A Warning About Hostgator Shared Hosting
When it comes to choosing a shared hosting solution, I've always recommended people to use Hostgator. For the last 3 years I've been using the shared service with no problems whatsoever, and I also use the dedicated hosting which is really good.
As a result of having no problems with the Hostgator Shared Hosting, I grew to trust it perhaps a little more than I should have. That's not to say that it is a bad service, but I decided to host an important video there over the weekend, and when I mailed it out to my subscribers, hostgator decided to shut it down.
The reason I was given by their support staff was that it was using up too much CPU power.
Now I was very frustrated because I did not receive any phone warning, I blissfully slept through the night while 1000s of my subscribers tried to click the link to the video only for it to be broken.
It was also particularly frustrating when their support staff told me that they sent me an email as warning (like I check my email in the middle of the night).
You see at Hostgator Shared Hosting you get lots of bandwidth, but read the fine print, you don't get lots of CPU power with shared hosting, so if you are getting a flood of visitors to your website, then you have the potential to get shut down.
This isn't temporary, they refuse to put the content back online. It took me a lot (and by a lot I mean over 2 hours) of talking to them to get them to allow me to put up a redirect from the shared hosting to my dedicated server, thus fixing the link. In all the video was down for about 9 hours.
Until now, Hostgator Shared Hosting has been fantastic, it has had zero downtime and has always been a fast and reliable webhost for me. Their dedicated hosting is even better.
However as a warning to others, don't get too comfortable with any form of shared hosting. If your website grows significantly in terms of visitor numbers, then sooner or later you should strongly consider upgrading to dedicated hosting so that you won't run the risk of being shut down right when your website is at its all time best.
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By kimsmith at 22:31 4 Mar 2010
I use Affilorama Hosting. What kind is it?
By exrayed at 22:43 4 Mar 2010
I have been using Host Gator for my hosting but am not sure what shared hosting even is. Is that why my main domain name is the ending for all of the sites that I have hosted?
Thanks for the info. I am getting ready for some to put up some videos and was wondering if I should put them on Host Gator or just embed them from YouTube.
Thanks.
Get Better Sleep
By MarkLing at 5:04 5 Mar 2010
Hi Kim, Affilorama hosting is shared hosting, which is currently only available to premium members. It has nothing to do with hostgator.
By michmill25 at 14:26 8 Mar 2010
Hi Mark,I want to know why you use other shared hosting like hostgator shared hosting,whiles the affilorama community offers shared hosting.whats the difference between the 2 and you happen to inspire people here on your website.....i mean we all want to be a guru like yourself so why are you not using your product?
cheers
mike
By Webmann at 15:27 8 Mar 2010
I have been using HostGator for a long time now and have had no real problems but in the past couple of weeks I notice that load times are much slow and I even get time outs. This concerns me greatly but I am not sure what to do about it as I have more than 20 web sites there.
By ChristophD at 0:52 9 Mar 2010
"This concerns me greatly but I am not sure what to do about it as I have more than 20 web sites there."
Email Brent? Or customer service first, and then Brent if they can't resolve the situation?
By KAMJ79 at 13:53 20 Mar 2010
Hi guys
Really interesting post and nice to see the reply from Hostgator. Like a few people have already said is that they don't understand by what you mean by shared hosting and all the different types of hosting.
I think it would be really great if Mark or someone at affilorama could do an article on the different types of hosting and what all the jargon means.
Kerry
By emumbert1 at 16:14 22 Mar 2010
I've been very happy with Blue Host. You can talk to their guys in customer support with relative ease, or on their live chat. They usually have pretty good suggestions about CPU throttling, which can be a major pain in the arse! I think everyone experiences difficulties with hosting, here and there, So far my experience with Blue Host has been positive.
By Crystal01 at 2:22 24 Mar 2010
Hi,
I am wondering what everyone's opinion of Affilorma hosting is. Our sites are currently with HostGator and we are wondering if we should transfer them to Affilorma Hosting. I eagerly await your input.
By marketer28 at 13:28 27 Mar 2010
I am just a newbie, intresting to hear about you experience and comments with hostings. I was on my way to buy the hostgator. It's my first webside ever. Should I start with the unlimited one with hostgator or should I just buy one domain? And join the hostgator or Amazon S when I have more websites?? little confused.
By Spiderman at 14:18 28 Apr 2010
Or, just read the fine print - or in this case, the server specs that are displayed upon purchase.
know what you're getting yourself into. if you don't understand CPU and such, then ask someone who does. but DON'T purchase a shared server account and complain about it afterwards because you failed to do your research.
By armani sunglasses at 23:59 21 May 2010
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By hosatgator free at 12:05 23 May 2010
TBH, that's said in their terms of service, so it's mostly your fault. Imagine - there are probably dozens of sites hosted on that very same server, and if you were hogging 100% of cpu time, performance for other sites would be very bad.
By Chanel Sunglasses at 13:26 25 May 2010
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By Dior Sunglasses at 22:26 25 May 2010
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By 100% FREE online dating at 14:39 28 Jun 2010
you're right , i have been a hostgator customer for 2 years , and sudenly my account get suspended! why? i asked them they said you are usimg much resources and you need to upgrade to VPS or dedicated ! after 10s of emails to get it unsuspended so that i can move it to a vps server
By Cheap Web Hosting at 16:14 18 Jul 2010
Hi,
I'm rather shocked by this review. I also use HostGator to host my sites and have never had anything problems (Although I suppose you didn't either until that happened).
I'll definitely have to be careful with how much resources I'm using, then.
Thanks, Jake..
By wholesale sunglasses at 8:29 29 Jul 2010
Great article Thank
you so much!
By Brian F. at 2:10 8 Aug 2010
I have had this same problem with 1and1.com when a particular WordPress blog of mine on a shared server got a huge spike in traffic due to publicity. Similarly, 1and1.com told me it wasn't a bandwidth issue but instead a CPU issue.
I wish hosting accounts offered some kind of an "overdraft protection" for customers who get an average of X traffic per day but may have one day a year when they get 10,000X. It's impractical to pay for 10,000 times your average traffic every single day to guard against that one rare big day. But it also stinks to have your site shut down on your biggest day of the year.
I've never had a problem with static sites getting these spikes, though -- i.e., plain old HTML pages. Only dynamic sites (like WordPress blogs or forums) that significantly use the CPU with every visitor have given me problems.
By GiceRallcek at 7:01 13 Aug 2010
your post is intertesting, can you share the blueprint that Rob follows? I will keep watching your post . great!
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