Web Design and Development

HostGator Alternatives, Part 1: Who is EIG?

Hostgator eaten by competitionSince August 2013, Hostgator has had repeated downtime. Their entire datacenter would go offline. Hundreds of thousands of sites were affected, leaving customers without service AND without support. Each instance has lasted almost a full day.

And it’s not just Hostgator that was affected. Bluehost, Hostmonster, JustHost and several other “hosts” were down as well. But it wasn’t a coincidence. For you see, all of those hosts are actually the same hosting company — Endurance International.

People have started to realize that the Hostgator they once knew is gone, eaten up by the competition (pun intended). It is now under new ownership, and exists in name only.

So where else can you go? We’re going to take an in-depth look at true Hostgator alternatives, so this never happens to you again.

This article series was originally written in August 2013, and has been updated several times in 2014, 2015 and 2016.

(Note: If you just want the quick advice on which host to use, then here it is: (1) SiteGround, (2) InMotion, and (3) Namecheap. Those are excellent Hostgator alternatives. However, you really should read the three-part editorial…) [Read more]


Web Design and Development

HostGator Alternatives, Part 2: Who to Use and Why

Hostgator eaten by the competitionOnce upon a time, there was a miserly hosting company that was jealous of all the other hosting companies.

He saw that others were better than he was, and would rank higher on “top 10″ lists. He didn’t like that one bit! (Nevermind that the “top 10″ list was fake; that didn’t matter to him!)

Improving his services would have meant spending money, and he wouldn’t stand for that. So one day he came up with a sly plan. If he wouldn’t improve, maybe he could make the others worse!?

So he borrowed some money from friends — he wouldn’t spend his own of course! — and proceeded to buy them all out. One by one they fell, until the majority of the “top 10″ were his. To keep the commoners from knowing what he had done, he kept the old brand names to hide his identity. So when a commoner left a host, odds are that they would “switch hosts” to another of his brands on the top 10 list.

The profit rolled in, and he and his friends were happy as can be, having rigged the system in their favor. And they lived happily ever after — even though nobody else did.

That’s essentially the origin story of Endurance International Group (EIG). [Read more]


Web Design and Development

HostGator Alternatives, Part 3: The Future of EIG?

Hostgator eaten up by competitionThere’s a lot of things in this world that I don’t know — how to change oil, how to solder electronics, what women are thinking.

But there’s certain topics where I’m quite knowledgeable. One of the main reasons I like hosting is because it’s the perfect trifecta of business, technology, and PR/marketing. And that’s one of my specialties. (The other being video, photo and design … obviously!) You can’t have a successful non-amateur hosting business without grasping all of these areas.

While nobody knows what the future holds, there are clues. We can guess, and with some degree of accuracy.

There’s a number of hosting businesses that I would not consider safe, in terms of an EIG takeover/buyout. I’ve been screwed over by EIG five times to date — starting back in 2003 — when Endurance International Group bought out my host, and then botched the migration. It happened twice more, exactly the same. I never, ever want to experience that again, and therefore keep watch of their movements.

The following 4 hosts are potential targets, so when seeking a Hostgator, definitely avoid these! [Read more]


Web Design and Development

Why Are There So Many Bad Web Hosts? (Part 2)

The Worst Web Hosts EverTo most people, the internet represents the information age — an era of communication enlightenment. However, it’s also created a communication plague that has allowed the proliferation of myths, conspiracy theories, scams, and lies. And most of them were harder to do pre-internet.

For example, it’s pretty hard to fake being a Tom from Texas, when you sound more like an Apu from the Simpsons, or look like a Chen from China. Yet Tom from Texas is how outsourced support desk techs are passed off to customers. (And it’s not like we’re really all that fooled — it’s easy to see when somebody writes with ESL skills that makes Google Translate read like a literary scholar.)

And it’s not just the hosts that are a problem — they have accomplices! One reason so many people find bad hosts is because many large hosts have essentially bribed unethical website owners with large sums of money. [Read more]


Web Design and Development

Why Are There So Many Bad Web Hosts? (Part 1)

The Worst Web Hosts EverOne of the most aggravating aspects of having a website is dealing with a web host. Excessive downtime and slow servers can tank your search engine rankings (and aggravate your users), while slow or gibberish tech support adds stress to your day.

But this isn’t caused by random bad luck. Poor web hosting service is a direct result of having a poor business model (or no business model), de facto lying, or cheaping out — or a combination thereof.

Avoiding bad hosts is as easy as understanding how and why bad hosts exist, as well as learning how to spot the tell-tale signs of a potentially unpleasant hosting experience. Part One of this three-part editorial series examines the issues of misrepresentation and the lack of industry oversight. [Read more]