How to Use the Support Portal
Our Support Portal has several features designed to make it possible to find the help you need and even find resources to accomplish everything you need. This guide will provide information and tips about all the methods for using the Support Portal.
- Support Portal Search ⤵
- Browse by Topic ⤵
- Breadcrumbs ⤵
- Copy the Article Link ⤵
- Social Media Links ⤵
- Helpful Resources ⤵
Support Portal Search
With HostGator's Support Portal, https://www.hostgator.com/help, you can type in whatever topic you need help with. As you type, you may see some results below the search field. You may click one of the suggestions, or you may finish typing and then hit enter.
Search Tips
- Use correct spelling for more accurate results.
- Use the most relevant words. Common words like "the" or "and" will be ignored.
- The search is NOT case-sensitive.
- Words with less than 3 alpha-numeric characters are always ignored.
Advanced Tips
- By placing quotation marks around a set of words, you are telling the search tool to consider the exact words in that exact order without any change.
- Attaching a minus sign (-) immediately before a word indicates that you do not want pages that contain this word to appear in your results. The minus sign should appear immediately before the word and should be preceded by a space. (Without the preceding blank space, the minus sign will be treated as a hyphen.)
- Attaching a plus sign (+) immediately before a word indicates that you only want pages that contain this word to appear in your results. The plus sign should appear immediately before the word (without any space between the plus and the keyword).
Search Examples
To get better search results, try using quotes, plus signs, and minus signs to modify your search.
When you search the knowledge base, by default, it tries to find any article with any of the words you specified, excluding common words like "getting." This means that if you search for getting started guide, the search will return articles with the word "started" and articles with the word "guide." This includes articles that only have the word "started" and articles that only have the word "guide" but not necessarily both "starting" and "guide."
If you want an article with the words "getting started" next to each other, you should put quotes around it like this: "getting started"
This will only find articles with the words "getting started" next to each other. Even though "getting" is considered a common word, when placed in quotes, it is included as part of the query.
But what if you want to find articles with both the words "started" and "guide" but not necessarily next to each other? There is a way to do that. Simply put a plus sign in front of the required words like +started +guide, and only articles with both words "starting" and "guide" will show up in the results. The word "getting" is ignored since it is a common word.
You can also exclude words by using a minus sign in front of the word you want to exclude. In this example, you can put -guide to omit any results with the word "guide" in it. The word "getting" is automatically excluded because it is a common word.
Browse by Topic
If you want to view a list of all topics related to the software or issue you're interested in, you may want to browse by topic by selecting from a list of categories on the right-hand side of the page.
After selecting the filter(s) on the right-hand side, you will see the related articles directly associated with the filter you selected.
Breadcrumbs
If you have already found a helpful article and want to see more related articles, you can use the breadcrumbs to browse the categories the article is attached to. It is more like a navigation menu as inspired by the fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel.
Copy the Article Link
A Copy Link button was created so you can easily "copy and paste and share" the article links.
Social Media Links
Social media icons are available on the article page, so you can easily share the articles across various social media platforms.
Helpful Resources
The Helpful Resources section of our support portal provides a list of links to forms for purchasing account addons, a link to your Customer Portal, our blog, forums where you can get personalized help and responses to any questions you may have, video tutorials, and even assistance with contacting us directly. You may see this in an article as a separate section at the bottom, usually with a header, Frequently Asked Questions, Related Topics, or Related Articles.
