HostGator Web Hosting Blog | Gator Crossing

HostGator ranks 21st on Inc. 5000

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.

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.

CyberSquatting And Copyright Infringement

“Cybersquatting” has been something fairly common in the industry for a while. I’m sure even some of you that are reading this may buy and hold domains based on the fact that price and value goes up every year. Something however that has a lot of businesses and organizations on the defense is the fact that thousands of domains are registered every year with copyright names within or as a part of the domain registered.

The views on this issue are somewhat split. While some ’squatters’ have registered domains to put defamatory content about a company, others have registered various domains and jacking up prices to ridiculous amounts in hopes of a company with that name wanting to buy it.

Let me give you one example of what I am talking about. Locally here in the Houston area where our corporate office is located, there is a car dealership that is very well known named Munday Chevrolet. You would think they own mundaychevrolet.com right? Wrong. They own munday-chevrolet.com, a second rate domain name for your company if you ask me.

If you go to mundaychevrolet.com you will find very brief text from the website owner saying why he would never buy a car from Munday Chevrolet. Previously the site was used for pornography. Thats got to be bad for business especially when you have to tell potential customers to add a dash in the middle of your name.

Lets take an even bigger name into consideration that caused a legal battle for years, nissan.com as opposed to nissanusa.com. The only problem here is that this is a bit complicated. What happens when your last name is truly Nissan? This guy is not trying to ‘cybersquat’ at all. He has a legitimate computer business he is running on this site. It’s unfortunate that Nissan motor company had a lawsuit filed against this guy. So where does the gray line run into black and white, making things clear as to what domain you should and shouldn’t be able to own without legal ramifications? (Read more about the Nissan case HERE.)

According to a group called the “World Intellectual Property Organization” that watches over ‘cybersquatting’ occurrences, it has been reported that the snatching up of domain names of popular celebrities names and corporations from the previous year is up 18%, and is continuing to rise. The industries that had the largest issues with this was biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Closely following was financial institutions and banking.

The fact is, anyone can register a domain name, and people will continue to register domains that contain parts of or even full trademarked names. We could go on even further with domains that are typos as well, but I’m gonna leave it at that. Now its your turn to give us your thoughts. Where should the lines be drawn?

Welcome to Gator Crossing

Hello everyone, first and foremost welcome to the HostGator Company Blog. This blog is a work in progress, but we hope it can bring everyone closer to HostGator on a personal and professional level. We will be providing important news, updates, and even special offers through this blog. Our industry famous admins, will also be providing webhosting articles, tips, and tricks for all of our readers!

My name is Jay, and some of you may know me as the Team Lead on the Forums, or may have seen me in some of your sales tickets. I’ll be here to bring you some of the news from inside HostGator as soon as it happens, things like special offers, plan changes, and even office politics! I know you would all like an inside look at how HostGator operates, and I plan on bringing you that. You’ll also be hearing from names such as Chad Bean, our Affiliate Manager. Dave Collins, our highly acclaimed CTO. And even Brent Oxley, the owner of HostGator.

Again, the blog is a work in progress so many changes are planned. As always we would love to hear your feedback, feel free to register on the blog and make a comment. And stay tuned for some great things heading your way. (Maybe even some special offers and contests!) Be sure to subscribe to any of our feeds, or bookmark the page for future reference.

Thank you all, and welcome to Gator Crossing! Watch out for Crocs in the road!