Name: GoDaddy.com
Plans: Shared, VPS, Reseller, and Dedicated.
Website: www.godaddy.com
Summary: GoDaddy doesn’t get good reviews from site owners. Better than they were in the past. I can’t recommend GoDaddy. There are much better options. These GoDaddy hosting reviews show you what others are saying about them.
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GoDaddy is a household name. Hence why million of sites call GoDaddy their home. They are a well-known domain registrar. You can also host with them.
They offer a ton of hosting plans. They have over 14 million clients. GoDaddy has over 5,000 employees. They have 62 million domain names under them. They are a big name in the web field. Other big names are BlueHost, iP target=”_blank”age, Network Solutions, 1and1, and JustHost.
GoDaddy was the 1st company I reviewed in 2007. I have changed my review a dozen times. I want to make sure you are reading current information. Now in 2016 I am going to go over GoDaddy’s features. Then, I will take a look at their speed.
Next, I will have a look at their uptime. Then, look at GoDaddy’s customer support. Finally, at the end of this GoDaddy review, you will be able to decide if they are right for you. I summarize what I have written about them in my summary. Now, I will show you what GoDaddy has to offer.
GoDaddy Features
GoDaddy offers a lot of web hosting packages. You have a ton of options. They certainly have a lot of features. You can use create any site you want with GoDaddy.
They offer domain names. Their hosting plans are:
- Shared Plans.
- WordPress plans.
- VPS plans.
- Cloud plans.
- Dedicated plans.
Below I am going to show you all the plans they are offering at this time.
GoDaddy’s Shared Plans
All of their hosting plans can come in both Windows and Linux. It is up to you to pick if you want a Windows or a Linux plan. I do like how they give you the option between the two operating systems.
- GoDaddy Economy plan starts at $3.99/month. This plan goes up to $7.99/month with your next billing cycle. This plan will support one site. You can use 100GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, (see this article on unlimited hosting offers), 100 email accounts. You do get a free domain with an annual plan. Also, there is a paid option for site backups and restore options.
- GoDaddy Deluxe plans start at $4.99/month. It does go up to $9.99/month with your next billing cycle. This plan will support unlimited sites. You can use unlimited bandwidth and storage. Also, their customers do get 500 email addresses. A free domain name does come with it if you sign up with their annual plan. Also, you can get a paid option for site backups and restores.
- Ultimate plans start at $7.99/month. This plan does go up to $14.99/month after your first billing cycle. This plan will support unlimited sites, storage, and bandwidth, and you do get 1,000 email addresses. Like their other two plans, you do get a free domain name with their annual plans. Also, you can get a paid option for site backups and restores. Additionally, you get 2X processing power and memory (with Linux and cPanel only). You do get a premium DNS with this plan. You can get a free SSL certificate for a year, too. This is a $69.99 value.
I did have a question about their site backup and restore paid option. I contacted support to ask GoDaddy how this works. So, here is what they told me:
Backup & Restore
The backup restore feature is pretty straight forward. If you don’t want to create a backup of the site manually, then you can set it up that, and it does it for you. It is a backup restore feature that automatically backs up your site rather than you having to do it manually.
It is an add-on in your cPanel dashboard. Backup Wizard is the name: https://documentation.cpanel.net/display/ALD/Backup+Wizard
What I don’t like about GoDaddy’s shared hosting plans is that they sign you up with a low entry fee. Your next billing period the price does go up 2 times the original price. You can expect to pay more for being a loyal customer. This really seems backwards to me. I am not a fan of this. Other host like FatCow, StartLogic, Dot5Hosting, do this as well.
Unlimited Bandwidth With GoDaddy
Shared plans are limited. I did search through their site and found that you can use 500,000 inodes (Windows plans), and 250,000 inodes with their Linux plans. Please see this article on GoDaddy’s site which goes over their resource limit. https://www.godaddy.com/help/resource-limits-12001. Therefore, whenever you see the words “unlimited bandwidth” you now know there are limits.
WordPress Plans
WordPress plans are available with GoDaddy. Here are the details for their WordPress plans:
- Basic. First, cost $3.99/month. But renews at $7.99/month. It supports one site and comes with 10GB of SSD storage, 25,000 monthly visitors, SFTP access, and a free domain.
- Deluxe. This plan cost $4.99/month. But renews at $9.99/month. This plan will also support one site, 15 GB SSD storage, 100,000 monthly visitors, SSH/SFTP access, free domain name, one click staging site, and a search engine optimization plugin.
- Ultimate. This plan cost $7.99/month. But renews at $14.99/month. This plan will support two sites, 30 GB SSD storage, 400,000 monthly visitors, SSH/SFTP access, free domain name, one click staging, SEO plugin for your two sites, and a free SSL certificate for one year (a 69.99/year value).
- Developer. This plan cost $13.99/month. But renews at $24.99/month (almost same price as WP Engine’s managed plan). This plan will support five sites, 50 GB SSD storage, 800,000 monthly visitors, SSH/SFTP access, free domain name, one-click staging, and a free SSL certificate.
GoDaddy’s VPS Plans
Linux Plans
GoDaddy does offer a lot of plans for site owners looking for a VPS server. They offer both Windows and Linux servers. First, I am going to go over their Linux VPS servers.
- The first plan is $24.99/month but renews at $29.99/month. This plan has 1 GB of RAM and 40 GB of storage.
- The second plan is $29.99/month but renews at $39.99/month. This plan has 2 GB of RAM and 60 GB of storage.
- The third plan is $34.99/month but renews at $49.99/month. This plan has 3 GB of RAM and 90 GB of storage.
- The fourth plan is $49.99/month but renews at $69.99/month. This plan has 4 GB of RAM and 120 GB of storage.
- The fifth plan is $99.99/month but renews at $139.99/month. This plan has 8 GB of RAM and 240 GB of storage.
Their customers will notice that their prices are reasonably priced for starters. Once they increase they can be substantially higher than RoseHosting and GlowHost. I do feel that both of those two companies do have much more of a quality service compared to GoDaddy.
Optionally, you can pay $110.00/month for a fully-managed server. A dedicated team and server admin will manage cPanel, install updates, monitor your server, backup your server, etc. Also, you can add on $4.99/month if you want a backup and restore a feature. It will backup your sites once a day. You do get a free SSL certificate for a year, which is a $69.99/year value.
Windows VPS Plans
- The first plan is $34.99/month but renews at $39.99/month. This plan has 2 GB of RAM and 40 GB of storage.
- The second plan is $39.99/month but renews at $49.99/month. This plan has 2 GB of RAM and 60 GB of storage.
- The third plan is $44.99/month but renews at $59.99/month. This plan has 3 GB of RAM and 90 GB of storage.
- The fourth plan is $59.99/month but renews at $79.99/month. This plan has 4 GB of RAM and 120 GB of storage.
- The fifth plan is 109.99/month but renews at $149.99/month. This plan has 8 GB of RAM and 240 GB of storage.
Just like their Linux plans, you can pay $110.00/month for a fully-managed server. You can also pay $4.99/month for daily backups, and they can restore your site for you. You do also get a free SSL certificate, too.
Cloud Server Plans
GoDaddy offers five cloud hosting plans. These servers are good for only paying for the resources that you use. The details are down below:
- 20GB. This plan cost no more than $5.00/month. The rate per hour is $.0074. It has 512 MB of memory, one core processor, 20 GB of SSD storage, and 1 TB of transfer.
- 30GB. This plan cost no more than $10.00/month. The rate per hour is $.0149. It has 1 GB of memory, one core processor, 30 GB of SSD storage, and 2 TB of transfer.
- 40GB. This plan cost no more than $20.00/month. The rate per hour is $.0298. It has 2 GB of memory, two core processor, 40 GB of SSD storage, and 3 TB of transfer.
- 60GB. This plan cost no more than $40.00/month. The rate per hour is $.0595. It has 4 GB of memory, two core processor, 60 GB of SSD storage, and 4 TB of transfer.
- 80GB. This plan cost no more than $80.00/month. The rate per hour is $.1190. It has 8 GB of memory, four core processor, 80 GB of SSD storage, and 8 TB of transfer.
Each of their cloud plans is free for 30 days. They state right on their site that they are for US data centers only. They use utility billing, 54-second provisioning, backups, SSD hard drives, are powered by an OpenStack-powered by KVM virtualization. You have a permanent IP addressed assigned to you. These cloud servers only support Linux at this time. GoDaddy has stated that they plan to add Windows shortly.
GoDaddy’s Dedicated Plans
For dedicated plans they offer are:
- Economy ($99.99/month).
- Deluxe ($199.99/month).
- Premium ($299.99/month).
- Value Deal ($149.99/month).
- Power Player ($249.99/month).
- MemoryHog which is also ($249.99/month).
Domain Names
With GoDaddy, you can buy domain names. It is the reason they are so insanely popular. They are the largest domain registrar in the world. Typically, you can purchase a domain name with them for .99. This price is only good for the first year.
Then the next year the domain name goes up to $14/year. They have a wide selection of domain extensions like .com, org, .net, etc. that you can purchase. You can usually find a promo code when you renew your domain name.
You can purchase private domain names for an extra yearly fee, too. I used to buy domain names with them. A year ago I stopped purchasing them from GoDaddy. See this article on GoDaddy vs. NameCheap. However, I prefer not to host with them as you soon find out later in this GoDaddy hosting review.
Other companies that were built as registrars are NameCheap and Network Solutions. If you want to know how do you buy a domain name I would highly recommend you read an article I posted; it shows you what you need to know about buying a domain name.
Professional Email Plans
- Email Essentials. $3.49/month. Increase to $4.99/month. 5 GB email storage. Outlook web application. Data security and spam filtering.
- Online Essentials. $6.99/month. Increase to $9.99/month. 50 GB email storage. 1 TB online storage. Outlook web application. Data security and spam filtering.
- Business Premium. $8.99/month. Increases to $14.99/month. 50 GB email storage. 1 TB online storage. Office 2016 on 5 PC’s or Macs. Mobile Apps. DocuSin. HIPPA eligible. Data security and spam filtering.
- Premium Security. $14.99/month. Increase to $24.99/month. 50 GB email storage. 1 TB online storage. Office 2016 on 5 PC’s or Macs. Mobile Apps. DocuSin. HIPPA eligible. Encryption sensitive emails. Archiving. Data security and spam filtering.
If you have more than ten email accounts, GoDaddy tells you to call them. They can develop a custom package for your email hosting needs.
SSL Certificates
GoDaddy offers SSL certificates. These can increase your security between you and your customers. Simply put, if you run an eCommerce site, you’re going to want an SSL.
Prices for SSL’s
- $55.99/year. Secures one website.
- $134.99/year. Secures up to five websites.
- $269.99/year. Secures one site and all subdomains.
These SSL’s are strong SHA-2 & 2048- bit encryption. Meaning that you’ll get the best possible encryption that you can find. These SSL’s are backed by a million dollar liability protection policy. It is great a lot of other hosts will not offer this much protection. Their SSL’s operate with one-click installation.
SiteLock
One thing a lot of eCommerce owners are concerned about is hackers. Since running an online business is often vulnerable to spyware and viruses it makes perfect sense to use SiteLock. It will ensure that your sites are secure. It not only finds malware. SiteLock also secures the gaps. It makes it harder to hack your site. The details and prices are down below:
Site Support
Like most other companies they do offer you a free domain. However, all web hosting companies I have reviewed offers the same thing. GoDaddy is simply no different in allowing you to acquire a domain with a hosting package. GoDaddy will allow you to host your site on three different Linux operating systems. They are CentOS, Ubuntu, and Fedora.
Optionally, you can always use the Windows operating system. For configuring your servers you can use Plesk, and as of lately they even allow you to use cPanel. For years GoDaddy didn’t support cPanel. Announced in 2013, GoDaddy has partnered with CloudLinux.
It helps to protect their client’s servers, concerning stability and security. Godaddy is a feature-rich web hosting provider that can provide you anything you need to get a site up and running. You can purchase site builders, SEO services, etc.
Now, that we know all the features GoDaddy offers lets give them a test drive.
GoDaddy Performance
The speed of your servers matters. A lot of site owners don’t find this out until they host with a company for a few months. Then they have noticeable speed problems. Now comes the part of my expert GoDaddy review when I am going to talk about what you can expect from GoDaddy’s performance.
I do want to start out with a positive tidbit about GoDaddy. They have partnered with CloudLinux. CloudLinux is a well-respected CDN that lots of site owners have used over the years. I still really feel that GoDaddy’s speed isn’t good and I am going to explain why.
Why I Feel GoDaddy’s Speed Is Lacking
My GoDaddy hosting review seems to be more negative from this point on. First, GoDaddy is a massive company, and they need to have the hardware to support the demands of their enormous client-base. They do have decent equipment.
They do use SSD hosting. In my experience, I have found that sites that are hosted on GoDaddy’s servers seem to load slowly. Nine times out of 10 whenever I have a client that host with GoDaddy I try to beg and plead with them to migrate to another host.
I have had problems with speed with GoDaddy over the years. I don’t want my clients to experience the same problems I have dealt with time and time again. Speed problems can affect your rankings in Google. Since a lot of my clients need help with SEO getting them off GoDaddy’s servers seems to help drastically.
When I was a young web designer almost a decade ago, the first host I tried was GoDaddy. It was a lesson I would never forget. My site would constantly take forever to load. I always had 500 error messages. For anyone wondering what a 500 error message is, it is just a problem with the server. It has nothing to do with you whatsoever. I wasted about two years of my life going back and forth with GoDaddy. As soon as I migrated away from them, I notice that all my previous issues were no longer a problem anymore.
Search On Google & Your Will Find GoDaddy Speed Problems
You might think this sounds a little far fetched, but really it is not. If you Google “GoDaddy performance problems” you will find out that their are tons of complaints about GoDaddy’s speed. Back in the day GoDaddy wasn’t using SSD hosting which might have been the problem. But I have read various articles, one written by the developers of iThemes that stated that GoDaddy oversells their servers. They encourage other site owners to host with any other company.
One company I do like is InterServer. They limit the number of sites on their servers. It helps other sites loading speed. I believe GoDaddy needs to take a page out of their book. They are successful at marketing their service, but I believe their speed is quite bad, still in 2016.
Tested Many Times
GoDaddy did leave a bitter taste in my mouth back in 2007 to 2009. I wanted to try them out again to see if anything was improved. Again I have tested them out in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Haven’t noticed any significant changes with their speed.
Possibly, you could sign up with them and sign up with a good CDN. But, GoDaddy’s performance isn’t the only problem I have with them, though.
I am not the only webmaster that has reported issues with GoDaddy’s speed. My research clearly shows that site owners are still having problems with their speed. End of rant on GoDaddy’s performance, I promise.
Uptime With GoDaddy
Now comes the part of my GoDaddy hosting review when I am going to talk about their uptime. So, how good is GoDaddy’s uptime?
First, GoDaddy does have a “GoDaddy Problems” page. It will show you any known problems that their servers are having.
I’m going to start off by saying that GoDaddy does have a 99.9% uptime policy. It is displayed proudly on their site. It means that your site should be up pretty much all hours of the day. However, I was reading over their agreement page on their site that states they will give you a 5% credit on your monthly bill. If they ever have downtime that dips below 99.9%.
It does not cover maintenance or repairs, interruptions caused by custom scripting or third party applications, outages that do not affect the appearance of your site; such as FTP and email, or issues with programming environments. It is solely determined by GoDaddy, though. Therefore, using Pingdom Tools, GTmetrix, etc. does not comply with their TOS.
GoDaddy Could Have A Better Uptime Policy
A lot of other companies like LiquidWeb, SiteGround, and GreenGeeks have a better uptime policy. It doesn’t only protect them for 5% of your monthly bill, though. But, 5% of your dedicated server that cost $200/month would only give you credit for $10. This isn’t very much money to be compensated for, though. What is worse is the money is only credit for your future bill. Meaning that you have to keep being a paying customer. This is something that Hostgator and other host have been doing for years.
Uptime Probably Won’t Be An Issue With GoDaddy
From the research I have done on GoDaddy’s uptime I can state that you really shouldn’t have any problems with uptime. They are a massive company. There have been a couple of complaints on various sites that do state they have issues with uptime, but nothing that I believe is substantial. Therefore, I am confident in telling you that you shouldn’t ever really have a problem with downtime with GoDaddy.
GoDaddy’s Customer Service
As site owners, we are going to have to contact customer support. Problems do happen. We need to be able to get in touch with them 24/7 to help get issues fixed. For a lot of sites, some like to call support, jump on live chat, fill out a support ticket, etc.
There needs to be many ways to contact GoDaddy if you need to get in touch with them. So, how good is GoDaddy’s support?
Telephone Support
You can contact GoDaddy through the phone 24/7 if you ever have a question that you need to be answered. They have toll free numbers in Argentina, Australia, Belgie, Belgique, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Deutschland, Espana, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italla, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norge, Osterreich, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poiska, Portugal, Schwiz, Singapore, South Africa, Suisse, Suomi, Sverge, Svizzera, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
Speaking on the phone is the way to contact them. You can call them and use their phone service to route your questions to an agent. For instance, if you are going to call them enter your PIN and talk to a person that specializes in VPS management. From, my experience and a lot other site owners experience it takes about 10 minutes to get in contact with them over the phone.
Live Chat
GoDaddy does have a live chat feature (somewhat). I say “somewhat” because sometimes when you are on their site a chat box will pop up, and you can connect with an agent to get your questions resolved. I have used this feature in the past; sometimes it took 2 minutes and other times it took 20-45 minutes to get in contact with someone at GoDaddy. As I am writing this, it currently says that GoDaddy’s live chat support is offline, though. So, live chat isn’t 24/7.
Knowledge-Base
GoDaddy does have a ton of resources with articles which show you how to do anything from domains, Linux hosting, Windows, SSL certificates, Office 365, Workspace email, their site builder, account management. https://www.godaddy.com/help
No More Email Support
GoDaddy doesn’t have email support anymore. I found this out recently on September 3, 2016, when I tried to contact them for a couple of questions, I had with their service.
Transferring Domain Names
Mostly, I have a lot of experience transferring domain names to other registrars for my clients, and many sites I run. It is usually a pretty easy process to get your domain names away from them. They are good at assisting me whenever I do transfer domain names away from them.
GoDaddy’s Support Is A Hassle
Overall, I am really not a fan of contacting GoDaddy. For instance, chat support isn’t available 24/7, there is no email support, and the only option that you can totally rely on is telephone support. It usually takes a bit to get ahold of them. Yes, there support is kind, but it just seems like a lot of extra work to get help with your technical problems.
They Do Upsell You Throughout The Year
Lastly, I should note that GoDaddy will call you to try to upsell you different products and services. They have personally called me many times over the years. I have even requested that they take my number off their call list, but they still seem to call once or twice a year. It usually seems to be whenever my domain name is getting close to expiring. A lot of other sites owners have also complained about this minor annoyance over the years, too.
GoDaddy Hosting Reviews – Look Around The Web
I have done lots of research on GoDaddy. The feedback is pretty negative. Here is a look at how other sites rank GoDaddy.
- WhoIsHostingThis.com. 3/5. 505 user reviews.
- Pcmag.com. 4/5.
- WebHostingGeeks.com. 1.9/5. 552 user reviews.
- NateShiva.com 3/5.
- TopTenReviews.com. 8.3/10.
- ConsumerAffairs.com. 1.1/5. 153 user reviews.
- WebhostingSecretRevealed.net. 3/5.
- WebHostingHero.com. 5/10. 26 user reviews.
- WebHostingJury.com. 2.2/5. 180 user reviews.
GoDaddy Hosting Reviews Summary
So, do I recommend you go ahead and sign up with GoDaddy? No! They are good at marketing themselves. Lots of site owners have tried them out over the years. Lots of people have been dissatisfied with their web hosting services. They have made improvements since 2007. I still don’t recommend them.
Low Introductory Price, But It Doubles
GoDaddy gets you to sign up with them by offering you low introductory prices. However, with your next billing cycle don’t be surprised if your bill goes up 25-50%, sometimes even 100%. I am not a fan of rewarding your loyal customers by charging them more for being a returning customer. It seems quite backward to me and just makes them more money.
Speed & Uptime Guarantee Problems
They have had performance issues in the past, and they still appear to be present today. The uptime with GoDaddy is pretty stable, and you shouldn’t ever really have extended periods of downtime, but you’re only going to get 5% credit on your monthly bill if ever you do have uptime issues.
Customer Support Is A Hassle
Customer support is only available through the telephone. It usually takes about 10 minutes to get in contact with an agent. GoDaddy does lack a live chat feature that is available 24/7. I have used it time and time again, and it always seems to be offline on the weekends or after business hours and your forced to call customer support. Also, GoDaddy has discontinued their email support. You can no longer email them with your questions. I believe this was a big mistake.
I have talked with a number of site owners over the years, and most of them state that they would prefer to avoid hosting with GoDaddy altogether.
Yes, GoDaddy has left a bad taste in my mouth back in 2007 and to this date in time; they don’t seem to be any better than they were in the past.
I don’t even buy domain names with GoDaddy anymore either. NameCheap has better prices and is much easier to use.
Since GoDaddy Does not Get My Recommendation Who Should You Use?
If you are looking for a good dependable shared hosting company, I will encourage you to read my WebHostingHub review. They are an excellent budget web hosting company that I have been using for over eight years.
If you’re looking for a VPS or dedicated host, I will encourage you to check out my InMotion Hosting review. They are owned by the same company that owns WebHostingHub, and I am currently using them on tbwhs.com. They are lightyears ahead of GoDaddy.
Below are interviews with GoDaddy customers.