Moving Websites Away From Hostgator
Sunday, August 8, 2024
After seventeen years with hostgator they change the rules
After 17 years as a loyal, word-of-mouth, and paid-on-time customer, they are changing the rules. They informed me they are updating my plan, increasing the price, and decreasing account limits in an email.
Concerned and very upset, I had to get on their support page and sent an email.
From: Gerald M Davenport
Sent: 7/3/2024, 9:41 AM
To: support@gator.com
Subject: After 17 years of perfect payment you are kicking us out?
So, after 17 years, you are changing the rules?
I started in 2007 with you because of the service you offered.
You want us to pay more to get less?
thank you for the notification albeit 45 days till my next payment, I will have everyone transferred before then.
- gerald
I received a reply back from them
Hello,
Thank you for contacting Gator support.
I found that your account is with one of our sister brands Hostgator.com.
You have contacted Gator.com support. Gator and HostGator are 2 different platforms.
We provide a template-based website drag and drop editor tool whereas HostGator supports cPanel, WordPress.
Please contact Hostgator support so that they will assist you in a better manner.
You can contact HostGator via phone at Toll- Free: 866-964-2867
Local: (713) 574-5287
International: 00+1-713-574-5287 and via chat at https://www.hostgator.com/ >> Click on Live chat link.
Kind regards,
Anushree M
Customer Service representative,
Gator l Gator.com
We will come back to their reply later focusing on: I found that your account is with one of our sister brands Hostgator.com. You have contacted Gator.com support. Gator and HostGator are 2 different platforms
Let me start from the beginning
When I first signed onto Hostgator on March 27, 2007 it was $119.40 a year, or 59.70 semi-annually for the baby plan, which came with unlimited space — the most important reason I went with them over all the others. I had no issues uploading full-size images, video, and even creating other websites for my other interests: Filmmaking (AriaPictures) and Music (WNDMusic [which is no longer on its own]). I also did websites for local friends businesses: Arch's Automotive, and several others that are no longer in business. I then did a website for the films I made and was involved in. In 2015 I had 45 websites I was hosting and managing on my baby account, and hostgator NEVER mentioned anything about going over or exceeding any limits — it was unlimited. It even says it in the wikipedia article.
Change of hands
I did not know it at the time that in 2012, hostgator was sold to a conglomerate. I sensed there was something different about their customer service and the service of products — it felt weird and things started to get cold. My unlimited symbols in certain services in my cpanel were gone, but the numbers were still far off from me ever reaching them.
One of the weirdest things that I was frustrated with was the .htaccess files which stemmed from the ssl certificates that the sites were supposed to have but often said there were not secure. Every time I would contact them it would get fixed but they never said what they did. I noticed one day that one of websites had twelve htaccess files not one. That is odd i thought. Which one am I supposed to update? IS this the reason my sites have issues? Why have they not deleted the older files?
Then the price was increased. I was okay with that since it was almost eight years. I guess it was bound to happen.
Issues get frustrating and more often
The biggest frustration came in 2021 when I added new clients. Their websites would not work. Nameservers were correct, php files were correct, domain name was correct, but the site could not be found. I had to contact hostgator to ask why and they fixed it. did not tell me what they did even after I told them this was the sixth time its happened -- every time I add a new domain. Why is it happening? They gave usable answer.
On June 6, 2022 I sent an email of frustration to hostgator.
From: Gerald M Davenport Sent: 6/6/2022, 11:05 AM
To: support@gator.com
Subject: Web Service is beginning to falter
I started using Hostgator back in 2007.
I know not that long and only using the shared/baby plan, so I know losing one customer is not going to make any difference in your bottom line.
I have sent many other people to you. And have been a loyal hostgator advocate. I even have a stuffed Snappy animal.
Recently, hosting service has begun to give me troubles, frustrations, and headaches.
Sites do not operate properly, they come back with not-secure, or they do not load at all.
(CUSTOMER SERVICE has helped get them/most back online)
but the fact that i have to contact hostgator to get it fixed is getting more and more recently.
Of course they do not say what they fixed. htaccess? a script, something i have no access to?
It used to be easy to add an addon domain, load the files,
and then go to it with just the url example.com and it would open up in https://www.example.com.
Now when i create a site, if I do not add /public_html/ in front of the domain name, it does not create the directory in the correct place.
Thursday the 2 of june, I purchased apfwiki.com and changed the name servers to hostgator.
I added the addon domain to hostgator. today, Sunday, I tried it in a browser, I purchased it from.
I went to see about changing the nameservers but they were already set up to go to hostgator.
So I started loading files. and retried the url.
I still got the namesilo screen a1er clearing cache and using a different browser.
It then gave me the http:// version of the site and the same error multiple times:
Failed to load resource: net::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID
I looked it up and it is related to the ssl certificate and the site not being secure.
I thought SSL certs were automatically added to sites when created.
It worked for nevadacountynotarygal.com when i created it in january of this year.
Also worked for proglassgv.com back in 2020 without any issues.
I am not sure what has changed on your end that has changed the easy process, but it is not easy now.
very frustrating, and time consuming when i have to take an hour to explain what is going on.
and of course most of the time it gets fixed...
I also have a pending issue that some one said they needed to update the DNS settings and let it propagate.
I cannot see ariapictures.com or chardonnaymovie.com on 6 different browsers with cache, cookies, and history cleared.
However, I can see subdomains of ariapictures.
thegoldentree.ariapictures.com loads perfectly with the https and www in front.
Though my wife can load it when typing in the domain name.
when I try I get http and no www and no site.
how can that be on my end?
i get the subdomains but not the main address?
I truly enjoy using hostgator, everyone is so nice and helpful, plus smart.
I am fighting the urge to go elsewhere over something that I know is just a small issue that i hope can get resolved.
- gerald martin davenport
Customer-ID 465152
package-id 441221
They replied with:
From: support@gator.com
Subject: Web Service is beginning to falter
Date: June 6, 2022 at 1:57 AM
To: geraldmdavenport
Hello,
Thank you for contacting Gator support.
I understand your situation. I found that your account is with one of our sister brands Hostgator.com.
You have contacted Gator.com support. Gator and HostGator are 2 different platforms.
We provide a template-based website drag and drop editor tool whereas HostGator supports cPanel, WordPress.
Though we are the part of HostGator, the servers and the billing system are separate.
Please contact Hostgator support so that they will assist you in a better manner.
You can contact HostGator via phone at Toll- Free: 866- 964-2867
Local: (713) 574-5287
International: 00+1-713-574-5287 and via chat at https://helpchat.hostgator.com/ .
Kind regards, Anushree M
Customer Service representative, Gator l Gator.com
Interesting that it is the same response I received as the one in July of 2024 (the first one in this article). This was the first time i received it which I blew off as annoying since I was on hostgator.com and clicked a contact link so how can they be two different platforms? I never went to gator.com EVER.
so then why is it that your email is on their page in support?
if you are not part of them. who are and what is gator doing
on host gator’s support page?
On hostgator.com, the support email address to email them is support@gator.com. Why is hostgator giving gator.com's email address on their support page and not telling gator.com they are doing this? AND/OR why is gator.com not forwarding my email to hostgator.com if you are a SISTER BRAND? And if this is the second time in oh 14 months, and I know I am not the only one doing this, why has this not been fixed? Tells me something about the companies and how they do business. Not the kind of businesses I want to support.
So their second canned response put me over the edge and the decision to move became a priority. I did finally contact hostgator.com through their chat and they verified that the price is going up and the feeatures will be removed. I told them thank you for the early notification and that I will vacate before my renewal date.
Going to miss Snappy
In the early days I had this confidence and worry-free hosting life knowing that Snappy and the hostgator team was there, but the last 4 years was a frustrating, stressfull time and understood why when i found out they were bought by a conglomerate. It felt like I was hosting my sites on wordpress again. UGH! Horrible. Who would ever want that stress, again?