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    HostGator

Corporate Values

Overview

HostGator has a consumer rating of 4.01 stars from 84 reviews indicating that most consumers are generally satisfied with their purchases. HostGator also ranks 27th among Web Hosting sites. The most common issues with HostGator are around customer service, which is not as good as expected by some customers.

  • Service
    6
  • Value
    6
  • Shipping
    2
  • Returns
    2
  • Quality
    6
View ratings trends

What reviewers want you to know

Positive highlights

  • Have been using host gator for a few years, very good customer support and better priced than competition.
  • I opened my 1st account 5 years ago and I have NOTHING to complain about in 5 years of service!

Critical highlights

  • The customer service agents sound like little kids and they are very rude.
  • At one point no one would answer phone support or reply to social media.
How would you rate HostGator?
Top Positive Review

“Good hosting”

David C.
2/27/20

This has become a very useful resource. The support staff are very friendly, timely and helpful. I would certainly recommend it to others.

See positive reviews
Top Critical Review

“So-so product, atrocious customer service”

George O.
2/16/20

The hosting and web building service is adequate, nothing more. Basic package is bare minimum. Everything costs extra. I experienced numerous error messages during the development of my site, and my site was not live for several days, unbeknownst to me (HostGator did not notify me of this). Customer service is awful: outsourced people who are difficult to understand and lacking in necessary knowledge. Supervisors aren't much better. It's a company that maximizes its profits by cutting every possible corner.

See critical reviews

Reviews (84)

Rating

Timeframe

Other

Reviews that mention popular keywords

customer service (10) customer support (7) 5 years (3) phone support (3)
davidc2755
1 review
0 helpful votes
February 27th, 2020
This has become a very useful resource. The support staff are very friendly, timely and helpful. I would certainly recommend it to others.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi David,

Woohoo! We're so happy that you're happy. It means the world to us that we get to be a small part of your success. Thank you so much.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
julianp46
1 review
0 helpful votes
February 19th, 2020
Hosting is fine but I had an issue with not being able to access my emails because an old Magic Mail Monitor file was opened several times on a computer and it took me more than two weeks to resolve it and the higher level attention I needed took three days to answer and then they never got to answer my reply as two days later I was able to nail the problem and resolve it. Not bad first level customer care, very slow second level customer care.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Julian,

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience. Please know that we feel this is completely unacceptable and we'd like to make it right for you. We will be reaching out soon. Thank you.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
joanns124
1 review
0 helpful votes
January 18th, 2020
I was able to build my site, which has many photos, corresponding dialogue and a store with a shopping cart easily and quickly. I love the drag and drop feature and the flexible page structure. I changed font sizes easily and I'm very happy with how easily it was to publish and to modify the site. I am featuring the books I have written and my nature photographs and poetry.

Tip for consumers: This is a robust package, which is very easy to use. Customer Service is responsive and knowledgeable. I recommend it highly.

erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Jo-Ann,

Wow! What a thoughtful and thorough review. Thank you so much for your kind words. We're so happy to have you on board.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
barryh147
1 review
0 helpful votes
March 1st, 2020
I would like to leave feedback to hostgator that any interactions that i have had with the customer service Team has always been well handled and dealt with the same day.The hostgator team as far as i am concerned have always been helpful and quick to respond.Would i recommend hostgator for your website hosting.......Yes i would.

oozetech.com Many Thanks for your team excellence.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Barry,

Thanks so much for the kind review. We're so pleased to have you here with us.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
simolar
1 review
0 helpful votes
December 10th, 2019
Clicked on the sign-up button of windows hosting - Enterprise Plan only to be serve a linux hosting - business plan. Waited over 12 minutes for a support staff meant to have turned up within 5 minutes. Website took long to open while signing up.

Nonetheless, I believe in giving a service provider benefit of doubt. Went ahead to enroll for the windows hosting package - Enterprise Plan. Hope the service meets my expectation.

Notably, my refund hasn't processed through but I'm optimistic it will process through for these bank sharks to cut their share further.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hello Simola,

Well, that's not a great start. We'll do better for you! We'd like to look into the refund for you if you'd like. Please drop us an email at reputation@endurance.com and include the primary email on your account and the best phone number to reach you. Thank you so much! We're glad you're here.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
kerim26
1 review
0 helpful votes
March 4th, 2020
Never had any problems, dependable service I can trust! Highly recommend if you are looking for a hosting service.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Keri,

Thanks so much for your kind review! We're so glad to hear things are going well for you. Thank you for being here with us.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
zekm
2 reviews
7 helpful votes
February 5th, 2020
I've been hosted by HostGator for several years now and they're hosting service is just like any other web hosting service out there, it's alright. I recently moved my domains from mydomain.com to HostGator and what a terrible idea, the domain management for HostGator sucks ass, it's literally coming from an automated process to one that you have to deal with support so they can manually fix the domain right. Such a hassle.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Zek,

We're sad to hear that your experience with transferring your domains hasn't met your expectations. We'd like to speak with you about this experience, please check your DM's and let's connect to see what we can do. Thank you.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
lja5
1 review
0 helpful votes
February 7th, 2020
I'm satisfied with the service I got. Support guys are very nice and solve my doubts easily. CPanel is useful.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi LJ,

We're so pleased to hear that you're happy. Thanks so much for taking the time to leave us a thoughtful review. We're so glad you're here with us.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
keithm368
1 review
0 helpful votes
January 4th, 2020
HostGator has given me what they said they would - hosting for the domains I've setup there. It is much better than some others I've used and as good as others. So, I'm happy.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Keith,

We're so pleased to hear that you're happy with our services. We really appreciate the good review and we're so glad that you're here with us.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
johnl2309
1 review
0 helpful votes
February 18th, 2020
Easy to set up my custom site. Email works flawlessly. CPanel works with everything I tried. Keeping domain name with another registrar, yet there were no problems using the HostGator nameservers to direct traffic to the site's new home.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi John,

Wow, what a great review! It sounds like things are really going great for you. We are so happy to have you on board. Welcome to HostGator!

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
ramonv32
2 reviews
0 helpful votes
March 18th, 2020
I'm very happy to finally got a very good hosting provider after many years trying disastrous ones. Also their customer service is adorable.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Ramon,

We're so happy that you're happy! Welcome to the HostGator family, we're so glad you're here. Thank you for the great review.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
michaelc2694
1 review
0 helpful votes
February 10th, 2020
I started with HostGator three weeks ago. Their support to migrate my website was fine. Before I had my site hosted with Westhost for 10 years. I left them because of terrible support - and I am glad to have a new helpful provider.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Michael,

We're pleased to hear that your migration went well and that things are going smoothly. We're very proud of our support teams and love that you've had excellent experiences with them. Welcome to the HostGator family!

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
saranwits
1 review
0 helpful votes
February 16th, 2020
now I run 3 website on my baby plan hosting and no problem with it. Anyway, I need more time to test the result because I just move to host gator
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Saranwit,

Congratulations on your three sites! We appreciate the good review and are thrilled to have you on board.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
beckye48
1 review
0 helpful votes
March 14th, 2020
Hostgator has friendly and capable chat tech support and affordable service. I will never go anywhere else. They leave me be to do my thing and save my bacon when I'm in trouble.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Becky,

Awe, thanks! We're happy to be of service to you. Thanks for the wonderful review.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
georgeo148
1 review
0 helpful votes
February 16th, 2020
The hosting and web building service is adequate, nothing more. Basic package is bare minimum. Everything costs extra. I experienced numerous error messages during the development of my site, and my site was not live for several days, unbeknownst to me (HostGator did not notify me of this). Customer service is awful: outsourced people who are difficult to understand and lacking in necessary knowledge. Supervisors aren't much better. It's a company that maximizes its profits by cutting every possible corner.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi George,

We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us. We do offer more robust packages, the basic package, is just that, basic. We'd like to talk to you more about your experiences with our support teams as we're very disappointed to hear that you're not a fan. We will be reaching out to get more information from you. Thank you.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
tj124
5 reviews
3 helpful votes
December 8th, 2019
I've used Hostgator for many years on and off. It's been just okay the whole time. I've left them a couple of years ago and opted for other platforms to see what works.

Problem 1: I've experienced a few times where my site could not be accessed. So "downtime".

Problem 2: The worst thing about Hostgator is customer support. They make you jump through SO MANY hoops to chat with someone. It's ridiculous. It should be as easy as filling out a support ticket but it's not. You have to sign in to a separate site from your control panel and account to get to billing. And they ask so many questions and then list a bunch of articles that they expect you to read through before getting help. I only ever need to contact them if I can't find help IN the help articles!

Why make it such a difficult task to get help from an actual person? Sorry but Hostgator has the worst access to support of any site I can think of. I can think of sites that are probably larger that make it far easier to send off an email or fill out a support ticket.

I don't think I will ever use Hostgator again.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi TJ,

We're very disappointed to read this review. Our support teams are in fact taught to refer people to help articles, because, you are actually a rarity in that you try the Knowledge Base first. So, thank you for that. We'd like the chance to work with you on your concerns if you'd let us. Please send us an email at reputation@endurance.com and we'll see what we can do to make things right. Thank you so much.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
julies993
1 review
0 helpful votes
January 11th, 2020
Hostgator is one of the top hosting sites. I have never had an issue with them. Highly recommend their services.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Julie,

Thanks so much for the great review. We're very happy that you're so happy. Thanks for being here with us!

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
nishantp
27 reviews
61 helpful votes
September 26th, 2016
1. Hostgator does'nt give quality support especially technical support. No way easy getting your way, solving your queries on cpanel &/ your websites,blogs.
2. They are good manipulators. Your server/s will be changed without any notice. Sometimes its apache, sometimes its nginx...you do'nt know. Then they tried to force Attracta (SEO company) on to its customers.
3. They stopped giving email support. Now its much harder to get them with Live Chat. Chat is often busy. Phone support is there but its useless.
joelv52
1 review
0 helpful votes
January 28th, 2020
Host Gator handled the transfer and setup of my site without issue and it is working great. I did have to contact their support a few times, but every time they were super friendly. The only issue I ran into is it wasn't working from my local network and I was told by support that since it was working on their end it was an issue with my network. Overall it took me over a week to diagnose, but what had ended up happening is my IP address was put on the IP block list during the transfer. This was definitely something that Host Gator could have helped me diagnose, but instead they pushed the problem back on me.

After resolving that issue, the hosting is going great, love the FTP and the friendly customer support that is easy to access.
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Joel,

Thanks so much for the detailed thoughtful review. Our support teams really do work hard for our customer, but some things are out of scope for the services we provide. Was your IP address blacklisted by us or your ISP? Knowing that would be helpful to know if it's something we could have resolved or not. Thanks so much. We're so glad to have you here.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
hassanm42
1 review
0 helpful votes
March 21st, 2020
Need more flexibility in support and customer service
But it's good job for speed and feed back in any time
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hello Hassan,

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. What else would you like to see as far as support? We are available 24/7/365 via live chat (https://helpchat.hostgator.com/) or via phone. You can reach us at the following numbers: Toll Free: (866) 96 - GATOR (42867), Local: (713) 574 - 5287, International: 00+1-713-574-5287. We stopped email support because of the huge amounts of spam we were receiving, it was keeping us from helping those actually in need in a timely manner. Thanks so much.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
johng2244
1 review
0 helpful votes
February 25th, 2020
Easy to set up my custom site. CPanel works with WordPres but it might take a while for the domain to be registered (took 48 hours for me).
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi John,

Thank you so much for your kind review, we're happy to have you here. We really wish that had control over domain registration, but unfortunately, that's out of our hands!

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
patrickn111
1 review
0 helpful votes
March 18th, 2020
i just want to thank management of hostgator.com for this wonderful platform. the stability and good customer care services is what i admire the most.... i love hostgator
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Patrick,

Wow, thank you so much! We're delighted to hear how happy you are. Thanks for being here with us.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
alia417
1 review
0 helpful votes
January 27th, 2020
i like it .. it is nice and easy and supporty ..
I liked the speed, accuracy and support ..
I advise all beginners and professionals to join this addition ..

thank you

best regard
Ali
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hello Ali,

Thank you so much for your review! We really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. We're pleased to have you as a member of the HostGator Family.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
gabrieln51
1 review
0 helpful votes
December 9th, 2019
Hostgator has been one of the best experiences ever, and I'm not only talking about the service by itself as a hosting provider (and yeap, it rocks, it's one of the best if not the best one), but also their customer experience, the response time, knowledge of people working behind scenes helping you, it's just AMAZING! Thanks, Hostgator! (I've bought 3 different plans my first one for only 1 domain and the rest for customers sharing multiple websites in the same host plan).
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Gabriel,

We're so happy to hear that you're really enjoying our services and our support teams. We're happy to be here for you and we thank you for the great review. Thanks for being the best part of the HostGator Family.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator
robins523
1 review
0 helpful votes
February 17th, 2020
technology moves quickly and I have found that the site cannot be stagnant as in the past...it needs constant updates and monitoring and it takes someone to make sure malware does not infect the plugins. Hostgator has fine customer service, but nothing beats paying someone to handle the site for when things go south
erinnh1
Erinn H. – HostGator Rep
Hi Robin,

We think it's fantastic that you've chosen to be so proactive with your website. Our Admin teams work wonders don't they? Thank you so much for the great review.

Erinn
Customer Advocate at HostGator

Q&A (3)

Answer:

Hi Bill, We are most definitely a legit company. We've been in the web hosting business since 2002. We've recently been rated in #2 in the top 10 web hosting companies but The Top 10. https://web-hosting.thetop10sites.com/ You can also see our current web hosting offerings here: https://www.hostgator.com/ Please let us know if you have any other questions. Thanks! Erinn Reputation Manager for HostGator

By Erinn H., Customer Advocate at HostGator
See more answers (5)
Answer:

I wouldn't trust a company that was much cheaper - as far as I can remember I'm paying less than $5 per year, and I have several websites included in that deal. It used to be that you couldn't use a credit card for less than $5, so it would be ridiculous to spend hours looking for someone who charged $2.50

By Ian M.
See more answers (4)
Answer:

If you go straight to smartchat, it is very easy - you only need to find the smartchat button. I have worked with the Internet since web browsers were invented, so I know most of the answers already. That means that when I have a problem that I can't solve, it is going to be a real stinker for HostGator support to solve - I only bring them the difficult ones. Recently, I had an ISP who gave me terrible service, and the internet kept dropping out every few minutes. The Hostgator smartchat expert kept contact with me on and of for about an hour and three quarters until he had worked out the answer for me. That is what I call RELIABLE service.

By Ian M.
See more answers (4)

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About the business

HostGator (866-96-GATOR) is a leading provider of web hosting, VPS and dedicated servers. Discover why over 9,000,000 websites trust us for their hosting needs.

Business History

HostGator was founded in October 2002 by Brent Oxley, who was then a student at Florida Atlantic University. By 2006, HostGator had passed the 200,000 mark in registered domains.
In 2006, the company moved from the original office in Boca Raton, Florida to a new 20,000 square foot building in Houston, Texas. In June 2006, the company opened its first international office in Canada.
In 2008, Inc. Magazine ranked HostGator in its list of fastest growing companies at 21 in the United States and 1 in the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas area[8] The same year, HostGator decided to make their hosting service green hosting by working with Integrated Ecosystem Market Services.
Also, in 2008, HostGator prepared for competition companies touting "unlimited" hosting services. Founder Brent Oxley was adamant about being able to back up an "unlimited" option prior to offering service named as such and increased staffing.
In 2010, an office was added in Austin, Texas.
In May 2011, HostGator started operations in India with a its office in Nashik, Maharashtra and a data center.
On July 13, 2012, HostGator was sold to Endurance International Group (EIG).

Company Representative

erinnh1
Erinn H.
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