From My Web Hosting Experience

I have recommended HostGator web hosting in my last article The Most Reliable Web Hosting Companies on the Internet. But I didn’t tell you the reason why I recommend HostGator.

When I registered this domain name minterest.com I hosted the domain in my own reseller web hosting then it was a finance blog and last month I have redesigned  the website and made it a blog portal that covers all categories. I redesigned the website early august and I selected PowWeb as my web hosting provider.

Experience with PowWeb Web Hosting

After I sign up with PowWeb I was dissatisfied because their support is not so good and takes too much time for a response. Also their control panel is not cPanel based and moreover their Live Chat Support team is always busy, you hardly get a Live Chat support representative’s attention in 15 minutes (from my experience). If you need support by email then you have to login to the control panel and then write the mail from there and that also takes unusually longer time. As I use Google AdSense to monetize my blog I want to use AdLogger to track the clicks but I was unable to install that sucessfuly in PowWeb server the reason is unknow any way it failed. So I began to think about changing the host but then I didn’t have any idea about how to transfer my WordPress blog to another host. So I stick to PowWeb itself.

Then the worse happened, last week it was a terrible week for me, I deleted my WordPress database accidentally from my web host and that deleted all my blog posts, categories and I didn’t have any back up of WordPress. I contacted the Live Chat Support at PowWeb but they didn’t have any backup of my site or database even though I contacted them in 15 minutes after deletion happened.

Anyway now I have to republish my blog from scratch so I decided to change my Web Hosting Provider and I choose StartLogic as my new hosting service provider and then I changed the Name Server of my domain to that of StartLogic’s, even before I filled their Sign Up form. I did like that because I thought by the time I receive my Account Setup Information from StartLogic the domain name would propagate to StartLogic’s server so that I can start the work early.

Experience with StartLogic Web Hosting

So I signed up with StartLogic and contacted their support team via Chat and Email telling them to setup my account at the earliest but again the worse happened. Their database had a problem at that time and their support team told me that it will be resolved in two hours time. I became crazy! And I waited for a couple of hours, nothing happened and at last I decided to change the hosting again and planned about switching to HostGator Web Hosting. So I filled up the signup form and got their confirmation letter and in 3 minutes I got my account setup mail from HostGator. Yes, in 3 minutes! But the DNS has changed and it is now pointing to StartLogic I waited for some three hours and checked my domain http://ww.minterest.com but it was still poiting to StartLogic but when I checked just http://minterest.com it was pointing to HostGator so I began the work immediately by installing WordPress on my new host. Luckily I had only 42 posts in my blog and I used Windows Live Writer to publish the blog so I had 39 posts in my Laptop and then I collected the rest 3 entries from Google’s Cache. Thanks to Google Search as I got the categories, posts and the latest design from Google’s Cache as Google used to index my site every two days.Google’s Cache was important as the posts in my Laptop were outdated as I used to edit the posts online too. And at last after 12 hours of continuous work I collected all the data and uploaded my site to HostGator and my site became fully functional in less than 12 hours.

Experience with HostGator Web Hosting

I know HostGator for a long time and it’s my favorite hosting company. I believe HostGator is the world’s best web hosting company. And, I choose PowWeb and StartLogic at first because of their discounted price. When I signed up with PowWeb it was just $5.77/mo. but now its $7.77/mo. and for StartLogic it is $5.95/mo and earlier it was $6.95/mo. These prices applies when you pay opt for annual payment. HostGator too have a $6.95/mo. plan called Hatchling but that offers 99.5% uptime and not 99.9%. Again, in that plan only one domain is allowed to host. Moreover the Hatchling plan allows only limited Sub Domains, FTP Accounts and POP3 Email Accounts. In terms of storage and bandwidth it offers 50 GB Disk Space and 200 GB Bandwidth.

HostGator’s most valuable web hosting plan is their Baby plan which  offers 100 GB Disk Space and 1000 GB Bandwidth and it costs $9.95/mo. But is that really worth??? Let’s see!

I recommend HostGator’s Baby Hosting plan as it allows Unlimited Domain Names to host on a single account with out any setup fee. StartLogic charges a onetime $10/domain as setup fee if you want to host additional domain names and PowWeb too charges $25 for each additional domain name. These setup fees are not the domain registration fees and that is additional.

Other unique features of HostGator are that they allow Unlimited Sub Domains, Unlimited FTP Accounts, Unlimited MySQL  Databases, and Unlimited POP3 Accounts and they are cPanel based Web Hosting and offers Fantastico Deluxe Scripts which PowWeb and StartLogic lacks.

Now the most important feature of a web hosting company is their Support and Uptime. HostGator’s support is awesome. They offers 24 hours support via Telephone, Chat and Email. Most other web hosting companies offers support via email only during their day time. Support via email is the most important as if you have any tech related problem then the live chat team cant help you they will ask you to contact the tech team via email. HostGator’s offers email support 24 hours a day and you get fast response from them. They are really so fast that they answer your questions more quickly than other web hosts live chat team as they are always busy. Yes, HostGator also have Live Chat support and that also rocks I hardly wait for than 5 minutes to get a response from them when I wait for than 20 minutes to get the attention of an executive from other hosts.

HostGator offers 99.9% uptime they are so confident that if your site experience any downtime then they will refund your money and you can host for free.

After all account setup is really fast with HostGator I signed up with them on Sep 20, 2007 1:11 PM IST and I got the account information mail at Sep 20, 2007 1:14 PM. Yes! that’s in 3 minutes I got my account setup mail even though it was midnight in U.S.

Finally, HostGator’s billing is smart as they provide unconditional money back guarantee for 30 days. No questions asked! All you need to do is to fill their cancellation form. Don’t have a credit card? HostGator accepts PayPal too! Also, HostGator Web Hosting Provider have a fixed rate for its baby plan. No matter you pay monthly or annually it’s $9.95/mo. always. YES! You can pay the hosting fee monthly (not for the $6.95/mo. Hatchling. HostGator doesn’t charge any setup fee for any of their hosting and offers you the option to pay the hosting bills monthly when others charge setup fee of US$ 10-100 when you pay your bills monthly.

The only complaint I have is that HostGator don’t give a FREE Domain with their hosting plans even if you pay them annually. Otherwise it’s the perfect web hosting company. But that doesn’t matter as you can get a Domain Name for just $1.99 from Yahoo! Domains and all you need to do is to change the name server of that domain to the one that of HostGator. It’s that simple!

HostGator Web Hosting Discounts & Coupon Code

HostGator have only one coupon code as of now which gives you a discount of a flat $9.94.

Try HostGator Web Hosting FREE for One Month!

Do you want to try HostGator BABY Plan for FREE? Simply follow the link below and enter the coupon code “JURY” without quotes that gives you a discount of $9.94. And you pay just 1 Cent for your first month of hosting. If you are not satisfied then you can cancel before one month and can ask for a refund of that 1 Cent too.

So, What Exactly Are You Waiting For? Sign Up HostGator!!!

Today I came across the website Netcraft.com. Which lists the most reliable web hosting companies in the world. It sorts the list according to the number of failed requests and connection time. It means they sorted the list according to their uptime, number of failures and reliability.

I’m really a bit surprised to see that list because I didn’t see the names of some web hosting companies which I assumed as the world’s best web hosting provider.

I thought these were the top five web hosting companies:

1. Yahoo
2. Network Solutions
3. GoDaddy
4. iPowerWeb
5. HostGator

When I browsed the list, surprisingly a company called INetU has topped the chat and is ranked number one and a company called New York Internet is the second. These two companies are not new to the list they topped the charts several times. Now, the third one is new to that list it’s Acens.

Top 10 Web Hosting Companies by Netcraft:

1. INetU Inc.
2. New York Internet
3. Acens
4. Easynet
5. iPowerWeb
6. GoDaddy
7. DataPipe
8. Netcetera
9. WebFusion
10. SwishMail

Want to see the full list of the best hosting providers? Then Visit Netcraft’s best Web Hosting providers list for the month of August 2007 here!

As you probably know there are many web hosting review sites on the internet and if you visit their websites then you may notice that none of the above web hosts other than GoDaddy and iPowerWeb are in their top web hosting companies list.

I used Google to search the term “Web Hosting” and the first result was Web Hosting Blue Book which reviews the Top 10 Web Hosting Companies. Then I Google search for the keyword “Web Hosting Review” and I clicked the first sponsored link for that keyword which directed me to The Hosting Chart.

Now, Which are the Top 10 Web Hosting Companies according to these two web sites.  Let’s see!

Top 10 Web Hosting Companies by Web Hosting Blue Book:

1. Host Monster
2. StartLogic
3. IX Web Hosting
4. InMotion Hosting
5. BlueHost
6. Globat
7. Lunarpages
8. Yahoo! Web Hosting
9. HostGator
10. GoDaddy

Top 10 Web Hosting Companies by The Hosting Chart:

1. IX Web Hosting
2. Host Excellence
3. Dot5Hosting
4. Vista Pages
5. BlueHost
6. AN Hosting
7. Lunarpages
8. 1 and 1 Hosting
9. iPowerWeb
10. Host Monster

Top 10 Web Hosting Companies from Google Search Results:

1. Site Ground
2. Yahoo! Web Hosting
3. 2MHost
4. Network Solutions
5. FortuneCity
6. iPowerWeb
7. UK Web Hosting
8. Bravenet
9. Bizhostnet
10. HostGator

So I guess you noted that the Top Web Hosting Companies by Netcraft is not listed in Google Search Results, Web Hosting Blue Book, and The Hosting Chart. Now which web hosting service should you choose from the above?

I really recommend HostGator. Wanna Know WHY? Click Here!

PageRank™ is an algorithm developed by Google to rank web pages according to its popularity. It is based on this algorithm that Google determines the importance of a website. Google sorts the search results according to its PageRank. The higher your PageRank, the higher is your position in Google. And a higher PageRank means your site is more visible to people and it increases your potential earnings.

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Yahoo! Mash is Yahoo’s latest social network service. It is Yahoo’s answer to the popular social networking websites Facebook and MySpace. Last year Yahoo! offered US$1 billion to acquire Facebook but was knocked out. Facebook expects to add more than 200 million users in the next 12 months so that the company would be valued at US$10 billion.

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Yahoo! Mash is Yahoo’s latest social network service. It is Yahoo’s answer to the popular social networking websites Facebook and MySpace. Last year Yahoo! offered US$1 billion to acquire Facebook but was knocked out. Facebook expects to add more than 200 million users in the next 12 months so that the company would be valued at US$10 billion.

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Apple iPhone. Will it blend? Yes, it blends! Watch this YouTube Video. In which an Apple iPhone turned into powder.

Helped by features such as Gmail, Mountain View, California- based Google passed Yahoo and Microsoft in March to become the owner of the world’s most-visited group of Web sites for the first time, according to researcher ComScore Inc.

Google’s sites had 528 million visitors worldwide in March, a 13 percent gain from the same month a year ago. Yahoo rose 1 percent to 476.3 million, while Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft added 4 percent to 527 million.

Yahoo’s new e-mail program also lets customers send instant messages to users of Yahoo! Messenger and Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo said it made its e-mail service faster and added new search functions.