GoDaddy Web Hosting Review

GoDaddy is a name that many recognize from their extensive advertising campaigns. The true test of a web hosting company’s worth, however, is how they perform in the categories that are important to their customers.

One of the most important aspects in shared web hosting is accessibility to the servers. Having the most bandwidth and disk storage capability can often be the make-or-break line, especially for online businesses that depend on their hosting company to provide as much uninterrupted and trouble-free service as possible. To say that reliable servers and power backup systems are crucial to an online website is an understatement.

Like every other web hosting company out there, GoDaddy makes the claims of unlimited bandwidth and storage space, as well as 99.9% uptime. This is the industry standard, especially in attracting new and inexperienced customers, and yet no web hosting company can realistically guarantee these things. Unless a website host has a dedicated server with enough power and backup capability to prevent service interruption - like slow page loading time and lost images, not to mention downtime and crashes - the occasional glitch will happen.

This is not news to anyone who has merely visited a web page, let alone tried to host a website. And while many web hosting services make these claims yet still offer low pricing, others will charge extra for better access to their servers. To be fair, GoDaddy falls in the first category, with some of the lowest start-up prices in the industry.

A look at their price plans shows that they do seem very affordable. Their Economy Plan is only $3.59 per month for one domain, 250 GB of bandwidth and 5 GB of storage. Yet a quick search of other hosting services will show that there are similarly priced plans with other companies that actually provide much more server access. When moving up to their higher priced plans, GoDaddy may offer unlimited domains, yet they still limit the customer’s bandwidth and disk space. This gives GoDaddy a distinct standing, and not in a good way.

As to the technical side of their shared web hosting service, GoDaddy’s control panel is their own creation, and the reviews are not necessarily positive. Most people prefer the more user-friendly CPanel or vDeck because of accessibility and ease of tracking important functions like email applications and bandwidth status.

Their script protocols can accommodate Perl, Java, PHP and others, and they provide support for Ruby on Rails and Cold Fusion. These are valuable tools for website management and are definite plusses for GoDaddy. They offer the usual POP3/IMAP email applications along with a few others.

Because of their stature as one of the largest web hosting companies in the world with over 10 million customers, they focus on providing proprietary technologies that are not shared with other companies. They do not advertise the name of their servers. They do advertise that their server network includes multiple OC connections and a fast GB Ethernet backbone. They also claim the highest quality firewalls, routers, and servers backed by a fully-redundant mirror system to prevent downtime.

They are equally proud of their data center security systems, which feature CCTV, on-site physical monitoring, and biometric and card-key access. They also boast of their redundant power and air-conditioning systems which, along with the fire suppression and smoke detection systems, are monitored 24/7 at their Network Operations Center. Sounds more like Cheyenne Mountain than Main Street.

The rest of the advertised services that GoDaddy offers are par for the course, inasmuch as they are industry standards for technical support ( 24/7/365, live chat, service tickets, tutorials, etc.), data transfer and storage, and the various email applications that are more or less required of any web hosting service (unlimited addresses, intensive IP tracking, etc.).

All in all, GoDaddy earns high grades in putting forth an image of security, service, and customer satisfaction along with superior hardware and software technologies. Their GPA falls somewhat in pricing structure vis-à-vis flexibility in addressing the changing needs of their customers. If overall user satisfaction can be gauged by testimonials and other available reviews, GoDaddy may need to spend a little more time studying and a little less time basking in the limelight of success.