Why Godaddy Sucks?

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Reviewed by Durr E Adan

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Do you know that 40% of Internet users will immediately abandon a website that takes over 4 seconds to load? What more! 47% of users expect a website to load as fast as in 2 seconds or even less? The performance of a website is dependent on the web hosting platform it is functioning on. The right web hosting platform always gives the right results.

Unfortunately, when it comes to hosting websites or blogs, “GoDaddy” is the name that strikes first in people’s minds. Perhaps, it is because the website hosting company has been in the industry for a long time now and also because it is displayed as the topmost company in the search engine results. However, most bloggers and website owners do not know that there are better options out there.

The reputation and market credibility of GoDaddy seems to get worse with time. Certainly, it is not the best web hosting service provider anymore. Users have been complaining about several problems they are facing with GoDaddy as their web hosting provider. Adding to the hardship are their high-priced shared hosting plans and paid add-ons that have garnered a lot of fake comments to hide their customer’s negative reviews.

So, if you are planning to use GoDaddy to host your website or blog, here are some things you must know. In this article, I will help break the myth about GoDaddy and emphasize why it is not a good choice as a web hosting service provider.

What people mostly see about GoDaddy’s excellence as a web hosting company is much of its advertising hype. Therefore, it is not surprising for a non-technical person to consider GoDaddy when they are building their website for the first time.

However, it isn’t the “best” option always. Time and again, it has failed to bring significant business value. So, let’s understand the key reasons why GoDaddy sucks.

#1: Occasional Downtime

godaddy downtime
All these years, you have heard about GoDaddy’s industry-standard – “99.9% uptime.” But now let’s face the truth – most websites running on GoDaddy frequently face the problem of an outage. And even if you don’t know this, you would get an unpleasant surprise when checking the website’s uptime report.

The fact is – no matter how big the web host is that they cannot deliver 100% uptime. And recently, websites hosted on GoDaddy are facing occasional downtime, affecting their business and user experience.

Whether the downtime is caused by a failed software upgrade, a cybersecurity attack, or an unskillful employee, frequent downtime is evident with GoDaddy. And you can very well understand that even a few seconds of website outage would mean dollars in losses.

#2: Slow Servers + Slow Infrastructure = Slow Websites

Yes, you heard it right – hosting your website on GoDaddy makes it very slow. Their servers are sluggish and it takes several seconds for a website/blog to load.

godaddy cpanel slow

GoDaddy uses a rather sophisticated hosting setup approach that promises to deliver enhanced performance and speed when done well. The setup process has one server functioning as the “web server,” processing codes and serving static files, while another server or multiple servers are leveraged to provide the database. This setup approach allows each server to perform at its maximum, keeping website speed and reliability high.

Unfortunately, GoDaddy has not done justice to the hosting setup process. Most often, their servers are extremely slow. There might be two reasons behind this:

  • the database servers are too overloaded;
  • the network connecting the database to the web servers has high latency issues.

Whatever it may be, you might be among the many unlucky websites that have reported poor database response times.

Some users have experienced GoDaddy server setup taking an average of 18 seconds to process all queries and load the front page of a new WordPress website. And that is terrible! Even 5 seconds of delay in loading a page or downtime would mean lost website traffic, lost sales, and lost reputation.

The hosting speed provided by GoDaddy is questionable because in 2010, iThemes – one of the top-notch WordPress theme development companies mentionedThe fact is that their hosting is poor, and that costs us and our customers time that could be better spent working on projects that make money or doing something more enjoyable than pulling our hair out.”

Many website owners have complained that GoDaddy hosting speed is so slow that they had to migrate their websites from GoDaddy to other hosting companies like BlueHost and HostGator. The latter provides improved performance and reliability in terms of website speed and uptime.

Another disadvantage is GoDaddy blacklists most caching plugins, this means you cannot install these plugins on your website. And if they identify them to be installed on your account, the same will be removed immediately. The Inability to leverage caching plugins is one of the biggest limitations for many websites.

Here are a couple of reviews from Godaddy’s customers regarding the speed:

Godaddy Server Response Times
Slow Godaddy
slow Godaddy server response time
Slow Server response times on Godaddy

#3: Issues With The Control Panel Provided

When you choose a “reputable” web hosting company like GoDaddy, you would expect more ease and flexibility in managing your databases, sites, domains, etc. from the web browser directly. You would want to have better control. However, this isn’t what you will get with GoDaddy.

GoDaddy has invested in creating its own custom control panel solution that is, unfortunately, worse than any other solution in the market today. The process is quite simple – Create a New Database, Add a Subdomain, Change the 404 Error Page, Create an FTP User, Change Form Mailer Email Address, Install WordPress…and then you have to wait for your SSH to be enabled. For a long period of time!

You will get the below system message:

godaddy ssh activate request messageAnd after waiting for several hours, you will get the following message:

godaddy ssh status activationWaiting for long hours for setting up your control panel can get annoying, especially when you are hosting multiple sites. From such a big brand like GoDaddy, you would expect a better control panel that is more user-friendly and intuitive.

The control panel dashboard is complicated as well. It is not properly structured and if you are new to hosting, it is not surprising to get lost in the middle of understanding all its features and usability. What more! If at any time, you see an error code and want to get support from a software provider or an IT professional, you need to enable the “error log” first to give them access to it to diagnose the problem.

godaddy error logs activation page

In the same way, if you experience a problem with your website and need to provide FTP access to someone quickly, good luck with that. The file upload speed is so slow that it might keep you waiting for long hours.

Thus, your overall experience using GoDaddy will not be impressive. That’s another reason why GoDaddy is bad.

#4: Limited CPU Resources

godaddy limited cpu resources
Many users have also complained about poor resources in hosting a website on GoDaddy. By resources, I mean CPU performance and RAM size that easily gets saturated and reaches the maximum limit. Over time, this causes the websites to function at a lesser speed as compared to the average website speed. And if the website continues to perform slowly with this recurring problem, there are chances that your account will get suspended.

#5: GoDaddy is EXPENSIVE

GoDaddy is famous! And this might make you think that they have the cheapest web hosting plans to offer, but that’s not the case Yes, at a first glance, they will allure customers with a “low” price, but there are hidden conditions too. The prices they advertise are typically for the first year of subscribing with them – they will then lock you in for costlier renewal package prices that will burn a hole in your pocket.

GoDaddy charges additionally for features that other hosting companies offer for free. These include Whois Privacy, SSL Certificates, Emails, Backups, Simple Landing Page Customizations, etc.

To validate this point here is a comparison of GoDaddy prices against its competitor, that is Bluehost another reputable hosting provider. What I found is:

GoDaddy charges $11.99/year for any .com domain name, it includes:

  • $9.99/year for Whols Privacy Protection
  • $14.99/year for Ultimate Domain Name protection & security ($17.99 at renewal)

As for its other services:

  • Godaddy charges $63.99/year for their SSL certificate.
  • If you want to get your own emails you have to pay $11.99/month for the first 5 mailboxes.
  • As for their daily backup system, it will cost you $1.99/month.

GoDaddy also upsells many other products that significantly increase the overall cost of your hosting package.

Here is a customer review about GoDaddy upselling:

godaddy customer review about upselling
Source: Quora

On the other hand, here’s what Bluehost and Namecheap charge for domain registration and hosting every year:

Namecheap has an affordable pricing plan of $8.88/year, it includes:

  • WHOIS Guard Protection is offered for free with a 1 year subscription
  • $4.88/year for the Premium DNS protection

On the other part:

  • Bluehost offers a domain name for free during the 1st year.
  • Bluehost provides unlimited email accounts for free.
  • As for the backup system, Bluehost has their own automatic backups that they conduct for free for each one of their user accounts, so if you would like to restore to a previous version, you will have to get in touch with their support team so they do that for you.

In the beginning, GoDaddy will make you think that their domain hosting prices are cheap. However, the truth is that they are costlier than other hosting companies and full of upsells that automatically opt you in.

Here is a customer review about domain name purchase:



#6: No Security, No SSL, No Backups

SSL encryption and backing up your website data are the two most important features that users consider today when choosing a hosting company. Unfortunately, you will not get any of these when hosting with GoDaddy through their basic plan. To access their backup system or have an SSL certificate installed on your website, you have to buy their add-on or pay for the certificate.

In addition to that, their security is known to get a lot of breaches which result in getting a lot of customers’ sites compromised. A few examples below of hacked sites that are hosted on Godaddy:

Hacked GoDaddy websites with web shells visible

On the contrary, website backup and SSL are free services that other cheaper and more reliable hosting companies provide. Additionally, they do not offer certain advanced features like Git repositories or staging areas that may be useful for developers. What more! They also do not let you migrate the website from another hosting provider. And this is one of the biggest limitations of GoDaddy.

#7: Poor Hosting Support

Another big problem with GoDaddy is its technical support. If you are from a non-technical background and you need assistance in setting up your website or blog, then you might not get the desired customer support. Even experienced developers and coders face problems with GoDaddy customer support.

The fact is that they do not provide any support at all. Whatever they provide in the name of technical support is an attempt to upsell to dedicated or virtual dedicated hosting. In most cases, upgrading your hosting over shared hosting does not hold sense if the latter is performing optimally. More interestingly, they would suggest you upgrade your account even if it is a new WordPress install with no plugins, no content, and with the default theme.

Here are a few glimpses of customer complaints regarding GoDaddy Hosting support and service:

Godaddy review on technical support
Godaddy negative review on support

Best Alternative to GoDaddy?

A comparison of web hosts that will provide you with a better idea overall:

Bluehost most searched hosting provider

Overall people are satisfied with BlueHost over GoDaddy, in terms of pricing and performance.

bluehost polls
bluehost vs godaddy facebook poll votes
bluehost vs wordpress facebook poll

bluehost cloud speed comparison

If these hosting providers are compared in terms of web hosting features provided, security, customer support, and pricing, Bluehost is at the top followed by Siteground, and then comes GoDaddy. However, if we go by the advertising and hype created for GoDaddy, it is hard to opt for the appropriate hosting provider.

The Final Thought on Why Godaddy Sucks

From our experience and evaluation of customer reviews, we can say that GoDaddy is not the best hosting company in the market today as it is hyped about. As a brand as big as GoDaddy, customers expect affordable prices, better customer support, and well-planned hosting packages. Unfortunately, the fact is that they do not care.

Their hosting plans are full of sneaky upsell practices, even when a user seeks technical support. People prefer hosting with GoDaddy without looking for other options as it has been around for a long period of time and eventually they end up paying higher prices for the hosting features that they can get at affordable prices.

Only people who have the least experience in web hosting will fall prey to their advertisement gimmicks and fail to know the reality, only after experiencing the services would you know the truth. That is why after seeing many of my previous clients struggling with Godaddy I decided to make this review to help people make a better choice.

With GoDaddy, you do not get the performance, speed, stability, and quality of the high prices they charge for their hosting services. Even worse is, that they do not provide the quality customer support you would need during an error code or performance glitches.

The hosting services offered by GoDaddy are certainly not value for money in the long run. Therefore, I recommend BlueHost as the best alternative and HostGator if you fancy a free trial.

Planning to migrate your website from GoDaddy to another hosting provider for free? Thankfully, there are other hosting companies like BlueHost and Hostinger that allow you to migrate your websites for free. They are cheaper and also ensure improved speed, uptime, and good customer support. It is never too late to make a wise decision and switch your hosting from GoDaddy to a provider that is more reliable.

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30 thoughts on “Why Godaddy Sucks?”

  1. I live in egypt and i suddenly got an sms from my bank that money was deducted from DNH godaddy on 14-11 and i raised a ticket that i was told it will take 3-5 days to fix . nothing happened then on 14-12 i got another sms from my bank that more money was deducted and i raised another ticket and again promises of solving the incident without anything happening.. Also i noticed that i dont get any email confirmation for the tickets raised .

    I am cancelling my account with godaddy and will demand refund for any unused time and will continue on perusing the illegally deducted money..

    Reply
    • Hi Ash,

      I’m sorry to hear about your experience with Godaddy. It’s recommended to get a hold of your back and make a request to cancel that transaction, in some cases that is possible, assuming that it’s a big amount. You want to also disable any auto renewals or delete any current payment methods you have on your godaddy account if you still have any services there that you’re using.

      Reply
  2. Full agree with this topic, as I used GoDaddy for half years but my team that always cannot use the Outlook to synchronize their email system but they CS only keep mention web mail was no issue. I’m completely disappointed their support and service and we have to migrate to another email hosting service company finally.

    Reply
  3. My newest top reason, besides sharp increase in hosing prices is their outsourcing email to Microsoft. It now costs $74 a year for EACH email address. And those addresses are setup IMAP. So, you can’t just change your POP & SMTP settings. You have to dump your existing account and start from scratch with a Microsoft IMAP architecture.

    I’ve been using Godaddy since for 23 years, and over that time, they changed back end interfaces so many times I still have difficulty navigating them.

    Another thing, I relied on their online calendar/reminder for lots of years, and they just dumped it, when they outsourced their “workspace” email to Microsoft.

    Reply
  4. I found their website design site neither user-friendly or intuitive. I used them to host a website for a small business and got suckered into paying a huge amount for something that was a total waste of money. Their help was laughable and I didn’t appreciate the constant upselling. I think their refund policy stinks too – it takes more than 30 days to see if a business website is productive or not while said business is getting off the ground! So now I’m stuck with the balance of my annual subscription for Godaddy’s Websites + Marketing Premium for something that didn’t help me at all. I’ll never do business with them again.

    Reply
    • What you’ve went through Kathy is what mostly any user have experienced at some point during their registration. Their staff members and the checkout process are very aggressive when it comes to upsells.

      But it is not to late for you, if you just started and you don’t have many websites with them, you can always start or migrate towards a better host. Better now than later !! The longer you wait the harder the migration will be.

      Reply
    • I’m a web developer since 1995 – You-Build-Em” websites will never be “productive”. They are only good as online business cards. No one will find you in a search.

      If it’s any consolation, even the most expertly constructed sites take longer then 30 days to bear fruit.

      Reply
  5. I recently transferred all of my domains away from GoDaddy after almost two decades of being a customer, and let me tell you… what a sigh of relief!

    GoDaddy has always been awful in my experience; I was just never really inclined to move dozens of domains, hosting plans, etc. away from them until now. Unfortunately, things have just gotten worse with time, which I was surprised was even possible. Their prices are a total rip-off, obviously, and their support (general, tech, billing — all of it) is and always has been pathetic.

    Most recently, I kept getting notifications that my billing method was expired, despite having been correctly updated numerous times. After their “virtual assistant” failed to do anything (which was a given from the outset), I tried calling their support number. An “estimated 8 minute” hold time turned into 20+, so I hung up. I decided it was time to cut ties with GoDaddy.

    I’ll spare you all the nitty-gritty details, but suffice it to say, GoDaddy obviously knows when someone is trying to move their domains away from them, and they make it as difficult as possible to do so. Every single step of the process required “verification”, from downgrading privacy to updating contact info to disabling privacy and more. Unfortunately, after only three 2FA SMS messages, the codes sent stopped working. The first three codes would come through like, “123456 is the code for mydomain.com”, and those three codes worked. After that, you’d get a code like, “234567 is your code”, with no associated domain name. These codes never worked. Occasionally, you’d get a message saying that you reached the limit of daily verifications (3?!) for “security purposes” (riiiiight)… Considering it took at least three steps that needed verification to move the domain, you’re basically stuck at transferring one domain a day (if you’re lucky) due to this nonsense.

    I switched to email 2FA, and those codes took minutes each to arrive, and many of those wouldn’t work: “unspecified error”. It was clear that GoDaddy was trying to make this as painful as possible, effectively holding you hostage. They’re basically hoping you give up, forget about it, and renew with them automatically… forever. I refused to do so.

    I muddled through the process, continually logging out, deleting GoDaddy cookies, logging back in, disabling/re-enabling 2FA, etc. until I eventually got every domain away from GoDaddy over the course of a few days. When I finally confirmed all of my domains were successfully transferred, I clicked that “close account” link on GoDaddy, and I felt like a phoenix… rising from Arizona.

    Avoid GoDaddy at all costs. Their prices are absurd, their service and support are laughable, and if (when) you decide to leave, they won’t make it easy.

    Reply
  6. Purchased an SSL cert for 2 years. Initial cert exp yesterday. Called them the day before and they assured me that it would automatically renew. It didn’t and so all of my drivers had to park their vehicles. They said it was their fault and it would be fixed within 24-72 hours. That’s ridiculous! I will be requesting reimbursement for the unused year and payroll costs for all time spent on this and down time for drivers. Purchased an SSL elsewhere for less and had it up and running within 30 minutes. They really suck!

    Reply
    • That is a common practice that they do with a few of their clients, they were accused in the past of “domain squatting” and they’ve been sanctioned for it for a while.

      You’re better off with another domain registrar like Namesilo or Namecheap.

      Reply
  7. They bought my expired domain name (which I failed to renew, forgot about it) and are trying to sell it now back to me for 600$

    Reply
    • I’m not surprised, as they are known to use these practices on renewals and first-time purchases. That’s domain name squatting, they’ve been sued for that in the past and got suspended by ICANN.

      Unfortunately, they are still using these bad practices.

      Are you getting the same price when you try to search from it from a different registrar?

      Reply
  8. Fortunately I do hosting by the year so in a few months GoDaddy is history, a service I’ve been using for about 20 years. The forced changeover to Outlook Essentials email did it. What an eyesore and the added extra charge irritates me almost as much as navigating through the GoDaddy ever changing website design, something I try to avoid.

    Note that if you don’t pay for Outlook Essentials, you’ll loose email service but Go Daddy will store your inbox emails for 60 days and restore them after payment for Outlook Essentials is received. After 60 days, those emails are gone forever. I used Microsoft Outlook to backup GoDaddy emails, all the folders, not just the inbox. Will do that again before the move.

    Reply
    • Hi Pat,
      Thanks for your comment.
      You actually did the right thing to migrate your emails elsewhere, there is no need to pay for their upselling addon when you can get the same service for free elsewhere.
      Basically, what they do is hold your emails as a ransom until you pay them, on top of all the other addons. What’s surprising is that they upsell a lot of their other hosting features that are offered for free by most of their competitors.

      So I salute you for the decision you have made Pat 🙂

      Reply
  9. Do not contract services with this GoDaddy company, it is a fraud in terms of prices, conditions and customer service.

    I hired a security certificate a year ago, which by the way is the most expensive on the market ($ 68 USD approx) and the company charged the annual renewal 2 months before the expiration date, once the expiration date arrived, this 7 Last November, my site appeared down, as not safe without being able to visualize and I called support and they told me that they did not install it, but I did not receive a message with the instructions that I had to do it and the steps to follow, so Those who charge the most for this service are the ones who do the least. Other companies charge less than half for this service ($ US 30) and do the whole process. I requested cancellation and refund of the product and that they could only refund me the amount of the time not elapsed since the renewal date that they do 2 months before !!! and on account credit for GoDaddy products, do not refund the money paid. Disastrous!

    From another security certificate that I canceled a few days ago because it had been charged to a credit card of a client that I have in my account and nothing to do with that domain, the security certificate was canceled 3 weeks before the expiration date, which was 30 November, so I paid for a certificate one year and they removed it before its expiration because they arbitrarily charged it to another form of payment that was not the original, and also, the site appeared totally down because they removed the server names as well, thing that they shouldn’t do. Disastrous!

    Nefarious service, do not buy here, look for any other option, any.

    Reply
    • Thank you Hector for sharing your experience with us.
      That is the purpose of this article, is to educate people on making the transition from Godaddy before they get too invested or decide to establish their online business with them and become fully dependent on Godaddy.

      Hopefully this will reach as much people as possible.

      Reply
  10. I used to LOVE GoDaddy. I have referred so many people to its service. But over the past few years, not only have the problems increased, but also the RUDENESS of its customer support staff has increased to alarming levels.
    They not only are unwilling to address real problems that have been caused by GoDaddy, but they are utterly contemptuous of their customers.
    I know when you reach a certain level of success you think you’re too big to fail, but history has repeatedly shown that this is not true.
    I am deeply saddened by the state of GoDaddy, and am so sorry I have to leave after two decades plus of very loyal custom.
    The problems are never going to be solved because the root problem obviously is with its new company culture, and that all starts from the top.
    Good luck with all that, GoDaddy!

    Reply
    • Thank you for your comment. I certainly agree with all the fair points you’ve mentioned.

      I have experienced the same issues with their customer support and much more. It’s clear to me that they are not interested in solving any of these problems, I only see them ReBranding their site/logo every couple of years to give the impression that their services have changed and improved, but the reality, it never does! It only gets worse.

      The credibility is no longer there, they seem to be only driven by focusing on acquiring new customers, but only on the short term.

      I’m sure it wasn’t easy for you, after being with them for 2 decades, but I salute you for the wise decision you made 😊

      Reply
    • I’m working on a website for a friend and I spend more time on goDaddy customer service than I can count, and yet nothing gets done, or it works for a while then something else unexpectedly pops up.
      Nothing is their fault, they take forever to respond and a week or two later it all starts up again without warning. The site locks, slows down kicks out error messages. We spent an exorbitant amount of money on an SSL certificate (that I got for free with the basic hosting package on my Hostgator site) that I had to manually install in the end with their “helpful how to webpages”. My friend has her other site on go daddy, so she wanted to put this one on goDaddy not my first choice.
      I’m exasperated. I don’t have a lot of design experience but I manage 4 other sites and I have very few or no problems on these sites. And the content is alot more complex on these sites.

      I just want to get this site up and running for my friend, no matter what it takes. It’s just one little website with two pages with some content and a couple of pictures.

      Reply
      • Your best bet would be to migrate the site to another host. But luckily, in your case it’s a small site, so you can try a few optimization tweaks.

        Reply
  11. i think that godaddy sucks for the same reasons. they also hassle their customers with useless, threatening emails

    Reply
    • I totally agree! They use “scarcity” as part of their strategy to incite their customers to pay extra for some of their services, and unfortunately, many people fall victim to these unethical tactics.

      That’s what these reviews are for, so that people avoid going through these hardships and hopefully make the right choice.

      Reply
  12. Just got notice this past week that Go Daddy switched my email from their, outdated, but still OK email “Workspace”. They transferred everything over to Outlook 365, and of course doesn’t all my devices get hammered with thousands of emails from years ago that I now have to sort through and delete.

    On top of that no longer do you receive the “free email address” with purchase/renewal of domain name. In 56 days time from now my email address that I’ve used for over 10 years will expire… Unless I pay a monthly fee from now on.

    I guess Go Daddy doesn’t believe in grandfathering in new product/procedure. Spent an hour and a half with customer service and the only advice they could give me is I could sell my domain (which is self-serving advice from them). Go Daddy gets 20% of whatever you sell your Domain for.

    Now I really wish that I hadn’t renewed my domain for so many years back in 2016. My next renewal date is February 2025 and go daddy says you can only get a refund within 30 days of your renewal purchase. Meaning I’m about five years too late.

    My answer for why Go Daddy sucks is that they make serious decisions that affect you, your account, and your business without informing you… And then just try to rub salt in the wound they stick you with the bill.

    Reply
    • Thank you for sharing your Godaddy experience with us!

      It is truly unfortunate and unethical the way they do business, especially after knowing that you’ve been a long loyal customer of theirs, this says volume of how much they value their customers overall.

      I wouldn’t be surprised if they increase the monthly pricing of their email service. It’s really best for anybody to transfer their domain away completely as their are better and cheaper options that Godaddy.

      Reply

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