few questions

[MOckwell]

I just have a couple questions regarding your company. I have been running the gauntlet of web reviews and blogs the past week looking for a host for my website, and I've pretty much narrowed it down to you guys and Hostmonster. I was looking at the recent downtime report between you two:

HostMonster
HostGator

...and you guys are ahead by .5% which seems pretty significant considering the industry standard is 99.9% or something like that. Anyways, I am just flat out tired or reading biased reviews that are put together solely to sell as positive advertisement. I would rather hear it from the horse's mouth. What makes you better than everyone else? What do you offer that they don’t? Do you guys own your own servers or offer google or yahoo credits towards advertising? Thanks!

-Matt

[gwyneth]

This forum is mostly for peers--customers and potential customers of HG. You should read the review section to hear from customers.

If you are interested in a shared account your best bet is to try it and get a refund if you find HG isn't for you.

[MOckwell]

I am a potential customer...that was the whole point in the questions now wasn't it? It doesn't matter, I've already made up my mind. HG seems to be the only transparent company out there. Every server makes mistakes; this one just seem to be the only company who spends more time fixing them rather than hiding from them.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by MOckwell

I am a potential customer...that was the whole point in the questions now wasn't it? It doesn't matter, I've already made up my mind. HG seems to be the only transparent company out there. Every server makes mistakes; this one just seem to be the only company who spends more time fixing them rather than hiding from them.

I'm sorry, and I didn't mean to sound cross...I meant that the people who answer questions are peers and your questions seemed more directed to HG personnel and to need HG answers.

Yes, HG seems remarkably transparent.

BTW, the forum (which has another 10 or so categories you can see once you have an account) is another advantage of HG...lots and lots of info about using HG and building sites in general.

[GvilleRick]

I think you have seen one of the best reasons to move to HG. I worked for another company and any post that could be considered negative about the company was deleted immediately from the forums. HG allows honest posts and will admit it when they are at fault.

Once you have an account and have full access to the forums you will see how much advice is available. There are a number of active users willing to help with about any problem you might encounter.

[MOckwell]

Understood. No worries my friend. I'm hoping to learn alot of valuable information from you guys in the future. I'm definitely out of my league here. All I request is patience for my ignorance. Good day.

-Matt

[Prepress Forums]

I've been on HG for a few years, my main site http://prepressforum.com has been online since 2002, other hosts before HG. Have used other hosts but none as good as host gator. I have almost 200 domains, so I would use different hosts, thought no use putting all my eggs in one basket. Performance of other hosts, the best there are, kept me in that mode. I never trusted their management and systems enough to just put all my sites on their system.

But after finding HG, have actually been assisted by the owner on occasion and know he's very involved daily. This host is great, I have all my sites on HG and based on success of two or three great years now I upgraded from 5 shared accounts to the dedicated server a few months ago. No host is perfect, but I honestly don't think there's a better host out there than Host Gator. Best price/performance host out there in my experience.. a partner.

[Goddess Dix]

i've been with hg over a year now, first on a shared and then on a dedi. i've had multiple hosts over the years, and hg wins on several points for me. so here are my top 5 reasons to choose hg.

1. solid support. response time varies, but i've NEVER had a support request ignored here, and the people doing it are clearly doing their best to help. i've also never had a support request i couldn't get resolved to my satisfaction by the time the ticket was closed. and i've never been made to feel stupid, even those (rare-ha!) times when my support request was.

2. honesty. hq is much more upfront about polices than many places, as you've noted. a few minutes in the review forum will convince you that people's responses are not being edited. i also figured if hg could remain professional and polite to some of the jokers i saw post in there, i would be a dream customer for 'em. snort.

3. accountability...when hg makes mistakes, they try to make it better. they are open about policies when asked, and explain the reasoning behind them.

4. pro-social- hg makes significant donations to charity. that matters to me.

5. the support forums - especially the dedicated server forum- where my kind peers have helped me out of more technical jams than i can count.

[gwyneth]

Goddess Dix's list has my total agreement. I'll amplify one point and add two more.

2a. she wrote "if hg could remain professional and polite to some of the jokers i saw post in there [review category]". Add patient, responsive, and open to the possibility of HG error to the first part. Even under the most trying circumstances and to the most trying people.

6. HG seems good to its employees, which says good things about an organization, and respectful of their knowledge and skill, which says even more. (If employees are replaceable to a company, customers may be disposable.)

7. The HG owner got his mom a helicopter. While this has no direct bearing on the HG customer experience, to me it says a lot about loyalty and giving back. It also implies an atmosphere in which women aren't automatically considered less technically proficient, which is good for customers of both genders. (Assumptions about skill level, high or low, interfere with good service.)