Six Facts You Never Knew About Hostgator Shared Web Hosting

Compared to Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting and Dedicated server hosting, shared hosting accounts are relatively cheap and that’s why they are the first choice of many a folk that plan to build a website.

Unfortunately we sometimes focus on the price and features of the hosting package without delving into what really matters.

I’m talking about the web hosting company’s terms of service.

Just like you, I’m guilty of being quick to click "I agree" or "Accept" whenever a terms of condition notice pops up on my mobile phone or laptop computer.

What we fail to realize is that whatever business we are trying to build on the hosting companies servers is bound to be affected by certain rules.

Considering the number of calls/emails I get from folks that want to host with Hostgator, I decided to scrutinize their terms of service for you all so nobody gets caught by surprise like a friend of mine whose website was shut down by Hostgator ’cause it was going through a persistent Denial Of Service attack.

Disclosure: Please note that each time you make a purchase via any referral link on this site, I make a commission. Click here for more info.

SIX THINGS YOU OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT HOSTGATOR

Account Ownership: Some of you have contacted me requesting that I should help them pay for their Hostgator subscription because they do not have debit/credit cards.

What you guys don’t know is that according to the TOS, whosoever owns the credit card or PayPal account used to make payment is the LEGAL owner of the account. I don’t know how this clause affects first time payments or subsequent payments or both.

Visa debit cards aren’t that difficult to acquire these days and you can go for MasterCard Websurfer or Visa Prepaid Buxz from Zenith. In fact I even hear that Skye Bank’s Visa Prepaid Card is a lot cheaper than these ones (according to Ibraheem Toyin).

Unlimited Disk Space Catch: if you’ve been around the web for some time, you might have heard that unlimited disk space hosting plans don’t really exist and this is somewhat of true.

Hostgator offers unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth on all their shared hosting plans but this is subject to the amount of inodes you use up on the server.

According to Hostgator, every file (a webpage, image file, email, etc) on your account uses up 1 inode thus once you breach the 250,000 inodes mark on your account, you will be issued a warning and if you don’t heed the warning, you account will be suspended.

To avoid this, you are HIGHLY adviced not to host large files on your server and to make sure that your clean your domain’s email box regularly as each email received or sent is 1 inode.

NOTE: All accounts are backed up weekly in case of a disk failure. If you pass the 100,000 inode limit or use up to 20GB of disk space, you’ll be removed from the Hostgator weekly complimentary backup system.

Refund Policy: By default, you are entitled to a 45 day money back guarantee but if you use any method of payment aside from PayPal and Credit cards, such as Wire Transfers, Western Union Payments, Checks and Money orders, you will not get a refund.

Intense Server Resource Usage: at any given point in time, you must make sure that your website is not making use of 25% or more of your server’s resources for longer than 25 seconds and MySQL queries should not run longer than 15 seconds.

Violating the above rule will affect other sites hosted on your server and thus your account will be suspended till you fix the problem.

For wordpress users, a good way to prevent this is to install W3 Total Cache and research plugins carefully before installing them as some of them are hoggers of server resources.

Also avoid running cron jobs frequently. The minimum interval for cron jobs on Hostgator shared hosting is 15 minutes. I violated this policy recently when I installed the mailing list plugin, Newsletter but Hostgator had it reset without alerting me .

NOTE: sometimes, the over usage of server resources might not be your fault as is the case of my friend, whose site was the victim of a Denial of Service attack.

If you’re unfortunate to be a victim, Hostgator would do its best to mitigate the attack and if they fail, your site will be taken down and you’d be adviced to sign up for a VPS or Dedicated server account.

Mailing Lists Issues: In a bid to reduce our expenses online, some websites run mailing lists using the email system of their hosting companies as its free of charge unlike services like Aweber, MailChimp etc.

Do please note that Hostgator runs a Zero Tolerance Spam Policy and thus is against sending of unsolicited e-mail, bulk emailing, and spam. You MUST only operate a DOUBLE OPT-IN mailing list on their server and you are only allowed to send a maximum of 400 emails per hour.

Any breach of this policy, would lead to the termination of your account!

Forbidden Types of Sites: you cannot host just about any site on Hostgator servers. Investment Sites (FOREX, E-Gold Exchange, Second Life/Linden Exchange, Ponzi, MLM/Pyramid Scheme), Hacker focused sites/archives/programs, Sites promoting illegal activities, Forums and/or websites that distribute or link to warez/pirated/illegal content amongst others are NOT ALLOWED!

To my fellow Nigerians sharing free browsing hacks and what have you, if at any point in time, the mobile networks decide to crack down on such sites, Hostgator will terminate your account INSTANTLY without apology.

You’ve been warned!

For more information and before you sign up for any of Hostgator’s web hosting plan, I suggest you go through their Terms of Service @ http://www.hostgator.com/tos/tos.php and Mailing Policy @ http://www.hostgator.com/mailpolicy.html

I’ve spent over 2 years with Hostgator with no regrets whatsoever as they have been ABSOLUTELY amazing all the way.

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