GoDaddy Reviews

Hi Guys,

May be some of you will disagree with me because godaddy is very famous and they have wide customer base. But I'd like to share with you my experience with godaddy and will leave you to decide your self.

I was using godaddy for about one year without any problem. Their normal support didn't have live help but was satisfactory.
They had slow mysql connection on shared hosting so moved to vps no problem. I never thought that much more problem are to come later.

That is till yesterday. when due to a spammer misused my free image hosting service to upload images used in spam operation. Once my website blocked by spamhaus, go daddy didn't wait a bit and didn't even give me any time to try to sort things out. they suspended my domain and hosting account without any notice and left me without nothing to do risking me losing of my one year business which never had the chance to make money yet.

At that stage their support became extremely horrible. Most of their replies by emails are sterio-type emails.
I called them several times a day but most of the time I get a recorded voice not a human. And even the one time I could reach them they didn't seem to be co-operative at all. They stopped my whole website and even prevented me from moving to another provider. They ask for $75 just to allow me to move to another provider and lose the months I paid in advance in hosting. They don't care that I never make money yet from my website. They never care I didn't abuse their service and I was just a victim like them.

My website completely got down and they seem they never care or bother. I have been a user of godaddy for more than one year and didn't ever cause any troubles or get convicted in any suspicious or illegal activity. And I'm also somewhat old in this forum. never posted spam or disobeyed rules.
I discovered they don't care losing innocent customers just because an abuse caused by another person I don't know and the abuse itself didn't last for more than 2 days before getting blocked and suspended. which is done too fast to be able to take any measures. How cruel is that!!!

I really hope I could know that before I see their ugly face this way.

This write up was originally posted on another website in March of 2006. I do not know how much of godaddies business practices have changed since then - so some of this information my no longer be relevant.

This article is also being changed from the original to reflect my experience over the past 2+ years. Since I left godaddy I have tried about 6 different hosting companies. This has given me a chance to see how other companies work. The knowledge and experience I have gained will be reflected in this revised article.

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Just wanted to let everyone know as to why godaddy lost a customer:

1. When I signed up for godaddy, I started out with their most basic package of 9.99 a month, which was a shared hosting package. When I upgraded (maybe really downgraded) to their virtual dedicated server, I needed some help moving the mysql database to the new account. Tech support would not help. Their instructions were not very exact, and failed to describe how to import the database to the new server. I finally gave up and rebuilt the site from scratch.

Lesson learned - I learned through later experience that most hosting providers will help their customers move their websites when upgrading their accounts. Usually the host will move at least one website for the customer, after that, the rest of the sites will be the responsibility of the customer. Some hosting companies will move all of the customers sites when upgrading to a new server.

When interviewing a hosting company, be sure to ask how many of your sites they will move if you upgrade to a new server. Be sure to get this in email from the sales department. Because what sales tells you, and what actually happens is sometimes 2 different things. Also ask if they will transfer your sites from the host you are using now.

2. When the server was highjacked on thanksgiving weekend of 2005, tech support refused to help. The server was used to launch a DOS attach against a government military contractor. Which just happened to be one of the largest companies in the world. Even though this server was owned by godaddy, godaddy tech support (several of them) told me it was not their problem. I finally figured out the problem, and resolved the issue myself.

To attacker was some how able to use the wget command and download a script to the cache folder. From there the script was executed.

Funny thing, after I left godaddy, this has never happened again. I used the same exact CMS with the next host for almost a year, and the server was never highjacked. I do not know if the highjacking was a flaw in the godaddy servers, or something else. Its just kind of funny it never happened again.

Lesson learned - Be sure to ask whether is sever is managed or unmanaged. If the server is highjacked, who will help fix the problem. If the host says security is not their responsibility, move on.

All software to build a site with will have some kind of security hole. Host can NOT be expected to provide support for everything ever made, but they can help resolve certain issues.

3. When I signed up with the godaddy shrad hosting plan, if more then 3 or 4 people got on the site at one time, no more connections were allowed. When I contacted tech support, they told me - my 4 users at a time site was "high traffic." How can 4 users at a time be high traffic? The CMS I was using hit the database with about 8 - 15 queries with each page load. Even to this day, 2+ years later I still wonder about this "high traffic" reply from tech support.

Lesson learned - If a host tells you your site is high traffic, ask them for details. Ask about database queries, php memory, system memory - ask about everything you can think of, but get an exact reply.

4. I finally upgraded to the virtual dedicated server. Which is supposed to handle 250 tcp/ip connections at one time. HOWEVER, an apache config file limits http connections to 50. So where are the other 200 connections?? I had to edit the config file myself to be able to use all the connections that I was paying for. After that, I wondered if on the 9.99 package godaddy limited the number of connections to 5 or 6?

This was deception on behalf of godaddy. The selling point was the server could handle 250 connections at one time, but the config file limited the server to 50 connections - this was not disclosed when I signed up for the virtual dedicated.

5. Even though I installed webmin, and was using it to control the server, godaddy refused to remove plesk from the server or my bill. I told tech support, I am not using plesk, take it off, I do not want to pay for something I do not use. Tech support and billing refused to remove the extra charge on my bill for plesk.

Lesson learned - do not pay for something you do not want.

6. Godaddy changed the server configuration and denied root access without telling their customers first. All of a sudden I can not connect using root. So I finally called tech support and they told me "oh we denied root access network wide?" WHAT????? You changed a configuration on the server I am paying for, without telling me FIRST???? ---> Give me a freaking break!!!!

Some of the files on the webserver had been uploaded as root, so they could not be over written by another user. I had to call, and beg to get root access again. This took almost a month to get access again. During this time the website was not updated. I know it is a bad thing to upload files as root, I have since learned better.

The serious lack of tech support and consideration for its customers is why I left godaddy. I felt that godaddy practiced deceptive advertising by not disclosing "everything" before a customer bought a product. But then again, it is the responsibility of the consumer to make sure they get what the want.

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This is a disclaimer - this article is based off of one I posted 2 years ago. So once again, some of godaddies business practices might have changed. But then again, they still might be doing the same thing.

Hopefully, after reading this people that are looking for a hosting provider will have an idea of what kinds of questions to ask their host. Be sure to ask "before" you buy, not after.

I am on GoDaddy for 6months now and all I can say is...the service is crap...they know nothing about installed modules etc..all they do is linking you to the help pages...I had a lot of downtimes the last month and it looks like the server getting slower and slower..

I am currently with godaddy and find the hosting reliable and cheap, but I absolute detest their marketing strategy with their "hot" Internet-only naked Danica Patrick ads. Makes me wonder what types of adult sites their main hosting business comes from. I feel somewhat strange in that sort of sexist environment. But so far I have been too lazy to move my hosting somewhere else. Their whole business model just doesn't seem to attract serious businesses.

I have several clients on Godaddy hosting and I would advise against it. Their support is horrible and often the advice you receive is not congruent with what another representative may have told you only moments before, one support person even admitted to me that they had not used phpmyadmin before. They won't even import a DB for you on shared hosting, you need to import it in chunks to get around the size limitation. The control panel is also counter intuitive.

I also had a VDS/VPS through them for a year and noticed I had issues receiving the amount of guaranteed available memory that was promised in the package, nightly backups would have issues running due to lack of free memory even though my services were consuming very little.

As for domains I prefer moniker as they don't impose extra time you must wait to transfer domains if you have edited contact information on your domains (they add an extra 60 days before you can transfer if you do so) which is a violation of ICANNs policy. All and all I would prefer to avoid Godaddy when at all possible.

I have used godaddy to host a couple of sites and the register domains for a while.

They are a decent place to register names, imo

The hosting is cheap cheaper then anyone I know, but it can be a pain to use I don’t like the software they use a lot of times the java won’t load and it is slow.. to open file viewers.

The amount of ads and advertising is annoying.

But I have a few sites that are just 5 to 10 pages of html and they just need somewhere cheap to sit and godaddy is good for that.

I wouldn’t recommend them for wordpress or anything that needs sql.

The customer support has always been good for me a lot better then hostgator.

I personally like Go Daddy for two reasons. They are reasonably price compare to many others that do not give you as much. And really like it when I call about a issue which is normally just me not knowing how to do something. A real person answers the phone in less than 3-5 minutes. And they speak real english!

I have GoDaddy's Deluxe account and I read this post b/c I wanted to find out why I've heard so many bad reviews about them. I have only had good experiences. Their customer service has been very helpful, however, some support people know much more than others, I'll give you that. For example, one time I called about something and the person said they didn't support it. I called back and spoke with a different person and he sent me the article on how to set it up. I did it and it was easy.

Not sure where the person that said they don't support 301 redirects got that info. I have done several and they work fine.

I also agree that their custom control panel is very cumbersome and takes time to figure out, but I don't think they deserve a "they suck" or anything.

I just compared them to hostgator b/c I thought of switching but there really wasn't any difference except that GoDaddy is a bit cheaper. I appreciate the sales emails b/c I've gotten some incredible deals on domain and hosting renewals. They will also refund your money if you decide to leave.

I use Godaddy for both domains and hosting, haven't encountered a problem yet. as for domain registration their prices are great only problem is you have to swim through promos to purchase the domain. Still I prefer them to most of other places except namecheap.

As for Godaddy hosting I have a forum which my previous hosting providers had cried telling its CPU usage is high. Everyone told me to buy a VPS. But I hosted it at Godaddy in a shared package. So far no trouble at all.

* No Cpanel

* Their panel is not user friendly, It take time to get used to it

* Forget the support you get sort yr Problems faster by posting in forums and looking in Google

* you need to use a good external Stat program

What I really think Godaddy should start a support forum for hosting. It would be better for users.

I've used Godaddy before for hosting and it was a terrible experience.. the support is terrible.. on the other hand, I have close to 80% of my domains with them... They really know their "domains"..