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GoDaddy Review – Things You Need to Know

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8.0

Ten out of 10

GoDaddy is the largest “web services” company in the world. They offer a wide range of services, including web hosting and website builders, accounting, email storage, online security, and more.

You’ve likely seen GoDaddy’s Super Bowl ads, GoDaddy girls on the Internet and, most recently, their “Helping Small Business” commercials. They are well-known for their brand.

GoDaddy is promoting its WordPress Hosting product with a lot of enthusiasm due to the growing popularity of WordPress as a platform for creating websites.

They actually have the largest market share of all WordPress installations on the Internet, surpassing even Bluehost.

There will be tradeoffs and advantages depending on your goals, preferences and resources. This product is not only competitive with other products, but also with GoDaddy’s regular web hosting product.

GoDaddy Pricing

You have a variety of options when it comes to GoDaddy plans and packages. Here is a quick overview of the options available to you.

Domain registration

GoDaddy provides domain registration. This is how they started. Here are some pricing options for popular Top Level Domain extensions.

GoDaddy – Get a Domain

Hosting plans for shared users

These plans, except for the Windows option can be run on standard LAMP stacks and can install WordPress with one click after purchase. The plans are all competitive, but have significant limitations on the number of databases and the two lowest plans do not offer a free SSL for backups or security.

* Prices per month for 12-month subscription

GoDaddy Hosting starting at $2.99/mo

WordPress Hosting Plans

GoDaddy offers a variety of WordPress hosting plans that can be used for a single WordPress website.

GoDaddy’s WordPress Hosting Plans are limited to one WordPress install and more expensive than web hosting plans.

Although they have the convenience of having auto-installed products such as a WordPress theme or WordPress plugin package, I don’t think they should market that as a value-add.

* Prices per month for a 36 month subscription

GoDaddy WordPress Hosting

WordPress Ecommerce Hosting

GoDaddy offers WordPress eCommerce Hosting in the WordPress hosting menu as well as separately on their website.

This plan is GoDaddy’s Ultimate WordPress Hosting Plan with the (free!) WooCommerce plugin automatically-installed.

It is a unique and valuable option, however, as it bundles multiple premium WooCommerce extensions in one hosting subscription.

My experience with WooCommerce Hosting has shown that there are better-performing options (my LiquidWeb review). This plan is great for startups with low budgets.

Hosting for Businesses

GoDaddy’s Business Hosting plans offer VPS hosting with active administration. You have your own resources and not shared resources with a VPS server. This is a great way for WordPress and other resource-intensive apps to be run. VPS plans can be complicated and technical to set up. GoDaddy provides support and setup. It can be compared to other VPS options.

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting allows you to lease a portion of a server. You don’t share resources. VPS servers can be used to host WordPress. It’s actually a great way for WordPress to be run on a VPS server. You have access to known resources and you can use them to install your WordPress. GoDaddy offers a variety of VPS plans. They are all competitive and easy to set up, but they can be difficult if you’re not a developer or have done it before.

Hosting dedicated to your needs

GoDaddy offers dedicated server hosting, where you can rent an entire server with known resources.

GoDaddy Pro

GoDaddy Pro is GoDaddy’s managed WordPress hosting plan. It’s available to agencies and freelancers. You can manage multiple WordPress installations from one dashboard. This product is comparable to similar products from:

• Review of InMotion Hosting
• Bluehost Review
• SiteGround Review

GoDaddy Managed WordPress Hosting vs.

Here’s the deal. The industry’s move to “WordPress hosting” is a confusing, maddening, and bizarre mess. Web Hosting vs. WordPress Hosting: Explained.

1. WordPress is software that runs on any Linux server running PHP (also known as “regular shared hosting”).
2. WordPress can run on web hosting, and it does.
3. WordPress uses some server resources at a higher than average rate, while others are used at a lower level.
4. WordPress has many predictable issues & needs. It must be updated regularly. It is database-driven, not static. It adds functionality using plugins. This is great, but it can lead to temporary security issues.
5. Hosting companies realized the potential to set up whole clusters of servers using WordPress websites.
6. Because they were all in one place, they could provide support at a reduced rate and specific WordPress add-ons.
7. Thus, the “WordPress Hosting” plans were created. This added an additional opportunity for pricing specialists and marketers.

WordPress Hosting plans have been a way for some companies to increase their revenue and decrease their costs, while adding little value.

Other companies saw WordPress Hosting plans as a way of creating a significant value-add and to distinguish themselves from their competitors. They also passed the savings on to customers. It was mixed for other companies. It was all very confusing.

GoDaddy WordPress Hosting falls under the second category. Their WordPress plans and their shared plans don’t have many technical differences. You get more convenience and less limits.

The key point is to determine your needs and goals, rather than settling for the “WordPress Hosting” plan offered by a company.

Convenience is wonderful, but it’s important that you understand the true cost of your purchase so you can set realistic expectations.

This GoDaddy review will examine the pros and cons of GoDaddy’s web hosting plans, which can also run WordPress. It will also compare them to direct competitors in this space.

GoDaddy Alternatives

Namecheap Review

Rating

9.0/10

No cost DNS

Yes

No cost domain privacy

Yes

Promotion

Buy a.COM for $0.98

InMotion Hosting Review

Rating

9.0/10

No cost DNS

No

No cost domain privacy

No

Promotion

Start at $2.29/mo.

Bluehost Review

Rating

9.5/10

No cost DNS

No

No cost domain privacy

No

Promotion

Start at $2.95/mo

Get the Best Web Hosting

GoDaddy Pros

These are the main advantages GoDaddy offers as a WordPress host (both through Web Hosting and managed WordPress Hosting).

Bundled WordPress Hosting Features

Pricing per visit vs pricing per function is the key difference between GoDaddy’s regular and WordPress web hosting plans.

Also, rather than looking at memory and databases, companies promise to provide an estimate number of visitors.

These are GoDaddy’s WordPress hosting plans limits:

These are the limitations of their web hosting plans.

Also, you pay for results and not features.

Technically, you will pay more for the features than you actually get. However, that assumes you are able to use them.

There are many ways to speed up WordPress and make it more efficient, but there is also value in having someone else do it.

With heavy caching and minimal plugin usage, I managed to manage 10,000 unique visitors on my HostGator shared server.

This site was also regularly accessed by more than 50,000 people monthly via a shared InMotion Hosting server. I was able to save a lot of money by using regular web hosting and adding WP Rocket as a caching plugin. But, I still enjoy doing this kind of thing.

On the other hand, I have a client that cares absolutely nothing about WordPress but loves the platform and wants to publish his content. He also pays $$$ for Managed WordPress Hosting at WordPress Engine. This is quite expensive. They will auto-update your software and take care of any technical issues.

GoDaddy also offers SFTP and staging spaces on its upper plans. They offer WordPress-specific customer service. They offer automatic WordPress updates. They offer a free SSL. certificate. They also have WooCommerce-specific considerations. They take care of the important features, but it’s nothing extraordinary (which I’ll cover later).

Backend & Usability

The learning curve for new website owners can be one of the biggest obstacles. It can be difficult to manage your own website. Managing settings, drop-downs and jargon adds to the stress.

This problem is solved by backend design, usability and “onboarding”. Over the last 10 years, GoDaddy has made significant improvements in this area. Despite their extensive product range, it is still easy to shop, buy, and then get on with your project.

The WordPress Hosting product eliminates some of the headaches associated with WordPress installation and allows you to move on with your project.

Their web hosting product is simple, and their design is far more advanced than their technical competitors.

Product Integration

Full disclosure: I like to buy your domain and email services separately from hosting. I use Namecheap long-term domains, and Google Workspace email hosting. You can choose to focus on one product or offer diversification.

It can be much easier to have one company handle your domain, email, and hosting. This is what my friends and clients do, and it has worked well for them. Their domains are affordable and their email is simple. You get a free domain for one year. They offer professional online security. GoDaddy offers accounting and bookkeeping services.

GoDaddy provides a wide range of services and links them together. You don’t need to point your DNS records or mess with SMTP settings. It all works together and is there. GoDaddy has a huge advantage.

Scale & Resources

They have security issues like any other large hosting provider. They represent a huge target to takedown…especially when political controversy erupts.

GoDaddy is able to prevent security issues that smaller hosts can’t handle. This is due to their large scale (they have lots of technology that can thwart spammers and hackers), as well as GoDaddy’s restrictive policies (which are a Con), but it keeps spammers out and prevents attacks.

GoDaddy, for example, needed to increase their online security/malware protection. So they bought Sucuri, the leading web security company. They needed to improve their WordPress support services so they bought WP Curve.

Scale has its advantages. GoDaddy claims that they can increase your resources to handle additional load. They have the resources to tackle any DDoS or mass hack. They can provide extra bandwidth for your site if you need it.

WP Engine is the only Managed WordPress Hosting provider. They employ 429 people. They are growing quickly. GoDaddy employs 6,000 people and has 17+ million customers. While scale can be bad, it can also be good in the age of the Internet’s increasingly complex environment.

Phone Support and Improved Down-Time

This may seem odd to some internet veterans. GoDaddy was once a notoriously bad company for customer support. However, GoDaddy has significantly improved their customer service over the past decade. Their new CEO and their new direction in July 2013 have made them even better.

Customers will find this even more important – they offer 24/7 telephone support. This is something that is rare among hosting companies, even ones known for their customer service.

Although it’s not top-notch, for large corporate entities with super-discounted web hosting, good support is a pro in my book.

They also fulfill the basic duty of any hosting service: 99.9% uptime.

Brand recognition and stability

Yes. No matter what Internet hipsters might say, this is an advantage. Even though a small start-up might seem “better”, sometimes buying a large brand can be an advantage.

Large brands are strong and stay around. It’s a good idea to choose a company that has been around for a long time in an environment such as the Internet, where new companies are launched every day.

Cons of GoDaddy

These are the major disadvantages of GoDaddy as a WordPress Hosting provider.

Total Value Pricing

Here are GoDaddy’s Web hosting plans and WordPress hosting plans, just in case you forgot.

WordPress Hosting plans, like I mentioned about the benefits of pricing, are different in that they are for a recurring service and not something tangible. This might be what you’re looking for, but WordPress Hosting and GoDaddy WordPress Hosting are not the best value.

All WordPress Hosting plans from GoDaddy are severely limited in terms of the number of websites you can host and the storage space that you get – not to mention all other freedoms you lose compared to similar priced web hosting plans.

InMotion Business Hosting is similar to regular web hosting. I have 6 small but well-trafficked WordPress websites, a self-hosted RSS reader, and I use it for triple-backup of a few personal videos (i.e. several gigabytes). It’s a great value when you consider the price per storage and per website.

This is in contrast to GoDaddy’s regular web hosting packages.

GoDaddy’s hosting plans are also very affordable, but they offer poor value considering the features you get.

Bluehost’s Web/WordPress plans offer higher storage limits and unlimited websites, and no other limitations (ie on databases), for a lower price than GoDaddy.

You’ll also see WordPress Hosting features offered by SiteGround and InMotion Hosting. Both offer NGINX, a powerful way to speed up WordPress, and a free SSL certificate. InMotion also offers a staging environment for their lowest-priced plan.

Controversies and Company Culture

Since its inception, GoDaddy has been a controversial and big company. They have moved in a positive direction since 2014 when their CEO and founder left.

They still have some issues

First, GoDaddy built its brand using a strange market positioning and bizarre “talk about me” ad campaigns.

It’s also a bit bizarre in a good way. Their CEO even shoots elephants. They also use explicitly sexist advertisements (until 2019).

GoDaddy recently cleaned its website after a couple of years. Their ad campaigns are not centered on sex since the 2017 Super Bowl commercial. Their latest campaign is to be the “champion for small business.” They talk about their “platform for websites and marketing.”

They want to keep their “edgy brand”. While this is a significant improvement, I am still wary about companies that do too much interruption-style advertising and fail to focus on the product.

They want an all-in one platform that offers all your products from one location. This is both convenient and worrying, especially when it comes to things like your email, domain names, and websites.

They also struggle to agree on a set of guidelines for politics and PR. Every few years, they have a controversial PR scramble. They engage in lots of political lobbying, most of which is anti-competitive.

Although I am not sure how the brand and positioning will be reflected in their company culture, I do not see it as a positive for “doing business” with companies I love.

Hosting Limitations

GoDaddy’s WordPress Hosting plans are surprisingly limited in features, even when compared to other WordPress Hosting providers.

However, I have also noticed how their web hosting has high and low limits. This issue has been the subject of several comparisons.

• Bluehost vs. GoDaddy
• InMotion Hosting vs. GoDaddy
• SiteGround vs. GoDaddy

They are also known for their proprietary setup, which can cause GoDaddy unique hosting and email issues. You will never see them again with their seemingly random limits on bandwidth and databases.

Account Lock-in and Diversification

This con is related to #1, but deserves its own spot.

Because choosing a web host is a big commitment. Your website will require you to invest a lot of time and energy – provided that your host does their job well.

Even though it should be easy to move web hosts, there are many little things that could go wrong. GoDaddy is not known for helping customers leave. This is a con.

EDIT: This is true as of 2021. Although it’s easier with WordPress, the domain transfer process is often obstructed by annoying upsells or obstacles. Recently, I did a site redesign for a client and suggested that the project be moved to another host. The move was not worth it because my client had been using the same email address, domains, and hosting for many years.

Upsells & Cross-sells

This was something I discussed in my GoDaddy Domains review and my comparison between GoDaddy Domains and Namecheap. But wow, are they masters at cross-sells and upsells?

It’s okay on one hand. They have a lot of complementary products. It is easy to have all your services under the same roof. However, at some point you aren’t sure what you’re being sold or what you have bought. And you want to just get on with the job.

Their WordPress Hosting plan promises “thousands” free themes. These are WordPress.org themes that are available to everyone, everywhere. But then they upsell premium themes or custom web design packages. They add security to your WordPress site… but then they sell their upsell online security product. They offer “free SEO plugins” (which, BTW, I have done a tutorial here) and then upsell marketing services.

Is GoDaddy any good?

GoDaddy’s WordPress Hosting plans offer a great option for those who want to create a WordPress blog or website. They provide brand-name stability and core features at an affordable price.

GoDaddy offers a WordPress discount if you only need one site and are willing to save money.

Find out More

InMotion’s WordPress Hosting plans are a great choice if you’re looking for better support, features and performance.

You can find my Buzzfeed-esque quiz about WordPress Hosting here.

Shared hosting is not what you want. I have a list of the top web hosting companies.