GoDaddy is one of the most popular names in terms of domain names and website hosting, but the truth of the matter is there are FAR better competitors out there. Choosing GoDaddy is a mistake that many new website owners make so listen up to the following three reasons why you should NOT do business with GoDaddy.
Why You Shouldn't Use GoDaddy For Any Website-Related Needs
Reason #1 – Pricing & Features
GoDaddy's pricing may seem cheap to some consumers, but realistically it is more expensive than most competitors and in return you receive fewer features and reliability.
For example a .com domain through GoDaddy costs $9.99 for the first year and $14.99 to renew it in the future years. If you want WHOIS privacy, you'll be charged an additional $7.99 a year. This makes the total price for a .com domain from GoDaddy with privacy at just under $18 for the first year and just under $23 for future renewals.
If you want to buy the same .com domain through a competitor like NameSilo, you would only pay $8.99 for the domain (flat rate every year, no hidden fees) and it also includes free WHOIS privacy as well as their Domain Defender protection against malicious attacks. This should be pretty obvious that GoDaddy's domain pricing is heavily flawed.
When it comes to hosting, they also run a gimmick where you get your first year for half off regular hosting, but as soon as you renew your hosting costs will double. For example, GoDaddy's cheapest hosting plan is $35.88 for the first 12 months, but renews at $71.88. HostGator, a more reputable and well-known web hosting company currently offers their “Hatchling” plan (base level) for $66.72, but it will renew at $80.06 in future years. Unlike GoDaddy, HostGator's shared hosting plans includes unlimited email accounts, cPanel, instant backups, unlimited MySQL databases, and unlimited disk space. In the end, HostGator's plan does cost a few dollars more in the end, but it is well worth it in terms of the upgrade in features, performance, and customer support compared to GoDaddy.
Another huge downfall to GoDaddy is their motive to try to sell you something on a continuous basis and squeeze every cent out of their customers that they can. For example, when you go through the checkout process you get hit with several pop-up offers to add more items to your cart. They also spam your email inbox daily with future coupons which I've come to find out are calculated to be nearly impossible to redeem without spending much more than you anticipated.
Reason #2 – Performance
GoDaddy's hosting solutions are often slower than similarly priced competitors and can be susceptible to large unexpected downtimes.
Reason #3 – Risks & Reputation
GoDaddy may be well-known to the average consumer, but in terms of the educated webmaster community it is a service that very few use. Their reputation online is extremely negative with a whole website dedicated to educating potential customers about the horrors of doing business with the company. Besides this website you can find dozens of other discussion forums where users have had terrible experiences with GoDaddy and have documented it publicly for all to see.
GoDaddy actually settled with the owners of a website called ‘nodaddy.com' to shut the website down since it featured a collection of real GoDaddy horror stories that was hurting their business. Their CEO Bob Parsons isn't doing their reputation any good by filming controversial superbowl commercials and even publicly releasing a video tape of himself shooting and killing an endangered animal.
Here are some notable links to read about the GoDaddy reputation:
- Customer losing their domain
- Unjust website & domain seizure & poor customer support
- Stealing a valid domain and reselling it for profit
- Illegal billing practices
- GoDaddy – Complaints Board
- Invalid Spam Accusation Forcing $199 Fee
- GoDaddy – Scambook
- Better Business Bureau – 759 Complaints In Past 3 Years
If your going to spend your time and money on a website, why chance dealing with any of the above situations?
If I Can't Use GoDaddy, Who Should I Use?
This question varies from person to person as we all have our favorite companies to do business with and there are quite a few reputable hosting & domain services out there. Personally, I recommend HostGator for web hosting and NameSilo for domain purchases. I have used HostGator for several sites in the past and use NameSilo for all of my current domains. Both companies care about providing quality service at an affordable price and I only have good things to say about them after years of experience using each of them.
