Quick Answers to Common Support Questions

At HostGator, we are responding to the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation to ensure we meet our customers' needs while providing for the health and safety of our employees.

During this time, you may experience slower wait times when you contact customer support.

But, our knowledge base has answers to many common questions — and without the wait.

Need help with your website?

Here are some common requests and quick tips to get you started.

Account Issues

Log in to the Customer Portal - From here, you can access cPanel and everything else.
Change your DNS or name servers - If you have an existing domain, your domain name must be configured to work with your new hosting account. Follow the instructions here to connect your name servers with your HostGator account.
DNS records - Do you already own a domain? Connect your domain to your hosting package by setting your name servers. Here’s how.
Domain propagation - Domain not working? It could be because of propagation. If you bought a new domain or made a major change, such as changing your name servers, it may take 24-48 hours to start working.
How to find your name server - Not sure what your name server is? Or if you need to change it? Read more about name servers and how to find your name server.
Email issues - Can you send emails but can’t receive them? Here are some troubleshooting steps.
Transfer a domain - Ready to transfer your domain to HostGator? We recommend keeping your domain and hosting package with the same company. It just makes everything more manageable in the long run. Follow the steps in this article.
Install your free SSL - An SSL certificate helps protect information passed from your website to the server. So when someone enters a credit card or fills out a form, that information will be protected. HostGator offers a free SSL certificate for all web hosting packages, and we have upgraded Positive or EV SSL Certificates for purchase.

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Navigate cPanel and Customer Portal

A Beginners Guide to cPanel - New to HostGator? Here’s a quick guide on using cPanel to manage your account, email accounts, domain names, and more.
Customer Portal Overview - Learn to navigate the Customer Portal for basic tasks, such as making payments, making purchases, and managing your domain's name servers.
FTP Getting Started - Need a way to access and manage your files using an FTP client of your choice? Please visit this article for more information.
How to Navigate through File Manager - File Manager is a quick and easy way to navigate your files in your HostGator hosting account. See this article to learn more.

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Common website error messages

403 Forbidden or No Permission to Access - When file or folder permissions are incorrect, you will see a 403 error.
404 Error Page - You will see this error when a typographical error occurs, the URL is incorrect, or an element is missing from a page.
500 Internal Server Error - There are several possible causes of a 500 error page. See this article to know how to resolve this.

PHP Error Messages

How to Update the PHP Version - Updating your site's PHP version fixes the problem with how your server handles PHP packages.
How to Fix Error After MultiPHP Update - The article will discuss the workaround for fixing the Multiphp error.

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All about WordPress

Install WordPress via Softaculous - Install WordPress from cPanel using the cPanel's one-click installer, Softaculous.
Install WordPress manually - If you have issues with Softaculous, for some reason, you still have the option to manually install WordPress. This might be helpful for our more advanced hosting packages like dedicated servers, resellers, or VPS.
Get started with themes & layouts - Follow this guide to learn how to choose and install a WordPress design theme and get your WordPress site going!

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