Small Business Saturday: Hostgator Sees Increased Downtime in 2011

Small Business Saturday

In this edition of Small Business Saturday I’ll be talking about the importance of finding a reliable hosting partner. Let’s face it, you can build the most incredible website in the world but if it’s not up and available all the time, you might find your visitors seeking greener pastures. I’ve been a big fan of Hostgator’s for some time now however so far 2011 has been a rough year for the hosting company.

About two weeks ago all my hostgator sites slowed to a halt. After talking with their technical support department they said there was an issue with the server and it would take an unknown amount of time to fix. It took about four hours until the issue was resolved rendering many of my sites inaccessible to anyone including myself.

I’m not a one-strike your out kind of guy so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and things were fine for a couple of weeks. Now today, the server is acting up again and slow as molasses. Some of my sites are accessible, some aren’t. As a small business owner its things like this that can impact your business and waste your time. I know I’m done wasting my time, see you later Hostgator, time to move to a more reliable provider.

Right now I’m think of picking a co-located server here in Los Angeles, part of growing your business it is partnering with the right companies and picking the right technologies that makes a difference in the long run. The great thing about a co-located server is that you get an entire computer dedicated just to your business and you can easily scale the server as your business grows.

I will update all of you on which service I provided and how the setup/configuration experience was. Time to take my hosting to the next level…is it time for you to do the same?

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton