The HostGator Couponer

WordPress is the most popular web design tool being used around the world today, with an estimated 16% of all sites being powered by the versatile application. It is a theme-based website builder that can be used to create almost any sort of website that you could want to use. The secret to its versatility is the Open Source design that allows a huge number of developers to create unique themes and functional plug-ins to extend the application and ability of even the most basic website. The other advantage that WordPress has over many other website design scripts is that you can install a new website with a few clicks, without the need for any specialist computer skills, making it possible to have an entire website built and published in a few short hours.

All Hostgator shared hosting accounts come with a simple WordPress installer included as a standard part of the package. It is available through the cPanel QuickInstall feature that gives you access to over 70 different web design scripts. To install WordPress on your HostGator account, all that you need to do is to log into your Hostgator account and navigate to your cPanel. In the software and services section there is a QuickInstall link that opens the script installer. The WordPress installer is located near the top of this long list, under the blog software heading. To install WordPress on your website, you merely need to click on this link and it will open a window where you can name your new blog, designate an administrator e-mail address and choose your webmaster user name. After that, a single click will install your new WordPress site directly to the chosen directory in your Hostgator account and you can begin to customize it straight away.

The new website may need to have your domain connected to it and the full instructions for connecting your new website to the domain that you want to use for it are provided in Hostgator’s user forums. If changing the name servers and updating the permalinks is too difficult for your skill level, then the technical support staff can guide you through the process and within 48 hours (the time that it takes to propagate the new domain) your new WordPress website will be available to be indexed by the search engines.

Hostgator’s QuickInstall allows you to create as many WordPress websites as you want to use, and both the Baby Plan and the Business Plan offer shared hosting that features unlimited domains and subdomains as a standard inclusion. QuickInstall will create the new sites in any directory that you choose to use, and the unlimited disc storage space that is included with all Hostgator shared hosting packages means that you don’t have to worry about running out of room, if you want to use multiple sites in subdomains.

Because WordPress is an Open Source script, it is able to be used to create highly customized websites to suit almost any purpose. Using the CSS editing functionality of the script it is easy to modify aspects of the design like font types and sizes to match your corporate style guide. This also makes it easy to design custom pages to present your web presence exactly the way you want to. This basic flexibility is supported by the huge range of plug-ins that extends the functionality of WordPress websites. These are also designed as Open Source applications and so there are people everywhere creating new functional plug-ins for WordPress websites. These are also often free or have free versions with an option to upgrade to a proprietary service as your needs expand. Another user friendly aspect of WordPress that has made it so popular is the option to use of widgetized areas on every page that you make that makes it easy to include a number of interactive functions, from adding a subscription form to placing a shopping cart link in the sidebar, as well as almost anything else you can think of.

With plans that are tailored to every level of internet user, from beginners and hobby bloggers to large corporate websites, Hostgator makes putting yourself or your business online a simple process. Coupled with the user-friendly, flexible and function-packed WordPress web design platform, Hostgator is an all-inclusive shared hosting package that offers a fully featured webhosting service, with everything you need all available through a single, easy-to-understand control panel. This will continue to make Hostgator one of the best values for money shared hosting services available on the web for a long time to come.

One of the most important decisions you will have to make when you are starting a new website is which web host you will use for it. The choice will depend upon the features you will want to have included in your package, and the budget you have to spend on your webhosting. It is important that all of the functionality you will need is included, but at the same time you don’t want to spend money on features that you aren’t going to use. You also want to be sure that you get full service and technical support right when you need, it to ensure that your website is live online for the maximum amount of time. This comparison of two of the top web hosting companies, Hostgator vs Bluehost, will help you to decide which sort of service will be best suited to your individual internet usage.

Hostgator

Hostgator provides a shared web hosting service that is offered at three different levels, to suit different kinds of Internet users. Their most basic package, the Hatchling Plan, provides webhosting for a single domain that is suitable for beginners or hobby bloggers. Even though it is restricted to a single website, it still includes performance features like unlimited data transfer and bandwidth, as well as all of the disc storage space that you can use.

With prices starting from $3.96 per month for the first year, Hostgator is among the least expensive services for basic webhosting that are available at the moment. This doesn’t mean they skimp on the important features, like website design tools, analytics software or internet marketing applications. This basic package can be upgraded at any time, if you want to add another website or subdomain to your hosting account. The next step up is the Baby Plan that starts at the still-reasonable price of $6.36 per month. This plan allows you to use an unlimited number of domains on a single account, and makes it possible to park as many domains as you own all in one place.

Their top-shelf webhosting package, the Business Plan, starts at $10.36 per month and provides an unlimited shared hosting service. This includes private SSL and includes a dedicated IP so that you can provide your customers with a secure environment, where they can make online transactions in confidence. The Business Plan also includes a free toll-free number as well as anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to ensure that your data is kept entirely private. All three shared hosting plans come with a full selection of simple-to-install web design scripts that make it easy to create your own website, with a minimum of experience.

Bluehost

In contrast to Hostgator, Bluehost provide a flat-rate service that is all-inclusive. For the base rate of only $6.99 per month, all shared hosting accounts come with unlimited bandwidth and disc storage included. Unlike Hostgator, they also include the use of unlimited domains and provide the first year of registration on any new domain that you purchase through Bluehost for free. On top of this, they also allow unlimited e-mail addresses and support e-mail forwarding, as well as full FTP access. Like Hostgator, cPanel is used to manage your internet properties all in one convenient place, but Bluehost does offer a slightly greater array of functionality, like a choice of shopping cart applications and several variations on your e-mail delivery.

Both webhosts provide a reliable service with 24/7 technical support that has earned them a good reputation in the industry. There is very little to differentiate between the quality of the services that they provide, and so it is more likely going to come down to the amount of internet service that you need to pay for. If you have a simple site and only intend to use a single domain, then Hostgator may offer the most cost-effective solution. Even stepping up to the Baby Plan to pay for the room to use and store multiple domains is competitive with Bluehost, but the Business plan is slightly more expensive for the top end user than the comprehensive, all-inclusive basic service from Bluehost. When you throw in the savings to be had from Bluehost, who provides a free domain and $150 of internet advertising credits with Google AdWords and Facebook, this may make it a slightly more attractive service for setting up a new website, especially if you plan to expand on your online properties at a future date.

Choosing the right webhosting plan to suit your needs depends upon how many services you will actually need to run your website. The needs of large, corporate users are obviously going to be different from those of a hobby blogger or someone who wants to set up a small online retail business. Many webhosting services offer an all-inclusive deal that may be great for bigger users but includes things that smaller users will never need. The service from Hostgator uses this variable need for internet service to structure its shared webhosting plans, to suit different levels of usage by different kinds of users. The Hostgator pricing structure ensures that you save money by only paying for the Internet services that you want to use, while remaining flexible enough to be easily upgraded, if your Internet usage demands grown in the future.

The basic shared webhosting service from Hostgator is offered as a choice between three different plans. The most basic, the Hatchling Plan, provides just enough Internet service for a single website. At the same time, it provides unlimited bandwidth and data storage, as well as e-mail accounts so that it can be used for almost any application. Because of the restriction to a single domain the cost can be kept to a minimum and prices start at only $3.96 per month for a three-year hosting agreement.

A step up from this basic plan, the Baby Plan, allows unlimited domains as well as sub domains, and allows you to use a private SSL to the package for secure online transactions. These added features come with all of the standard inclusions from the Hatchling Plan, with prices starting at $6.36 per month for a three-year hosting plan. The final shared hosting option is the Business Plan, which provides an all-inclusive package for $10.36 per month over three years. This includes the unlimited features from the other plans, as well as a toll free number, a dedicated IP and an integrated SSL for your online money transfers.

Included in the price of all of these plans is everything that you expect to get from a fully serviced webhosting company. There is 24/7 technical support and service, as well as free, automatic backups, so that your website will always work at the peak of its performance. Hostgator provide a 99.9% uptime assurances, as well as a 45-day money back guarantee if you aren’t completely satisfied with the service that you are getting.

The fully featured service includes the use of cPanel to manage your webhosting account and to set up e-mails, auto-responders and access to the script installers and other third party features. Hostgator accounts come with over 70 single-click install scripts to make creating just about any sort of website easy. There is also a user-friendly, template-based website design tool included as standard with every account that allows users with even the most basic computer skills to create a working website quickly and easily.

Every shared webhosting account also comes with a range of analytics tools that allow you to measure the traffic to your website, as well as several useful anti-spam tools. They also include $100 of Google AdWords credits that can be claimed when you spend your first $25 on search engine marketing ads with them. Every webhosting plan from Hostgator includes a selection of e-commerce features included with every webhosting account, to make it easy to set up a website that can handle transactions, and the Business Plan comes with all of the online security features that are needed to provide your customers with the confidence to share their personal financial details with you over the web.

When compared to the cost of many webhosting services, Hostgator provides a cost effective way to pay only for the internet features that you will need to use for your website. For smaller users, who are never likely to use more than one domain, the Baby Plan offers the best value for money webhosting service on the web. It has enough features to make it a practical choice for a start-up website, and the easy upgrade ensures that there will always be room to expand your plan as your internet usage increases. At the same time, the full range of features means that you won’t have to spend any extra on third party applications to have a fully functional website, regardless of which plan you decide is the right one for you.

HostGator are a Houston based web hosting company that was established in 2002 and has grown to host over 8,000,000 websites worldwide. They are one of the largest suppliers of webhosting services with 12,000 servers being under their management. They provide webhosting services to every level of user from individual hobby bloggers right up to Fortune 500 corporations with sophisticated internet requirements. They provide a range of services that includes a selection of shared hosting and reseller packages as well as Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and dedicated server accounts.

The shared hosting from HostGator is offered at three levels of functionality and service. The cheapest account, called the Hatchling Plan, starts from $3.96 per month and allows only a single domain and limits other features. In order to include features like parked domains and private SSL pages for secure online transactions it is necessary to upgrade to the Baby Plan at $6.36 per month. The top of the line shared hosting package, the Business Plan, includes unlimited domains, sub domains and parked domains as well as a private SSL and a dedicated IP as well as a toll free number. All of these plans include unlimited data transfer and disk storage space as well as third part shopping cart and e-mail autoresponder applications. They also provide $100 of Google AdWords credit when you spend your first $25 on advertising with them. HostGator provides 24/7 technical support and service with a 45 day money back guarantee.

The reseller packages from HostGator come in a range of five different levels of usage. These begin with the Aluminum plan that provides 50 GB of disk space and 500 GB of data transfer. This increases incrementally up to the Diamond Plan that provides 200 GB of storage and 1400 GB of data transfer per month. Prices start from $24.95 per month for the least expensive plan and go up to $99.95 per month for the Diamond Plan with the flexibility to upgrade your plan as your needs increase. All reseller accounts come with unlimited domains, e-mail accounts and individual instances of the C Panel web account management platform for your clients to use. They also include a free billing system and a domain reseller account so that you have everything that you need to become your own webhosting business. All of the features like website builders and one click script installers as well as email autoresponders and the other applications that are available with HostGator’s shared hosting accounts come as a standard part of the reseller package.

For users with greater internet demands there is a choice of nine levels of VPS hosting available as well as four different dedicated hosting plans. The VPS plans are an effective bridge between shared hosting and using dedicated servers and all of HostGator’s VPS plans are fully customizable to suit your individual needs. With plans starting at $19.95 per month for 10 GB of disk space and 250 GB of data transfer and going up to $219.95 for 231 GB of storage and 3150 GB of bandwidth there is a level of service that will be perfect for everyone’s needs. If you need the added security of having a dedicated server there is a choice of either Linux or Windows that begin at $174 for a basic package. The top of the range is $374 per month and gives you a massive 2 TB of disk space and 10 TB of data transfer. Dedicated server accounts come with 5 IP addresses included as well as all of the functionality and features that are included in their shared hosting accounts.

Whatever your level of internet use, HostGator has a service that will meet both your needs and your budget. Their long history of reliable service has made them one of the leading web host services available on the web and they continually score well in customer satisfaction surveys. They advertise a 99.5% uptime and every web hosting plan is backed by a money back guarantee. Along with the huge range of included features, the simple plan structure allows you to choose the one that has just the amount of functionality that you want to use which ensures that you aren’t paying for internet services that you don’t need. This continues to makes HostGator one of the best value for money webhosting services available.

HostGator.com LLC was founded in 2002 by the current chairman Brent Oxley, who founded the company while still attending Florida Atlantic University. In the short time since then, HostGator has become a hosting leader with more than 12,000 servers under management and more than 8 million domains hosted – which makes up about 1% of all internet traffic. HostGator is known to be one of the so-called “cheap” hosting companies and Hostgator coupons have been responsible for much of the new growth.

The company originally had its home office in Boca Raton, Florida, but moved to a new 20,000-square-foot facility in Houston, Texas, to accommodate the rapid growth.

There are four different types of web hosting available from HostGator, and a HostGator coupon is available for all of them – but typically only for the first invoice.

Shared web hosting (also called virtual hosting) is the most economical method of web hosting, as it represents multiple websites operating from its own spot or partition on a single internet server. The cost of maintaining this server is “shared” by all single-customer participating sites.

Clients who use reseller hosting use their allotted disk space and bandwidth to host websites for third parties. Typically, these people are web designers in their own right and resell their space to their clients, usually at a profit. But the customers of these resellers need to realize that there is only so much available disk space, so these customers tend to be small businesses with low or relatively low website traffic.

VPS hosting uses a virtual private server. Customers who use this service are actually on the same physical machine, but software makes it appear as though they have their own separate computer. Each VPS is dedicated to an individual customer and has the privacy characteristics of a separate computer.

Dedicated hosting allocates a separate server for each customer. It is not shared with other customers and is more flexible than shared hosting because the customer has full control over the server. Because of the higher cost of this option, dedicated hosting is best for high-volume websites.

These four types of hosting options means that its customer base of more than 400,000 customers operating over 8 million domains includes novices as well as seasoned web designers. And HostGator is growing. In 2008 Inc. Magazine rated them as the 21^st fastest growing company in America.

So how do customers (particularly novice customers) decide on which HostGator hosting plan to purchase? For customers who are resellers, this is a simpler answer – choose the reseller plan. But for those who are not, some research by the prospective customer should be the bi-word.

One thing that most people seem to agree on is that unless the customer is a “small-time” blogger who simply needs a good website for his/her blogs, what’s needed is unlimited domain hosting. Those who are using multiple blogging sites with the intent of making money (even if only two sites are immediately needed) need a plan that has unlimited web hosting and unlimited websites.

Ultimately, for most people who are not resellers, this will save money, be more flexible and be more convenient as everything can be handled with just one account.

This is very important when dealing with HostGator coupon offers and trying to figure out which one will suit all of the needs of the customer. It will cost more money in the long run to update from the lowest plan to the one ultimately needed than to choose the correct plan in the first place.

This, of course, will hold true for all hosting companies, not just HostGator; but it is very important for the customer to educate his or herself as much as possible.

An online customer review seems to underscore this point. In this case, the customer probably needed a VPS or dedicated package, but had something that appeared to be more cost-effective. Problems developed and some important URL links were broken. Customer service repaired the damage but the customer was forced to consider an upgrade. This created unnecessary downtime and ended up costing more than if the correct package was purchased in the first place.

HostGator is one of largest web hosts in the world. Customers can get rock-bottom packages (with rock-bottom pricing) if needed, and it will be backed by top-notch customer support. And for those who deem this to be important, it is a “green” company. But they cannot read minds. A “rock-bottom” price may not be the answer simply because this rock-bottom price represents what HostGator considers to be a rock-bottom level of allowable features.

Many of these hosting packages also have “sub-packages” associated with them, making the choosing process all the more daunting for the novice who only wants to purchase a package that suits the need for as little money as possible. And all of these packages will be described in glowing terms, and all seem attractive.

If the website under consideration is a professional website, forget about so-called “Free-Hosting.” Most people are going to be faced with only two viable options – shared hosting, or dedicated hosting,” with dedicated hosting being the more expensive.

What matters here is the type of website involved. As a general rule, shared hosting will probably suffice for small to medium-sized websites. For those with larger websites, dedicated hosting will probably be more suitable. This rule, of course, is not iron-clad. But these issues matter when deciding which coupon offer to consider. Dedicated hosting will, of course, handle anything that shared hosting can; but if the need can be met by using a shared host, then why spend the extra money on features that will never be used? This is the reason why it is important that a little time be spent educating oneself on the available plan options and what a discount coupon really means.

And speaking of sub-packages, HostGator has three of them for a prospective customer to consider. The first plan is called the “Hatchling” and is the cheapest of the three. This is the plan that is the most suitable for most individuals and small businesses or organizations. With this plan, the customer gets unlimited bandwidth (the amount of allowable traffic between a website and the rest of the internet) and disk space – but is restricted to a single domain.

Another option is called the “Baby Plan.” This plan offers all that the Hatchling Plan does, but it also offers unlimited domains. With the coupon offer, the cost of the Baby Plan is only slightly higher than that for the Hatchling.

The last of the “sub-plans” is the “Business Plan.” This plan offers everything that the Baby Plan has to offer but includes a dedicated SSL (Secure Sockets Layer – a protocol used to encrypt information over the net) and IP (Internet Protocol address – this is what is used to identify users on the net). As one can guess, this is the most expensive package – but still highly affordable. And all of these plans and packages can be made even more affordable if there are promotional coupons available that can be applied to these plans.

And there are also other HostGator coupon options that some people may not know are out there. One of these allows prospective customs to try out the Baby Plan for a small (very small) minimal amount for one month.

The point is that those looking for a hosting company would do well to check out all of the coupon offers, but make sure that what these coupons represent is clearly understood. This is particularly true for novices.

There is one thing to watch out for when dealing with coupons: Make sure that when clicking on a link that purports to access the coupon that the routing goes to the HostGator site and not some other place. If the destination of the link is not the HostGator site, don’t trust it. It may be a scam of some sort. HostGator coupons are only valid if applied onsite. The website has a page specifically dedicated to the types of promotional coupons currently in existence.

HostGator coupons are simply used as promotional devices. The idea is to provide an incentive for prospective customers to try their products and services. No reduction in the quality of service is experienced by a user for using a coupon. And coupons have also been used by people and companies from all over the world. In 2011 HostGator was voted as having the “Best Free Transfer Service,” “Best Small Business Hosting,” “Best Windows Web Hosting” by WebHostingGeeks.com, “FindMyHost Editor’s Choice Award,” Top 10 HostReview Award “Best Budget Hosting,” Top 10 HostReview Award “Fastest Growing Company,” “#1 Recommended Most Popular Host” – HostingCoupons.org, 2010 About.com “Reader’s Choice Awards,” FindMyhost.com 2001 “Editor’s Choice Awards,” Dedicated Server Directory “#1 Reseller Hosting Award,” Web Host Directory “#1 Reseller Hosting Award,” Web Hosting “Top Outstanding Host Award,” “Web Host of the Year Award 2007” from top14webhosts.com, WebhostMagazine.com “Highest Level of Recommendation,” HostReview.com “Top 1o Budget Hosting Award,” and more. That’s a lot of awards. The point is that HostGator is not only reputable, but popular.