The company gave $100,000 to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX, and $25,000 to One Laptop per Child. The gifts were decided upon by HostGator management and staff, including a significant contribution to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Brent Oxley, President of HostGator noted, ”The gift to Anderson reflected a mix of the wishes of the staff here at HostGator and suggestions from our users. It’s pretty hard to find anybody whose life hasn’t been touched in some way — directly or indirectly — by cancer. We gave to them, partly because we’re located in Houston and some of our employees have had family members treated there, but mostly we gave because of their amazing country-wide reputation for treating patients and researching cancer cures.”

In addition. HostGator donated to the international organization, One Laptop Per Child. The Anderson Cancer Center received a gift of $100,000 and One Laptop per Child received $25,000. The goal of One Laptop per Child is spelled out in its name: to improve the educational opportunities for children in underdeveloped regions by giving every child access to an inexpensive, durable, web-capable laptop. At $100 each, the gift from HostGator should provide at least 250 laptops.

The gift to One Laptop per Child was another easy decision, according to Mr. Oxley, ”If it wasn’t for the internet and computers we wouldn’t be in business. If just one of the kids can further their knowledge in computers and make a career out of it, in some shape or form, it will have been worth every penny.”

At Anderson, one of the country’s largest cancer treatment centers, HostGator’s gift will go to support a variety of programs — from research and clinical trials, to education, counseling and treatments. Mr. Oxley says as HostGator continues to grow and earn profits, it will continue increasing the amount of its annual gifts.

Mr. Oxley added, ”As a company, we expect to go on making charitable donations, and letting our people decide each year where our gifts should go. We want the benefits of our success to go beyond our own narrow interests, so that’s why we’ll keep on doing it. Some other companies may donate for ‘political’ reasons, not because they really want to help — but that’s still good. Whatever the motives and whatever the amounts given, it all helps. The more corporate giving there is, the better.”

Host Gator is a provider of shared, dedicated and reseller web hosting services focused on the consumer and small business markets. Founded in 2002, Host Gator has become a leader in reseller hosting, assisting over 15,000 businesses become web hosting companies, currently hosting over 700,000 domains. Host Gator has offices in Houston, Texas and its data center operations are co-located out of The Planet’s facility in Dallas, Texas, enabling it to access Tier-1 backbone providers such as UUNet, Sprint, Level 3, Global Crossing, Verio and AT and T and AboveNet. HostGator’s shared hosting plans are supported by HostGator’s 24/7/365 phone support, and comes with a 99.9% uptime and 30-day money-back guarantee.

Brent Oxley, Founder and President of HostGator remarked, ”These templates are free to any Website hosted by HostGator, whether on a shared or dedicated hosting plan, or through a hosting reseller. We want to make hosting domains or building websites as painless as possible, that’s why we offer the free templates. We also offer free Site Builder, one of the easiest tools available for anybody wanting to custom build a website, rather than use a template.”

The free templates cover a broad range of page designs suitable for nearly 120 different types of small and medium-sized businesses – from accountants and auto dealers, to cleaning services, consultants, martial arts studios, toy stores, women’s health clinics, and everything in between. The wide variety of templates makes it easier for resellers to attract people and businesses who want websites, but don’t have the knowledge or design abilities needed to create good looking websites.

Although it’s common for Web hosting companies to offer a variety of perks, including free or low cost Web tools, and even a limited number of templates, Mr. Oxley says the number of free templates HostGator has is far beyond the average, adding, ”I really don’t know of any other large hosting company offering this many templates. We may be setting the trend here.”

To apply the free templates, a reseller or webmaster may browse through the templates, select one or more to use, and they automatically begin downloading to their computer. Hosting resellers and webmasters are also welcome to modify and HostGator’s templates, so long as the websites remain hosted by HostGator.

As an added feature, resellers can actually mirror HostGator’s templates pages to show to their customers. That makes accessing the templates easy, while maintaining control over who can accesss them.

Mr. Oxley concludes, ”The only restriction is that the templates can’t be sold or distributed for use on websites not hosted by us.”

HostGator is a provider of shared, dedicated and reseller web hosting services focused on the consumer and small business markets. Founded in 2002, HostGator has become a leader in reseller hosting, assisting over 15,000 businesses become web hosting companies. HostGator has offices in Houston, Texas and its data center operations are co-located out of The Planet’s facility in Dallas, Texas, enabling it to access Tier-1 backbone providers such as UUNet, Sprint, Level 3, Global Crossing, Verio and AT and T and AboveNet. HostGator’s shared hosting plans are supported by HostGator’s 24/7/365 phone support, and comes with a 99.9% uptime and 30-day money-back guarantee.