Summary:
Hostgator is one of the best shared hosting providers with their Baby plan being my favourite as it lets you host multiple Websites.
One of the main key factors a blogger has to take into account, is finding a reliable web hosting provider which can play a very important role in the daily running of your blog. A good hosting company should be able to offer you no less than 99% uptime, great customer support and enough space in case you intend to expand your website.
If your web host is not reliable, then you can expect that the quality and performance of your site will be greatly affected. It is therefore important to find a quality Web host. While there are many reputable web hosting providers in the market, Hostgator tops my list as one of the best hosting providers among others and rightly so as you will see. So let me share my review on one of Hostgator’s best shared hosting plan – the Hostgator Baby Plan.
What is shared hosting ?
Shared web hosting service is a web hosting service where many websites run by different people reside on one web server and are connected to the Internet. This is generally the most economical option for hosting, as the overall cost of server maintenance is distributed over many customers. Its like a builder selling apartments or houses in a group which was built by him , the prices are a little more affordable than a standalone new house most of the time
The Hostgator Baby Plan: Review and Feature List
Besides Hostgator Baby Plan, Hostgator offers two other shared hosting plans: Hatchling plan and Business plan. Hatchling plan supports hosting for a single domain name, whereas the Business plan supports hosting for multiple domain names. So it goes without saying that if you have one blog, then Hostgator Hatchling plan is most suitable, while the Business plan is suitable if you have multiple blogs.
Hostgator Baby Plan like the Business plan supports multiple domain names. The difference is Baby plan is cheaper than Business plan. However, this could be because the Business plan has additional features, such as you get your own toll free number, a free dedicated IP and more.
Hostgator Baby Plan features:
· Unlimited domain hosting
· Unlimited disk space and bandwidth
· Unlimited sub domains, Email accounts and FTP Accounts
· 99.9% Uptime guarantee
· Instant Backups
· Unlimited MYSQL databases
· Easy to use Control Panel (cPanel)
· IP deny Manager (Security)
· Hotlink protection (Security)
· Ecommerce features, such as Shared SSL, CubeCart and ZenCart.
· Control panel features include instant forums, instant blogs, instant Formmail, instant portals, redirect URL and more.
· 24/7 Customer Support
Hostgator Baby plans also supports web-hosting features such as Ruby on Rails, Python, Perl, PHP 5, Fast CGI, Cron, Curl and more.
The cPanel dashboard is user-friendly and there is a Live chat support available 24/7. You can also contact Hosgtagor on their customer support hotline: 1-866-96-GATOR.
One of the main issues you do not want to have to deal with is a website with errors. Hostgator has an Error logs feature that will help keep your website free from errors. You will particularly like the Hotlinking feature, which is one of personal favourites, as this feature prevents others from stealing your images.
Hostgator offers tenure of up to 3 years. You can choose hosting for less than 3 years. There is for one month, 6 months, 1 year and 2 years. Hostgator offers 20% discount, but you can use this exclusive Hostgator Discount Coupon to get a 30% discount on your final bill.
For example, 2 year of hosting with 30% discount coupon will cost you $150.36 instead of the standard $214.80. Similarly, you can buy the 1 year or 3-year plan and use the 30% discount coupon to save up on your total costs.
Here is a list of the pricing for all the shared hosting plans based on a monthly basis.
· Hatchling: Perfect for single blog (4.95$/mo)
· Baby Plan: Perfect for multiple Blogs ( 7.95$/mo)
· Business: Multiple Blogs + Private IP + Toll free Number (12.95$/mo)
Apart from Bluehost which is my other preferred website company, I personally recommend Hostgator’s Baby Hosting plan, because you can add the Private IP feature for only $2/month, and with their Live chat support, you will not really need the Toll-free number.
So far, my experience with Hostgator has been great and I hope that this review helps you decide the hosting plan that best works for you. My personal recommendation is Baby Plan; however, you may opt for any other plan if you feel it will serve your needs better.
