Godaddy is one of the world leaders in domain hosting and web design services. They offer a variety of products, including shared, reseller, and dedicated servers. But in my GoDaddy official site review, I paint a different experience.
My review is from my personal experience as a customer of GoDaddy. If you are looking for an honest assessment of their service, please read on.
What Is GoDaddy?
GoDaddy began in 1997 by two brothers who were both computer programmers. Their goal was to create a company that would provide an easy way for people to get online.
In 1998 the first website builder started, allowing users to build websites using drag and drop technology. Since then, they have expanded into many other areas, such as email marketing and web hosting.
Today they operate in over 40 countries with more than 10 million customers.
Who Is GoDaddy Designed For?
GoDaddy is set up for small businesses and small, independent ventures with a focus on small business owners.
I also think they focus on the newbie who has less experience building a website; with this in mind, they seem to like those who lack general knowledge about the internet and online business.
With my experience, I feel that GoDaddy can count on a higher upsell and higher revenue for themselves with a person who has very little understanding of how the system works.
Training
GoDaddy offers free training through its website. The training consists of video lessons and tutorials.
I found these videos to be helpful, but there are some drawbacks.
You must sign up for their newsletter before watching the tutorial. In other words, you will receive emails from them every week asking if you want to continue receiving their emails.
The video lessons don’t have any step-by-step instructions. So it is difficult to follow along without having a basic understanding of the subject matter.
There are no written instructions either. You have to watch the video lesson and hope to understand what you need to do next.
Support
GoDaddy has a customer support team you can call, email, or look at the support forums for any problems with your website. Although GoDaddy admits that a response may “take some time,” so, they request the customer be patient.
The customer support personnel were always kind but not helpful. They told me a different answer to the same issue each time I called, not to mention each time I talked to them; they used the opportunity to promote many upsells.
Price
Domain registration costs $13.00 per year, including 30 days of web hosting and unlimited email accounts.
The pricing seems reasonable until you realize that GoDaddy also charges $5.00 per month for additional features such as:
- Managed SSL service certificates (SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer)
- Domain Privacy Protection
- Webmail Accounts
- DNS Management
- Website Builder
GoDaddy has had a 67% increase in its pricing since 2016.
Benefits And Drawbacks Of GoDaddy Official Site Review
GoDaddy has good points and not-so-good points. I will point out the benefits and then the drawbacks.
Benefits
- GoDaddy says a domain purchase is .99 cents
- Support by phone, email, or support ticket submission 24/7
- Library of videos and tutorials to build your website
- “no tech skills required” to set up a website
- Easy To Use Website Builder
- Unlimited Emails
Drawbacks
- The actual price for domain purchase is $13-$15 per year, not .99 cents
- Support can take hours or days to find the right answer
- The assistance of a technician to work on website issues is an extra cost
- Each time I called the support team member, I got an upsell offer
My Personal Experience With My GoDaddy Official Site Review
In my GoDaddy official site review, the story I have is different than what their advertising boasts.
A few years ago, I transferred my website to GoDaddy. It was a pretty exciting moment because I could call and talk to a person on the phone instead of submitting a support ticket.
My internet experience was not good because I didn’t understand optimization or site protection.
I Quickly Found Their Expertise Lacking.
When GoDaddy initiated the transfer from another server to GoDaddy, no one knew why my site would not display.
I could not load my site on google for almost three weeks. Then when my site did show up, parts were missing. I spent many hours on the phone with numerous technicians.
Each time I called, one of the assistants told me the person I spoke to previously did not know what they were talking about and asked me to try something different.
After my site began working, I had a few issues. As these issues arose, I would call support. They said to fix the problem I would need to upgrade to an additional package.
GoDaddy Official Site Review Upgrades
I had no choice but to upgrade because I was a newbie and had no idea what to do; in addition, upgrades are at an additional cost.
Before purchasing a package, they failed to tell me that what I bought may not include the repair I needed.
I did purchase a package, thinking I could use it as I needed. I got an email three months after my purchase, stating that my package was going to expire in one week.
They did not tell me this when I bought the package. I am sure it is in the fine print somewhere, but no one said anything to me about expiring in 3 months. So I paid good hard-earned money for services that I could not use.
Not to mention GoDaddy boasts one free month with .99 cent domain hosting. I never saw .99 cents hosting but rather a cost of $13-15 dollars a year for domain rights.
The free first month turned into numerous upsells. I had to pay for SSL, support, 365 email, and many other services.
I spent well over $500 a year to host my site at GoDaddy and never did have a clear understanding of SEO or ranking on Google.
Just about anything on their site that says “give us a call” will end up with the assistant attempting to sell me something else. Every time I called with an issue, they would tell me about a new service that I need in the future and should buy now.
Since I am not a computer technician, I had no idea if they were telling me the truth or not.
This continuous upsell led me to believe they prey on the newbies with very little knowledge about the internet and hosting companies.
My Final Opinion After My GoDaddy Official Site Review
I believe GoDaddy is legit and maybe a good company for people who have a background in computer programming.
But for a person like myself who did not have much knowledge of websites and SEO, it was inadequate and required repeated upgrades to get the help I needed.
It concerns me when a company as large as GoDaddy has a 67% increase in fees in two years, and they don’t make all of the charges known upfront.
Their 24/7/365 support is available, but their response time to emails and support tickets take way too long for my comfort. When you call the technical support staff, they have inadequate knowledge to assist with technical issues.
What are your thoughts on GoDaddy’s official site review? Have you had experience with GoDaddy? Please let us know in the comments below. I would love to hear from you.
Hmmm, thank you for doing this review. I notice the name go daddy appearing in almost every review o come across saying that they are one of the best hosting site. Well from your experience, I doubt if that claim is true. I am glad I read this and I think more people need to read it as well so as to stay away from the platform. They only want to make money of newbies that are ignorant. Great great post.
Godaddy is a good platform but it is not good for newbies. If one does not know what they are doing godaddy will upsell them to death.
Hi Laura. Upsells are one of my pet peeves especially when all you want is help with the problem you are having. I would put go daddy into ‘another scam’ catergory because of this reason alone. Newbie small business owners are especially vulnerable to this as they have no idea being so new into the business about what they need, what’s necessary and what’s not. So they can easily be roped into it. The other thing of coures is that the person who is suppossedly helping you is probably so set on selling you something and making that their sole effort rather than just concentrating on the help you are seeking.
Well written review though.
Thank you for your comment but I would not call Godaddy a scam. They are valuable and very useful for many people. But you are right about this part “person who is supposedly helping you is probably so set on selling you something and making that their sole effort rather than just concentrating on the help you are seeking.”
Thank you for this article. I actually bought my first domain through GoDaddy. I think it was like $85 a year and I think that included the web hosting.
I am doing wealthy affiliate now and I agree that the web hosting is very good so far. My website is indexed on Google and it seems like they give you a lot of features with the web hosting package all included in your membership. Like you said, the only thing they don’t give you is the actual domain name you have to buy that separately but it’s only under $14 a year which is pretty good considering it comes with a lot of security features that I don’t even know how to explain.
I think if I tried to get web hosting on my own it would be complicated to get all the different features that wealthy affiliate offers. So in terms of web hosting I think wealthy affiliate is a good way to go.
You are so right. WA offers so much that they include in the $49 a month. I don’t know of any other platform that has extensive training and free items included as WA does.
I’ve always seen the commercials for GoDaddy but never knew exactly what the business was. I am happy I read your review. Now I have a better understanding of what they offer.
Their pricing is pretty reasonable and that’s something to appreciate, but I don’t like the idea of high up-sells. It ends up costing way too much in the end.
That’s one reason to always do research, at least for me. I am glad I ran across this article when I did research website building.
This wealthy affiliate you talk about? It sounds incredible and I believe I will check it out further. You have so many wonderful things to say about it.
Ty I am so happy I can help in your search for a website builder. As you said the advertised price of GoDaddy is good but I didn’t like the up-sells either.
Yes please take a look at Wealthy Affiliate. You can actually take a look around free and take the first 10 lessons to help you make a decision. Hope to see you on the inside. I know you will love it.
Thank you for sharing your review of GoDaddy Official Site. I know about GoDaddy. It is among the well known Hosting company in the world and they also offer some services. I have used some of their services before.
The truth is their support doesn’t not seem to encourage me. They love upsells alot. Anytime we end a discussion I will probably receive a thank you message and another upsell. Domain names are not 99 cents. That’s a marketing tactics to grab one’s attention.
I’m very satisfied with Wealthy Affiliate and I can boldly recommend it to a new born baby. The support is awesome.
You are correct in your comment. GoDaddy is well known and has a very good advertisement. But they just don’t seem to follow through on what they say in their adds. Although I have to say it may be very good for someone with techy experience. That just wasn’t me.
I know, I love WA also. It is home, comfortable and the training is unbeatable. Just perfect for myself and any beginner or well seasoned business owner.
I too have had some of the same issues in dealing with Go Daddy, it seems like a great deal at first, until you figure out that not everything is as they claim. I actually started out using Go Daddy and then transferred my site elsewhere.
The information you have provided about them is, in my experience, true and likely too lenient. The information that you have provided about Wealthy Affiliate sounds good and begs to be looked into.
Thank you for giving me options and providing such a thorough and honest review.
Hello Frank,
Thank you for stopping by to read my review and taking time to comment. You are right, my review of GoDaddy is lenient but I am a positive person by nature and I do have difficulties saying negative things about a company. But in my opinion, GoDaddy needed to have a negative review.
Yes, Wealthy Affiliate is an incredible platform that everyone should take a look at and step inside to see for themselves. There is no other website builder like Wealthy Affiliate with such extensive step-by-step training to build a business.