Why HostGator sucks - Review

cjbay · 04-06-2009, 07:03 AM

I've hosted with a few other hosts before, and I've compared the prices and hostgator has good pricing and I've never had problems with uptime, but if you are late on payment you basically get screwed if you continue to go through them after being late, just a heads up to anyone considering hostgator. I was late on payment the other day, so they suspended my account. You don't pay for the previous month's hosting with them, you pay in advance. So to use my website this month, I would have to pay them in advance, or they shut it off before it gets into this month's hosting. So I made payment, and a few days go by and my website was still turned off. They made at least $120 from my traffic this past weekend (they put up a parked page when they suspend you until you change your DNS). They told me that to turn it back on, they would charge me a late fee of $10. I asked the guy "why would you charge me $10 when I don't owe you anything, I'm paying for this month's service, I'm paying to have it turned back on, not to settle a debt or anything that I already owe?". He said that as long as I use the same email address, I would have to pay the late fee. So if I leave hostgator, then sign up for hostgator hosting again, with a different email address, I would avoid the "late fee". So basically hostgator already made over $120 off me this past weekend, and now they charged me a late fee for choosing to continue to go through them (I have to get my hosting activated again so I can get to all my files and move them to a new host). So just to let you know, hostgator is garbage. I've been hosting with hostmysite.com for about a year now with other websites of mine and although they are a little more expensive and you get less space etc., it's well worth the price because they haven't done anything sheisty like this with me yet.

XeHSean · 04-06-2009, 12:29 PM

I am sorry to hear about your bad experience with Host Gator. Best of luck with your new host!

CureCancer · 04-06-2009, 12:42 PM

Host Gator sucks because they block Google IP Numbers, resulting in Un-Indexing of your pages = Bad SEO choice!

and when you email them about the issue thousands of customers are facing - they reply back with - What is the problem?

.Andy · 04-06-2009, 05:41 PM

I'm sorry to hear that. Mistakes happen but I'd recommend paying a few months of head. Late fees are common however in this economy stupid. However I can understand them susspending your account.

cjbay · 04-06-2009, 10:22 PM

No I dont mind them suspending me, thats expected. Im pissed that they charged me $10 late fee, when I'm not late. I didnt pay them on the 1st, so they shut it off. There shouldnt be a late fee for me to get it turned back on, I wasnt late. The last time I paid them was March 1st, and that payment was to use the service throughout March. When March ended, and April arrived, I didnt pay, so I didn't get to use it for April, until I payed to have it turned back on. It's like signing up for a magazine subscription for a year, paying for the year in advance, then not renewing it after a year so you stop receiving magazines. But then you decide you want the magazines again, so you pay for another year, and they charge you a late fee for choosing to renew your subscription and pay for another year. I wasnt late, I just didnt pay to continue using it. Even the employee I talked to there acknowledged that I wouldn't have to pay the late fee if I used a different email address and signed up as a new customer instead of a current customer.

Natcoweb.com · 04-07-2009, 12:47 AM

Sorry to hear that. This may happen to any company with thousands of clients.
But still they are one of the best for shared hosting business.

**enlytend** · 04-07-2009, 03:49 AM

Quote:

I didnt pay them on the 1st, so they shut it off. There shouldnt be a late fee for me to get it turned back on, I wasnt late.

Sorry to hear of your problems, but they wanted payment on or before the first of the month, you didn't pay them until after the first - how is that NOT "late"

?
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/web-hosting-discussion/573067-why-hostgator-sucks-review.html

Being a day late with a credit card payment will cost you a lot more than that and damage your credit rating besides.

Quote:

Host Gator sucks because they block Google IP Numbers, resulting in Un-Indexing of your pages = Bad SEO choice!

FWIW, I've never experienced that (have had sites with them since 2005).

SeanPreston · 04-07-2009, 06:43 AM

So many people comment on Hostgators service, there as bad as GoDaddy...lol

sean

Tippy · 04-07-2009, 07:10 AM

Im billed the 2nd of every month via paypal, Ive been late a few times, like 8 days and never had any problems or fees to pay, mind you I did open a support ticket to let them know payment was going to be delayed.

XeHSean · 04-07-2009, 08:50 AM

Though it may seem like a silly policy, every company does have the right to follow their terms of service. Are you still with Host Gator now or did you decide to switch webhosts?

~ServerPoint~ · 04-07-2009, 11:11 PM

Hostgator is big host and indeed that can't satisfy anyone. In any case that has lots of the happy customers as well.
I hope you will be more successful with another host

cjbay · 04-08-2009, 09:10 PM

Originally Posted by enlytend

Sorry to hear of your problems, but they wanted payment on or before the first of the month, you didn't pay them until after the first - how is that NOT "late"

?

They wanted payment on April 1st, to host my website for the month of April. I didnt pay them, so they shut off my hosting April 2nd (or 3rd or 4th, sometime around then). I wasnt late because I was paid up until April 1st. They arent charging me a late fee for being late, because I wasnt late. They are charging me the late fee for not renewing my hosting. They just call it a late fee to confuse you so you end up paying for it. The guy on the phone even told me that if I set up a new account, there would be no late fee. So basically they want me to pay $10, to continue a service that is already paid for and is expiring. To renew it, will cost me the monthly fee for the hosting, plus the $10 "late fee"....to renew the service, to continue the service into the next month, not to make payment on something that is late.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=573067

Its a confusing situation, and thats exactly why they have the balls to charge people a late fee, because they know lots of people would be too confused to even realize whats going on.

This is hard to explain, so here is the situation:
February
I want my website hosted, so February 1st I sign up for monthly hosting and make payment for February.
March
March 1st rolls around, now its time to make payment for March's hosting, so I pay on March 1st, so that my website will remain hosted until April.
April
April 1st rolls around, I dont pay, now my account is shut off for not paying, so I can not use hostgator hosting for April, until I pay for it....so I make payment to have it turned back on...they tell me that I also have to pay a late fee now. As you can see though, Im not late. The last time I used their hosting was March, now that we are in April, and I have not paid, we are now even. They dont owe me anything because I have not paid for this months hosting, and I dont owe them anything, because my website is not being hosted for April, since I did not pay....so we go our seperate ways....but wait, I want my website back on, so I think I'll pay for April now, so I make payment, but now I have to pay a late fee too....

Yes I am still with them for a few of my sites, I cancelled hosting for most of them though. I have to leave a few sites on there for awhile until I figure out how to move them and set up databases etc. But majority of my sites were moved. Its just stupid of them to lose $200 they would have made off me each year over a $10 "late fee".

It takes alot for me to dislike a company, and this one and Godaddy are two of the largest, and most sheisty companies out there in my opinion. That probably is why they are so large though. Coincidentally, they both delay things to profit off your traffic with their parked pages.

SiberForum · 04-09-2009, 12:04 AM

If you have no places to move with all your web sites I think that better stay with the particular web host for a while

nascar59 · 04-13-2009, 07:22 AM

thanks for all this insight on hostgator,I was thinking of using them but now I have reservations about them,I have read about this on other forums

bauger · 04-13-2009, 12:55 PM

Its crappy that hostgator dd that to you. I got shafted by some other hosting run by well known marketers. Their support was aweful so I just canceled my stuff and moved on

~ServerPoint~ · 04-13-2009, 10:34 PM

Originally Posted by nascar59

thanks for all this insight on hostgator,I was thinking of using them but now I have reservations about them,I have read about this on other forums

As any web hosting company they can't be good for everyone and you should understand that

AmirKhan · 04-15-2009, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by 24HourDomainer

Host Gator sucks because they block Google IP Numbers, resulting in Un-Indexing of your pages = Bad SEO choice!

and when you email them about the issue thousands of customers are facing - they reply back with - What is the problem?

I disagree, I love host gator, most of my sities hosted there come up rank 1 for the key terms

????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=573067

or maybe Im just extremly good at SEO xD

bamaboy · 05-03-2009, 10:03 AM

I have used hostgator for a month now, but there support team is not pleasant

They don't answer my questions in perfect way (which i m expecting)
Talking about the hosting, i have never had downtime yet, worked good

defaultuser · 08-25-2011, 06:58 AM

Originally Posted by cjbay

.....

What you describe was late payment.

Quote:

HostGator provides a 10 day grace period from the time the invoice is generated and when it must be paid. Any invoice that is outstanding for 10 days and not paid will result in a $10 late fee and/or an account suspension until account balance has been paid in full. The $10 late fee is applied in addition to whatever else is owed to HostGator for services rendered. Access to the account will not be restored until payment has been received.

If you were within the 10 day grace period send a problem ticket and they will refund the late payment. If you were outside of the 10 day grace period they didn't do anything you didn't sign up for.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=573067

If you were within the 10 day window and they refuse the window then please report back wit that - in the mean time I don't think you have much to complain about.

You made a late payment.

SiberForum · 08-25-2011, 08:50 AM

Actually HG, as well as other branded popular companies, receive such reviews very often because many clients do not have enough host's attention.. It is simply impossible.

adda4u · 08-27-2011, 01:48 AM

I never pay on time .. they will bill me on every month 27th but ill pay them on next month 10-15th nothing happened.

To be frank hostgator lost its credibility as they are not serving like before.

menzl · 08-28-2011, 08:18 AM

So far I think HG provides a good product/service for the money. I had been w/ another host for about five years, but their server performance kept deteriorating and their only suggestion was to buy another package at an extra $100+ mo.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=573067

When I moved to HG I started w/ the shared business hosting and that worked very well. Then I moved to a shared reseller plan to host some client sites and it continues to work just as well.

My one and only peeve so far is when I was notified of spam reported on my email address by ONE PERSON and they threatened to shutdown my account. I had responded to an individuals ad in the barter section of craigslist. When I sent the copy of the person's ad and talked w/ HG support on the phone we got everything cleared up.

Seemed ridiculous to me at the time and still does; now I use an email address not using their mail servers when responding to CL ads.

wayne_chance · 08-28-2011, 04:19 PM

GH is indeed good. I've used them a few years and host so many sites on the shared server, it is a very good deal. Around $2 per site per year, who can complain?
I've tested someother hosting servers lately
inmotion offers 25 sites, costs more than unlimited with GH. Same speed, worse control panel. Those top hosting sites are bogus.
I've tried someothers, one thing you need is A GOOD CONTROL PANEL. The real cpanel like GH is very fast. This saves a lot of time. Cheap hosting companies have a homemade version. waste of time. Not only that cpanel software has to be customized, some hosting just provide it out of the box, but it needs to be customized to work well.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=573067
So i can tell you i've tested a bunch of shared servers and always stuck with GH. If it was cheap i would go somewhere else. In fact i will challenge anyone who can tell me a better and cheaper shared host!
I have a lot of sites and the run fairly well, but that fact is shared hosting is SLOW, if you are making money from a site you don't want slow. Not so slow but a bit slow.
It is shared so i use Amazon 3s and Amazon Cloud distribution, which is actually hosting a lot of the site most of the time. You can set a bucket in many location in the world. It only cost like &0.30 month! So together you have very good (fast) hosting very cheap with amazon and GH.
If you have a lot if sites you will understand how a BAD hosting company can just waste hours and hours of time every day with bugs or just software that is slow, that is not GH.

dubstep · 09-13-2011, 10:45 PM

I opened up a support ticket with HostGator tonight. Three minutes later I received a response. I emailed back and 7 minutes later they had solved my issue (upgraded my PHP version) and I'm back on my way again. Whole thing took under 13 minutes.

I've been with them for several years now and have few complaints.

GlobalMediaWebDesign · 09-22-2011, 07:07 AM

Originally Posted by AmirKhan

I disagree, I love host gator, most of my sities hosted there come up rank 1 for the key terms

????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=573067

or maybe Im just extremly good at SEO xD

Same here. I have 20 websites running on one hostgator account, most #1 or #2 on google and yahoo and I have never had a hostgator issue that wasn't resolved in live help within minutes.

Pay your bill on time, or set up autopay and you won't have a problem.

04-06-2009, 07:03 AM	THREAD STARTER #1 (permalink)
cjbay NamePros Regular Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 265	Why HostGator sucks - Review I've hosted with a few other hosts before, and I've compared the prices and hostgator has good pricing and I've never had problems with uptime, but if you are late on payment you basically get screwed if you continue to go through them after being late, just a heads up to anyone considering hostgator. I was late on payment the other day, so they suspended my account. You don't pay for the previous month's hosting with them, you pay in advance. So to use my website this month, I would have to pay them in advance, or they shut it off before it gets into this month's hosting. So I made payment, and a few days go by and my website was still turned off. They made at least $120 from my traffic this past weekend (they put up a parked page when they suspend you until you change your DNS). They told me that to turn it back on, they would charge me a late fee of $10. I asked the guy "why would you charge me $10 when I don't owe you anything, I'm paying for this month's service, I'm paying to have it turned back on, not to settle a debt or anything that I already owe?". He said that as long as I use the same email address, I would have to pay the late fee. So if I leave hostgator, then sign up for hostgator hosting again, with a different email address, I would avoid the "late fee". So basically hostgator already made over $120 off me this past weekend, and now they charged me a late fee for choosing to continue to go through them (I have to get my hosting activated again so I can get to all my files and move them to a new host). So just to let you know, hostgator is garbage. I've been hosting with hostmysite.com for about a year now with other websites of mine and although they are a little more expensive and you get less space etc., it's well worth the price because they haven't done anything sheisty like this with me yet. __________________ How to Make a Website Asian Dating

04-06-2009, 12:29 PM	#2 (permalink)
XeHSean NamePros Regular Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 371 Follow @xesolutions	I am sorry to hear about your bad experience with Host Gator. Best of luck with your new host! __________________ █ XeHost.net - Hosting websites since 1999! █ Shared Hosting, Reseller Hosting, VPS Hosting, and Dedicated Servers █ Free WHMCS, End-User Support, and WHMReseller for Reseller Hosting Packages! █ Follow us on Twitter - new special every Sunday! @XeHost

04-06-2009, 12:42 PM	#3 (permalink)
CureCancer Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 4,222	Host Gator sucks because they block Google IP Numbers, resulting in Un-Indexing of your pages = Bad SEO choice! and when you email them about the issue thousands of customers are facing - they reply back with - What is the problem? __________________ End User Domain Name Appraisal - How to find End Users - How to Email End Users Domaining Blog - Domain Name Landing Page Templates - Domain Name Appraisal Domaining Tools - How to sell Domain Names - How to buy Domain Names

04-06-2009, 05:41 PM	#4 (permalink)
.Andy NamePros Regular Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 666	I'm sorry to hear that. Mistakes happen but I'd recommend paying a few months of head. Late fees are common however in this economy stupid. However I can understand them susspending your account. __________________ 100% Legal Online Poker Site w/ $135,000 in prizes each month! Based in the US (Publicly Traded to) Free 14 Day Trial

04-06-2009, 10:22 PM	THREAD STARTER #5 (permalink)
cjbay NamePros Regular Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 265	No I dont mind them suspending me, thats expected. Im pissed that they charged me $10 late fee, when I'm not late. I didnt pay them on the 1st, so they shut it off. There shouldnt be a late fee for me to get it turned back on, I wasnt late. The last time I paid them was March 1st, and that payment was to use the service throughout March. When March ended, and April arrived, I didnt pay, so I didn't get to use it for April, until I payed to have it turned back on. It's like signing up for a magazine subscription for a year, paying for the year in advance, then not renewing it after a year so you stop receiving magazines. But then you decide you want the magazines again, so you pay for another year, and they charge you a late fee for choosing to renew your subscription and pay for another year. I wasnt late, I just didnt pay to continue using it. Even the employee I talked to there acknowledged that I wouldn't have to pay the late fee if I used a different email address and signed up as a new customer instead of a current customer. __________________ How to Make a Website Asian Dating

04-07-2009, 12:47 AM	#6 (permalink)
Natcoweb.com NamePros Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 31	Sorry to hear that. This may happen to any company with thousands of clients. But still they are one of the best for shared hosting business.

04-07-2009, 06:43 AM	#8 (permalink)
SeanPreston Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: UK Posts: 1,280	So many people comment on Hostgators service, there as bad as GoDaddy...lol sean

04-07-2009, 07:10 AM	#9 (permalink)
Tippy NamePros Expert Join Date: May 2003 Location: Montreal Posts: 7,100	Im billed the 2nd of every month via paypal, Ive been late a few times, like 8 days and never had any problems or fees to pay, mind you I did open a support ticket to let them know payment was going to be delayed.

04-07-2009, 08:50 AM	#10 (permalink)
XeHSean NamePros Regular Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 371 Follow @xesolutions	Though it may seem like a silly policy, every company does have the right to follow their terms of service. Are you still with Host Gator now or did you decide to switch webhosts? __________________ █ XeHost.net - Hosting websites since 1999! █ Shared Hosting, Reseller Hosting, VPS Hosting, and Dedicated Servers █ Free WHMCS, End-User Support, and WHMReseller for Reseller Hosting Packages! █ Follow us on Twitter - new special every Sunday! @XeHost

04-07-2009, 11:11 PM	#11 (permalink)
~ServerPoint~ NamePros Regular Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 994	Hostgator is big host and indeed that can't satisfy anyone. In any case that has lots of the happy customers as well. I hope you will be more successful with another host __________________ ServerPoint.com - a true hosting company offering online presence solutions since 1998 Web Hosting, colocation, dedicated servers, Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting *Wholly owned multi homed network, servers and facilities*

04-09-2009, 12:04 AM	#13 (permalink)
SiberForum Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 1,459	If you have no places to move with all your web sites I think that better stay with the particular web host for a while __________________ Canadian .CA Domain Name Registration and Web Site Hosting Sibername.com is an ICANN/CIRA/Eurid Accredited Registrar.

04-13-2009, 07:22 AM	#14 (permalink)
nascar59 NamePros Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 150	thanks for all this insight on hostgator,I was thinking of using them but now I have reservations about them,I have read about this on other forums

04-13-2009, 12:55 PM	#15 (permalink)
bauger NamePros Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 84	Its crappy that hostgator dd that to you. I got shafted by some other hosting run by well known marketers. Their support was aweful so I just canceled my stuff and moved on __________________ Make Money While Your Sleep Your Daily Grind is About to End

05-03-2009, 10:03 AM	#18 (permalink)
bamaboy NamePros Regular Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 283	I have used hostgator for a month now, but there support team is not pleasant They don't answer my questions in perfect way (which i m expecting) Talking about the hosting, i have never had downtime yet, worked good __________________ Selling: Japps.net wootmovies.com

08-25-2011, 08:50 AM	#20 (permalink)
SiberForum Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 1,459	Actually HG, as well as other branded popular companies, receive such reviews very often because many clients do not have enough host's attention.. It is simply impossible. __________________ Canadian .CA Domain Name Registration and Web Site Hosting Sibername.com is an ICANN/CIRA/Eurid Accredited Registrar.

08-27-2011, 01:48 AM	#21 (permalink)
adda4u Senior Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: India Posts: 1,442 Follow @adda4u	I never pay on time .. they will bill me on every month 27th but ill pay them on next month 10-15th nothing happened. To be frank hostgator lost its credibility as they are not serving like before. __________________ Free directory\| Social Bookmarks %%-

08-28-2011, 08:18 AM	#22 (permalink)
menzl NamePros Regular Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Oregon Posts: 351	So far I think HG provides a good product/service for the money. I had been w/ another host for about five years, but their server performance kept deteriorating and their only suggestion was to buy another package at an extra $100+ mo. ????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=573067 When I moved to HG I started w/ the shared business hosting and that worked very well. Then I moved to a shared reseller plan to host some client sites and it continues to work just as well. My one and only peeve so far is when I was notified of spam reported on my email address by ONE PERSON and they threatened to shutdown my account. I had responded to an individuals ad in the barter section of craigslist. When I sent the copy of the person's ad and talked w/ HG support on the phone we got everything cleared up. Seemed ridiculous to me at the time and still does; now I use an email address not using their mail servers when responding to CL ads. __________________ Portfolio Sale - Many groups/lots and individual names, extensions

08-28-2011, 04:19 PM	#23 (permalink)
wayne_chance NamePros Member Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 149	GH is indeed good. I've used them a few years and host so many sites on the shared server, it is a very good deal. Around $2 per site per year, who can complain? I've tested someother hosting servers lately inmotion offers 25 sites, costs more than unlimited with GH. Same speed, worse control panel. Those top hosting sites are bogus. I've tried someothers, one thing you need is A GOOD CONTROL PANEL. The real cpanel like GH is very fast. This saves a lot of time. Cheap hosting companies have a homemade version. waste of time. Not only that cpanel software has to be customized, some hosting just provide it out of the box, but it needs to be customized to work well. ????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=573067 So i can tell you i've tested a bunch of shared servers and always stuck with GH. If it was cheap i would go somewhere else. In fact i will challenge anyone who can tell me a better and cheaper shared host! I have a lot of sites and the run fairly well, but that fact is shared hosting is SLOW, if you are making money from a site you don't want slow. Not so slow but a bit slow. It is shared so i use Amazon 3s and Amazon Cloud distribution, which is actually hosting a lot of the site most of the time. You can set a bucket in many location in the world. It only cost like &0.30 month! So together you have very good (fast) hosting very cheap with amazon and GH. If you have a lot if sites you will understand how a BAD hosting company can just waste hours and hours of time every day with bugs or just software that is slow, that is not GH. Last edited by wayne_chance; 08-29-2011 at 08:25 AM.

09-13-2011, 10:45 PM	#24 (permalink)
dubstep Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Boulder, CO Posts: 3,097	I opened up a support ticket with HostGator tonight. Three minutes later I received a response. I emailed back and 7 minutes later they had solved my issue (upgraded my PHP version) and I'm back on my way again. Whole thing took under 13 minutes. I've been with them for several years now and have few complaints. __________________ “When I get a little money I buy domains; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.”

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