GoDaddy is one of the largest hosting companies in the world. It offers business a wide variety of cheap hosting for websites. This is a privately owned company that specializes in domain registration, web hosting in addition to services related to e-business software, applications among other web services. This GoDaddy hosting review takes a look at the pros, cons, history and features of some of their popular packages. Keep reading.

Brief History of Go Daddy

The company was founded in 1997 under the name Jomax Technologies. The company founder is one Bob Parsons, who apparently sold another company which was specializing in financial software. Parsons founded this company while in his retirement years.

Why the name GoDaddy?

The company was initially named Jomax Technologies, but then as time went by, some employees found the need to change the name. One of them decided to change the name to “Big Daddy” but unfortunately, that name was already taken by another company. But then, Parsons (the founder) just suggested “Go Daddy” and that is how the company got its relatively funny name.

Biggest hosting company in the world

According to a report presented by the company in 2013, GoDaddy, had accumulated a whopping 55 million domain names under its cabinet. Right now this figure is estimated to have hit 57+ million accounts. This, as you can see, makes them the largest webhosting company in the world. But how good is their hosting?

See Also: Godaddy Promo Codes – Get up to 85% Discount

How good is GoDaddy hosting?

This company offers a wide variety of features for blogging, database and email packages just to name a few. Most of their packages are available on a monthly subscription basis with charges as low as $3.49 per month.

GoDaddy, would be a perfect bet for beginners as most of their services are packaged under an intuitive user interface. Moreover, it offers a platform for advanced developers to put their skills to good use. GoDaddy hosting service is capable of supporting several programming languages from PHP, Perl, MySQL, ASP to ColdFusion and CGI (Python and Ruby languages).

Although there are those who argue that GoDaddy is overrated, a vast majority seem to laud their services. Indeed, they are a worthy competitor in the industry and their reputation, so far, is beyond reproach especially when it comes to domain names.

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Wide variety of hosting options

The beauty of GoDaddy is that it offers you the flexibility you need at any point of the journey. For instance, you can start out with shared hosting and then switch (by paying a little more) for extra flexibility through dedicated hosting options. There is also the option of cloud hosting which is much cheaper yet it offers admirable flexibility.

Moreover, the company offers reseller hosting option, which is a good thing for anyone who would like to venture into web hosting business. Your options are wide with this hosting package and you can be rest assured to find the right hosting plan that suits your unique needs.

GoDaddy's money back guarantee

To ensure that you get a good value for your money, the company goes against the industry-norm to offer a money-back guarantee package that lasts for as long as you are hosting with them. Note that most other companies out there only offer a 30-day money back guarantee (which is largely inadequate). Any time you are dissatisfied with their services, you can cancel the deal and receive compensation. Of course, this is proof that GoDaddy is always ready to stand behind its quality services.

Freedom to design a website with free tools

The icing on the cake when using GoDaddy hosting is that you have the freedom to design your ideal website even if you don’t have the expertise of a web designer. They provide a feel website builder tool and a couple of templates that you can capitalize on to create a professional website using basic computer user skills. You may want to pay an extra fee, so the company’s web designers can customize your site to suit your brand. These wonderful packages come with 30 minutes of monthly updates to the design of your site.

Free goodies; Paid ads

If you would like to draw extra attention toward your site, you can take advantage of GoDaddy’s free advertising credit. The company normally gives $100 worth of Google Adwords credit when you open an account with them. Aside from that, they usually give an extra $50 which you can spend on Facebook ads and/or Bing ads. Of course, this is a nice bonus that you can take advantage of to grow your business.

Is Go Daddy Hosting Reliable?

Yes. Go Daddy have always tried their best to remain ahead of the pack. They have a state of the art data center which works round the clock to ensure 99.9% uptime. With such a deal, you can enjoy total peace of mind knowing that indeed your site is visible to the world at any time of the day. Another feature that adds to the reliability of this hosting package is the availability of firewalls, servers and other security measures. Moreover, they provide specialized physical security settings to ensure seamless connectivity to your website. If one were to make a decision, solely based on this aspect, GoDaddy would definitely rank several rungs above its worthy competitors.

Their Pricing plan

GoDaddy offers three separate hosting packages. The Economy package currently costs $3.49 and is good enough for hosting a single website. This package comes with 100 GB of storage capacity. The next package is the Deluxe option which currently costs $4.49. The Deluxe package allows you to host unlimited websites. Moreover, it offers unlimited storage. The biggest and most expensive package offered under Go Daddy’s menu is the “Ultimate Package”. This one goes for $7.49 per month. With the ultimate hosting package, you can host unlimited websites and enjoy unlimited storage. In short, you get all the benefits of Deluxe package in addition to Premium DNS and one year of SSL certificate (with some restrictions though).

Godaddy Managed WordPress Hosting

A few months ago, GoDaddy launched WordPress hosting – a service which was touted to be the fastest and most secure hosting platform on the market. So, what are the highlights of this deal?

-The beauty of Managed WordPress Hosting

*The service gets WordPress installed by default, so one can start blogging without spending much time in the installation of the software. Plus there is an easy-to-use 1-click migration tool that automates the process of transferring websites from other providers.

*Round the clock technical support is yet another feature to makes this hosting package quite attractive. In GoDaddy’s offices, there are thousands of experienced customer service professionals who are always on stand-by to help. You can reach the support team via a toll-free phone line or by email.

-The Bad Side of Managed WordPress Hosting

Small qualms with the otherwise perfect package would be that a Live Chart support feature is not provided – this is however compensated for by a toll-free phone line and prompt email responses. Other than that, this newly launched service seems to have hit the ground running as millions are already using it.

How is Go Daddy’s Control Panel?

Unlike other hosting companies that use third-party control panel programs such as Helm, Plesk and cPanel, Go Daddy has created its own proprietary software to serve this role. This unique control panel aims to simplify the task of managing your account. Moreover, it offers expansive functionality – allows you to set up email accounts, monitor resource usage and manage domains. There are two versions of c-panels provided by this company as follows:

cPanel for Linux

Allows access to hosting features and settings, keeps your site online with balanced CPU, RAM and Disk IO limits. Allows you to install over 150 applications on your website through a simple click of the mouse button. It is worth noting that GoDaddy’s Linux accounts use MySQL database.

cPanel for Windows

GoDaddy’s windows plan enables you to manage your server and email accounts with remarkable ease. Comes with Microsoft’s latest server OS and allows you to install over 70 applications on your site. GoDaddy’s windows c-panel is designed to use SQL servers.

Leads the pack with latest technology

Frankly speaking, GoDaddy’s hosting technology is in a class of its own. The company has solutions for Apple’s Mac, Microsoft’s Windows and Linux OS. Technically, this means that GoDaddy is built to support MySQL, MS SRL, Postgre SQL, ASP, PHP, .NET Framework, to mention but a few. The company is constantly upping its game by adding experienced developers and webmasters to its fold.

Over 300 Godaddy Themes

GoDaddy provides over 300 themes, all of which are pre-designed with content for ease of use. You don’t have to be a pro to get the most out of these – all you need to do is replace the provided (generic) content with your customized details. You also have the freedom to adjust the layout and appearance of different buttons provided with each theme. Plus you can drag contents around or even add new pages – put simply; operating a GoDaddy account is a breeze!

Ability to save multiple versions of your website

It is always good to backup copies of your website – and GoDaddy has a feature that helps you to do exactly that. They have a restore and backup function that enables you to save multiple versions of your website. With this superb addition, you can rest assured to restore your site to a previous version even if you happen to make a mistake while trying out new things. This is a very good addition – and you know what? It is missing from most other website builder tools.

The bad side of Go Daddy Hosting

The main demerit that we noticed in the course of compiling this Hosting review is the lack of a live chat support tool. Those from overseas might find it difficult to use the toll-free phone call service.

Other downsides would be that GoDaddy doesn’t offer SSH/SFTP access which is quite important for secure data communication.

Another con would be linked to their Control Panel – which despite being quite effective in its job – is far from being categorized as the best in the market.

Although their hosting prices are pretty cheap and very affordable compared to many, their fees for add-on features are not as lovely, although generally within the market range – especially for small businesses which are working hard to venture into a competitive world.

Who can Benefit From Using GoDaddy Hosting?

Based on our GoDaddy hosting review, this service is suitable for absolutely anybody – from beginners to pros. They give you a wide variety of packages ensuring that you can find something that suits your unique needs. Besides that, GoDaddy is a big company with an outstanding reputation; you can’t go wrong with investing in their services. Categories of people who can benefit from using this hosting package comprises of the following:

*Bloggers

*Small businesses

*E-commerce platforms

*Organizations (non-profit and for-profit)

*Professional firms (accountants, lawyers, auditors and consultancy firms can benefit a lot)

One sector in which GoDaddy is king is reliability. It’s a well established company with the right kind of environment for hosting millions if not billions of websites. The same goes for their servers and routers.

While some features can bet a bit pricey, overall, one can see that their prices are pretty competitive. For easier comparison, here now is a comprehensive list of GoDaddy’s pros and cons in bullet points.

*Intuitive user interface (tools can easily be dragged, dropped or even replaced)

*Reliability – the company has been in the market for almost 20 years now

*Ability to back-up copies of your website for future use

*Round the clock customer support

*Wide variety of themes available

*Their website builder allows you to optimize all basic SEO functions of your website

Cons

*Missing live chat option

*The economy package only allows you to host one site

*Some add-on features are pretty expensive

Verdict

It is clear that the pros of GoDaddy heavily outweigh its cons. This is proof that this is a good deal which is worth your time, money and energy. GoDaddy adds their own WordPress plugin to your installation. They have a setup tool that you can create simple pages like the “about us” and the “contact” page. If you’ve never tried anything like that before, or you're looking for a quick and uncomplicated way to get your site up and running, then, GoDaddy hosting will be a good choice for you.

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