Founded in 2002 in Boca Raton, Florida, HostGator LLC has been providing unrivaled web hosting services and can be counted among the top web hosts today. HostGator is only about three years old, but their reputation for service and support is growing by leaps and bounds.

HostGator has been able to achieve this position in such a short only because of its state of the art Network/Data Center facility, a fully loaded hosting solution and prompt support, made available at a very affordable price. Operating out of The Planet datacenter in Dallas Texas (USA), HostGator will place your website behind a fully redundant Cisco Network boasting 10 backbone providers including: UUNet, Sprint, Level(3) and Global Crossing just to name a few. HostGator has at least GigE connections to these backbones to ensure your website is available 99% of the time.

HostGator has chosen The Planet to provide its customers with superior network connectivity with minimal required downtime. Located in Dallas, Texas, The Planet's Data Center boasts over 35,000 square feet of raised floor space featuring state-of-the-art security, safety, and cooling systems and is second-to-none in the industry.

•  Hosting Control Panel
Control Panel features that are provided by HostGator in all of its above shared hosting plans are Fantastico Hot!, Hotlink Protection, Ip deny manager, Custom Error pages, Instant Blogs, Instant Portals, Instant php nuke, Instant Chatroom, Instant Forums, Instant Guestbook, Instant Counter, Instant Formmail, Redirect URL, web based ftp, PW Protected Directrories and phpMyAdmin.

•  E-mail Features and Functions
HostGator offers 20 Pop3 accounts in hatchling pakage and unlimited in all the three packages. They also offer Web Mail, E-mail alias, Auto responders, Mailing list, Catch All, Spam Assassin, Mail Forward, IMAP, SMTP,

•  Developer & Programmer Tools:
The facilitate developers and programmers by supporting unlimited MySQL Databases, CGI, PHP, Perl, Python, SSI, Cron, FrontPage, Curl, GD, Image Magick, Streaming video and music , and Free module Installation. Except hatchling plan all the other plans also support site builder.

•  E-commerce Support and Tools
First two packages don't offer Private SSL while others do. Some features like Shared SSL, Agora shopping cart, Instant osCommerce, and Cube Cart are supported by all the four plans.

•  Web / FTP Statistics
HostGator also offer AWStats with real time updates, Webalizer, Raw log Access, Referrer log, Error log and Analog .

Methods and means by which a web host provides support services is one of the major factors in making of a top web host, plus it goes a long way in determining the satisfaction level of its customers. What makes Hostgator different is their support team. The reputation of their support is that it is top notch and always ready to respond. The majority of user reviews in forums is very positive.

They offer 24/7/365 phone support, live chat and 99.9% uptime (99.5% for the hatchling plan). Their online chat is easy to use and responsive and they have a 1-800 number as well. Email support is also provided as an alternative method of direct contact, however if you are just seeking answers to basic questions you should visit the FAQ or Online hosting community that HostGator places at your disposal. Almost all support tickets take no longer than 15 minutes to get responded.