A few questions before signing up...

[DNCarolyn]

Okay, so I'm looking to come to HostGator from Surpass. Surpass had great and inexpensive deals, but constant downtime and bad customer service. My sites relied on php and mySQL before, but now they are just simple galleries and sites with basic content.

First question; does HostGator sound like the right company for me based on that? I don't expect to be relying on customer service a whole lot. I just want uptime.

Second question; I hear a lot of complains about "https" access with information.com. Can anyone explain to me just what that is, and how much it would cost to get a "dedicated IP for my primary domain" to remove it? Would that even be necessary?

Thank you in advance! I have heard many good things about this company and would be willing to pay the added cost if it's worth it.

[hash]

this is a budget company, it caters to budget concious people like yourself. if you want a decent host, this is not for you, if you want a host for next to nothing, this is for you. bear in mind that you get what you pay for, if all you want is uptime and html, should be good.

[striddy]

Originally Posted by hash

it caters to budget concious people like yourself.

As you are here, are you budget conscious?

Originally Posted by hash

if you want a decent host, this is not for you

So why are you here?

Originally Posted by hash

if you want a host for next to nothing, this is for you.

And you obviously.

Originally Posted by hash

bear in mind that you get what you pay for

Yes, we all do.

Originally Posted by hash

if all you want is uptime and html, should be good.

Oh dear...

[GvilleRick]

Originally Posted by DNCarolyn

First question; does HostGator sound like the right company for me based on that? I don't expect to be relying on customer service a whole lot. I just want uptime.

Second question; I hear a lot of complains about "https" access with information.com. Can anyone explain to me just what that is, and how much it would cost to get a "dedicated IP for my primary domain" to remove it? Would that even be necessary?

It is impossible to say for sure without knowing what kind of traffic your site gets but generally HG accounts work well with accounts that have not outgrown shared hosting. I have a dedicated now but when I had a shared account the uptime was good and I never had any problems with support when it was needed.

The problem with the information.com page showing is when someone tries to access your account using a secure connection when you do not have SSL installed or if they try to access a page that does not exist and you do not have custom error pages set up. It is not a big deal to me but some folks have been quite vocal about it. If you want a dedicated IP then it is $2 a month.

There is a money back guarantee period so if you don't like it you are only out your time. Hash is right that HG is a budget host. I disagree about his assessment that HG is not a decent host. I have found HG to be much better than some hosts that charge a lot more. HG has a lot of accounts so there will be cases where folks have problems. They tend to be more vocal than the folks that are happy with the service.

[DNCarolyn]

@ hash: well, considering I'm planning to pay more to move here..
@ striddy: I agree, it seems kind of.. odd that s/he would be here with all of the "flaws" described
@ GvilleRick: Thank you very much for all of that! My sites on Surpass used to get a moderate amount of traffic, but I wouldn't expect to get more than, say, 100 visitors a day once my sites are up and running.

So if anyone is visiting from a secured location and I don't pay for SSL (which is like $75 a month, right?), then they can't view my site at all? Would having a dedicated IP fix both of those scenarios or just the 404 one?

And thank you, that makes sense. To be honest, downtime was my one major issue with Surpass- the rest of them were sort of induced by me switching domains and things. I'm willing to pay the extra money as long as HG will be an improvement (the money-back guarantee is a big help)

[GvilleRick]

SSL is not that expensive, the $75 is for a year if you get the HG certificate. You can purchase a certificate with a third party cheaper and have HG install it. You would then only need to pay the $2 a month for the dedicated IP.Generally it is not necessary unless you are running a business and need a secure connection to a shopping cart. I would wait and see if it becomes an issue with you.

[DNCarolyn]

Great, that is exactly what I was hoping to hear. Thank you so much for your help, GvilleRick! Because of the nature of my sites, I didn't think it would be necessary but it never hurts to check. Thank you again!

[vince]

Originally Posted by DNCarolyn

So if anyone is visiting from a secured location and I don't pay for SSL (which is like $75 a month, right?), then they can't view my site at all? Would having a dedicated IP fix both of those scenarios or just the 404 one?

Buy a cert for $15: http://www.theplanet.com/dedicated-s...ains/rapidssl/ it's good for 1 year.

However I'm not certain that sites you host will also hit your purchases static IP, can anyone confirm? If they do, you can easily redirect them to the http version and not have the annoying information.com parked page.

Originally Posted by DNCarolyn

And thank you, that makes sense. To be honest, downtime was my one major issue with Surpass- the rest of them were sort of induced by me switching domains and things. I'm willing to pay the extra money as long as HG will be an improvement (the money-back guarantee is a big help)

HG's pricing is reasonable, their support is generally good, and so far... the only downtime I've had is on the boxes I've setup to monitor HG! I've been around since May 2008 so I'm pretty new... few complaints, none worth talking about.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by DNCarolyn

So if anyone is visiting from a secured location and I don't pay for SSL (which is like $75 a month, right?), then they can't view my site at all? Would having a dedicated IP fix both of those scenarios or just the 404 one?

As Rick and Vince said, a certificate costs about $15 a year plus the $2 per month for the dedicated IP plus the one- time ten bucks for HG to install.

But...the only value of a dedicated IP is to be able to get a private SSL certificate. And as Rick said, unless you're doing ecommerce or payroll it's probably not necessary.

Rick is very knowledgable so I'll believe him about the "secure connection" issue, but I can't remember anybody bringing this up as a problem in the past two years of forum posts.

In almost all cases, the secure address is designated by the web site, not the web site visitor. In other words, you get to choose if a page is https, not the visitor. (I'm guessing that the "secure connection" visitors would be the exception, but as I said, this hasn't come up very often, if at all.)

There's lots of guidance in the forum (when you get your hosting account, you can see about 10 more categories) about making custom error pages, so with minimal effort the information.com pages shouldn't be an issue.

[Adorkable]

You didn't say what kind of hosting you wanted. I am a shared hosting customer.
So, here is that side of the park.

I find the uptime satisfactory.
Only been down a few times for under 10 minutes (that I know of).

Customer Service is bleh.
Make sure you're certain it's not a priority.

I too came from a super cheap place (600 GB of bandwidth for 20/year).
HostGator is definitely more decent, but still cheap. I mean 6,000 GB of bandwidth for $9.95/mo? C'mon... So just consider the risks that come with such "deals".

I contributed to the hoopla surrounding these search portals for "charity".

Per Support Team conversations:
A mandatory search portal (Information.com) is put on certain access to all hosted domains, including "https", without notifying customers in any way. Purchasing a dedicated IP will remove it from your primary domain. It can not be removed from add-on domains.

Others seem to have other ideas about this situation.
But, above is what I was told by HostGator.

[GvilleRick]

Just to clarify, when I spoke of connecting using a secure connection I was referring to users typing https:// into the browser address bar rather than http://. Even then I don't get the page using Firefox, only in IE. Personally I don't consider it that big a deal since it shouldn't happen very often.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by GvilleRick

Just to clarify, when I spoke of connecting using a secure connection I was referring to users typing https:// into the browser address bar rather than http://. Even then I don't get the page using Firefox, only in IE. Personally I don't consider it that big a deal since it shouldn't happen very often.

Ah! What is called in car racing "operator error"...in other words, when the visitor for some reason goes to extra trouble to type in the http and by mistake does it https.

Thank you for the clarification...so Carolyn, if that's the reason you were thinking of getting a SSL it seems unnecessary.

Adorkable, by "certain access including https" you (or rather HG support?) meant error pages, right?

[Adorkable]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

Adorkable, by "certain access including https" you (or rather HG support?) meant error pages, right?

Um... I asked:
Where did I agree to a mandatory search portal on all my websites?


They said:
You lease web hosting space from us, and not the entire server. Any access to the server via a domain name that points to it, but does not have a vhost entry on that port will pull up one of our pages. This is the nature of Apache to pull up the default vhost (the first one in the list) for the IP and port connected to it.


So... yeah? no?

[musiclover45]

hello ,

this is a budget company, it caters to budget concious people like yourself. if you want a decent host, this is not for you, if you want a host for next to nothing, this is for you. bear in mind that you get what you pay for, if all you want is uptime and html, should be good.

[striddy]

Originally Posted by musiclover45

this is a budget company, it caters to budget concious people like yourself. if you want a decent host, this is not for you, if you want a host for next to nothing, this is for you. bear in mind that you get what you pay for, if all you want is uptime and html, should be good.

Great, you have learned how to copy and paste.

[Keith W]

Musiclover45

Please do not spam the forum with your web site links, neither of which are hosted at HostGator