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About GoDaddy
GoDaddy is one of the largest web host providers in the world that was founded in 1997 and it’s headquarter is located in Tempe, Arizona.
Today they have more than 9000 employees and host more than 84 million domain names.
Let’s see what the advantages of using GoDaddy are.
The pros of GoDaddy:
One-Click Install Applications-
Some of the powerful third-party applications can be installed by you through GoDaddy. With just one click you can install the most popular applications on the Internet as many as over 125 applications. Even WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal which are some of the content management systems are also included.
GoDaddy also includes developer-friendly tools like cPanel, MySQL, CloudLinux, Python, and multiple versions of PHP.
You will also find developer-friendly tools like cPanel, Python, MySQL, CloudLinux, and multiple versions of PHP included in GoDaddy
So right from newbies to experienced professionals, they have got variety options of all to suit everyone’s needs. They also have a drag-and-drop website builder to make it easy for beginners but it’s not free. The avail of this feature price of $9.99/mo needs to be paid.
Reliable uptime-
Their average uptime over the last six months on shared hosting plans is 99.97%. This means in a year they have had an hour and a half of downtime which is not bad at all. They are quite consistent with their uptime for many years.
Easy to use-
For those who are new to this world of websites for them, GoDaddy is a great web hosting provider. Exactly how you want your website to look GoDaddy’s website builder will do it for you without having to do any hard work. For that, you have to choose from a variety of templates and the rest of the work is upon the builder.
The advanced users might find this to their disadvantage because there is not much room for creativity as with other providers. You will have an upper hand using GoDaddy especially if you are new to website building that has no idea and you don’t want to waste a considerable amount of time and effort.
Basic cheapest plan gives good value-
Their cheapest plan ‘Economy’ is priced at only $1.99/month if you sign up for 12 months. Isn’t that a good price?
But do they provide any value for such a low price?
Yes. With this price the features you will get are a single website, 100 GB storage, 10 databases unmetered bandwidth and a free domain. You will also get 2 free Microsoft 365 mailboxes for the first year.
As these features are not provided by every web host in their cheapest plan but they are quite necessary.
Considering the price for a single website, GoDaddy’s Economy Plan is a great value. Even Hostinger’s cheapest plan is also priced at $1.99/month but they also do not provide this many features and value as GoDaddy.
There are some limitations of this cheapest plan which we will look at in the cons part.
Good customer service-
GoDaddy provides customer support 24/7 through phone and lives chat. The response from the chat is quick in just a few minutes. Usually, a bot will show up initially until a real human gets connected. Phone calls are usually picked up within 2 minutes but sometimes it could take 20-30 minutes to get someone over the phone.
Video guides of high quality–
If you don’t want help from GoDaddy’s support regarding any questions or issues then you can seek help from their ‘How-To Videos’ instead. This section is unique compared to other hosting providers. They have video guides where the guide will help you with how to build your own website, website security tricks and tips, email marketing, WordPress 101 and much more. These videos are courses that come with few lessons and estimated time to complete the lesson.
Multiple server locations-
GoDaddy has its servers located in the USA, Singapore and Nederlands covering three continents in Europe, North America and Asia. Therefore multiple server locations mean faster site loading speeds and a better visitor experience.
Free domain and free Email-
They provide free domain for all their hosting plans worth $11.99 per year for the first year to the new customer who will be purchasing. After the end of 1st-year the regular annual price will be charged.
They also offer free email Microsoft 365 for all their plans for the first year. Following the end of 1st year, you will be charged regular annual price of $23.88/year for 1 email.
Money back guarantee–
They offer 30-day money-back guarantee for all their hosting plans if it is 12 months and longer. For a 1-month hosting plan they offer 48-hour refund.
Now let’s see if GoDaddy’s cons outweigh its pros or not.
The cons of GoDaddy:
Basic plan is limited-
All the top web host providers provide SSL certificates for free with all their hosting plans but that’s not the case for GoDaddy. This feature comes free with only their expensive plan i.e. ‘Ultimate’ and ‘Maximum’. SSL certificate cost $94.99/year.
They also do not provide free site migrations, unlike many web host providers. Some web host at least provides 1 site migration and will move your existing site to their server within a few hours. But GoDaddy does not. For this feature, you need to pay $99.99 per site which is very expensive and will take 10 business days to move the site by experts which is very slow. So when you have to purchase these, GoDaddy becomes even more expensive.
Too many upsells-
As the initial price is low they do a lot of upsells and increase the final price when you signup.
The first upsell is the cost per month of the hosting plan. Depending on the duration, the price varies.
A short one-month or three-month will cost you $10.99/month. So, to get the best value you have to sign up for long term like 12, 24, or 36 months instead.
When you checkout you will see SSL certificates, and essential website security added automatically.
So if you don’t look carefully these costs will get added to the final price making it more costly.
Overall review
GoDaddy is good for hosting small websites. Their speed, ease of use, uptime, unlimited bandwidth and disc space were good features.
There are some downfalls that need to be noted like they don’t provide basic features like SSL certificate and website security for their ‘Economy’ and ‘Deluxe’ plan, as a result, purchasing separately makes it expensive.
They also don’t offer free site migration for new users. Despite the drawbacks, you can try GoDaddy without any risk for 30 days.
Do we recommend GoDaddy?
Yes, we do.
For all types of websites, GoDaddy has got a lot of options. Especially for blogs, news sites, and small business websites we recommend GoDaddy to use their GoDaddy as their initial price is low and discounted ($.99/month) and you get pretty good value for that price.
Where are the servers located of GoDaddy?
GoDaddy’s main data center is located in Phoenix, Arizona. Other data centers are located in Los Angeles, Chicago Ashburn, Virginia, Amsterdam and Singapore.
Are there any good alternatives to GoDaddy?
Yes, there is. BlueHost, SiteGround, A2 Hosting are some of the other alternatives of GoDaddy.
