GoDaddy: A Detailed Review

Introduction To GoDaddy

GoDaddy is an American domain registrar and web hosting company. It was founded by Bob Parsons in 1997 in Baltimore, Maryland. Initially, it was known as Jomax Technologies, but the company changed its name to GoDaddy in February 2006. Now, with a workforce of more than 9,000 employees, GoDaddy is headquartered in Tempe, AZ  (after being shifted from Scottsdale, AZ in April 2021)

GoDaddy is one of the biggest and most popular names in the web hosting market. It is also a leading domain registrar in the world. From individual bloggers to large-scale businesses, GoDaddy offers a wide range of services for all kinds of customers. Currently, it is a trusted choice of 20 million+ customers with a total of 82 million+ domain names registrations.

However, we understand that every business is different. So to help you decide if GoDaddy is the web host that best suits your needs, we will share with you a detailed review of its web hosting services.

Review Overview

GoDaddy is well-known for offering a diverse range of services to businesses of all sizes. Whether you’re a novice blogger or a huge corporation, it provides all the tools and features you’ll need to build any type of website. It offers shared hosting, dedicated server hosting, WordPress managed hosting, and even developer-friendly scalable cloud hosting. You also receive a free domain, nightly backup, automated updates, high-grade security features, one-click migration, and much more. The company also guarantees a solid uptime and 24/7 customer support.

However, all this information is either sourced from different reviews of the hosting service or claims made by GoDaddy.

In this review, we put these claims to test.

In our comprehensive and unbiased review, we will be covering the following aspects of GoDaddy’s hosting service:

• Performance: We will determine if websites hosted by GoDaddy can efficiently manage sudden spikes in traffic.
• Speed: We will check the load speed and response times of a website hosted by GoDaddy.
• Security: We will explore all the security features offered by GoDaddy.
• Pricing: The review will also cover all the plans offered by GoDaddy, along with the features included with each plan and the cost involved.
• Features: We will explore all the additional features that make GoDaddy’s service pleasant and amusing.
• Policies: We will also explore GoDaddy’s customer and pricing policies.
• Quality Of Customer Support: We will present reviews on the quality of customer support provided by GoDaddy and also examine if their team is trained and equipped enough to deal with common customer challenges and queries.

Review Summary

Here’s a quick overview of our findings while testing GoDaddy’s hosting service:

Now, let’s get started with a detailed review of all these aspects of services offered by GoDaddy. The first step is performance tests.

GoDaddy Performance Test

When choosing a web host, you should always prioritize performance over pricing. This is critical since a bad web host will eventually push you to change to a better one. This move will not only cost you extra money but will also take up a significant amount of time.

Thus, to give you a better understanding of GoDaddy’s web hosting performance we decided to conduct our own tests. They covered the speed, reliability, and response time of a website hosted by GoDaddy.

GoDaddy Speed Test Results

The ideal website load time for mobile sites is 1-2 seconds. According to recent studies, even a single second delay can result in 7% fewer conversions and 11% fewer page views. Furthermore, while establishing rankings, search engines, too, take the speed of a website into account.

So, to check how fast websites hosted by GoDaddy are, we decided to create a dummy website, complete with dummy content and images and hosted it on GoDaddy’s shared hosting server. These are the results we recorded:

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GoDaddy Server Response Test Results

We ran the above-mentioned speed test to see how long it takes GoDaddy’s server to load a website with all of its content. However, it’s vital to remember that certain content elements, such as images, take longer to load than text elements. Thus, to obtain more reliable data, a server response time test should be performed, ignoring the content of the website.

We utilized a special tool called Bitcatcha to accomplish this. This tool allows you to examine the server response time for different geographic locations without having to fully load the page content.

These are the results that we received:

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GoDaddy Load Test Result

The ability to handle a sudden rise in traffic is the next most critical feature of a competent server. Your hosting server should be able to handle heavy traffic loads without crashing. This is crucial to prevent your website from crashing when it is needed to run smoothly the most.

So, we decided to do a load test on our test site. For this, we used a tool called Load Impact and sent up to 100 virtual users to our test site.

Here are the results that we received:

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GoDaddy Security Features

Automated Updates

Keeping your website up to date with current web standards is critical. Failure to do so can lead to plugin and theme incompatibilities, which can bring your website to a halt. As a result, new WordPress core changes should be applied to your site as quickly as possible. These updates not only include new features but also address known security flaws.

However, if you do not have time to take care of it, don’t worry. GoDaddy has got you covered. The host automatically performs all WordPress core software and security updates for all its WordPress hosting users.

SSL Certificate

An SSL Certificate is a vital and effective tool for securing your website. It encrypts all the data being transferred between two systems and allows your visitors to share sensitive information without any risk.  GoDaddy offers free SSL certificates but only with selected hosting plans. Even for these selected plans, the validity of this certificate is different. For example, an SSL certificate included in GoDaddy’s Ultimate plan is free only for the first year whereas, in the case of WordPress Hosting plans, the free SSL certificate is valid for the duration of the plan. Thus, a user should carefully read the terms and conditions attached with his/her chosen plan.

However, for the hosting plans that do not include free certificates, customers can browse GoDaddy’s paid SSL packages and purchase the one that best suits their needs.

SSH Access

SSH or Shell Access is a remote administration tool that enables users to administer or modify the remote servers via the internet. It employs cryptographic techniques to ensure that all data sent to and received from the server is encrypted. GoDaddy offers SSH access with its shared and managed WordPress hosting plans. However, this feature is not available for basic managed WordPress plans.

Database Backup And Restore

Due to new technological innovations taking place every day, it has now become very easy for hackers to breach your site’s security and compromise the integrity of your data. Thus, you must keep a backup of your website ready. GoDaddy offers paid database backup and one-click restore options with almost all its plans. In addition to this, its premium plan users can also schedule backups for specific dates or time slots.

Password-Protected Directories

Password protecting your web directories is an efficient way of managing content on your web server. It enables you to restrict access to data stored in the directory with the help of a username and password. Godaddy allows its users to utilize this security feature using the options available on the cPanel dashboard.

CageFS

CageFS is a virtualized, per-user file system that isolates each customer and restricts them from seeing each other or accessing sensitive data. It safeguards against a wide range of threats, including data disclosure attempts. GoDaddy offers CageFS with all of its Linux plans.

Fraud, Virus And Spam Protection

GoDaddy offers its customers complete protection against frauds, viruses, and spam through its 24/7 network security and DDOS protection monitoring.

Automatic Daily Malware Scans

Keeping a check on potential security risks is always better than recovering from a hack or malware attack. However, it may not be possible for you to do so on your own. For this purpose, GoDaddy offers free automatic daily malware scans. However, this feature is available only with limited hosting plans.

 Website Security

In addition to the basic security features included in its hosting plans, GoDaddy also offers its own website security packages. Automatic virus scanning, continuous security monitoring, a Web Application Firewall (WAF), and a Content Delivery Network (CDN) are a few features included in these packages. You can also gain protection against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). In short, GoDaddy offers a complete, all-encompassing, and user-friendly tool to keep your site protected.

There are three website security plans available:

Standard (₹ 349.00 /month for a 2-year term)

Advanced (₹ 749.00 /mo for a 2-year term)

Premium (₹ 949.00 /month for a 2-year term)

GoDaddy Pricing Policies

Money-Back Guarantee

GoDaddy offers an industry-standard 30-days money-back guarantee for all its annual hosting plans. For monthly plans, the refund period is 48 hours from the date of the transaction. Keep in mind that monthly plans include all plans with less than a 1-year term (e.g., 6 mos., 9 mos., etc.). Also, these are GoDaddy’s standard refund terms. The details and specifications of its refund policy will be discussed later.

Renewal Rates

Like most web hosting services providers, GoDaddy’s renewal pricing is also frustrating. It offers heavy discounts during the initial purchase which makes introductory prices look very low. However, after the expiration of the initial purchase term, users are required to renew their services at original prices.

Here’s a quick comparison of the first-time, discounted charges of its shared hosting plans (3-year term) and their renewal rates:

Cross-selling And Upselling Practices

GoDaddy is known for its aggressive cross-selling and upselling practices. As soon as you ‘add-to-cart’ any of its hosting plans, it automatically adds paid services like website backup and restores, professional email accounts, etc. In addition to this, a lot of users have also complained about GoDaddy’s customer support executives trying to sell them expensive add-ons.

Such practices can seem frustrating to certain users. However, if you can overlook this and stay vigilant about not adding any unnecessary purchases to your cart, GoDaddy is a great hosting provider.

Billing practices – users can refund or cancel accounts easily

GoDaddy allows its users to cancel their subscriptions anytime they want. It follows a no-questions-asked cancellation policy. However, you need to contact its customer support in order to avail of the money-back guarantee.

Types Of Hosting And Hosting Plans Offered (Explained)

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting means hosting your website on a server that is being shared by other websites as well. This means that all the resources available on the server are not solely yours to use. Instead, a large number of websites share those resources with you. Because of this, a shared server can easily become overcrowded which in turn, can slow down your website. Thus, it is advisable to not choose a shared hosting server if your website witnesses a heavy traffic load.

That being said, here is a complete breakdown of the Linux based shared hosting plans offered by GoDaddy

In addition to the above-mentioned Linux shared hosting plans, GoDaddy also offers Windows shared hosting plans. The host recommends these plans for ASP.NET, ASP, .Net Core, and SQL Server users. However, their specifications are more or less the same as Linux plans. You can visit GoDaddy’s official website to know more about its Windows plans.

Business Hosting

Business hosting by GoDaddy offers all the benefits of a managed VPS or dedicated server. This means that all the server administration tasks, including setting up your control panel, patching cycles, and back-ups, are performed by GoDaddy’s expert team.

Here is a breakdown of Business hosting plans offered by GoDaddy:

Dedicated Server Hosting

Dedicated hosting involves hosting your website on a private server. You have total control over the server’s operation. This ensures not just flexibility but also an enhanced website performance with improved security. However, a dedicated server hosting also demands sound technical knowledge as you will be responsible for the maintenance of your website.

Here is the breakdown of the Dedicated hosting plans offered by GoDaddy:

GoDaddy also offers fully managed dedicated hosting plans. Here is the breakdown of the same:

As you can see, the specifications of both types of dedicated hosting plans are quite similar. However, the basic difference between the two is the level of support you get in administrating your server.

To know more about their differences visit https://in.godaddy.com/hosting/dedicated-server

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting is a midway solution between shared and dedicated server hosting. In VPS hosting, the physical server is split into multiple virtual servers. Each of these virtual servers then works individually without interfering with each other.

GoDaddy offers both managed and unmanaged VPS hosting. In the case of managed VPS hosting, all the responsibilities related to the servers, such as maintenance, installation, and upgrade, will be managed by the experts of GoDaddy. On the other hand, in the case of unmanaged VPS hosting, you will be required to manage your virtual server on your own.

Here is the breakdown of GoDaddy’s managed VPS Hosting plans:

Here is the breakdown of GoDaddy’s unmanaged VPS Hosting plans:

WordPress Hosting

WordPress Hosting is a kind of hosting that uses servers specifically designed and optimized to support the seamless performance of WordPress websites. Here is the breakdown of GoDaddy’s WordPress-optimized hosting plans:

WordPress Pro

The WordPress Pro plans by GoDaddy are a step beyond their WordPress hosting plans. Besides all the benefits offered with the regular WordPress hosting plans, these offer a managed service. This means, whatever server-level tasks you need to perform, you can get a GoDaddy expert to do them for you.

Here’s everything you need to know about the GoDaddy managed WordPress hosting plans:

Additional Features

Site Staging

‘Site staging’ is one of the most useful features offered by GoDaddy. It enables users to make changes or test new plugins and themes without affecting the functionality of the live site. GoDaddy provides this feature with all its WordPress hosting plans.

Solid Uptime

Uptime indicates the time during which your server is operational. Thus, to keep your site up and running all the time, your web host must offer excellent uptime. During our testing, GoDaddy delivered on its guarantee of 99.9% uptime. While its performance was not exceptional, it still was above industry standard.

User Friendliness

GoDaddy provides a user-friendly interface. This makes it an ideal choice not only for professionals but also newbies.

E-Commerce Features

GoDaddy also offers a lot of features and services to let its users build online stores easily and quickly.

Numerous Integrations and Add-Ons 

In addition to its in-built tools, GoDaddy also provides access to over 150 free apps and enables its users to build CMS sites (WordPress, Joomla), forums and blogs through Installatron. Users can purchase a variety of add-ons using the options available on their Linux/Windows hosting dashboard.

GoDaddy Policies

Free Domain Promotion

GoDaddy offers a free domain with almost all hosting plans. However, the option is available only for 12 months or longer service contracts. Plus, you are required to add the domain name into your cart before purchasing the plan and select a domain term length equal to or less than the term length of the plan to qualify for the offer. If you purchase a domain name for a term longer than the term of the plan, you will be charged for the additional registration term at the then-current rate.

Another point to notice is that this offer applies only to the initial purchase term. After the initial purchase term, domains purchased through this offer will renew at the then-current renewal price.

Free SSL Certificate

GoDaddy provides free SSL certificates to all its customers. However, if you cancel your hosting plan subscription, you will lose the SSL certificate as well.

Refund Policy

A user can cancel the subscription at any time, but a refund will only be issued if the refund request has been made with GoDaddy’s customer service within the refund time frame specified. Plus, the user must place such a request before account closure. No refund will be permitted after the account has been closed.

For Brazilian customers, products or services sold by GoDaddy shall be refunded only if the subscription is cancelled within seven days from the date of the transaction.

In addition to these standard terms, GoDaddy also has certain product/service-specific refund policies. Thus, a user should go through all its refund terms before making any purchase. You can view it by visiting https://in.godaddy.com/legal/agreements/refund-policy.

Automatic Renewal Policy

For all its products/services, GoDaddy follows an automatic renewal policy. This means that, on the expiration of the current service term, GoDaddy will automatically renew the applicable service for a period equal to the most recent service period and will take payment from the payment method associated with the service in your account or your designated backup payment method on file with GoDaddy. However, domain names may renew for the original service period.

Thus, if you do not want your subscription to automatically renew, you should uncheck ‘automatic renewal’, in which case, your services will terminate upon expiration unless you manually renew them.

‘Unlimited’ Resources

You may have noticed that GoDaddy claims to offer ‘unlimited’ storage or ‘unmetered’ bandwidth with many of its hosting plans. However, in reality, all Web Hosting and WordPress hosting plans, are subject to a limit of no more than 2,50,000 inodes per account for Linux hosting accounts or 5,00,000 files and folders per account for Windows hosting accounts. The plans are also limited to no more than 1,000 tables per database and no more than one gigabyte of storage per database. Any account or database that exceeds these limits may be issued a network violation warning or may be temporarily or permanently suspended.

Customer Support Review 

GoDaddy offers customer support in the following formats:

Support Documents / Video Tutorials / Guides / How To’s: GoDaddy offers a knowledge base much more extensive than most web hosting providers. Users can easily find blogs, articles, video tutorials, and how-to guides on its website.

Live chat support: GoDaddy also offers a chat support service for queries that are not answered in the knowledge base.

Phone Support: GoDaddy also offers phone support to its users. While the response time is average, customers have stated that the executives are friendly and knowledgeable.

Community Support Forums: GoDaddy has a community support forum as well. Users can post their queries and get them resolved by forum moderators. We visited the forum and found out that these moderators respond fairly quickly and with complete details.

GoDaddy Pros And Cons

 The Pros Of Using GoDaddy

•  Variety of plans: GoDaddy offers a huge variety of hosting plans and services. It has something for the business of every type and size.
• Windows and Linux-based servers: GoDaddy provides hosting services with both windows and Linux based servers. This is a major advantage for its users as many web host providers offer only one option.
• Money-Back Guarantee: GoDaddy offers an industry-standard 30-days money-back guarantee for all its annual plans while monthly plans have a guarantee period of 48 hours.
•  Great Security: The security tools and services provided by GoDaddy are highly effective. Users can focus on growing their business without being worried about DDOS, malware attacks, etc
• 24/7 Support: Customer support provided by GoDaddy is quite impressive. Executives are friendly, knowledgeable and quick to respond.

The Cons Of Using GoDaddy

• High Renewal: GoDaddy gives heavy discounts during the initial purchase. However, these discounts do not apply at the time of renewals. This makes renewing their subscriptions expensive for customers.
• Paid Backup: GoDaddy requires its users to avail backup and restore services as a paid add-on. This seems a bit unfair as most of its competitors offer this for free.
• Restricted basic plans: The basic plans offered by GoDaddy are quite restricted. A lot of its competitors offer more comprehensive service range for almost same prices
• Upselling: GoDaddy follows aggressive upselling practices. This can be upsetting for certain customers.

Our Verdict – Is GoDaddy Right For You?

GoDaddy surely is one of the biggest names in the domain registration and web hosting industry. However, like all other hosting services, GoDaddy, too, offers a mix of advantages and disadvantages. While its introductory prices and features are difficult to overlook, high renewal rates and restricted entry-level plans put it on the back foot. In the end, it all depends on what exactly one is looking for.

The best way to know if it’s the right choice for you is to avail of its money-back guarantee and give its hosting services a try.

FAQs About GoDaddy Hosting Service

Does GoDaddy offer WordPress Hosting?

Yes. GoDaddy offers both fully managed and unmanaged WordPress hosting services.

Does GoDaddy offer a money-back guarantee?

Yes. GoDaddy offers an industry-standard 30-days money-back guarantee for all its annual plans while monthly plans have a guarantee period of 48 hours.

Can I cancel my hosting plan anytime?

Yes. You can cancel your hosting plan anytime you want. However, you should do it before the next renewal date. Otherwise, your services will automatically renew.