Overview

Godaddy is an exceptionally popular brand in the domain name registration space. In fact, the company is deemed by many to be the World’s No.1 Domain Name registrar with in excess of 70 million names under its management and over 16 million customers spread across the world. In the same measure, the firm is also a big shot in the web hosting industry where it offers several packages targeted at different categories of users based on resource usage and preferences.

Originally known as Jomax Technologies, Godaddy was launched in 1997 by Bob Parsons. Currently, the company is based in Arizona, Iowa where its biggest data center that occupies over 430,000 square feet of space is also located. Other data centers can be found in Chicago, Virginia (Ashburn), Los Angeles, Amsterdam, and Singapore.

In this Godaddy review, we take a closer look at key aspects of Godaddy including its hosting plans and their respective pricing, features, strengths and weaknesses, and FAQs.

Godaddy’s Hosting Plans

Godaddy is one of the very few popular web hosts that support both Linux-based and Windows-based hosting services. While Linux hosting is typically cheaper than its Windows counterpart, the company offers both at nearly the same price particularly those on shared hosting plans.

In addition to the shared tiers, Godaddy offers five other hosting packages namely WordPress Hosting, Business Hosting, VPS Hosting, Dedicated Servers, and Reseller plans.

Below is a description of each including the resources you get for respective plans and their prices before discounts.

Shared Hosting Plans

As mentioned earlier, users can choose from either Windows or Linux hosting when it comes to Godaddy’s shared hosting offerings. For Linux plans, the company offers four tiers while their Windows equivalents are available in three packages.

Linux plans are Economy, Deluxe, Ultimate, and Maximum. On the other hand, the Windows-based plans are all of those except the Maximum plan. Let’s take a look at what each of these tiers comprise in regards to resources provided by Godaddy.

- Economy

Renewing at $7.99 after a potentially discounted registration period, the Economy plan by Godaddy comes with quite limited resources. Some of the key ones include 1 website supported, 100GB disc space, unlimited bandwidth, and 10x1GB MySQL databases. Users also get a custom cpanel account and CloudLinux.

- Deluxe

Offering a major boost in resources from what Godaddy allocates to its Economy plan, Deluxe is sufficient for most web owners with moderate hosting needs. This plan comes with industry standard features including unlimited websites, bandwidth, and disc storage. Additionally, it supports 25 x 1GB MySQL databases as well as a cPanel and CloudLinux. Perhaps what might sound a little restrictive and obviously worth considering is the 25 MySQL databases particularly if you plan to run several projects simultaneously. This plan is available for a regular price of $10.99.

- Ultimate

At a renewal rate of $16.99, the Ultimate plan is comes with a few standout features including unlimited MySQL databases, 1GB RAM, Premium DNS, and a free SSL certificate for the first year of registration. Everything else is unlimited including disc storage, websites, and bandwidth.

- Maximum

The Maximum plan is Godaddy’s highest shared hosting plan going at a regular price of $24.99. The tier is targeted at web owners running high demanding and complex websites such as those hosting high resolution images and videos.

In addition to coming with unlimited bandwidth, websites, storage, and MySQL databases, this plan also includes 2GB RAM, 2048 I/O, free SSL for the registration period, and premium DNS.

Note: Godaddy allocates nearly similar resources that it gives Linux users to those using Windows-based hosting for respective tiers. The only feature added to the latter is a free Microsoft Office 365 Business Email for the 1^st year. What’s more, access to a personal Plesk account (equivalent of cPanel for Linux-based plans) is granted to you.

All Godaddy’s shared hosting plans come with a free domain for signups above one year, 1-click install of over 100 applications including WordPress and Drupal, 24/7 security monitoring, and DDoS protection among other features.

WordPress Hosting

Godaddy has a specialized package for users looking for managed WordPress hosting. These packages come packed with a number of integrated features specially optimized for this hugely popular CMS. One of the most standout is the Varnish Cache implementation which helps to facilitate faster page load speed. Others include use of premium hardware, advanced security scripts, free themes, and a development sandbox for staging websites during development and before going live.

There are four tiers under the WordPress Hosting services by Godaddy namely: Basic, Deluxe, Ultimate, and Developer.

- Basic

Costing a regular price of $8.99, this is the cheapest plan offered by Godaddy in its WordPress Hosting category. As expected, it comes with a number of limits including 1 website, 10GB SSD disc storage, and up to 25,000 visitors per month. While the plan guarantees fast performance due to the use of SSD drives, the 25,000 unique IPs (including web bots) is its biggest undoing. This is because most low-traffic websites will easily exceed this limit per month. However, you can choose to add a Visitor Overage Protection Plan to cater for this albeit at an extra cost.

- Deluxe

For a regular price of $12.99, Godaddy’s Deluxe plan provides up to 15GB SSD worth of disc storage, supports 100,000 unique visitors monthly for the single website allowed. Unfortunately, this tier still doesn’t offer unlimited domains and doesn’t feature a cPanel which means most of your site’s management can only be done through the WordPress CMS settings.

- Ultimate

With the Ultimate plan, Godaddy offers a maximum of 2 websites, up to 400,000 monthly visitors, and 30GB SSD disc space. The tier which is priced at $19.99 per month also features a Search engine visibility wizard, sFTP/SSH access, and a free SSL for the first year. Enjoy more security, space, and traffic with this plan.

- Developer

Being the highest tier in this hosting class, Developer Plan is aimed at web owners looking for sufficient resources and pro features. Some of the key features you’ll get with this plan include 50GB SSD storage, a max of 5 websites hosted, sFTP/SSH access, and a free SSL Certificate for the first year. In addition, Godaddy throws in a free domain for every annual (and above) plan and up allows up to 800,000 monthly visitors.

The regular price for the Developer plan is $24.99.

All the four WordPress Hosting offered by Godaddy come with the following features:

- Free daily backups and 1-click restores

- Access to thousands of free WordPress-compatible themes and plugins.

- A drag-and-drop editor and pre-built site designs to clone for your new website.

- Free domain name for all annual plans.

- A free one-year Microsoft Office 365 email with every annual plan purchase.

- Temporary domain names with annual plans.

- 24/7 support.

Business Hosting

Business Hosting plans, just as the name suggests are targeted at business owners looking for hosting packages that offer a balance between affordable rates and sufficient resources. As such, these plans cost a bit more than both Shared and WordPress Hosting which then translates to an equally significant boost in resources availed to users.

Godaddy has four plans in this category: Launch, Enhance, Grow, and Expand.

- Launch

The Launch Plan is literally targeted at startups and small businesses that need some flexibility when it comes to hosting products but don’t have much money to spend. With it, users get 2GB RAM, 1 CPU, 60GB disc storage, and a standard SSL Certificate. Other features worth noting include unlimited websites and databases as well as unmetered traffic.

This plan renews at $29.99/mo.

- Enhance

Enhance is aimed at sites with significant amount of traffic such as blogs and sales pages. The plan which goes for $49.99/mo upon renewal comes packed with sufficient resources including 4GB RAM, 90GB disc storage, 2CPUs, a free standard SSL Certificate, unmetered traffic and unlimited websites.

- Grow

If you are running a resource-intensive online business such as an e-commerce store, then the Grow Plan by Godaddy is worth checking out. This tier is loaded with 3 CPUs, 6GB RAM, 120GB HDD storage, and a free standard SSL Certificate. Also, like the rest of plans in this category, it supports unlimited websites and databases as well as unmetered traffic. Grow costs $69.99/mo.

- Expand

The Expand Plan which is the highest among the Business Hosting plans by Godaddy is ideal for websites dealing with heavy traffic and products such as photography. To support this kind of demands, it comes loaded with 8 GB RAM, 150 GB disc storage, and 4 CPUs. In addition, users will enjoy unmetered traffic, add unlimited websites and databases, and receive a free standard SSL Certificate.

This plan renews at $99.99/mo.

VPS Hosting Plans

Following Godaddy’s acquisition of Media Temple in 2013, the hosting giant used the data center technology coupled with the programming talent of MT to re-launch its VPS offerings. Today, the company runs on the highly efficient “Parallels Containers” virtualization framework that supports both Windows and Linux OS.

As a result, Godaddy offers VPS hosting services for both Linux and Windows. While there’s a little difference in their features and pricing, a lot is shared among them as you’ll find out below:

For starters, there are four tiers of VPS hosting offered by Godaddy namely Economy, Value, Deluxe, and Ultimate.

- Economy

Renewing at $29.99, the Economy plan is Godaddy’s cheapest VPS plan. It suits small and medium sized businesses looking for that extra speed and performance that VPS offers over shared hosting plans.

With this package, you will get 1GB RAM, 40GB disc storage, 3 dedicated IPs, and unmetered bandwidth. Godaddy also offers you a free 1-year SSL Certificate to boost your site’s security.

If you opt for a Windows equivalent plan, Godaddy offers 2GB RAM and Windows with Plesk available. Other features tally with those of Linux-based plans. This plan is also a bit more expensive costing a regular price of $39.99/mo.

- Value

When it comes to VPS offerings by Godaddy, customers have the option to choose between Managed, Fully Managed, and Self-Managed. Users that select the Managed plans have their cPanels and CentOS pre-installed while the self-managed plans allow the user to choose any other Linux distribution they’d like to use.

Value Plan (Linux) which comes with a regular price of $39.99/mo includes 2GB RAM, 60GB storage, 3 dedicated IP addresses, unlimited bandwidth, and a free SSL Certificate for the first year. On the other hand, its Windows counterpart features 3GB RAM and 90GB HDD, with the remaining resources mirroring those of the Linux based OS. The latter costs $59.99/mo.

- Deluxe

Like the other plans, the Deluxe tier is available on both Linux ($69.99/mo) and Windows ($79.99/mo). Both include 4GB RAM, 120GB disc storage, 3 dedicated IPs, and unlimited bandwidth. You also get a free SSL Certificate when you purchase either of them.

- Ultimate

Just like the name suggests, the Ultimate VPS plan is Godaddy’s highest tier for this hosting category and one with the most features. The plan which costs 139.99/mo for Linux and $149.99/mo for Windows is targeted at users with high-traffic, resource-intensive websites that need a boost in performance.

Both plans come with similar features namely 8GB RAM, 240GB storage, 3 dedicated IPs, and unlimited bandwidth. Users are also provided with a free SSL Certificate for the first year.

While Godaddy offers a pretty solid VPS hosting service particularly due to its unique Parallels Virtualization framework, it’s comparatively high pricing combined with a lack of SSD discs can be a deal-breaker. However, the offerings are worthy considering if looking for the best VPS hosting services online.

Dedicated Servers

All dedicated servers on Godaddy are based on the same type of hardware while rackmounts are built around the powerful quad core Intel Xeon E3-1220-v3.

Depending on the plan you select, your server will include RAM sizes ranging from 4-32GB while storage spaces range from 1-2TB. Godaddy doesn’t offer SSDs on these plans even as a paid upgrade. This is one area where the company falls short especially considering the steep price these packages come with.

There are four tiers offered by Godaddy for users looking for Dedicated Servers: Economy, Value, Deluxe, and Ultimate. You can choose between Windows and Linux operating systems. Worth noting is that the two variants share almost similar resources for every tier in terms of RAM, storage, bandwidth, and other extras such as free IP addresses and SSL Certificates.

- Economy

Renewing at $169.99/mo, Economy plan is Godaddy’s cheapest Dedicated Server package. The plan which is aimed at web owners looking to derive the exclusivity that comes with a dedicated server but still keep their budget low is packed with features. Some of the most notable ones include 4GB RAM, quad core Xeon E3-1220-V3 hardware, and 1TB RAID-1 HDD storage. Others include unlimited bandwidth, 3 free dedicated IPs, and a free SSL for the first year.

As mentioned earlier, these same features are availed to users that prefer Windows based OS. However, Windows users pay $199.99/mo which is higher than what Linux users pay.

- Value

The Value Plan by Godaddy comes packed with a powerful 8GB RAM, a sufficient storage space worth 1.5TB, and unlimited bandwidth. Besides, the hosting company includes 3 dedicated IP addresses and a free SSL Certificate.

All these resources are priced at $199/mo for Linux users and $229.99/mo for Windows users.

- Deluxe

The generous amount of resources that Godaddy includes in its Deluxe Plan means that nearly any business will enjoy a powerful performance when using it. The package whose resources add up close to 50 standard shared hosting plans combined will comfortably handle any form of traffic up to a max of 40 million unique monthly visitors.

Some of the specifics of Deluxe include 16GB RAM, quad core 3.1GHz Xeon hardware, 2TB RAID-1 disc storage, and unlimited bandwidth. Godaddy also includes 3 dedicated IP addresses and a free SSL Certificate.

The regular price for this package is $249.99 for Linux users and $279.99 for Windows users.

- Ultimate

Being the most resource packed server by Godaddy, the Ultimate Plan is able to support extremely high levels of traffic and still maintain peak performance. This plan which is targeted at power users includes an unbelievable 32GB RAM, 2TB HDD storage, unlimited bandwidth, a free SSL, and 3 dedicated IP addresses.

Ultimate Plan is approximately 100x more powerful than a standard shared hosting plan and makes heavy use of caching solutions to sustain levels of performance.

This plan goes for $349.99/mo for Linux and $379/mo for Windows users.

Reseller Hosting

At the moment, Godaddy offers only two plans for its Reseller Hosting accounts: Basic and Pro Plan. One thing you’ll like about these offerings is that Godaddy provides you with ready-made website containing all its products and services. The White-label e-commerce platform comes populated with everything you need to kick start your business including credit card processing features.

As if that’s not enough, Godaddy discounts their retail products by up to 20% for basic users and 40% for Pro users to give your business a significant profit margin you can work with. The firm also offers you the freedom to sell your plans for whatever amount you wish.

The Basic level plan which goes for $8.99/mo supports up to 25 users while the Pro level plan which costs $14.99/mo supports unlimited accounts.

Plan Name	Disk Space	Bandwidth	Currency	Admin panel	Websites	Scripting	Email-Transport	Database	Price
Ultimate	-	-	USD	Admin panel	Unlimited	ASP.NET,Perl,Python,PHP	-	MySQL	$ 5.99
Deluxe	-	-	USD	Admin panel	Unlimited	ASP.NET,Perl,Python,PHP	-	MySQL	$ 4.99
Economy	100GB	-	USD	Admin panel	1	ASP.NET,Perl,Python,PHP	-	MySQL	$ 2.99
Maximum	-	-	USD	Admin panel,cPanel	Unlimited	Perl,Python,PHP	-	MySQL	$ 12.99
Ultimate	-	-	USD	Admin panel,cPanel	Unlimited	Perl,Python,PHP	-	MySQL	$ 5.99
Deluxe	-	-	USD	Admin panel,cPanel	Unlimited	Perl,Python,PHP	-	MySQL	$ 4.99
Economy	100GB	-	USD	Admin panel,cPanel	1	Perl,Python,PHP	-	MySQL	$ 2.99

Plan Name	Disk Space	Bandwidth	Admin panel	Cores	RAM	Core Speed	Price
Ultimate	240GB	-	Plesk	1	8GB	-	$ 84.99
Deluxe	120GB	-	Plesk	1	4GB	-	$ 49.99
Value	90GB	-	Plesk	1	3GB	-	$ 34.99
Economy	40GB	-	Plesk	1	2GB	-	$ 29.99
Ultimate	240GB	-	cPanel	1	8GB	-	$ 74.99
Deluxe	120GB	-	cPanel	1	4GB	-	$ 39.99
Value	60GB	-	cPanel	1	2GB	-	$ 24.99
Economy	40GB	-	cPanel	1	1GB	-	$ 19.99

Plan Name	Disk Space	Bandwidth	Admin panel	Core	RAM	Core Speed	IPs	CPU	Price
Ultimate	2000GB	-	Plesk	4	32GB	3.1GHz	3	1x Xeon E3-1220-v3	$ 209.99
Deluxe	2000GB	-	Plesk	4	16GB	3.1GHz	3	1x Xeon E3-1220-v3	$ 159.99
Value	1500GB	-	Plesk	4	8GB	3.1GHz	3	1x Xeon E3-1220-v3	$ 134.99
Economy	1000GB	-	Plesk	4	4GB	3.1GHz	3	1x Xeon E3-1220-v3	$ 119.99
Ultimate	2000GB	-	cPanel	4	32GB	3.1GHz	3	1x Xeon E3-1220-v3	$ 179.99
Deluxe	2000GB	-	cPanel	4	16GB	3.1GHz	3	1x Xeon E3-1220-v3	$ 129.99
Value	1500GB	-	cPanel	4	8GB	3.1GHz	3	1x Xeon E3-1220-v3	$ 104.99
Economy	1000GB	-	cPanel	4	4GB	3.1GHz	3	1x Xeon E3-1220-v3	$ 89.99

Performance and speed

Thinking of taking your online presence a step further by investing in a website? Then you’ll need to get an appropriate hosting service. By ‘appropriate’, we are talking about excellent performance and loading speeds to ensure that your site loads up quickly and flawlessly. GoDaddy is widely acknowledged for its website domain names business. And now, its hosting service is slowly catching up thanks to the company’s continued commitment to invest in dependable server infrastructure

Below are some of the perks to enjoy with this company:

- 99.9% uptime guarantee

Having a host with reliable uptime ensures that your website remains online and accessible to your visitors at all times. As a result, GoDaddy has invested in state of the art servers and data centers to ensure that their uptime remains well above 99.9%. Their enormous Phoenix data center is particularly key in anchoring the company’s global infrastructure.

- Easy integration with CDNs

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) serve the role of caching your website across multiple servers that are networked. What this means for your website is that if a user makes a request for your site on a browser, the files will be sent from the closest server to the user thereby cutting down on the loading time. Generally, e-commerce sites operate under the rule of thumb: the slower the site, the fewer the purchases will be.

However, GoDaddy doesn’t offer CDNs: rather, they support the integration of CDNs with Cloudflare options.

- Multiple hosting options

To ensure that each customer reaps maximum benefits with their sites, GoDaddy identified three major hosting packages. These make it a whole lot easier for the customers to pick the best-fit features for their specific needs.

The first plan you can subscribe for is shared web hosting. Essentially, this involves having various servers with each hosting multiple websites that have access to all of its resources. While shared web hosting is way cheaper than the other more advanced hosting plans, the loading speeds may be slower particularly if a server gets crowded.

The second option is Virtual Private Server (VPS) which means that each site is allocated a predefined amount of server resources; however, there will still be multiple sites in that very server. As a result, if one of the parties uses up their resource allocation, the other parties will not be affected.

Dedicated servers are the last option and the ultimate plan. With these plans, you get to enjoy the entire server resources on your own. As expected, this option is also more expensive but will grant you more wiggling space in case you need to add new content and features to your website.

Security

Gone are the days when hackers only targeted the big enterprises; nowadays, anyone with a website needs to stay alert against cyber-attacks.

Check out the following security features on GoDaddy Platform:

- Premium Succuri plugin

GoDaddy offers a powerful, yet simple solution to ensure that your website stays clean. Succuri performs regular scans on your website to detect malware that could be infecting files and gives an immediate notification if any changes to the site files are detected.

Another benefit that Succuri offers is monitoring your site for blacklisting by Google if it’s considered harmful to visitors. In case Google flags your site, Succuri will identify the reason behind that and resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

- Daily site backups

It’s always advisable for every website owner to do regular backups. It offers insurance against all setbacks such as inadvertently deleting your entire site.

With GoDaddy, you can easily sign up for Site Backup plan which offers automatic integration with your hosting account.

This platform performs daily backups and malware scans of your site. The web host allows you to create backup copies of your site or pay an inexpensive monthly fee to have your site files backed up in the cloud. The storage is fully secure with no limit when you want to share files. GoDaddy also allows you to store the information from your iPhone.

Other Security features include:

- The SHA-2 and 2048 bit encryption is a feature that Godaddy provides for all its hosting plans. It also comes with an option to buy SiteLock, a service that offers malware and spam monitoring, app scanning, and site-verification certificates.

- All plans use the popular secure shell feature and further utilizes spam detection in the control panel and email accounts.

- Accounts are locked behind password protection to restrict access to private files.

- Better yet, you can make your data much safer by using SSL certificates available on GoDaddy.

Customer Support

Your website depends direly on the support of your web host: this is because a slight glitch could result in a painful loss of your customers. Luckily, GoDaddy has put in place a few support measures as follows to help you resolve all technical issues affecting your website:

- US-based support

One of the benefits you derive by having this web host is guaranteed quality support that’s based in the US. And while their response may sometimes not be so punctual, the quality of support you get from them is commendable. Besides, the team here is generally knowledgeable on various unique website issues.

- 24/7 support

GoDaddy’s support department has been working constantly on themselves to improve their reputation which wasn’t so good a few years back. Today, they boast an award-winning team of expert staff that readily handles customer support emails and tickets 24 hours a day, 7 days in a week.

- Multi-lingual channels

GoDaddy is popular for its knowledgeable responses from the customer support. With a dedicated sub-domain on its website, you can reach the team via a range of channels such as e-mail, tickets, forums, blogs, and groups. You can also use the telephone support that’s available in English or Spanish. Usually, it could take you up to 5 minutes before the support responds to calls.

- Easy WordPress auto-install

One notable aspect you’ll like about GoDaddy Hosting is its easy Wordpress auto-install provision. This feature make installing WP a breeze especially for most new customers with minimal experience working with this CMS. All you have to do is purchase a hosting for your site and select auto-install in the hosting account. Your website should be up and running in a few hours With GoDaddy security in place.

Alternatively, you can choose the manual installation if you’d want to implement the steps yourself: Godaddy offers hundreds of interactive, voice-guided tutorials to teach you the basics of Wordpress set up procedure.

- Knowledgebase

Apart from having a knowledgeable staff, GoDaddy is also a quality source of most answers to your support questions. The company has written numerous articles that offer a great deal of knowledge.

GoDaddy cPanel

GoDaddy offers two Panel options: WHM for Linux and Parallel Plesk for Windows. Its custom cPanel is particularly quite impressive with a non-cluttered interface as well as advanced site controls. The company offers various ways to access the cPanel including through your account management tool and through a direct login link.

Here are some of the functions that you can perform on the cPanel:

- Create files

- Manage DNS

- Compress files

- Unzip files

- Delete directorates

- Add support for Non-parsed Headers on Linux hosting plans

- Change resource limits

- Opening non-standard port on VPS

- Changing Name servers for cPanel

45 days Money Back Guarantee

GoDaddy offers a pretty standard money back guarantee. It works in such a way that you can opt out of their monthly service within 48 hours and 45 days if you purchased the yearly plan. However, remember to go through all the terms and conditions to understand all clauses before signing up.

eCommerce Features

Godaddy has a new software called GoDaddy Online Store which is an upgrade of the old quick shopping Cart e-commerce software. The new shop comes with impressive features such as SEO tools, secure checkout, store themes, as well as unlimited product listings.

Setting up your shop with the new tool is easy and straightforward. You only need to select a theme, pricing, products, images, and your preferred payment methods. If you need to sell products via your site, this feature can never be more helpful.

GoDaddy Extras

i. Free domain name

GoDaddy offers free domain names for the first year for every hosting plan you purchase from them.

ii. Free website migration

When migrating your website from another host to GoDaddy, the company will offer this service to you free of charge. They also ensure that your site doesn’t go offline during the process.

iii. Free website builder

GoDaddy provides a trial version of its GoCentral Website Builder with every hosting plan. However, once the trial version expires, you will need to purchase the full version.

iv. $200 worth of credits

Use these credits to get the word out there about your business. They come in the form of Google Adwords, Yahoo and Bing Adwords credits for you to market your site.

v. 1-click app install

With over 100 custom apps supported, GoDaddy’s hosting platform will completely revolutionize your website. Installations and uninstallations can be done quickly thanks to the 1-click option to manage your apps. Some of the key apps available here include WordPress, Drupal, CloudLinux, and even MySQL.

Strengths and Weaknesses of GoDaddy Hosting

Godaddy, just like any other business, has its strengths and weaknesses. As such, it’s recommended that you weigh both to understand whether the company is the right fit for your hosting needs or not.

Strengths

- Affordable prices

Compared to several options available in the market today, GoDaddy is one of the best in terms of affordability. The best part is that if you stick with them for a few years, they can always offer you even better prices. Domain registration is available for as low as $0.99 while its lowest hosting plan is offered for as low as $4 per month. The company also dishes out coupons and discounts to users throughout the year.

- 1-click WordPress installation

You might have realized that it takes quite some time to download WordPress manually especially if your internet is slow: thankfully, you can rely on GoDaddy for an automatic solution using their 1-click WP installation feature.

- Fast loading time

Slow loading speeds can be catastrophic to your website and business performance: often resulting in a huge loss of customers. GoDaddy has put in place structures to help your website load faster including having servers near visitors’ locations and using fast storage drives.

- Unlimited visitors

As you already know, a website with too many visitors may lag and maybe even crash losing its reputation among users. GoDaddy saves you from any of this by ensuring all its plans can support unlimited visitors at no extra cost.

- Security

You can have good night sleep knowing that your site is secure, thanks to GoDaddy’s impressive security systems that deter spammers and hackers. With cyber-attacks on the rise nowadays, you can make your website safer with GoDaddy as your host.

- Multiple payments options

GoDaddy accepts most of the major currencies and credit cards for its payments. The company also allows use of PayPal and a few other digital payment platforms with ease.

Cons of GoDaddy Web Hosting

- No live chat support

Despite their upgraded customer service with quick response time, Godaddy still lack a live chat support system. However, phone support is available and quick in most cases.

- Restoration fees

Most web hosting company offer to restore a website at zero costs in case of a breakdown or hacking experience. However, GoDaddy charges a restoration fee which can rise up to $300 depending on the work involved in completing the task.

- Limitations on storage

GoDaddy puts several strict restrictions on data and disk space usages except for a few of its hosting plans. This might not be go well with webmasters managing huge sites that are growing rapidly.

GoDaddy Frequently Asked Questions

- Who owns GoDaddy?

GoDaddy was founded in 1997 and is still owned albet in part by its founder, Robert Parsons. However, about 70% of GoDaddy stake was bought by a private equity consortium a few years ago. Nevertheless, Robert Parsons retains the largest individual share that stands at 28% of the company. GoDaddy is one of the pioneers in the hosting and domain industry and claims to serve over 16 million customers worldwide.

- Where are GoDaddy servers located?

GoDaddy boasts a massive 430,000 square feet data center at Phoenix in Arizona. The US-based company also runs other centers in Los Angeles, Ashburn, and Chicago alongside other international facilities in Singapore and Amsterdam.

- Do I get unlimited bandwidth and storage?

Nothing truly comes unlimited, neither is GoDaddy’s storage and bandwidth. Shared plans do come with 250,000 files (folders) with each email counting as a file. Besides, the web host puts “soft” caps on other resources. You may have to check the terms and conditions to understand the contract carefully. Just like most other popular hosts, GoDaddy reserves the right to throttle your website's resources if excess bandwidth or storage is detected.

- What is GoDaddy’s cheapest plan?

The cheapest plan renews at $7.99 per month and comes with unlimited bandwidth and 100GB storage. There’s a free domain for the first year which is included during the purchase.

- Does GoDaddy offer domain registration? What’s the cost and is my information secure?

GoDaddy is reputable for domain name business and therefore you can get your domain name here. Besides, the firm offers free domains with some of their hosting plans. Regarding the privacy of your information, you can rest assured that your information is secure with them. You can also apply for a WHOIS privacy to safeguard any sensitive information about your domain name.

- I need to transfer my site to GoDaddy. What is the process?

Unfortunately, GoDaddy provides limited support when you need to do site or domain transfers. If you experience any trouble, you can get a large amount of comprehensive documentation online that offer information on the processes. You can also get other private and third-party organizations that will walk you through the process.

- Are there any special security features with GoDaddy?

In addition to code signing and SSL certificates, you get Sitelock website security which helps to detect malware and monitor your website for issues such as blacklisting on search engines.

- How can GoDaddy perform as a host on my WordPress Site?

GoDaddy features several WordPress specific packages for hosting. Three of the available plans are managed hosting. The company encourages and largely supports the use of Wordpress as a content management system. In fact, they have a built-in migration feature to make it easier for you to move your WordPress website hosting to GoDaddy.

As with most large hosting providers, there have been a few security incidents involving the web host in recent years. For this reason, GoDaddy is constantly improving their security policies.

- Can I automate WordPress installation with GoDaddy?

The web host offers both manual and automatic ways to automate Wordpress installation. The manual installation is easy. However, you can save time by using the WordPress Managing Tool Suite that GoDaddy offers. Get assistance in WordPress software updates and site backups. What’s more, take advantage of GoDaddy tech support available all year long for any issues you might encounter with your WP site.

- Which GoDaddy Plan is best for WordPress Sites?

The best plan to purchase for self-hosted WordPress Site will depend on the total number of sites hosted. The Developer plan is the most expensive plan but the most suitable for people with up to 5 websites and 800,000 visitors or more per month. The Ultimate Plan on the hand can be used for 2 WordPress Sites and up to 400, 000 monthly visitors.

GoDaddy also provides managed WordPress options which come with bonuses like staging areas, WordPress installed by default, and dedicated support.

- Does GoDaddy offer site building software? Can I get customizable templates?

GoDaddy features a user-friendly site builder program that’s extremely easy to use and offers hundreds of customizable settings. The platform has 3 tiers of plans with different themes and templates available to you depending with your preferred plan.

- Does GoDaddy provide any kind of money back guarantee?

GoDaddy offers a limited 45-day money back guarantee; however, please note that this offer does not apply to all products and service. It's necessary to read the fine print carefully if you’re concerned about getting your money refunded back.

- What is GoDaddy’s uptime guarantee?

GoDaddy offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee which adds up to 8.76 hours of downtime per year. If they fail to keep up with their service uptime guarantee in a particular month, you can contact them and request for 5% credit of your monthly hosting fee. However, be sure to check out their terms of service to be on sure that you’re within your right to request this credit.

- What are the best GoDaddy alternatives?

GoDaddy is without a doubt one of the best low-budgets web-hosting companies, but if you feel the need to upgrade, shop around or compare web hosts. You can try a few other popular hosting alternatives including BlueHost, Site Ground, InMotion Hosting, and A2 Hosting.

If you own a WordPress site, a key Godaddy alternative worth considering is WP Engine hosting which offers managed platform for WordPress sites. While the managed hosting services from this company won’t come cheap, WP Engine is reputable for its exceptional capacity in this area of specialization.

On the other hand, if you’re not after a managed WordPress hosting option, you might consider HostGator and InMotion Hosting.

HostGator shares a lot of similarities with GoDaddy: however, the former uses the traditional cPanel while Godaddy uses its main control Panel. Just like GoDaddy, HostGator also offers commendable customer support.

InMotion Hosting is another web host that you can consider especially if you are looking for a firm that uses fast drives (SSDs) and boasts excellent customer support.