Blogging.org, a well-respected site in the blogging community, recently conducted a comprehensive survey of 5,600 bloggers in order to determine the “Top 25 Hosting Companies” for bloggers.  HostGator took first place, with 1907 out of 5600 votes; just shy of 900 more votes than 2nd place received.  This is an honor that we at HostGator do not take lightly, and we are very happy to be able to share this news with you.

The voting criteria was based on which host the aforementioned 5,600 bloggers used and which host they would recommend to their peers.  With over 203 million blogs online today, blogging is an undeniable online presence these days.  There are 31 million bloggers in the US alone, with 43% of the total bloggers using WordPress, including this HostGator blog.

It is worth noting that this survey was completely unbiased and affiliate payouts were not a factor in this survey; it truly is simply the honest opinion of the blogging community.

Please visit http://blogging.org/blog/top-25-hosting-companies/ in order to see a further breakdown of the related statistics as well as the other 24 hosts that made the cut.

Now is the perfect time to start your blog with (or move your existing blog to) HostGator.  Take advantage of our 1-click installs of WordPress and have your blog online today.  Use coupon code BLOG to receive 25% off your first invoice on any new sign-up*!

*this coupon expires on October 9th, 2012.

If you are reading this on the day it was posted (Monday, July 9th, 2012), then you are likely not a victim of Malware Monday.  Far from being as feared as something like the dreaded Y2K situation, Malware Monday revolves around a piece of malicious software known as DNSChanger and the efforts involved in the mitigation and ultimate ridding of this specific piece of malware.

DNSChanger functions on a couple of different fronts, though the fundamental result of infection would be an inability to connect to your ISP.  It reportedly will also prevent your Operating System from downloading updates that would detect and prevent the malware from functioning.

Back in 2007, the creators of DNSChanger began using the trojan to redirect internet traffic to sites containing paid advertisements, resulting in illegal profit for its creators.  Since then, the hackers evolved the malware to execute various other tasks on the infected machines.  The FBI became involved and those responsible were caught and arrested late last year.  Initially, the FBI wanted to shut down the servers that were being used by the hackers to control the infected computers, however it was determined that such action would have resulted in the infected machines immediately becoming unable to connect to the Internet.

The resulting decision was to implement a transitional system whereby the servers in question could be taken down without resulting in the infected machines from losing their Internet connectivity.  The plug was pulled on that transitional system this morning around 12:01am, at which point anyone with an infected computer would need to rid their machine of the malware in order to re-connect to the Internet.

So, if you are reading this on Monday, July 9th, you were unaffected.  If you were affected, then you’re likely seeing this at a later date and I’d like to welcome you back to the Internet (we missed you!) and invite you to regularly scan your computer(s) for any malicious software using any number of free or paid applications available today.

All hard drives will crash; there is no such thing as a crash-proof hard drive.  When (not if) this happens, how much data will be lost is a flip of the coin.  It could be 0%, or it could be 100%.  World Backup Day is March 31st. and encourages you to maintain current backups of your data: financial information or other important documents, digital media collection (music/movies/ebooks), and perhaps most importantly your memories (pictures/home movies).

One in ten laptops will be stolen in their lifetime; one is stolen every 53 seconds.  Fifty percent of all hard drives will crash within five years.  Couple those statistics with the fact that 89.1% of PC users do not perform regular backups.  This is essentially a recipe for massive data loss.  A recent study found that 90 percent of companies that experience data loss go out of business within two years, with 70% of companies going out of business following a major data loss.  These are significant numbers.

Are you able to place a dollar amount on your data?  Exactly how much value does it have?  For many people, their data is priceless.  If the only pictures of your children that you have are on a hard drive that crashes, they’re gone.  Forever.  Unless you have a small fortune to pay in hopes of having the data professionally recovered.  This situation though instantly becomes a non-issue the moment you have a safe backup of the data.  Ideally, you’ll maintain current backups of all important data locally and at a remote location.

Texas, where the HostGator offices are, has been hit by both hurricanes and wildfires in recent years.  If a computer and the external hard drive that contained the backups are both within a house that is destroyed, that data is gone.  This is a catastrophic circumstance regardless, but there are many ways to ensure that even under similar conditions your data will remain safe.  HostGator customers are encouraged to visit http://justcloud.com/hostgator for a free trial for cloud storage.  Come what may, with cloud storage you can be confident that your data remains safe.

Please visit http://www.worldbackupday.com for more information and tips on backing up your data.

It looks like GeoCities, the Free Web Hosting service owned by Yahoo!, is officially ending service to website owners today. I’m sure many of you have used their service at one point or another, so it’s kind of sad to see them go down with all of the web sites they hosted. My first web site was on GeoCities, complete with a looping, low-quality instrumental midi file, and animated graphics. Many other free web hosting services like GeoCities have risen and fallen over the years because the free hosting business model just doesn’t seem sustainable.

It’s amazing how many web sites with no business model or profitability sunk during the .com internet bubble. Internet businesses, like any other company, aren’t immune from the age old philosophy of “you need to make money to stay in business”. Now there are a few exceptions to this rule. It’s still possible to come up with a great idea for a web site and receive funding from a venture capital firm (read: Twitter), but for the everyday web business owner, they understand the need to make a profit.

Many GeoCities refugees have migrated over to HostGator, and we want to welcome you all with open arms. We can assure you that HostGator won’t have the same fate as GeoCities because well, we’re a profitable company.

If you have a site with GeoCities and need a new home, post a comment and we’ll try to throw you some free months worth of Hosting at HostGator. …

In October of 2008, Google announced a new feature known as SearchWiki. SearchWiki allows anyone with a Google account to change the order of search results and make notes about each result in Google.

Once logged into a Google account, you’ll notice that the search results have two small icons next to the listings that can be used to promote or remove a result. By promoting a result, you can bring the site above other results on the page.

You can learn more about the SearchWiki by watching the Google SearchWiki team’s video.

Now, this is hardly news to many of you out there. We covered Google’s Promote Feature in early December.

What is interesting though, is the idea that Google’s index of results will be swayed by user input on the SearchWiki. On Google’s Official Blog announcement for SearchWiki,it mentions that: “The changes you make only affect your own searches.” While this is true directly, it’s not hard to imagine that Google will collectively use user input to influence search results and page ranking.

Currently websites are listed in order on Google’s web page according to their super-duper secretive algorithm. Those in the search engine optimization industry have been trying to figure out this algorithm for very obvious reasons. If you can cheat the search engines and get a website listed on the front page for certain keywords, than you are able to get more traffic to your site, which generally equates to more revenue for web site owners and businesses. …

I’ve known about Twitter for a relatively long time, but could never see myself using the service. I just couldn’t grasp the idea of saying something meaningful in 140 characters or less, but as I started working at HostGator and our social media outreach programs, I found myself thrown right into the Twittersphere (if that isn’t a word already, I just made it up).

A couple of months later, though, I’m happily Twittering from the web and from my ever trusty BlackBerry. A majority of our presence on Twitter is aimed at addressing customer concerns and feedback in what is essentially real time, but our presence on Twitter is also about reaching out to customers through a different medium and in a unique way. We already reach out to those who blog or post about us, so Twitter seemed like the next logical step.

So far, it’s been incredibly successful. We have over 275 followers on Twitter (the number increases daily) and I have personally reached out to and helped a lot of existing and potential customers through Twitter. We’ve also gotten some great ideas and some excellent feedback that we’ve taken seriously.

To get an idea for yourself, check out our favorites and see what people have been saying. Some excerpts:

LOVE LOVE HostGator! Have hosted at many places. Couldn’t dynamite me out of HG! – WordPressWizard

Thanks for awesome customer service, that’s how it’s done. Will remember when someone is asking for a hosting company. – KatjaPresnal …

A lot of people from the get go thought the iphone was a piece of junk, while others thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Everyone has their opinions about iphone vs Nokia just like Mac vs. PC. So moving on then…

Since Mr. Steve Jobs had announced that there would be an SDK (software development kit) for the iphone, a lot of people have really been excited. Now that over 100,000 people have downloaded the developers kit whats next?

How many people will really switch over from having an unlocked iphone that can run tons of free applications to go legit with Apple and pay a fee for every application? The reason I even ask that is because the current developers kit doesn’t allow for 3rd party music applications. Isn’t music what people would likely use their iphone most for? Or would it be games?

It seems that Apple has decided to do things this way so sales on itunes are not hurt, but there will be an effect with upcoming players like Amazon music as well as Emusic which have compatible DRM free music for the iphone. Will Apple lose some ground with their Itunes music downloads?

One thing is for sure, and that is that Apple will continue governing and restricting their own products and applications like they have been for a while. I think the mentality of Apple which seems to be the ‘we control the product even after you buy it’ for all consumers is getting a bit old. The thing is, that the larger apple gets, and the more popularity that grows for Apple products, the hacking, cracking and unlocking will only continue to grow with it. …