Interviewed on 17 Aug 09
Chad Bean, Chief Marketing Officer
HostGator is a world leading provider of Shared Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting, and Dedicated Servers. The company was started in Boca Raton, FL in 2002, and in 2006 we relocated to Houston, TX. Over 2.2 million domain names depend on HostGator’s award-winning uptime, reliability and 24/7 support. In August 2009, HostGator was listed as #239 in the U.S. on Inc. 5000’s list of the fastest growing privately owned companies.
In the last few years HostGator has grown by leaps and bounds. We credit most of this growth to our primary focus from the start: providing the best support. While some hosting companies outsource their support, all 260+ HostGator employees are based right here in Houston, TX and are available night and day ensuring that your web site stays online.
New web site owners enjoy using the 4,500 free web site templates, free Site Builder software, and over 75 free scripts (forums, blogs, photo galleries) that can be installed with a click of a button from the control panel. If you already have a web site, we’ll transfer your files and domain for free to make the move from your old hosting company painless.
What unique selling points do you offer?
We offer unlimited disk space and bandwidth for all of our shared Web Hosting plans. Our Baby and Business plans can host unlimited domain names. Our Business plan also comes with a free private SSL certificate, free dedicated IP, free toll-free (866) number, and a free PCI compliant certificate.
Our Reseller Hosting plans include free billing management software for their clients, private DNS, free templates, and is 100% white label making it the perfect solution for a web designer to generate income from their web design clients by providing them hosting through our Reseller plans.
HostGator Dedicated Servers are fully managed with our 24/7 support. On top of that, all of our servers (including shared & reseller) are in multiple state-of-the-art Data Centers in Houston and Dallas, TX. The network is top-notch with DDoS protection, fully redundant architecture, and bandwidth from multiple concurrent Tier 1 providers with a sustained capacity of 250+ gigabits/second.
Describe the services you offer?
Our Shared Web Hosting plans are great for just about anyone. You can do so much with them whether you’re a first time webmaster or already have an established site. Our Business plan is perfectly tailored to eCommerce web sites by providing them with everything they need to sell online including free shopping cart software.
HostGator Reseller Hosting plans work great for anyone with a little more experience who wants to start their own web hosting company or offer hosting services on the side. Your clients will never know they’re being hosted through HostGator, and you can keep all the income generated.
Dedicated Servers work well for existing clients who have outgrown a shared web hosting account or reseller hosting plan and need more resources. Dedicated Servers from HostGator come with free management, so you don’t need to have to be an expert or have any server experience to use it.
Describe your target market?
Our target market is anyone looking for reliable web hosting. We host thousands of small personal web site for $4.95/mth, all the way to Fortune 500 companies requiring their own dedicated server solutions.
How is your company planning for the future?
HostGator recently became a Microsoft partner and intends to expand into the Windows Hosting market, to offer both Linux and Windows Hosting). This will include offering options for IIS 7, Windows Server 2008, MS SQL, and ASP.net hosting.
Currently we’re working on a VPS offering that really will blow away the competition. Before we launch our Windows Hosting and VPS hosting, we’re making sure that both services will provide the reliability that we’ve built our name from with our Shared/Reseller Hosting and Dedicated Servers.
What benefits can you offer your customers?
Because we’re an established, privately owned and profitable company with no debt, we can offer a stable environment where web site owners can grow with us.
How do you support your customers?
When I started in early 2005, HostGator still was using an outsourced support firm. When we started consolidating all of our support in-house we were able to maintain a much greater customer satisfaction rating. Currently our support is all US-based in Houston, TX. We’re available via Phone (1-866-96-GATOR), live chat support, and through e-mail tickets. Support is provided at no additional cost to all HostGator clients.
