Last week I was helping a friend get set up on Hostgator and realized that for such a great hosting service their pricing is a bit confusing.

I was able to help my friend take advantage of getting his first month  of hosting free, actually for .01, but from there he wasn’t clear on what he’d be billed for each month.

If  you’re confused as well, here’s clarification.

Hostgator Coupon Codes & Pricing Clarification

Of course depending on what hosting plan you go with pricing varies.  Hostgator has several plans to choose from but you don’t necessarily want to go with the cheapest plan, for instance the Hostgator ‘Hatchling” plan is the cheapest, but you’re limited to only one domain.

I recommended the ‘Baby Plan’ for my friend which is what I use.  I like it because you get unlimited domains, meaning just one account will host ALL your domains, no matter how many you have.

Once you choose your plan, Hostgator has basically two types of payment plans.

You can pay monthly or you can pay for your hosting 2 or 3 years in advance and get a substantial discount.

At the moment Hostgator is offering 20% off all their plans.  So looking at the ‘Baby Plan’ for example, their monthly rates and 20% discount looks like this:

Normal Rate        20% Discount

Monthly $.9.95        $7.96

2 years  $8.95           $7.16

3 years $7.95           $6.36

*** Notice that the price reflects 20% off your first invoice only)

Monthly Payment Plan

If you choose the monthly payment you can use my link and coupon code below and get your first month of hosting for a penny.  This is a nice option, especially if you’re just getting started, but note that after the first month you’ll be billed the regular rate of $9.95/month for the Baby Plan.

Use this link http://www.homenotion.com/hostgator

Use coupon code ‘ homenotion994′

Yearly Payment Plans

The other savings option you have is to go with the yearly payment plans and pay 2 or 3 years in advance.  The difference here is that instead of getting your first month of hosting free you’ll receive a 25% discount for each month, not 20% off the first month only.

So for example if you go with the 2 year prepaid plan, the 25% discount brings your monthly cost down from $7.16  to $6.71, and with the 3 year prepaid plan, you’ll go from $6.36 to $5.96.  Those options are substantially cheaper than paying monthly at $9.95.

NOTE: If you want go with the yearly payment plans at 25% off, notice that the order page has a standard 20% off coupon code at the bottom of the page that says ‘SUMMER’. Take that out and replace it with ‘homenotion25off’ to get your 25% off pricing.

http://www.homenotion.com/hostgator

Use coupon code ‘homenotion25off’

I Hope that helps

I use Hostgator and have for about three years and not once have I been disappointed with their hosting service. But my journey with finding the best web hosting for my small business hasn’t been an easy one.

I’ve had hosting providers in the past that went down frequently, had little to no customer service; I’ve even had one go out of business on me.  None of those scenarios are fun to deal with.

With Hostgator I currently have 15 domain names on one account and pay less than $10 a month.  It would actually be less than that if I paid for my hosting a year in advance instead of on month to month basis.

Signing up with Hostgator

Being a Hostgator customer and supporter I also promote Hostgator through their affiliate program which I especially like because I can offer my followers a discount.  That means that if you sign up for a Hostgator web hosting account you can enter the coupon code ‘homenotion’ in the ‘coupon’ field and get your first month of hosting free.

Why I Boast Hostgator as the best web hosting for small business:

There are lots of features and services that Hostgator offers but these are where you get the most bang for your buck:

• Reliable Up time
• They will transfer your website over – free of charge
• Fantastico Feature makes it easy to install WordPress & Content management systems
• They host Unlimited domains, sub-domains, blogs and email addresses
• Accounts include website statistics using applications like Awstats and Webalizer
• Free access to Video tutorials and a Getting Started Wizard
• 24/7 Service & Support with online chat and toll free phone number

Like most top web hosts today Hostgator uses the CPanel function. CPanel means control panel and most quality web hosts have it. Cpanel makes navigating your web host easy and logical and it contains easy to use tools that will help you perform essential tasks quickly and reliably.  For example, if sometime down the line you want to install a user forum or a WordPress blog there are scripts that your hosting provider will include in the CPanel that will let you install these types of things with just a few clicks, that’s a huge time saver and a big relief for the technically challenged, like me

Here’s a glimpse of what the Cpanel looks like:

One of the biggest concerns I have with finding a good web host has been with finding good service and support, however I’ve never had any issues with Hostgator; downtime or otherwise.  The problems I have had were things I’ve caused myself, but with a quick phone call or online chat, each of those problems were resolved almost instantly.  Problems were never resolved that quickly with other hosts I’ve used.

Which Hostgator hosting plan to use for your internet small business

I’d recommend starting out with their ‘Baby Plan’ for $7.95 a month, if you pay yearly (it’s 9.95 a month if you pay monthly). You could certainly go with the ‘Hatchling plan’ starting at $4.95 a month but the Baby plan gives you unlimited domains and for just a few dollars more a month you have the flexibility of adding additional domains later on as your small business grows.

See this if your confused on Hostgator pricing

Business tip: Although you many have never considered this, I’d strongly recommend obtaining your domain name and your hosting service from separate companies. The main reason for this is that people using the same company for domain registration and hosting services have had truoble transferring their domain names should they need to switch hosting companies.

I’ve not run into this problem personally as I host my domains with Godaddy but using the same vendor for both has presented its share of problems for users. If you’re just starting out, I recommend getting your domain name first then registering for your hosting account.

Getting Started

Once you’ve got your domain name and you’re ready to get your hosting account, Hostgator offers reliable, easy to use hosting and you can get your first month of hosting free with your ‘homenotion’ coupon code.

Please share “Looking for the Best Web Hosting for Small Business? – Hostgator
Gets My Thumbs Up!” with your friends using the buttons below. Thanks!

Got a surprise this morning when logging on to my Hostgator account – a new design! 

Logging into an account with a new design is sort of like waking up and not knowing where you are, kind of strange, but I have to say the new Hostgator design is pretty nice, and a lot more streamlined.

Everything is nicely organized on the main panel screen including traffic stats, domain and sub-domain stats, basic account information and a 'find' feature.

Since I generally go to my email first thing, I also noticed a video tutorial on how to manage your emails, not sure that is new but it got my attention this time and I found it pretty useful, in fact I see they have video tutorials for just about everything, things like creating cpanel shortcuts, managing mysql, learning about addon domains, how to do your redirects, how to use file manager, how to do backups and a lot more. They even have styles you an choose for how you want your Cpanel to look and of course, another video tutorial on how to change them.

This is probably sounding like a plug for Hostgator, and it probably is, but the bottom line is they have been a great host for me, and it appears it has been for a whole lot of other people as well.  If you're thinking of a web host or possibly changing hosts check here and get your first month of hosting free.

If you’ve been looking for a web hosting service or maybe considering switching hosts, Hostgator comes with my highest recommendation.

They have come to my rescue many times where other hosting services have failed me miserably, so frustrating! You can read my personal story on my compare web hosting page.

For about $10 a month Hostgator has more than over delivered for me and I have over ten sites that include, forums and blogs as well with tons of graphics and files. They’ve provided me with awesome reliability, support and tons of great tools.

Hostgator offers all their new users their first month free but you need a valid coupon code.  Simply click on the graphic above and at checkout use the coupon code ‘homenotion994′ and you won’t pay anything your first month.

If you want to prepay 2 or 3 years of hosting, use coupon code ‘homention25off’

click here to use this coupon code

Read this if your confused on Hostgator pricing.

Happy Hosting!

Did you know that your search engine rankings may not be yours?

It’s true, your website visitors could be stolen by others who are stealing your search engine rankings and you probably don’t even know it?

Here’s how it works…  

Your site is listed in the Google, Yahoo or MSN results in which case visitors click on your entry and are taken to your site, but in the case of a hijacked URL, your visitor is taken to a completely different web site.

This happens because hijackers can find the flaws within the software of the domain name servers (DNS) and they send incorrect information to these servers so that the server redirects the traffic to another site.

But the real problem is that the DNS server does not validate that the information is coming from an authoritative source and allows visitors to go to the wrong pages. So, when someone enters your URL in the web browser or clicks on your site listing, they get sent to the hijackers site instead of yours.

How can you protect your site from hackers?

First of all, get the scoop on choosing a web host that does not use open DNS server. For example I use Hostgator …I will never have a problem.

But if you’re not sure whether or not your hosting company uses an open DNS server or not you can go to
http://www.dnsreport.com and enter your website URL.  Look for ‘PASS’ on the Open DNS servers line.

If you fail, contact your hosting service right away.  If they can’t fix it, find yourself a new web host.

Also know that a secure DNS server only makes sure that no-one hijacks your search engine rankings.  To get high search engine rankings, you must make sure that search engines can parse your web pages and that you have many inbound links that tell search engines that your web site is important.

Unfortunately it’s time for a new web host    So where did my original web host go wrong?

There’s really only one reason, They gave me lousy support!

If you’re focused on cheap web hosting and getting a great bargain you may not consider support a very important option, but it’s HUGE when you really need it.  The really great news is that I switched to a host that actually cost less and also has great support.

Over the past several years I never really needed much in the way of support. Once in awhile I had a few questions but nothing that an email couldn’t resolve …until last week.

Here’s what happened….

I had created a new blog for one of my sites and somehow I overlapped databases and I had two blogs using the same database. I needed to fix it but I didn’t know how.  That’s when I turned to my web host for help.

Since my hosting company ONLY has email support I couldn’t get immediate help.  After 48 hours with no response except through their automated “we’ll get back to you” email, I had to think about what I could do on my own to get my problem resolved.

Still frustrated and not able to fix my problem, I emailed my host again, got another automated response and 24 hours after that, now at 72 hours into the problem, they told me I was sharing databases  …ARGH! by now I’m really losing patience.

I can’t live with shabby support, so I’ve decided to look into switching web hosts.

Hostgator was my first choice, so I made an actual phone call to them as well as tested their online chat.  I found Hostgator to be extremely responsive and helpful.   They actually gave me my first month of hosting free so I signed up.

But unfortunately my troubles weren’t over.  I had to actually go through switching hosts.  This concerned me because of down time and the logistics of moving 10 sites.

I made backups of everything on my existing host.  I regularly do backups anyway so this was easy.  Then I got a hold of Hostgator and set up a new account with them.

In my Hostgator welcome email they included instructions on how to get set up.  They instructed me on how to switch my DNS names from my old host to them. I followed their instructions but realized that once I switched the DNS names I lost the ability to log into my old hosting account.  This meant that I could no longer read my emails or make site changes …but it gets worse, I noticed that my ‘Homenotion’ site no longer showed up in Google for my best keywords.  I was a little panicky because the site ranked on the first page of Google for keywords like:

• internet home business
• building an internet home business
• home internet business
• online business opportunity

At this point I’m a little stressed but it was soon resolved, this is why…

Don’t switch your DNS names until ‘after’ your website is loaded onto your new hosting account.  Many hosting companies can have your site completely loaded on to the new host’s server before the actual ‘switch’ takes place.  That’s why I was out of touch with my email and experienced some down time.

Switching your DNS Names

Your DNS names must be switched through your registrar, which in my case was Godaddy.  There will be a section called ‘name servers’ and you will need to change the DNS names from your old host to your new host.  Your DNS names look somthing like this:

ns45.hostingcompany.com
ns46.hostingcompany.com

I didn’t actually do the moving of my files to my new host.  I took advantage of Hostgator’s service to do it for me.  They do the first domain name for free any other domain names they charge $10.

Since I have ten websites it cost me a few dollars but it was worth it to me to avoid problems or worse yet, missing data.

It was about another 32 hours before my files were all copied over and I was up and running on my new host.

I checked everything out to make sure all my data, emails and whatever else I was concerned about was there.  Once I was sure things were OK I contacted my old host and cancelled my account.

There was a lot of tension and anxiety doing the switch but Hostgator gave me great support and did their best to get me up and running as soon as possible.

As for my Homenotion site ranking, it came back once my site was back within 24 hours once my site was back ‘on the air’, whew!  A little reassurance in case this ever happens to you.

If you’ll be switching hosting services or perhaps you’re not getting the service you’d like at your current hosting company, my suggestion is definitely Hostgator.  Click here and get your first month of hosting for free.