Using Fetch Mail is a better alternative than email forwarding because it prevents email providers, like Gmail, from blacklisting servers. The problem is that it's hard for email providers to differentiate email-spam-forwarding from legit email forwarding. Here is some information on how to forward fetch email from your Hostgator account to your Gmail account. Gmail is not just a email host, it's an email client. You can fetch from multiple email addressed and set up the option to reply from one email address which doesn't have to be your Gmail email address.