IMMania.com

In my brief time doing business online, which is now just a bit over 2 years, I’ve had a grand total of 2 different Web hosting companies. The first business web host I decided on after reading numerous forum posts about the merits and faults of various hosting companies. And let me tell you, if you’ve ever gone down this path there are more Web hosts and differing opinions on them than you can shake a stick at!

A fairly common search query by now is to simply type “webhostname sucks” into Google and read the first couple of relevant results. It’s enough to scare you off just about every hosting company out there!

So why so much dissatisfaction with business web hosts?

First, you need to get an appreciation of the the economics behind the Web hosting business, which boils down to extremely thin margins. The Web hosting industry was shaken out a long time ago and became highly commododized. The costs associated with running a network operation center are steep. Combine that with an average monthly cost of $3.95 for a shared hosting account and the only way you make money in the hosting business is with volume. Lots of volume! And of course upsells to premium packages such as virtual private servers and dedicated servers.

So it really shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise when you don’t get a personal support technician for your $3.95 shared hosting account or all the bandwidth you can eat. Then again, not having your site down more than it’s up is not too much to expect either for your $3.95 per month.

My previous web host, whom I won’t name, wasn’t horrible, but a series of problems that took too long to resolve in my opinion were the final undoing of our relationship. To make matters worse, there was no telephone support for shared hosting accounts and even online chat had been taken away. The method of contact to their support staff was via email support tickets, which they didn’t always promptly respond too.

Having my site unavailable for several hours during a high volume Adwords campaign is the equivalent of flushing crisp twenties down the commode!

I was also limited to a paltry 5 domains and a single MySQL database with the basic $9.95 per month account. I soon “upgraded” to the $12.95 per month account which gave me a whopping 10 domains and 3 MySQL databases. Some deal, huh?

Of course I quickly outgrew this account and needed something that was much more generous with both domains and databases and more importantly, much more reliable with more responsive customer support.

I think I’ve found just such a hosting company.

I made the switch to HostGator 3 months ago after hearing mostly good things about them from other IMers. Their virtually unlimited domains and MySQL databases really fit my needs. After all, I’ve been cranking out my eBay mini-money sites at a pretty good clip and I’m also ramping up my WordPress blog building, so the generous MySQL database resources are a real blessing.

So far, to my amazement, I haven’t caught my sites down even once. This is compared to several times a week with my former business web host. Though my former Web host provided cPanel, the installation at HostGator is much more organized and cleaner.

I’ve gone with the “Baby Gator” shared hosting account, which is only $9.95 per month and more than meets my needs. There’s a “Hatchling” shared account for $6.95 per month, but only allows a single domain. I thought it was pretty much a no-brainer to pay the extra $3.95 per month and get unlimited domains and many other additional features such as better guaranteed up-time. If my bandwidth usage ever exceeds my limit, then I’ll just jump up to a dedicated server, which will most likely also be with HostGator.

I did avail myself of their support shortly after setting up my account. Their TOS states that shared hosting account clients are not permitted to install any of the recent spate of “spying” scripts such as Google Cash Detective and AdSpyPro. I own AdSpyPro and inquired about an exception since I wasn’t going to be a moron and run the cron job every 5 minutes.

I used the online chat feature to chat with a first line support rep. He/she took the time to go off and ask a superior, but not surprisingly, I was told “no”. So this is something to consider if you want to run any of these spying scripts on a shared server. Personally, I didn’t really get much benefit from AdSpyPro. It’s a very nice script, but I can live without the intelligence it provides.

So far I’m an extremely happy camper with my HostGator “Baby Croc” plan. Maybe it’s just having been with a business web host that left a lot to be desired, but I can honestly say that “I love HostGator!”

==>Check out the various hosting plans at HostGator.com<==

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