Website Hosting....Hostgator

[Falcon69]

I've been thinking of using Dave's code to join Hostgator. I figured since Dave is an affiliate of Hostgator, then these questions would fit on this site.  I understand that the site has been having problems lately.  Is this an isolated occurrance, or should I stay away from Hostgator now?

What are your guys thoughts on this web hosting service?

They seem to be out of their office right now, as it's Halloweenie Night.  But maybe I can get my answers here.

Do I need a private SSL server if the only credit cards/payments I'll be taking is through PayPal, Money orders, or Western Union?  I understand that I MUST have a private SSL if I am doing it over the phone, email, or direct.

I don't plan on doing very much volume, so I am thinking maybe Hatchling will be good enough?

How do I make it so if someone does a search for a product I have, or does a search for a product like mine on google, my website will show up there?  It looks like HostGator has an option for SEO Gears? I think they do it for me?  If so, is there an added charge that Google or other search engines will charge me, on top of the Hostgator addon charge of 14.99/yr?

Do I need a dedicated IP?

Can you set-up the email system so that if someone buys something, it automatically sends an auto email to them thanking them for their order? Or if they email me, an auto response saying I will get back to the shortly or on the next business day?

Can you have an email address that is ........@domain.com, instead of being forced to a gmail account like I was with another webhost I was trying out.

Anyone who has or is using Hostgator, someone who is new to website making as I am, how hard did you find it to upload your files to Hostgator?  I will be using an offline program to design my website, one that 'claims' it can upload the whole website with one click.

FYI, Hostgator currently has an A+ BBB rating right now.  I was also looking at InMotion, but they have NO RATING with the BBB right now.


Thanks in advance.

[TheBorg]

I'll answer what I can...

What are your guys thoughts on this web hosting service?

Personally I use WebHostingBuzz, but each to his own

I don't plan on doing very much volume, so I am thinking maybe Hatchling will be good enough?

If you mean a few hundred orders a month, you are probably fine.

How do I make it so if someone does a search for a product I have, or does a search for a product like mine on google, my website will show up there?  It looks like HostGator has an option for SEO Gears? I think they do it for me?  If so, is there an added charge that Google or other search engines will charge me, on top of the Hostgator addon charge of 14.99/yr?

Google/Search engines will not charge you, but I'm not sure that paying for SEO is your best option. While SEO can definitely be improved on most sites, if you have unique enough products they will most likely show up in a google search regardless. Of course, this is highly dependent on your stock, but if you are not comfortable trying to deal with SEO then it is probably a decent enough plan.

Can you set-up the email system so that if someone buys something, it automatically sends an auto email to them thanking them for their order? Or if they email me, an auto response saying I will get back to the shortly or on the next business day?

Yeah, sure, there are usually such options in most online store programs and email clients, the details will depend on what system you use for your purchases/mail.

Can you have an email address that is ........@domain.com, instead of being forced to a gmail account like I was with another webhost I was trying out.

YES! And that's the fun part, just make sure that the plan allows email accounts to be created, which the hatchling plan does. I have only come across a couple places ever that do not include email accounts in their hosting plan.

Anyone who has or is using Hostgator, someone who is new to website making as I am, how hard did you find it to upload your files to Hostgator?  I will be using an offline program to design my website, one that 'claims' it can upload the whole website with one click.

Uploading files can be easy or hard... your website program most likely uses FTP transfers, which aren't too hard to set up, there are many tutorials on the internet.

Hopefully that helps - I can't say I'm a web guru but I do know a few things about getting everything set up

[EEVblog]

I've been thinking of using Dave's code to join Hostgator. I figured since Dave is an affiliate of Hostgator, then these questions would fit on this site.  I understand that the site has been having problems lately.  Is this an isolated occurrance, or should I stay away from Hostgator now?

There was technically nothing wrong with the Hostgator service, it had stayed up for several hundred days. It was the database configuration etc.
Previous issues to that were not enough RAM, nothing to do with the server itself.
Only major issue was with backup generators / power to the server room, and they admitted that and fixed it.

I pressume you just want a cheap shared server?
In either case HostGator is still a good choice.

Everyone will tell you their host is the best 

[Falcon69]

Thanks Dave,

Ya, I've been reading alot of reviews. While host gator does have some bad reviews, they also have some good reviews, but looking over at BBB, Hostgator is accredited and has A+ rating.  Reading the complaints, and seeing how they were solved.....I think I will go with hostgator.   I just hope they can help this newb get the website up and running, once I finish designing it in this 3rd party app I am using.

I think I will go for E-Junkie as well for the shopping cart. it is cheap, and looks to be exactly what I need, like the shipping stuff it does.  I can put the weight in for each item, and it calculates the shipping based on what and how many items are purchased.  I think, if I understood the site correctly.

Also, it seems I don't need a private SSL server or dedicated IP, since all transaction route through E-Junkie and then to finish checkout through PayPal.

But, I can only accept payments from the seller protection list PayPal has, that way, I can be protected from fraudulent purchases....I hope.

Ya, a cheap server would be Idea, since this is my first. Later, when I get better at programming, and the business gets more sales, then I will perhaps upgrade to a more better option.

[EEVblog]

I just hope they can help this newb get the website up and running

For newb website, worrying about what $5/month host is best is like worrying over which $5 multimeter is best 

[EEVblog]

If switching later is relatively easy than do it then when your experience and knowledge of just what is important to you has increased.

It's pretty trivial to switch hosts if you use cPanel. I've done it several times, and I'm a dummy at such things.
But ultimately these hosts would not be in business if they sucked. Pick a biggie like HostGator or MostMonster et.al and you'll be fine.

[Falcon69]

Okay, so I got the website done. Now I try and list on google.  They say that it violates the rules.

Pure spam
Pages on this site appear to use aggressive spam techniques such as automatically generated gibberish, cloaking, scraping content from other websites, and/or repeated or egregious violations of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

WTF?  I don't understand what is wrong. Now they say it takes 3 weeks for them to review it and remove the index block.  I can't wait 3 weeks, I need to start selling!

Anyone able to help?  Website is X2df.com

FYI, I've never designed a website before, and it has taken me several months to do what I've done.  Just trying to figure out how to do stuff takes me time.  This problem with adding my site to search engines may be over my head.

[justanothercanuck]

if I had to wager a guess, it's probably the wacky div names. 

[lgbeno]

First things first, try removing all references to western union.  Every scam involves western union that is a huge red flag to me.

Have you heard of Tindie?  You can list and sell stuff on there without the hassle of hosting a site.  In theory you will get more traffic too because it is a more established market place and more existing customers exist

[Falcon69]

yes, Western Union is a red flag to me as well, however, there's no way I'm shipping a product to a country not listed on the seller protection list on PayPal's site.  The only option where I would ship a product to one of those non-listed countries, is with western union payment.  That's simply all I am stating.

justanothercanuck, do you mean all those countries that was listed?  ya, I took those out.  I placed a link to the PayPal's location of that list of countries. I got a response back from CS at hostgator, they said Google was probably viewing that list as mass keywords, which violates Google's rules.

I still have nothing listed on search engines :/

After reading posts on the net, I found that it can take up to 3 months to get listed on some search engines, and then, up to a year to even be displayed on the 2nd or 3rd search pages.

[Falcon69]

I did find a way to crash my email program though.

create an email auto responder on both email accounts, and mail each other, setting the auto response between emails to 0.  LOL.  Now I gotta try and fix it. 

I'm learning alot with this website stuff, but it is definitely tedious.

[miguelvp]

I don't know how different hostgator is from hostmonster (same datacenter) but the cpanel is pretty easy to use.

If you had to setup e-mail manually like it used to be then you'll count your blessings on how easy it is via that cpanel

[Falcon69]

Ya, I got it figured out.  I had abit of trouble figuring out how to input the company logo into the email.

After a couple of hours trying to tear my hair out, I finally figured it out.

In the file manager, it showed the picture file as 'X2Logo.PNG' ......when i was placing the HTML into the email, I was putting it as 'X2Logo.png' ..... I didnt think that it was case sensitive, something so trivial as that.  So I was thinking it was something else and was trying to explore all the different ways to find out what was wrong.

I wish there was a site somewhere that can explain things in easy terms for people who don't know all this stuff.  I swear, it's like you need to take a year of college studying this stuff, just to figure out what people are talking about on the net.

[liquibyte]

The more you do it, the easier it gets if you're into that kind of thing.  You should try running a server yourself sometime, then it gets real fun real quick.