HOSTGATOR REVIEW - WARNING - DO NOT USE

by 47 replies
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Reason #4,999,102 why Hostgator is the WORST web host on the planet.

The never ending, never changing 30 minute "live" chat wait time: 2014-10-31_1005 - callenb's library . And then 5 minutes later, still 30 minutes: 2014-10-31_1010 - callenb's library and 8 minutes later: 2014-10-31_1018 - callenb's library .

And folks, this isn't just a random bug that happened today. This is normal and happens every single day. Go ahead and try calling their support now and get ready to hear yet another recorded messaged saying, "Our call volumes are higher than normal due to an outage with datacenter [replace it with a different one each day]"

I'm actually considering creating a blog and listing the other 4,999,101 reasons, but by the time I get them all listed out, there will probably be another million I need to add.

I have used a lot of webhosts since 2002 and none have remotely compared to the horrific support that Hostgator has. If you're using them now and haven't had any problems, all I can say is just wait. And when you do, good luck ever getting a timely response that's helpful.

Friendly piece of advice, do not trust your online business with Hostgator. You've been warned.

Brad
#internet marketing product reviews & ratings #hostgator #warning
  • There is nothing new. Everybody knows Hostgator support. My advice is stop using unlimited plans because they are close to scams.
  • I Have been with Hostgator for over 8 years. Never had a problem and was always able to call them and get service quickly! I know they got bought out but still I have not had any problems.

    Is there anything better that is not going to be a fly by night hosting company around here?

    Do you have anything better to direct me to? Or what is the reason for making me aware of this bad boy hosting (hostgator) company?

    Andre
    • [1] reply
    • Sorry Andre, no offense, but the only way you could have never had an issue if you never needed to get a hold of someone in a reasonable amount of time. Go ahead and click this link:

      https://chat.hostgator.com

      and take a screenshot of the time it takes you to get a hold of someone. If it's under 30 minutes, I'll buy you a beer.

      Brad.
      • [1] reply
  • Brad, Again I'm only speaking of my own experience, I always call. I prefer talking on the phone and thrash their ass if I don't get what I need.



    But I'm always open minded and will consider any recommendations as I also respect your opinion! :-)

    btw I also think about what they have to put up with when someone is paying $10/m and get all the support that they need be it slow or not! just saying.

    I have bought many things here and other places for hundreds of $ and I find support is no existent or poor most times!

    Andre
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Move to others hosting.period. there are plenty hosting services better than HG.
  • Oh, don't worry Mr. Red Eagle. We are.
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    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I have had yo use their ticketing system a few times and all my issues have been solved in less than a day.

    But, I have never had a serious problem that needed immediate attention so I can not comment on that

    al
    • [1] reply
    • 1 day = terrible support times.
      Most quality hosts can have issues resolved in minute to hours -- not days.
  • Pay no attention to red eagle. You've been around forever and are one of the good guys, with good software too (Niche Finder customer here). I've been using www.bigscoots.com with no issues and with exceptional support for about a year now. In chat you talk to the main guys in the company (one of whom is Scott), and when you put a ticket in, you get a response within a couple hours at most. Not only that, they're more than willing to work with you on things that would be "outside the support options" of most other hosts (like, for instance, Wordpress install/corruption etc.). Excellent place to do business with. And if what you're doing is making waves for others (aka your on shared), they work with you to upgrade things smoothly. Highly recommended.
  • I've been using host gator for over 6 years and I never had any issues. Yes, the chat has a very long wait and the 30 minutes seem to never go down, but I just call them and my issue is resolved. My tickets are also answered in a short period of time.

    Their affiliate system has gone down the drain though.
    • [1] reply
    • Had to make a comment on this topic... I have been with HG for over 6 years and have never have a problem. Just call in if you don't want to wait for chat. They get to you quickly. Their tech people are always courteous and most helpful.
      • [1] reply
  • As I write this I am in Hostgator Hell.

    Exactly as Brad says, I waited 1 hour and 40 minutes for Live Chat to finally get around to chatting with me - and the timer was set at 30 minutes forever....

    And what's more, when they did finally get to me they gave me mistaken information - so now I'm back on the treadmill - waiting for the Live Chat timer to move from 30 minutes again.

    Definitely not impressed. Not in the least.

    Happy to move if there is a better option out there... and there really must be. This is not even close to reasonable customer service.
    • [1] reply
    • Liquidweb is a good one, Debbie. As is Rackco.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Random email I just got from Hostgator from a ticket I submitted 5 days ago:
    2014-11-03_1543 - callenb's library
  • Why Suffer when you got so many alternative companies, try our RShosting its offering reseller hosting since 2002 I have account with them for more than 4 years and they are just excellent.
    • [1] reply
    • We moved. I'm just letting everyone know so they don't make the same mistake and assume hostgator is STILL a good webhost because they read OLD reviews from many many years ago before hostgator was bought out.

      Brad
      • [1] reply
  • I have commented on another forum about my problems with Hostgator so no need to repeat it here.
    So Brad I agree with what your saying because it's true.
    I've been with Hostgator for a looong time with no problems until now. Lots of websites with them, currently six are down or have some sort of problem, slowly working through the others.
    Haven't had to do this sort of thing for almost a decade.
    Common courtesy should dictate an answer in hours not days.
    So here's the question. Most of us have been doing this for some time, what is the best host for marketers?
    I'm a bit one eyed I haven't used any other. (yet) Will investigate all the names I've seen in here.
    Regards all
    Milton
    • [1] reply
    • From the research I've done, and talking with others, Liquidweb (Many big name IMers use them) or Rackco (Most of the health/fitness guys doing high volume use them) are 2 of the best. We moved everything to Liquidweb.

      Brad
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • No problem with HG; is this about PR for a new service?
    • [1] reply
    • lol... yeah, I own a bunch of hosting companies. I used to use Hostgator, but because I now own a ton of hosting companies, I want to bash Hostgator and promote my own via a sub forum of a forum.

      I'm obviously being sarcastic.

      No, of course this isn't a PR for a new service. Seriously?

      This is me talking about how horrific of a web host Hostgator is, and how anybody that cares about their business should never trust it with Hostgator. I'm happy to show more proof than I already have, just to prove my point even more.
  • I moved from HostGator to a $80 a month DigitalOcean.com. I JUST LOVE IT
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  • Whenever I hear "we are experiencing HIGH call volume," I know what they really mean is, "we are experiencing LOW employee volume!!"

    But... I'm the type of person who needs *24/7* actual live PHONE support. (not email, not online chat).

    If I ditch hostgator -- who do you recommend I DO use?

    -- TW
    • [2] replies
    • Go talk to Scott over at www.bigscoots.com. I've been using them for a year and any support you need they're right there, on chat, phone and ticket. And the tickets get answered usually within the hour. No downtime, no issues with scripts, and they'll help you get whatever you need done (as in either tell you or just do it for you). Class act.
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • Hey Tim, we switched to Liquidweb and they have really really good support. Same for Rackco. Liquidweb was recommended to me by several guys doing 7 and 8 figures a year.

      Brad
      • [1] reply
  • Sorry but i love Hostgator hosting.....if don't screw the site by yourself the everything goes perfect.....
    • [2] replies
    • I'm not sure I follow?
    • Problems with HG don't often involve the customer messing up their sites...quite often as has been the case most recently (and for the past few years since summer 2012 when they switched owners) their "maintenance" and emergency upgrades/migrations along with their constant "higher than average support volumes" automated messages has made them one of the worst hosts to use.

      The easiest way to tell HG and any other EIG brand (just google it) aren't hosts you want anything to do with is to look on places like webhostingtalk.com or other hosting sites where people eat, sleep and breath hosting.

      Rarely do you see mention of host gator or any other EIG brand there (bluehost, ipage, justhost, hostmonster etc) because there are soooo many better hosts out there.

      This is quite a bit bigger than just HG reducing the quality of their services, it's like a pestilence of crap hosting flooding the web.

      On the brighter side there are some hosts worth looking at which have no affiliation with EIG...and a few worthy of mention are:

      Veerotech
      Hawkhost
      Stablehost
      Mddhost
      Interserver

      All of these hosts have BUDGET oriented plans suitable for most small to intermediate marketers. They have plans comparable to what you might pay for HG, just way better service.

      I actually don't recommend Liquidweb and a number of other bigger hosts out there simply because most marketers on the WF aren't remotely close to needing that level of hosting power for their sites.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
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    • [1] reply
    • Marc, your mean comment helps no one. To follow-up on a support ticket, you can hit the reply button in your email and our desk handles the parsing and importing of your ticket back into the desk. If NF isn't what you want to use, get a refund. The problem with NF was because of Hostgator. We moved to a new host, as I mentioned above. We're waiting for DNS to propogate and that caused the issue. NF login issues are fixed and our support desk either has or will reply to you. Me posting in the forum has nothing to do with the speed at which NF is worked on. We have developers and a support staff that handles any fixes. Trust me, you don't want me touching software code.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Brad, there are hundreds if not thousands of disgruntled customers of HG, once a good company now they appear to be under staffed and management isn't doing the best at handling server migrations with ample notifications & customer communication.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
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  • I've never personally used the "big" hosting companies. I know how bad they can be first hand though due to re-designing websites for clients and seeing the errors and delays with them and of course having to call support for clients. One of the first websites I made was for myself and it was to do webhosting (this was over 10 years ago, I only host my design/local clients now). I was an active member of Web Hosting Talk - The largest, most influential web hosting community on the Internet and went with hosts that were highly recommended on that site (for all of these years). To this day they have never steered me wrong. And..a big AND...they are a lot of times cheaper than the big sites when it comes to servers and better service.

    I currently use a VPS that is as big as a regular server (I've had multiple servers at many times, but I like being keeping things simple and in one place when possible), I also have a couple of reseller accounts, shared hosting accounts at different hosts and no issues in several months (I run a couple of hundred sites). I don't call them, but my tickets are usually answered within minutes, not hours.

    HostGator might not be that great, but be glad it's not Network Solutions, those guys are rough. They will answer your phone calls, but when you submit a contact form (on a site hosted by them) it can take 15 minutes to get to the destination. GoDaddy also has issues with having to make adjustments to scripts. HostGator as far as scripts and things like that aren't that bad. As far as their support I can't make any comments because I've never had to contact them. I did work on a site hosted by them today (and a few others in the past) and today the site was slow but it worked.
  • Banned
    Chat system of hostgator is very disgusting
    • [1] reply
    • lol... I'd say that's a fair adjective to describe things.
  • [DELETED]
  • It's becoming worst day by day. They are putting their best efforts to promote it with the help of affiliates but I found that they are cheating with affiliates as well.

    Few months back I made more than 10 sales in a month and they made 6 of them invalid.

    Once I raised the ticket, they didn't have any solid explanation.

    Simple avoid this host.
    • [1] reply
    • Brad is right, Hostgator has gone downhill faster than a Jimmy Johns delivery guy on coke. I've been with them since 2006, and recently started having major issues with them. Their support used to be top notch, but now SUCKS. Hell, I can't even pay my bill. They care that much.

      I've been getting the attached screenshot error upon attempting to log into their billing portal... for three months. They value their customers so much, they won't let them pay. I have to send my cash via paypal to their blanket sales email, then contact support with the paypal transaction ID, then wait four days until the one support employee Hostgator has attributes the payment to my account (hopefully). I've been getting the runaround from their support group from day one. Replies vary from "They have already fixed the problem", to "the devs are working on it". Yeah right.

      Time to cut ties with them. Those who are still riding high on HGs train, be prepared to disembark sooner than you would like.

      -my2cents
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  • Banned
    [DELETED]
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  • Wow... That's crazy.
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    HOSTGATOR REVIEW - WARNING - DO NOT USE

    Reason #4,999,102 why Hostgator is the WORST web host on the planet. The never ending, never changing 30 minute "live" chat wait time: 2014-10-31_1005 - callenb's library . And then 5 minutes later, still 30 minutes: 2014-10-31_1010 - callenb's library and 8 minutes later: 2014-10-31_1018 - callenb's library .