The web hosting industry is highly competitive, making it difficult to be one of the best web hosting providers. GoDaddy, established in 1997, started as a domain registrar and branched out into other web hosting services.
It now has a rather comprehensive product line-up. For each of its product lines, GoDaddy offers more choices than most competitors. One example of this is shared hosting, which GoDaddy offers in 8 plans across two categories: standard and high performance.
Start the clock 0:00
Signing up
Problems started cropping up even as I started browsing GoDaddy's hosting plans. GoDaddy is big on localization and tries to customize language and currency based on your location. However, it seems to go smoothly only if you let it do its thing. Attempting to change language or location resulted in various connectivity errors.
Brushing that aside, the next problem that emerged was a claim that the card details I entered were incorrect. GoDaddy insisted the card's expiry date was incorrect, even though I checked it several times.
This problem seemed to stem from an option I had not selected: saving the card as a backup payment method. Once I ticked that box, the "incorrect expiry date" issue disappeared, and the payment went through.
I'm not sure about you, but any payment issues involving my credit card make me wary of an online service provider, and this case was no different.
05:23
With registration out of the way, things went pretty smoothly. Once I logged into my GoDaddy account, I went through an onboarding process that led me to select WordPress as my hosting platform. After filling in a few details, I reached a notification screen that said the installation was proceeding.
This is where things left me a little conflicted. The installation process was relatively fast, but once it was complete, I was dumped on the customer dashboard without any further explanation. What were my WordPress login credentials? Where could I manage my hosting plan? How about a domain name? What next? So many questions were going through my mind.
Part of the confusion stems from the fact that you have several dashboards to consider. The first is your GoDaddy customer account dashboard. Aside from that, you also have to handle dashboards for hosting management, domain name, and cPanel - they're all separate.
Admittedly, several other hosts use the same system of disorganization, especially if you opt for shared hosting rather than a dedicated WordPress hosting plan. I just didn't expect an established brand like GoDaddy to have the same issues.
11:13
After making the rounds through the various dashboards, I figured I should attach a domain name to allow some time for DNS propagation. For the most part, many hosts make this process clear. However, the option to manage a domain name appears in several locations so it's a little confusing.
For me, the logic was simple since I was used to the process. All you have to do is get the correct nameservers, then point your domain to those nameservers using your domain name management account (in my case, Namecheap).
But for someone who isn't used to the process, you may need some help from GoDaddy's support staff, or at the very least, spend some time sifting through their documentation.
17:01
By this time, I had figured out that I could simply access my WordPress admin panel via the 1-click installer located in cPanel. There's a quick link to it, so rather than wait for propagation to complete, I hopped in and added the Updraft plugin.
This allowed me to upload a pre-created WordPress website, database, and all. If you don't want to upload a website, you can simply start using WordPress as intended to quickly build a site using templates and then add your own custom content.
Remember that one of the best things about using WordPress is how easy it is to use, even for relatively new website owners. You can work with thousands of templates and gradually customize them to your preferences.
Even better, the massive support for this CMS means you can add almost any functionality to your site, often for free. Take, for example, the free WooCommerce plugin, which lets you convert a WordPress website into a full-blown ecommerce site. And if you run into problems, you can easily find help online since it's so widely used.
29:32
It was at this point that I made a rather fatal choice. Since I was using a pre-built site, I skipped much of the WordPress tinkering and was left with not much to do. So I decided to see how well the site performed on GoDaddy's hosting.
The tool I used was meant to test how well GoDaddy performed in core WordPress metrics. That generally means the strength of its CPU and memory, database operations, and the like. Let's start by saying that the results were less than ideal.
Out of a total possible score of 10, GoDaddy's shared hosting plan, which I was on, barely reached 4.2. That's ridiculously low for a web host that's been around for so long and has such a firm hold on its market share.
- Read our full GoDaddy review for performance metrics and more.
Puzzled by this low score, I poked around a bit and realized that, among the available shared hosting plans, the one I selected was the lowest of the low. Still, it costs $5.99/mo on a 3-year term plan, which is already more expensive than many other options in the market. Plus, it didn't include email, nor basic security features like malware and uptime monitoring - those are all optional paid extras.
45:01
By this point, I was feeling disappointed and running short of time. I was 45 minutes into a hosting provider and already deeply questioning my decision to sign up here to take it for a spin. The biggest questions in my mind were whether this host was worth the money spent, and if new users could really get started with a website easily at GoDaddy.
To help me answer these questions, I decided to take a step back and see what else GoDaddy had to offer potential customers.
Digital marketing
GoDaddy offers digital marketing packages to help customers promote their websites. These services include social media posts, business listings, email marketing, and SEO. However, these services are likely only relevant to businesses and cost more than most of their shared hosting packages.
Free tools
Like many service providers today, GoDaddy offers some free tools to help website owners get their feet on the ground. Here, these include an AI-powered logo creator, a video editor, and a studio that also includes the aforementioned tools.
Website security
Earlier, I mentioned that some security features, like malware scanning, are paid extras. These are found in GoDaddy's web security packages. For a price likely higher than your hosting plan, GoDaddy offers site cleanup and repair, plus additional free trials, such as Norton Small Business Cybersecurity.
Also mentioned earlier, you don't get an email with your GoDaddy hosting. This optional add-on is likely the cheapest you can add to your hosting plan, starting at $1.99/mo for 10GB of email storage. This can be used with your custom domain and aliases.
60:00
Overall impressions
By now, I'd run out of time. My experience with GoDaddy had left a pretty bitter taste in my mouth. While it was possible for new users to build a website with GoDaddy, I had no doubt it would take them some time to figure things out.
I also wondered how they would react once their website was up and running, when they discovered how poor its performance was. Another thing that came to mind was how new customers would react when they found out that almost everything here is an optional paid extra.
Important notes
I simply had to share a few more experiences I had outside the 60-minute window spent with this host. The day after I signed up for the GoDaddy plan, I discovered I was locked out of my account. GoDaddy somehow felt it necessary to enable 2FA on my account without notifying me. It took 12 hours for support to disable that 2FA, so I could sign back in. The process was mystifying.
At that point, I had enough of GoDaddy and wanted to cancel the account. This can't be done automatically. You have to disable renewal, then cancel the hosting plan. Only when that is done can you contact support via live chat (this is mandatory; you cannot do it via a support ticket) to request a refund. The live chat alone took me about 40 minutes, from waiting to approval, plus another 3 days to get the actual refund.
- I've also rounded up the best shared hosting providers
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