Bluehost and Hostgator are two of the largest and most popular web hosting companies online and justly so. They offer high quality and very competitively-priced hosting accounts which offer very similar features of which arguably most noticeable is that with both Bluehost and Hostgator you can host unlimited sites.
The benefits for online marketers like you and me is of course that this greatly reduces our costs. Suddenly we can launch a new website for the cost of a domain rather than having to pay for additional web hosting – you just add it onto your existing Bluehost or Hostgator account and you’re up and running.
But because these two hosts are so similar it seems that there are lots of questions floating around about whether you should choose Bluehost or Hostgator. I should say in advance that I have used both companies for years and both offer fantastic hosting at great prices in my opinion. So it’s difficult to go wrong with either one.
However the purpose of this article is to help those people who really can’t decide between Bluehost or Hostgator based on a recent experience I had with Hostgator which will forever affect my opinions.
Indeed while the main topic for this article is about choosing Bluehost or Hostgator in many ways it can be seen as a Hostgator review because the one situation I have had over the last few weeks with Hostgator is enough to help me make up my mind once and for all which of these two web hosts will be getting all my business from now on. Read on for the juicy details of exactly what happened recently…
At the end of February I logged onto one of my websites to find that it looked “wrong”. My WordPress theme was off which made the site look strange and also caused the navigation bar to move down to the bottom of the page. It took me some digging to figure out what was happening but after a while I realized I had been hacked.
The hacker had accessed my Hostgator account and added malware to most of my dozens of websites which not only meant all my themes were messed up but even worse every time anyone visited any of my sites (many of which receive significant traffic) my site would try to infect their computer with a virus. Not cool.
In short I needed to get the situation under control rapidly so I did some research into the solution and realized to my disappointment that the solution was well out of my control. I simply didn’t have the technical ability (or patience) to do what needed to be done so I hired an outsourcer with an impeccable resume to do the work that needed to be done.
He cleaned up all the sites and uploaded the new versions to Hostgator. Problem solved within 48 hours. Except the next day there they were infected again. And so on for two whole weeks while he tried different solutions as my sites slowly slipped from the search engines, I lost a rediculous amount of money and found myself getting ever more frustrated.
In frustration I ended up contacting Hostgator customer support to see if they could offer any advice on how the attacks were continuing. And frankly the “help” could barely be described as that. Poor at best is how I would describe it. Then one night I had a thought – these standard customer support people probably knew less than me about removing malware from a web hosting account. What I needed was to get support from people who knew about malware – and I was sure a huge web host like Bluehost or Hostgator must have people like that on staff.
Some digging and I quickly found the email address for the Hostgator security team who I contacted about the issue.
And in less than two hours Hostgator had identified the problem and eliminated it. Two weeks of expense and frustration dealing with a “professional” freelancer were extinguished in less time than it would take me to watch a movie. Even better the security team at Hostgator did it for free all as part of the service.
I have *never* been as impressed as how quickly and efficiently Hostgator sorted out my problem and that is why when it comes to choosing Bluehost or Hostgator I personally will always go for Hostgator. Quite simply the most important element to take home from my Hostgator review is that my own experiences of being in a really nasty situation with my back against the wall have illustrated to me perfectly how amazing the support at Hostgator can be.
Support that is so good they literally have a customer for life. Bluehost or Hostgator? For me the answer is going to be Hostgator for ever more. If customer service is important to you then while I’m not knocking Bluehost in any way I would strongly encourage you to go for Hostgator.
If you already host your websites with Bluehost or Hostgator please leave your own thoughts and experiences in the comments box below…
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Written By Richard Adams
I'm passionate about building online "lifestyle businesses" that require minimal time to run and allow for maximum enjoyment out of life.
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Richard,
Sucks about getting hacked. I actually got hacked as well while on Hostgator, luckily though I had a very recent back-up (plus, I knew how to remove the hack from the database).
I have also tried both and would also recommend Hostgator as the better solution. Their online help chat is always available and the support team is very friendly and helpful.
But i have recently switched to MediaTemple because hostgator was getting to slow for my amount of traffic (it was throttling). Using mediatemple now…and loving it!
AJ,
Thanks for your comment. Yeah I assure you that two weeks without my sites was something of a nightmare. At the time it seemed like it was never going to end as my “expert” and I worked away on it daily only to see the problem reoccur.
I have been so happy with the customer service at HostGator and I hink it’s these “trials” that really sort the wheat from the chaff.
I heard about another webmaster recently that was migrating all their sites over to HostGator and the HG support staff were personally helping him move over all his sites and databases which I think is pretty impressive. For the price, I truly believe they offer excellent value for money.
Richard
Hey Richard, I use Blue Host and my daughter uses 1and1. At this point I’m satisfied with Blue Host but 1and1 has got to go! We were looking at InMotion but I hear a lot of great things about Host Gator too. This post is helping me make a decision.
Another thing I use is the BackUp Buddy plugin and they just added a feature that scans for malware.
Thanks for this review.
Ileane,
I have had some bad experiences with 1and1 myself too and would never go back to them! Thanks for the heads up about the Backup Buddy plugin. I’m using Automatic WordPress Backup at the moment and have been very happy with the experience (it’s saved my skin more than once!) but will have to check out your recommendation to see how it compares. Have you ever tried Automatic WordPress Backup at all?
Richard
Hey bro!
Thanks for sharing your experience at Hostgator. This would really help especially those who are trying to switch to other Hosting sites.
You are right, sights that infect computers are totally not cool. It was great that the Hostgator solved the issue for you. This is an amazing service from them. They really deserve this kind of review from you.
Now that we learned from your experience, we will surely know what to do when we experience the same kind of situation as yours.
Ej
This is a very useful comparison for future subscribers. I currently use Hostgator and I’m very impressed on their customer support. There’s one time that the CSR double checked on me like 4 times a day to make sure my site is up and okay. They know how important having a good host if you have an online business and they live to that promise to me until now.
It still shocks me how great the customer service is at HostGator when you consider just how little you really pay on a monthly basis. In many ways their customer service is far superior to many far-more-expensive hosts I’ve used in the past!
Hi Richard, my blog is very new. When I started to set it up a couple of months ago, I had a few problems. I chose Hostgator to host it and I must say I was really impressed by their customer service. They were very prompt and each time I contacted them for advice they helped. I will surely be staying with them.
Hi June – I’m glad your experiences match up to mine – and good luck with the new blog! I hope we see you around here regularly