Affordable Website Hosting Services

Having used the likes of GoDaddy and 1&1 for hosting in the past and being left severely disappointed (especially by the customer service ) I came across Hostgator. Having had previous problems I did a thorough bit of research this time and find on the whole many where delighted with Hostgator.

I signed up with them and now almost 2 years on I can honestly say I couldn't have found a better hosting provider, in fact I doubt there are many higher quality web site hosting services available.

Here then is my review of Hostgator and the services they offer.

HOSTGATOR FEATURES

Hostgator currently only uses linux hosting, although windows hosting is to become an option in the near future. Whatever the package is that you are interested in I'd be very surprised if you are left disappointed by the vast array of tools included.

The Baby and Swamp packages also allowing for unlimited domains to be hosted from the one account, which is fantastic news for those with several sites/blogs.

It also uses cPanel as a control panel and if you ask any one that knows anything about web hosting they will tell you this is the best there is. It includes fantastico which allows for amazingly easy installation of the included open source scripts (of which there are over 50 of) such as Wordpress and Joomla..

Hostgator also support Cron jobs, PHP4 and 5, Python, Ruby On Rails, SSH and others. The package also includes unlimited POP3 accounts for Baby and Swamp users ( 20 for Hatchling members ).

HOSTGATOR PERFORMANCE

Hostgator use top end state of the art Dual Xeon servers which are very well equipped and they offer 99.9% uptime guarantee.

Over the time I have been a user I actually found Hostgator didn't quite live up to that target as their uptime was actually just above 99.7%. However this is still much better than what I'd had with 1&1 and GoDaddy and from what I've seen is better than most others, plus the site was never down for more than 4 minutes.

HOSTGATOR CUSTOMER SERVICE

Without question they offer the best customer service of any web hosting provider available without doubt, if you don't believe me just check any forum or discussion board talking about hosting providers and you will find they all agree. 24/7 toll free support is provided along with a load of tutorials, an active forum ( which will normally have the answers to your problems ), an information area and a ticket system, with support tickets usually given a response within a couple of hours.

HOSTGATOR REVIEW CONCLUSION

I gave this away right at the start but just in case you need me to re-confirm it - Hostgator is highly recommended. Great support, packages, uptime, pricing and, well anything else you can think of that you'd want to find in a hosting company. Is Hostgator the top web hosting provider? You bet it is!!!

Check out Hostgator Here!!!

Affordable website hosting services are nowadays far more common than they may have been in the past. That said you should never simply use a hosting provider for the reason that they are the cheapest. Hosting providers that are cheap are also in many cases unreliable and therefore a waste of cash but thankfully there are a few that are both reliable and affordable.

Below are 5 tips that will greatly help with your research.

1.) Don't simply sign up with the cheapest hosting provider you come across, there are good low cost services available such as Hostgator but many of them don't fall into this category.

2) Have a look at what is included in each package offered by the company. It is a waste of time using a hosting service that only allows you one domain if you are looking to have multiple sites. Likewise a service that doesn't allow you to host a blog on the same domain if this is what you wish to do.

3) Do not choose cost over customer service as you will ultimately regret it. Make sure the company you use can provide fantastic technical and customer support 24/7 and are easy to get in contact with. Just because you are using a more affordable service doesn't mean you should sacrifice great support.

4) Be sure to checkout what kind of disk space and bandwidth is offered in any package you are considering as the last thing you want is to be off line because you have exceeded your limit or you cannot fit all the information you require onto your site.

5) Finally be sure to look into how reliable the service is that is offered, getting visitors to a site can be hard work without the site being out of action when they get there. There is no reason to except anything less than 97% uptime to your site.

Following the tips above will help you to find affordable website hosting services that are also reliable, and in fact offer many of the same advantages of their more expensive counterparts. I also recommend taking a look at Hostgator as they tick all the right boxes as a hosting provider.

Although this lense is mainly about finding affordable website hosting services for some that won't neccessarilly mean the use of shared hosting. If you have or potentially have a large, high traffic site to host then it may be that dedicated hosting is the way to go.

Dedicated hosting can be quite expensive when compared to shared hosting but there are still some dedicated host that offer great value services.

Here to help you decide what it is you would be better off with I have come up with this list of positives and negatives for both.

SHARED HOSTING
Plus Points:
- Very low cost to get going
- Easy to set up
- Tons of tools and scripts included to help you
- No maintenance to worry about

Negative points:
- High traffic volume will quickly use up your bandwidth
- Less secure
- Threat of viruses

DEDICATED HOSTING
Plus points:
- High traffic volumes are no problem
- More reliable
- Less threats to security
- You are in complete control

Negative points:
- High cost when compared to shared hosting
- Some services simply provide the server, with no support to aid you
- Harder for a complete beginner

In my opinion if you only have a low to medium traffic site or if you are totally new to all this then shared hosting is the way to go. At least if things don't go as planned you will have spent very little and won't be too much out of pocket. I'd use Hostgator as they offer a great package at a low price but feel free to look elsewhere.

Dedicated hosting is of the course the better option if you have a large, high traffic site in mind. Just be careful to find a company that offers support, especially if you aren't very technically gifted. Although Hostgator offer dedicated hosting I do believe LunarPages are a better option as they offer far more affordable website hosting services for those looking at a dedicated server.

Is a budget website hosting service really something you can trust your sites with? I mean lets face it, a lot of effort goes into making a website and getting people to it, so the last thing you want is for all that effort to go to waste thanks to unreliable hosting provider.

Don't worry as you can actually find a very good budget website hosting service, several in fact, if you take the time to look into providers. Plumping for the first cheap service you come across isn't recommended though.

Many cheap providers do still believe they can get away with a poor service, so as I said a little research or advice is still needed. The amount of competition around in the low cost market however does mean that some companies are putting a huge effort into their product.

Some cheap web hosting solutions now offer just as many features and as high a level of reliability as some of their higher priced counterparts. This means those on a budget can still have a website and be safe in the knowledge that the hard work they've put in hasn't been a complete waste of time.