I’ll leave these mostly in the form of hyperlinks to their own forums:
1) They store passwords in cleartext
2) HostGator doesn’t send maintenance notices through email
3) HostGator throttles emails from each domain
4) Despite throttling (see #3), HostGator’s servers still get blacklisted
5) HostGator’s support team does actually ask for passwords, which is a no-no in the tech biz
I could list a dozen others, but clearly this is ridiculous. I’m moving away from them ASAP and I suggest that anyone else do the same.
Hi Chris,
I’m the owner of hostgator and I wanted to address some of the issues you posted.
1)They store passwords in cleartext
The billing system we currently use modernbill does do this. The servers however have full password encrption. We recommend using a different password for our billing system then our hosting for this very reason. We are about a month away from launching our inhouse billing system that will address this issue.
2)HostGator doesn’t send maintenance notices through email
This is another limitation in the current billing system that will be addressed. At this point in time we post notices on our forum.
3)HostGator throttles emails from each domain
The only throttling we do with email is 500 outbound emails an hour. This is a much higher allowance then the majority of our competitors.
4)Despite throttling (see #3), HostGator’s servers still get blacklisted
Every shared hosting company in the world will have servers blacklisted periodically. It’s impossible to prevent 100% of blacklisting. We have a system setup that rotates out ips that get blacklisted. When it does happen we are quick to get the ip blacklisted assuming the the blacklister does removals. A lot of blacklistings actually come from customers not realizing they are reporting their own address when they are trying to report a spam email they received.
5)HostGator’s support team does actually ask for passwords, which is a no-no in the tech biz
I can’t think of a host that doesn’t do this, but again this is something that will be addressed in the new billing system. In the meantime if one doesn’t want to give their password we also take cc number or paypal transaction id’s as proof for verification.
If you have any questions or further issues I can help you with please email me at brent@ hostgator.com thanks!