My review so far...

[maverickguy]

This is a copy of my review from a digitalpoint hosting forum:

First of all, I think a lot of people give hostgator a good review because they are acting as an affiliate and want you to buy thru their link. So as of now, I am not an affiliate so my review is based solely on my experience.

I will agree it's attractive to newbies because of the unlimited bandwidth thing and low cost. But other posts on here pointed out that is pretty much a widespread practice--similar to godaddy or bluehost and many others. The fine print gets more technical. I asked hostgator and they said something like a limit of 25 cpu's or something at one time which is basically a request for their system to retrieve or do something. Many of the hosts won't say how much traffic is too much. I heard one place say from 3-6k visits a day and above 6k you might get shut down. Most small blogs won't get this kind of traffic. Thats another thing--hostgator--and many others--hope that you host at their place and then have little traffic..but isn't that how a lot of things work? Think gym memberships here.

So I looked around and did a lot of research. One thing I like about hostgator is that you can chat live rather than having to call on the phone. Sometimes you have to wait like 5 mins to get an operator, but I can do other stuff while I wait. As like anything else, sometimes you get a good helpful knowledgeable tech, sometimes you dont--what place isn't like that? Just re-connect and hope you get a better one. before I even bought my hosting I asked their chat techs TONS of questions--so kick the tires for yourself.

Now if you lose your blog files or something then yah, they might charge you to retrieve the backup files...but who wouldn't? After I purchased the hosting, they helped me setup my dns. I'm not a big techie, so every little bit saves me a headache. I think it was Jordan that did this for me..thx bro...

So is their goal to get a ton of accounts on one server and hope for no traffic? Sure it is---but thats what all of the shared host guys that offer unlimited bandwidth try to do. If you need to later because of traffic, just upgrade. If you don't like them, a lot of places will transfer your stuff for you if you go with their hosting for free. My main concern when choosing a host wasnt saving 1 or 2 bucks a month but the cust service. In my opinion, their live chat cust service is unbeatable. If youre not sure, just click on live chat and put their hosts thru the ringer then decide.

[maverickguy]

I've also created a little poll on my website so you can vote between several providers. Please visit http://americasnewsnow.com/which-com...-provider.html to vote for who you think the best host is--this forum provides great qualitative data, the poll is a bit more quantitative.

[GatorJames]

Thank you for taking the time to write such an in depth review of our services. We are constantly striving to be the absolute best in our industry and your post certainly brings this point into clarity.

If there is anything we can do for you or if you have any questions please feel free to let me know through PM or as a reply to this message.