GoDaddy Hosting

GoDaddy is a big player in the hosting business, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily doing everything right.

My advice, is to pick your battles wisely. Choosing the right host is like choosing the right insurance company. Who’s got a competitive product that’s right for you? What’s the likelihood that when sh*t  hits the fan this company will have your back? What kind of support will you get from them? Where are they located? Do you really want to get into a long-term relationship with them?

One thing that has always concerned me about GoDaddy is their lost-and-found entitlement, especially being based in Scottsdale, Arizona. I’ve read horror stories of GoDaddy dropping clients like 3rd period French, and hijacking domains only to sell them back at a premium.

The Yard-Sale
Visiting godaddy.com sucks. Their website is littered with ads, it’s confusing, and their checkout is a nightmare. Talk about a company trying to sell every Tom, Dick and Harry crap they don’t need. I do not like that GoDaddy is not a “simple” hosting solution.

The Price
GoDaddy definitely got the price points right, but that comes at a sacrifice of quality. If you’re paying $5/month for hosting, it’s likely because you’re sharing a web server with 2000 other websites. Why is that a cause for concern? It’s like putting 2000 people in a room that should really only be accommodating 200. Competing for bandwidth and elbow-room becomes an issue. Site performance and load time will not be optimal. Risk of a neighbor website going awry and taking you down with it is higher.

Setup Time
I’ve always found GoDaddy to succeed in getting a website up and running in record time – including domain name registration, hosting setup, database install, shopping cart, the works. If you need a website yesterday, GoDaddy is a good option.

The Admin Interface
GoDaddy has made big improvements to their customer admin control panels. It’s now cleaner and easier then ever to use, which is a big plus.

Support
Admittedly, I haven’t test-drove their support enough to comment about it here. This is because we’ve primarily dealt with GoDaddy for domain registration/renewals only. If you have a GoDaddy support story to share, please do.