Most people are familiar with HostGator and understand that they are a webhosting company. What is not clear for a lot of people is just what a webhosting company does and what kind of services they provide. It is important that you understand this so that you can choose the right service when you get your hosting.

The basic role of a webhosting company like HostGator is to host websites. That means that they put your site on one of their servers so that people can access it. A server is simply a computer that serves requests for other computers. There are several different types of servers that can be used and as a result several different hosting plans available. Choosing the right ones for your needs is important to make sure that your site works properly.

Most people when they need webhosting will use a shared server and this is by far the most common type that HostGator sells. The reason that this type of hosting is so popular is that is that a server generally has a lot of bandwidth and disk space, far more than the average website will actually need. As a result you can put more than one site on a server. The big advantage to doing this is that it will reduce the cost of your hosting. The down side is that there may be some security issues if you host your site this way.

The other option that most people use when they host a website is a dedicated server; this is something that you can get from HostGator as well. The advantage of a dedicated server is that you get a lot more disk space and bandwidth which makes them ideal for people with large sites. They are also more secure. The downside is that they cost a lot more. Usually when you get a dedicated server you are also responsible for managing it which is something that a lot of people are not capable of doing. This is not an issue with HostGator as they will manage your dedicated server for free.

One last hosting option that HostGator offers is what is known as virtual private server. This is a shared server but it puts a partition between the websites. The result is that you will have most of the benefits that you get from a dedicated server but at a price that is more in the range of what you would pay for shared hosting.

HostGator are one of the best known web hosts in the business. The question is are they the best? You should read our HostGator Review to find out.