Here’s something you may not know: the IT sector has a huge climate impact. At present, between 3 and 4 percent of all electricity (and the associated carbon emissions) used in the world goes to running data centers. If you’re one of the four and a half million registered users of Second Life, consider this: the average Second Life avatar consumes 1,752 kWh of electricity per year, or about two thirds that of an actual person (globally averaged). One server alone has roughly the same climate impact as a 15mpg SUV!

Climate change is real, it’s happening now, and we as a planet desperately need to reduce our IT emissions. And if we wait for the government to solve the problem, we’ll be waiting for a long, long, LONG time.

We’re thrilled to announce that HostGator has joined the ranks of many progressive companies including: Starbucks, IBM, and UPS to take action on addressing climate change right now.

HostGator has gone green, and it’s gone green in a BIG way.
We at Integrated Ecosystem Market Services are very proud to have worked with HostGator to develop a sector-leading program.

What makes HostGator’s program so special?
If you’re thinking about switching to green hosting, good for you! Green hosting is an important step in dealing with climate change. But be aware- once you start asking some questions you’ll find that not all of the .green. hosting options out there are nearly as green as they claim to be. HostGator’s program stands out from the pack for a number of reasons . . .

One, HostGator is using renewable energy to both power and cool their servers, whereas a number of green hosts only offset the electricity used to power their servers. That represents a big difference, because servers generate a lot of heat. For every watt of electricity that a server uses, 1-2 watts of electricity are typically required to cool it. What that means is that HostGator is investing in about twice as much renewable energy, on a per server basis, as those green hosts only using renewable energy to power their servers.

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Inc. Magazine compiles an annual list of the top 5,000 fastest-growing companies in America. They rank each of the top 5,000 companies depending on their revenue growth for the past three years.
Inc. 5000 announced yesterday that HostGator made their list of the top 5000 fastest growing private companies in America. Turns out, that not only did HostGator make the list, but we ranked in at #21 overall. In our industry, business services, we ranked #2, and in Texas we’re the #1 ranked fastest growing company. For our specific industry–web hosting–HostGator is the fastest growing web host out there, period.

This is quite a feat for a company that started out of a college dorm room with literally no budget.

According to Inc.’s analysis, the reason for our growth is:

Because support is key in the Web-hosting business, the company never outsources support and keeps technical support staff available 24/7, with an average wait time of one minute for inbound calls. It also provides developed templates and specialized software licensing to clients for free to enhance the company’s service offering.

I agree with the analysis, but I’d also like to share a few other points to explain why HostGator is not only floating but thriving.

• We’re a transparent company. Before potential customers sign up with us, they can check out real HostGator reviews right on our public forums from current customers.
• We truly care about our clients. It doesn’t matter whether you pay us $5 a month for web hosting or if you buy your own dedicated server through us. Every client at HG receives priority attention and 24/7 support.
• Our affiliates contribute in a large way to the success by bringing in new sales. Anyone can join our hosting affiliate program. Whether you are a client of HostGator or not, we will pay you up to $125 per sale for referring people to our service.
• Definitely the biggest asset at HostGator is our people. To offer 24/7 support, it means that we have people here for our customers at 3 AM answering calls and taking care of issues before they become problems. They keep the servers running, making sure millions of web sites and businesses stay online. HostGator would instantly become more profitable if we cut corners and outsourced support, but in doing so we wouldn’t be able to keep the quality where it is. So that’s why we continue our hiring frenzy, to keep up with the growth. The only thing that has kept us from growing faster is making sure we have enough people to support our current and future customers. We’re in this for the long haul, and we want our customers to be with us just as long.

It’s an accomplishment and something that we’re all proud of, because every employee at HG helped to make this happen. In three years time we’ve grown over 5,000%, let us know what it will take to make the most of the next three. …