I’ve been using Hostgator to host my blog for a little over a year now, and I think it’s finally safe to say they’ve proven to be a reliable shared hosting service, so much that I decided to become one of their affiliates. Although I’ve never received hordes of traffic to see how well it could hold up under heavy load, I’ve never had trouble with my site during those times it’s gotten stumbled either (where it’s received hundreds of visitors within a short period of time). My highest peak was when I had about 130 active visitors to my blog at once (and still the server merely yawned). Tickets to help support for one reason or another have always been promptly answered, but my best experience had to be when I was having trouble logging into my WordPress admin one day. I first spoke to someone via live support, who tried his best to resolve the issue on his own before having me open up a ticket so a sysadmin could look into the problem. In the space of about 20 minutes, a systems administrator named David had me up and running after learning that a problem with my Akismet plugin was causing my blog to lag. After I deactivated Akismet and replaced it with a newer version, I was up and running again.

Customer support that’s responsive and knowledgeable, a shared server that remains fast and suffers virtually no downtime, all for an easy 10 bucks a month. I really can’t ask for anything more. They also offer a semi-dedicated solution that’s still shared but where you’ll only share a server with 3 other users, but for some reason they don’t offer any VPS solutions (yet). Regardless, they offer excellent packages for your hosting needs, and in fact mine recently enjoyed a free upgrade (due to Hostgator adding new hard drives to the server I was using).

Word to the wise though: the web hosting industry has had a history of embellishing the bandwidth they claim to offer to potential clients, but what many people don’t know is that such bandwidth will be limited by the server’s CPU and memory resources. Unless you have a vanilla site, you’ll likely never be able to reach the high bandwidth ceiling many hosting services provide because your site will be shut down long before then, due to using too much of the server’s resources. How much you can actually use will depend on the service, and such info is usually buried somewhere in the terms of agreement. Read Hostgator’s Terms of Service and then compare it to other hosting companies for a better idea of how much freedom you’ll have when purchasing a shared hosting account. Regardless, based on the report of other customers, even people who have been slashdotted or dugg have never had a problem with taxing too much of the server. Just make sure you build a good site that’s optimized well (with caching abilities if possible) and you’ll likely never have a problem with Hostgator.

Sign up for a Hostgator account today!

There are probably more web hosting services out there than there are beanie babies, making the task of finding a good service a really daunting one at times.

A site called Web Hosting Unleashed however aims to make the process of finding a hosting service much easier for you. When I accessed their site, the first thing I noticed when I loaded their main page was the SPEED. Usually hosting review sites are bloated with ads, scripts and whatnots, which makes the load time almost unbearable at times. Not so here, and believe me, this was a welcome relief.

The first thing my eyes were drawn to after the page loaded were a few hosting banner ads, which I immediately suspected of being affiliate links. I started thinking, “Oh great, not another one of those sites,” by which I meant spam sites that were light on content and heavy on the affiliate links. As I dug further though my suspicions melted away and I was convinced that this was thankfully a legitimate website for once. Yay!

Navigation is made easy via the use of menu tabs, though I would get rid of the redundant navigation links contained at the footer (the links at the header should be enough). I’m of the mindset that every link takes you to a different place, and for those visitors who treat links the same way, redundant links will probably only confuse them more, as well as unnecessarily adding to the site’s overall “busyness.”

After surfing around for a few minutes, it became clear that the best offerings you’ll find here are the extensive listing of coupon codes available for hosting services you sign up for, and the user reviews you can find for any hosting service you’re interested in. Due to the site’s longevity (they’ve been around since 2002), there are already many reviews available that you can sift through and read, even for hosting companies that haven’t enjoyed much exposure.

I would have like to have more control over how reviews and other listings were sorted, but this is a minor inconvenience, and there are enough tabs and choices to choose from to help you find the relevant information you’re searching for. They are constantly redesigning the site though, so it’s possible more sorting options will be offered later on.

There is also a guide section that has a surprisingly long list of helpful articles and tutorials to help you get started, and a blog that provides the latest news and coupon codes relating to the web hosting industry. If you’re a beginner who is just getting started looking for a hosting solution, their article, “9 Tips For Not Getting Screwed By Your Web Host” offers some of the best advice I’ve seen to avoid getting ripped off or hosed by a hosting provider.

Overall, I’m pleased to have discovered this site, and have bookmarked it for the future should the time come when I have to find a new hosting service myself (which hopefully won’t be any time soon).

I hate to get sucked into entering yet another blogging contest, especially when they are usually transparent efforts to build backlinks to their sites, but this one was too good to pass up.

David Airey is a graphic designer who, oddly enough, specializes in logo and graphic design, and is currently running a contest giving away $4,000 worth of prizes on his blog, which by the way covers the niche of… wait for it… logo design.

That should provide enough suitable context links to make Airey happy and get me into the contest, but just to boost my chances of winning, I’ll list most of the nifty prizes that’s being offered by his sponsors here, but only if y’all promise not to enter the contest too and thus diminish my chances of winning.

The gold (grand) prize offers a free… wait for it… logo design (from David Airey of course), a WordPress theme design by Nate Whitehill, a personal marketing and advertising plan from Dosh Dosh, one year of free hosting and blog setup from I Love Typography , and a signed copy of Blogging Tips by Lorelle Van Fossen, which I already have a copy of being the Lorelle groupie fan that I am.

One thing I really want out of that list of goodies is Nate’s offer of a theme design. That’s worth several hundred bones right there, and I could really use an expert to fix some of the more grating issues that’s been plaguing my theme since I started blogging. Rather than clean up my own mess though, I think it’d be nice to have somebody else do it for me. :hubahuba:

As for the other prizes, I thought I’d have a little fun here and list them to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire.”

Logo designs by Roskell, whose name I think does ring a bell, site critiques by Randa Clay, who’ll tell you how to find your way, one hour SEO, linkbaits and promos, $60 worth of books, a problogger who’s not a crook…

Logo design, (not again!), blog optimizing, blog reviews and blogging tips, blogging that and blogging this, WordPress designing, what to do, what to do, never fear, help is here, Brian will take care of you!

We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning!
We didn’t start the fire, no we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it!

Podcasting studio, from affiliate and marketing, Mom Gadget , free money, isn’t she a real honey, 3 USB sticks, help you get your hacking fix, Terenia in Edinburgh, they’ll thank me for this little blurb, blog reviews in Blog-Op, WordPress themes from Aaron Russell, Mareddy and her WordPress skills, Marketing Tools Review, hopefully provide a clue, blog writing consultations, all this and more frustrations, time to take a long vacation!

We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning!
We didn’t start the fire, no we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it!

Coaching creative professionals, they’ll coach and coach and tell it all, business growth consulting, contract negotiations, a mediator and conflict coach, to keep you all from getting poached, always room for blog improvement, will all this even make a dent???

A banner day for banner ads, all on Blog Experiment, image ads, here and there, don’t have to pay a red cent, a guy who’s Smart Wealthy Rich, providing such a healthy kick, still won’t help me find my niche, but he’ll grant an advertising pitch!

We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning!
We didn’t start the fire, no we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it!

Contest Blogger, Freelance Folder, getting bolder, and getting older, lifetime membership, with tips, tips, and more tips, WordPress SEO, just sit back and watch the show, but lookie here, there’s no one here, cuz I ran out of prizes, now I’ll gamble with a ramble, to the end of a blogging age, taking this, all the way, WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO SAY???

We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning!
We didn’t start the fire, no we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it!

Yahoo, Google too, keyword stuffing, splogging too, stumblers, tumblers, and MySpace with its stalkers, Facebook and API, everything for you and I, search bots hits all the spots, del.icio.us, please stop the dots, Adsense, earning cents, Diggsters and their nonsense, carnivals, reddit geeks, podcasting, YouTube flings, text link ads, are they bad, hope it’s not another fad, show me where to find the door, CUZ I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!

We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning!
We didn’t start the fire, no we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it!

We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning!
We didn’t start the fire, no we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it……..