Host Gator is a web hosting company that promises to eat up its competition by providing quality hosting services at economical prices. They offer a standard set of options such as shared hosting, virtual private servers and dedicated hosting.

Hosting Plan
In order to help you get started when you sign up with them Host Gator provides its customers with free migration services from their previous host. Everything from your files to your database and scripts are migrated by the Host Gator team. If this is your first website they provide you with the SiteBuilder tool so you can quickly and easily build your website based on the provided templates.

The shared web hosting plans come in 3 flavors, Hatchling, Baby and Business. All plans have similar features like unlimited disk space and data transfer. Hatchling plans are only able to host 1 domain while the other two are able to host unlimited domains. The Business plan also has a dedicated IP address and gives access to a toll free support number.

All three plans feature:

99.9% uptime
45 day money back guarantee
$100 Google credit
Unlimited sub domains
WordPress
PHP, Perl and CGI support
Image galleries, forms
Streaming audio and video support
Unlimited email accounts and web mail
Shopping carts

The reseller hosting plans allow customers to use Host Gator's infrastructure to sell their own customized hosting packages. There are 5 levels of reseller packages all offering different storage and data transfer capabilities. The base plan called the Aluminum plan costs $24.95 per month and offers 50GB of disk space and 500GB of data transfer. The top of the line plan called Diamond offers 200GB of disk space and 1400GB of data transfer. Each plan allows for the creation of unlimited domains. Each domain can be given its own cPanel access which the reseller is able to brand according to their company.

The reseller can also offer their customers all the features and functionality offered by Host Gator to its customers.

Customers who want a Virtual Private server will be able to find the perfect option among the 9 plans offered by Host Gator. Plan configurations start with a 0.56Ghz processor, 384MB of RAM, 10GB of disk space and 250GB of data transfer for a cost of $19.95 per month. The configurations can go up to a 5.94Ghz processor, 4.4GB of RAM, 231GB of disk space and 3150GB of data transfer for a cost of $209.95 per month.

Affiliate Program
Host Gator has a very lucrative affiliates program which allows customers to earn up to $125 per referral. The commissions are based on volume which means that the more you refer the higher your commission rates are. Host Gator claims to give out $400,000 every month to its affiliates. An online control panel is used to track payment and commissions.

Customer Support and Reviews
Host Gator provides a live chat and toll free number support for its customers. On their website a Support portal features articles by topic. These articles range from Hosting plan questions to FTP and email. They also provide an online ticket system to manage issues and complaints. A number of video tutorials make the Support Portal a useful resource.

While their own website does not feature any user reviews, the ones posted on external websites paint the company in a positive light.

Company Information
Host Gator was established in 2002 in a dorm room with only 3 servers, and now has grown to have over 7000 servers under their management to support their 2.5 million domains. With the number of domains hosted they make up for close to 1% of the world's internet traffic.

The company is located in Houston, TX and runs out of a 20,000 sq ft facility. They have been awarded a spot on the Inc 500 list in 2009, along with being the About.com 2010 Reader's choice award winners.

This review is meant for informative purposes only. Please personally evaluate the company before making any decisions.

Host Gator does deliver on its promise of eating up the competition. They provide high quality service and a wide range of plans to suite the needs of a diverse group of customers. The awards that they have won further reinforce the quality of their service.

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