Forewarning—this is a rant, proceed cautiously. Now, I normally didn’t want to post any rants on TTC, but I figured in this case and maybe future cases it’s absolutely justified. HostGator came recommended from some hosting-talk forums, not to mention ‘sponsored’ as well. My conclusion is that they probably wasted a ton of money on ads and fake reviews judging from their service.
Let’s start with initial sign-up (this is for HydroBarn). The process went smooth, however, their internal billing system is shoddy. It runs off of a “billing” user account on their server and it doesn’t tie in to your original user account. Did I mention it’s slow as balls? Whatever. Up-time has been acceptable. So I need an SSL certificate for my shopping cart. I need a static IP. Additional $2 a month? Okay, I guess. I purchase an SSL certificate from GoDaddy and I’m greeted with a link to SSL configuration on their web page by a live chat support rep, no problem. Generate CSR, get my certificate. “Now what Mr. HostGator support?” Yet another link to their site. They want to charge $10 to install the certificate. What? WHY?!