Alexandra Ramirez
GoDaddy is at the top of the list for registering a domain but not for web hosting. They are an all around great hosting provider but if you are comparing feature to feature they fall short.
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History of GoDaddy Hosting
When most people think of web hosting companies, they think of GoDaddy. Not surprising, considering they are the largest domain registrar and web hosting company in the industry. They handle over 45 million domain names and that is growing larger all the time. With over 12 million customers around the world they are working every day to maintain their goal has remained the same since the company started. That goal is to give people an easy and affordable way to get their dreams and goals online. They help their customers start, grow and maintain their own ventures every single day.
They have won the Top Ten Reviews Silver Award for their excellent service and reliability. There’s no doubt that they know what they’re doing and how to do it to perfection. Some of the many reasons GoDaddy has become so popular is that they have some of the best domain searching features available on the internet today. If you want a domain that isn’t available, they will put it on backorder.
They are known for their massive domain auction where domain names that are short and spicy are up for grabs. They are such a large company that you would think they’d be more businesslike and less personal but the opposite is true. They have the resources to be on top of things from renewals to site building and their customer service is superior.
Their features list is truly awe-inspiring and no other web hosting company comes close to offering the same caliber of features that they do. Unlike many of the web hosting companies, GoDaddy does not offer a lot of their features for free and there will be extra charges for many of them depending on what you want to get. There is a cap on the number of features you can store in the inventory and email and database features are the same. Getting unlimited everything like many others offer can run a bit steep with GoDaddy, but the quality of those features is exceptional so if you do choose to spend the money, it’ll be worth it.
The good thing about GoDaddy is that they offer their features a’ la carte which means you can literally pick and choose the features you want. Customizing your hosting package like this means you’ll only pay for the features you actually will use which means it’s a much better use of your money. Because of the structuring of the features packages, GoDaddy is great for small to mid-size ventures but if you’re a large corporation that needs a lot of space, a lot of email addresses and unlimited amounts of pretty much everything, this may not be a good fit for you.
With over 4,000 employees in 14 facilities including places in Arizona, California, Iowa, Washington, Asia, Europe and India, they take care of customers worldwide with ease. Their 24/7/365 customer care operators are there, exceptionally trained and ready to help you no matter what your problem or question is.
GoDaddy was started in 1997 and they hold an A+ rating with the BBB and have won numerous awards for customer service and quality. Their commercials are known worldwide and are some of the most popular commercials on television. They have sponsored Nascar for years and helped one of Nascar’s first woman drivers reach television stardom and recognition due to her GoDaddy commercial appearances.
They have built an excellent reputation the last few years, being well known for providing customers with all of the crucial site creation tools, server access and the secure facilities that house the important data servers that keep your site up and running. The set up process for becoming a GoDaddy customer is straightforward and simple and fast which is something that customers like also.
In addition to their excellent domain registrar and web hosting services, they offer a complete line of eCommerce and online marketing tools that can help even the newest of newbies with no programming experience. Customers can also choose to order a professional logo, ad banners, and even website design if they choose to. They are truly the one stop shop for everything involved in setting up a business internet presence.
Signing up with GoDaddy Hosting
The sign up process with GoDaddy is pretty simple if you know what to do. Sometimes it can be overwhelming for a newbie since the check out process offers tons of add on options as you progress through the sign up process. The basic steps are outlined below to help make it even simpler for you.
You will start off by choosing the hosting package that you are interested in getting. There are three choices you will have to choose from: Economy, Deluxe and Ultimate. Once you click on the hosting plan you want, you will be taken to a page where you will customize your package.
- Confirm the plan you want
- Choose the term you want (choose monthly, 12 mo, 24 mo, 36 mo, 48 mo or 60 mo)
- Choose the operating system you want (Linux with cPanel control panel or Windows with Plesk control panel)
- Optional add on choices of SSL Certificate and/or Sitelock Website Security
Once this page is done, click continue and you’ll be taken to the next page where you will choose your free domain name. It is free and you don’t have to choose one, but each plan comes with a free domain. If you are choosing to get the free domain, input the one you want and GoDaddy will ensure it is available. If it’s not it will suggest others and you can choose one of them or try for another one of your choice. Once you have the domain chosen that is available, click add and continue.
On this next page you will be shown an overview of what you’ve ordered so far. If there are any changes you want to make, you can do so on this page. There are also additional add-ons that you can choose to add to your purchase including:
- Making your domain private
- Choose additional matching domains (such as the .net, .co, .info versions, etc.)
- Add search engine visibility if you like as well
After completing this page, click on proceed to checkout and you will be given the option of signing into an existing GoDaddy account if you have one, or you can create new. If you select new, you’ll be taken to the next page where you must fill out the form to create your account. This will include information such as:
- First and Last name
- Country
- Full address including state and zip code
- Telephone number
This first section of information needs to be your billing address. The next section is where you will select your username and password and a pin number as well for security purposes when you talk to support services for any reason.
The last section of information is your payment information. Complete this with the credit card you want to use to pay for your hosting plan/extras or you can choose a bank account or PayPal. Once that is all done, click continue and you’ll be prompted to complete the transaction. You will be sent an email for verification that your purchase is completed.
GoDaddy Hosting Package Choices and Features
There are three hosting packages that you can choose from: Economy, Deluxe and Ultimate. All three of the plans come with the following features:
- Free domain with purchase of an annual plan
- Free email address
- One-click install of 200+ free applications
- 1GB storage MySQL Linux and 200 MB storage Windows SQL Databases
- Flexible, easy-to-use control panel
- 24/7 security monitoring and DDoS protection
- Award-winning 24/7 technical support
- USD $100 Google AdWords Credit with $25 minimum purchase
- USD $100 Bing Ad Credits
- USD $50 Facebook Ad Credit (Only good for US, Canada, UK and Australia)
Economy Plan – come with all the features about plus:
- Hosting for one website
- 100 GB storage
- Unlimited bandwidth (if your site has traffic that compromises the performance of their servers, you will be required to upgrade to a dedicated server or a VPS
- 45 day Money back guarantee (after 45 days you can get GoDaddy credit)
- 9% uptime guarantee
- 100 email addresses
- Free domain with annual plan
Deluxe Plan – Comes with all the features in the top section plus:
- Unlimited Websites hosted
- Unlimited storage
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 9% uptime guarantee monthly
- 45 day Money back guarantee (after 45 days you can get GoDaddy credit)
- 500 email addresses
- Free domain with annual plan
Ultimate Plan – Comes with all the features in the top section plus:
- Unlimited websites hosted
- Unlimited storage
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 9% uptime guarantee monthly
- 45 day Money back guarantee (after 45 days you can get GoDaddy credit)
- 1000 email addresses
- Free domain with annual plan
- 2X Processing Power & Memory
(Available for Linux/cPanel only) - Premium DNS Management tool
- 1 year SSL Certificate – Secures customer data & increases search rankings (free for the first year and then renewable at the current rate unless you cancel)
Ease of Use for GoDaddy Hosting Customers
One of the goals that GoDaddy sticks to is making sure their site is easy to use for their customers. Great features are useless if the customer can’t navigate the website to actually use them. Whether it’s the file manager, domain manager or the database manager, you’ll find them easy to use and appealing. It has more than the standard collection of features which makes it’s a favorite of many customers because it is so familiar and simple to navigate. There are some time delays on certain things, depending on what you want to do. A good example of this is if you want to create a new database. This can sometimes take up to 24 hours to finalize. Another example is updating servers. This is usually done within minutes but you are advised to allow 24-48 hours to allow it to go through.
Beginners can easily set up their own sites and there is an array of additional site creation tools for anyone who is more advanced. Several programming languages are supported including CGI (Python and Ruby), PHP, Perl, MySQL, Cold Fusion and FrontPage.
The lower-priced hosting plans don’t have most of the marketing tools and users will need to expand their marketing efforts on their own once they reach the cap of 5,000 per year. You can pay additionally for SEO tools and search engine submission. Most brand new sign ups get a few complimentary marketing tools including some marketing credits to Google Adwords and Bing as well as Facebook. All plans include site statistics and raw access logs. The site statistics help you track where your visitors are coming from which is extremely valuable information to have.
Site statistics show you what visitors are coming to your site and where they are coming from. This information is valuable for any business owner especially when it comes to tracking advertising money that is spent. Site statistics can also show how much time visitors spend on your site and what pages they are hitting as well. Use this information to test certain articles that you post, ads that you run and even the popularity of some photos that you may use on your site.
Help & Support Tickets
GoDaddy provides their customers with a lot of help and support options that are available 24/7/365. There is also an online FAQ section that covers many issues that a new customer might experience. They also offer support on the telephone or through email. Their support team is fast to respond and if you are corresponding through email, you can expect a response within 24 hours in most cases.
Customer service is one of the areas that GoDaddy shines. They are trained and committed to ensuring that whatever problems or questions their customers have, get answered. If the representative you are speaking to does not know the solution to your problem or question, they will find another tech member who does. You will never be turned away with your questions unanswered or your problems unsolved.
They are excellent about following up once they have helped you with a particular problem. There’s no limit to the number of times you can call or email support, and while they hope you don’t have that many reasons to call for help, they are there whenever do you need it.
Contacting GoDaddy Hosting and Finding them on Social Media
You can contact GoDaddy through email, live chat and telephone. They have round the clock customer service and technical help so no matter what time of day or night it is, you will be able to get the help you’re looking for. When you call customer support, be sure to have your 4 digit pin that you chose during the signup. They will ask you to verify it to ensure you are who you say you are before they discuss anything about your account with you.
Website: www.godaddy.com
Telephone Support: GoDaddy has telephone numbers globally for Countries all over the world. Just click on the contact us link at the bottom of their website and choose the number for your country.
Email Support: [email protected]
Live Chat Support: You can access live chat from 5:00am to Midnight MST
If you want to find GoDaddy on their social media sites, just follow the links below. They’d love to have you there! Social media pages can alert you to specials that are being offered, sales that they are running and other interesting and informative posts.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoDaddy
Twitter: https://twitter.com/godaddy
Google +: https://plus.google.com/+GoDaddy
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgH_SmWw9WianYyOB5Y6tEA?sub_confirmation=1
Even though GoDaddy may not have tons of free features in their plans, they make up for it in exceptional customer service and support as well as all the extras you can take advantage of as a GoDaddy customer. Being the largest web hosting company in the world enables them to provide customers with the services they want and need to really kick butt in the internet world. They could be a great choice for you if you’re just starting out or have a small to mid-sized business. They can accommodate your growth and have the capabilities to expand that accommodation even more if your business really takes off.
When comparing Godaddy to other web hosting companies, they rate pretty high on the list. Their longevity and size are a testament to their quality products that people continue to use for years to come. Can you find web hosting cheaper? Yes, but only you can decide if the perks they do offer is worth spending the few extra dollars. Millions of domain names over the internet are being supported by them now and those numbers are only going to increase as time goes on.
Resources
- GoDaddy Hosting – https://www.godaddy.com/
