I'm glad I made the switch to HG

[Chimpie]

Hey Gators and future Gators,

I figured I would take the time to write my one week review of HG. "One week? What could you know in one week?" Well this one week was actually a six month decision process. Let me explain....

Last summer my previous host (Site5) changed management. Support went down hill, but my reseller server was very stable and I never had a problem so it wasn't a big deal. And, my sites were small to non-existent so if they went down it wasn't a big deal. But around the end of 2007 I started to get more into web design and took on a few bigger projects. Support was needed more as I started to learn the in and outs of web hosting. Experiencing the long delays in response from tech support, and being the business savvy person I am (insert laughter here), I started to look for a back up.

I created an account here at HG to test them out. I was impressed with how fast my account was created and how friendly and knowledgeable the sales and support staff were. I thoroughly tested out their phone, live chat and ticket systems and had zero problems. But again, my server was stable, I was a customer for over two and a half years, and I wasn't ready to leave Site5 just yet.

Between then and now my sites grew. Traffic increased, revenue was being created, and frankly I started paying more attention to my host.

About a week ago my server was down for somewhere between two and eight hours. Different sources told me different things. When I contacted support they had no clue that it was down. This bothered me. While I don't believe I lost any revenue, the fact that my sites were down with no attention from tech support was not acceptable. Because I was prepared, I made the switch to HostGator.

I signed up for the reseller account (Aluminum) and requested that my sites, about ten of them, be transfered. Within 24 hours not only was my site content transfered, but also all databases, something I didn't request or expect them to do. I was more than happy to do those myself. I made the appropriate changes to my custom/private DNS settings and almost instantly my sites were being recognized at HostGator.

I immediately noticed the speed in which my sites opened; the huge decrease in load time was amazing. I mean, my sites are not huge by any means, but the fact that I noticed that my sites were loading faster confirmed that I made the right choice to switch hosts.

Over the past week I've had eight live chat sessions and all were rated excellent. We ran into one problem during the creation of my account only because I had opened an account previously. After some thinking outside of the box by one of their sales techs we got the account created and I was on my way to becoming a very satisfied HostGator customer.

HG, you are doing a great job. Thank you!

[GatorFord]

Thanks for the great review. Welcome to the swamp!