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HostGator rated worst web host
Rated Worst Overall

Scoring = 20
Out of a possible 
100 points:

HostGator Web Hosting

Overall: 20

Rates number 10 due to worst technical support, lowest overall professionalism, lowest customer care, and least dependability. 

Available Contact:

Contact available 24/7/365 by
Phone, Live Chat, and Email. 

Customer support:

Negative scoring - 40

Only one HostGator tech support member (out of 14 members), Shashank Wagh, made a valiant attempt to assist with the ongoing problems in the servers where our web sites were located. Unfortunately he worked only one shift and had to pass the support requests on to others where they were regularly overlooked or dismissed.

We have documented 137 different necessary requests for assistance (within 30 days) due to varied HostGator server error messages. The most common problems we encountered were "Server Timed Out"  errors of which we received 32 error messages during just one attempt to publish new pages to one of our web sites. 

Seventeen (17) requests for assistance were made by email regarding this one "server timed out" problem. Ten different tech support members and three supervisors passed the support ticket among themselves for seven days, even though we clearly stated in each of our emails to them that the problem continued. Copies of all previous communications were included after 5 tech support requests on the same ticket were made.

Customer support personnel were courteous in their email responses, but their sign off and offers for further assistance were generic copy and paste. Offering further assistance "if needed", when the issue at hand has not been resolved, is quite irritating.

Three HostGator facility supervisors and engineers offered assistance, but failed to see the issues through on most occasions. 

As a continuing test of HostGator services we left one web site, http://EasySiteUSA.com in the HostGator servers. The "Server Timed Out" problem has still not been corrected as I write this Dec. 27, 2005, sixteen days later. 

 

As late as AM Dec. 31, we are still receiving "server unexpectedly closed connection" error messages during upload to two other web sites we have in their servers.

Quality of Web 
Servers and other  
IT equipment:

Negative scoring - 40

Quality of equipment is unknown.

There is no statement regarding location or details of the equipment being used posted on the HostGator web site. 

HostGator is a second tier reseller of hosting services, meaning HostGator rents server space from a larger company and then resells it to the public.. the servers they lease space on are not located on their premises. 

Daily repeated equipment malfunction. 

Example:

"Server timed out" error messages received within seconds of beginning data upload to server and also during final stages of upload were continuous on seven different sites.

"Server not available" error messages were numerous. 

"Server unexpectedly closed connection" error messages received daily.

Incorrectly configured Hot Key feature which is normally used to block direct linking of images (stealing bandwidth) in a web site, instead blocked viewing of all images in the web sites.

Review standards, methods of testing, 
and results.
As a test of HostGator services we purchased a middle priced web hosting package from HostGator.com called "The Baby" on Nov. 9, 2005. See HostGator receipt 

Our intent to use our web site HostingCompanies.com (located in the HostGator servers) as a Web Hosting Review site was clearly stated to a HostGator technical support supervisor.

We began the upload of 24 different established and fully functional web sites to the HostGator servers. As a quality control standard exact duplicates of the web sites (under different domain names) were kept online and in a different web hosting company server. At the time of uploading to the HostGator servers all sites were functional with no errors, no exotic scripts, no oversized images, no unusual content, software, or other problems that would affect their status in the servers. 

Each time