The university at the time founded HostGator in October 2002. In 2006, the company relocated from its original Boca Raton, Florida location to a new 20,000-square-foot building in Houston, Texas. The company opened its first international office in Canada in June 2006.
In 2008, Inc. Magazine ranked HostGator as number 21 in the United States and number one in the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas area. The following year, HostGator decided to make its hosting service green by partnering with Integrated Ecosystem Market Services.
In 2008, HostGator braced itself for the competition from companies claiming to offer “unlimited” hosting services. Brent Oxley, the company’s founder, was adamant about being able to back up an “unlimited” option before offering the service and increasing staffing. He estimated that the change increased sales by at least 30%.
In 2010, an office in Austin, Texas, was opened. HostGator began operations in India in May 2011, with an office in Nashik, Maharashtra, and a data center.
HostGator was sold to Endurance International Group (EIG) on July 13, 2012, for a total purchase price of $299.8 million, of which $227.3 million was paid in cash at the closing. Brent Oxley, CEO, and founder of HostGator, announced the sale on June 21, 2012, and advised employees and users not to worry, in part because Oxley would still own the buildings HostGator used. He stated that he wished to travel the world before having children. He was also open about HostGator’s failures in creating stable billing and registration sections and expressed hope that Endurance could fix them.
HostGator introduced Optimized WP, a suite of tools for creating and managing WordPress websites, in 2015. EIG had launched local HostGator sites in Brazil, Russia, India, China, Turkey, and Mexico by the end of 2015. HostGator also provided web hosting services in the United Kingdom and Australia as of 2019.
HostGator was hit by a Trojan attack in 2006 that affected over 200 machines.
The computer hacker group UGNazi claimed responsibility for hacking the web server of the web host billing software developer WHMCS in an apparent social engineering attack involving HostGator in May 2012. Cosmo impersonated a senior employee by a member of the group Cosmo called WHMCS’s hosting provider. After providing information for identity verification, they were granted root access to WHMCS’s web server. Later, Ignaz made public WHMCS’s SQL database, which contained user information as well as 500,000 customer credit cards, website files, and panel configuration. Following this incident, WHMCS emailed members to request that they change their passwords.
HostGator has experienced an increase in server outages and downtime since its acquisition by Endurance International. Notably, Endurance International Group’s data center in Provo, Utah, experienced network outages on August 2, 2013, and December 31, 2013, affecting thousands of Blue host, Hesitators, Host Monster, and Just Host customers.
According to TechCrunch, Paulo’s Bibelot, a well-known bug hunter, discovered serious vulnerabilities at the Blue host, Dream Host, OVH, page, and HostGator in January 2019.
