ohio Valley Boxing Club Facebook Page
Alan Tay says
I have not tried on GoDaddy before, Kenneth. But I do think that most web hosting has backup and restoration function in place.
Alan Tay recently posted..3 MUST HAVE elements of a basic business website