It is questionable whether the title adequately captures the severity of the issue. From my current vantage point, it feels as though an auto-playing audio track, shouting “NEVER, EVER, EVER use GoDaddy for anything,” should greet every visitor to our website. Indeed, we are contemplating making it a company rule to exclude individuals utilizing GoDaddy’s hosting services or domain registration.
The reasons are numerous.
To begin with, let’s consider the fundamental service of hosting. While GoDaddy is relatively inexpensive, it is not that affordable. For shared and dedicated hosting, there are numerous competitors offering competitive pricing. What perplexes me is the company’s ability to maintain a relentless advertising campaign year-round, including during high-profile events like the Super Bowl. Given their marketing expenditure, one would assume hosting has significant profit margins with minimal costs. However, from my observations of most data centers, this does not appear to be the case. There are substantial hardware, power, and labor costs associated with running a large-scale hosting operation.
Certainly, the experience of one of our clients today, who encountered a dedicated server recommended by a GoDaddy representative, suggests they operate on a 90% profit margin, forgo necessary upgrades or investments in hardware, and neglect proper technical support (I believe GoDaddy is predominantly sales-driven, with a lack of technical expertise). This resulted in the client’s website crashing repeatedly during a major promotional event, despite the server specifications indicating it should not have been an issue. This exemplifies the poor quality of their hosting, which was not disclosed in their sales pitch. Although this may be an isolated incident, I have witnessed several GoDaddy servers underperforming, reinforcing my belief that they do not allocate resources to customer service, technical support, or hardware.
Moreover, we have encountered basic follow-through issues. A client recently ordered an SSL certificate from GoDaddy for their new e-commerce site. Instead of a one-year certificate, they received a one-day certificate. This, in GoDaddy’s terminology, is “brilliant.” When they attempted to address the issue, they were met with arguments about the cost of rectification.
Additionally, shared hosting has consistently lagged behind in software/hardware performance or experienced unannounced server configuration changes that negatively impact site performance.
In my opinion, GoDaddy is nearly the worst hosting provider ever. Based on our clients’ experiences, I would not recommend it to even my most formidable adversary.
