Godaddy Web Hosting Review

Godaddy is one of the world's largest domain registrars, and also offers shared hosting, virtual dedicated hosting, and dedicated web hosting packages. As positives, Godaddy offers strong value-focused pricing, user-friendly contract terms, and an intuitive control panel. Negatively, their signup process could be intimidating for new users (lots of extras offered for a fee) and they don't offer toll-free support (which helps keep their hosting prices lower). Overall, Godaddy is an excellent choice for the value driven buyer.

Signup Process - Godaddy Web Hosting

Signup Process Score: 90

Signing up for an account with Godaddy is a pretty straight-forward process with only a few drawbacks.

Because Godaddy is one of the largest registrars of domain names worldwide, it's no surprise that their website focuses more heavily on domain registration than web hosting. To avoid confusion for novice users, all links in this review point to Godaddy's web hosting section.

Once we navigate to the web hosting section, we can easily compare hosting plans to evaluate which is the appropriate choice for our needs. We selected Godaddy's deluxe plan for the purpose of this evaluation, although many of its features are included in the more affordable economy plan.

Godaddy scores points in the signup process by displaying their pricing structure for various contract lengths up front, instead of pushing a "bait-and-switch" like many other web hosts who advertise a low price (requiring a multi-year commitment) only to significantly raise the price for shorter terms.

After selecting our plan and proceeding to checkout, we encounter a page presenting us with many "add-on" options. Most of these services add little value to the standard hosting accounts and should be avoided by most users. In many cases, free tools exist that will perform these tasks more effectively.

Finally, we reach the billing screen, input our information, and our account is setup moments later.

With the exception of causing us to feel slightly oversold to, this signup process met our expectations

Quality of Services - Godaddy Web Hosting

Services Score: 92

Although Godaddy's accounts do not include all of the same standard features as some other top-tier web hosts, their offerings do represent exceptional value.

Our test account was a Deluxe hosting package, which allowed us to host unlimited websites and unlimited subdomains on 1 account. Additionally, by including Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter credits, and allowing $1.99 domain registration with a hosting package purchase, Godaddy adds even more value.

Managing one or many websites from the user control panel is an easy task. While the administrative interface may not be the most elegant of designs, it is very effective and offers great utility.

The websites we hosted on our Godaddy accounts performed above average in terms of reliability and speed when compared with other shared hosting accounts. Our Godaddy web hosting account was an admirable performer.

Billing Evaluation - Godaddy Web Hosting

Billing Score: 100

Billing is an area where Godaddy clearly sets itself apart from many competitors, offering the ability to truly manage one's accounts online.

Many other web hosting companies require the user to call in if he desires to upgrade, downgrade, or cancel services. Godaddy has automated the majority of these procedures, saving time and headaches for the consumer. This convenience alone is reason to give Godaddy strong consideration over comparable competitors in other aspects.

Support - Godaddy Web Hosting

Support Score: 88

While we always found the support staff to be pleasant and as helpful as possible when we called Godaddy for hypothetical service issues, we have to penalize Godaddy for not offering toll-free support, and for occasionally leaving us on hold for too long.

Of all the areas on which Godaddy could be judged, support would easily be the worst performer. The good news is that during our testing, we did not run into any real problems which would have required us to contact support. Still, for the novice user, we could certainly imagine some degree of frustration mounting while holding on a toll call.