A Long History!

The GoDaddy has been around since the internet became an accessible thing throughout the world. This company was found in 1997, and it started out as a domain name registrar. The founder, Bob Parsons was an entrepreneur, who was in retirement in 1997, but he came back (he was a millionaire by then, due to the sale of his company, Parsons Technology in 1994. He was the first leader of the GoDaddy and the company-group’s other companies. They grew a lot, and now the GoDaddy has data centers throughout the world, it gives jobs to over 6,000 employees, and the clients’ number is hitting the 18-million mark soon. There is quality behind the price you have to pay: for example, in 2011, the GoDaddy got the “Best Security Team” title, and it was endorsed by the different organizations as the best workplace in 2011, and in 2012.

Hosting Services

The GoDaddy offers all the popular hosting services you might get. You can choose from Shared and WordPress (also shared) hosting service, and they come at good prices. The Shared, non-WordPress plans all included unlimited bandwidth, free domain for the first year, and if you choose a higher package, some more goodies are yours too. The VPS and Dedicated Server solutions are really good, and we think that you will love them if you need a better option than shared hosting. This will grant you access to scalable server services, and they include some really good features, such as SSL and other solutions. The prices are not bad, you will find the starting prices for these services if you continue reading.

GoDaddy Domain Registration

For a long time, the main business the GoDaddy was in was the domain registration. It was affordable and simple, and it’s still is. Only, nowadays, if you pick GoDaddy as your host, you can grab a domain for free for the first year. It’s a good service, and you should consider taking a look on the actual registrar offers too – if you want to get ahead of the competition, you should buy the other related domain names for yourself, this way increasing your options to get more traffic.

Builders and Control Panel

The shared plans (well, the Linux ones) all include cPanel access. This means you have free, full control over your websites, and you gain access to more than a hundred 1-click installable applications. You can use the cPanel to install Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, and other CMS, including web-shop apps too. With the full control over your site, you can easily create a personal-feeling online establishment for yourself or for your company. The Windows hosting services offer you Odin Plesk as the control panel, which is one of the best ones out there. You are going to have access to one-click installs too, and it’s going to be a fast and easy process to create your site. Even if you are not a professional, but you are familiar with CMS like WordPress, you have the option to install it, build your site in a jiffy.

eCommerce Solutions

The GoDaddy has one of the best online store hosting offers, which covers a large range of included services. GoDaddy offers are flexible setup, which means you can add a lot (up to 1,500) of different products, while it is also easy to manage your store. The payment gateways are great too, and it’s going to be a good choice for you: you can choose credit cards, PayPal and even Apple Pay to implement. These will make paying in your store much easier, and if you calculate the small fees the GoDaddy takes from each transaction, you will find this solution to be just plain and great. Also, the eCommerce solution provided by GoDaddy includes mobile compatibility, which means that your store will appear properly on any screen, thus you can ride the waves caused by the ever-lasting expansion of mobile websites.

Marketing Services

The GoDaddy really offers you a full-round solution, and you have the option to opt-in for some nice marketing goodies too! In case you are looking for a hassle-free marketing solution, one of the three email marketing packages would be perfect for you. They have quite low price, and you can get some very good features from them, such as subscribers (500, 2,500 or 5,000, signup forms, image storage, templates and easy unsubscribe options, along with full mobile compatibility. This service offers you a large number of templates, drag’n’drop email builder even, and you will have compatibility for Facebook, Etsy, and Google. The GoDaddy email solution also grants you detailed reporting.

Linux and Windows Hosting

It’s really great – especially for developers – that GoDaddy offers both Linux, and Windows based hosting, and they are available at the same price! Though these are quite different operating systems, if you know what you are doing, we suggest you to go with the one you are more familiar with. Also, you might love to check the installable apps and CMS for these.

The GoDaddy hosting services are numerous, and they are on the affordable end. As you will see, these are not those “too good to be true” one-dollar hosting plans, but you get industry-top services when you sign up here. For example, even the most basic plan grants you access to the best website loading times of the industry! Now, let’s take a look at these offers, and find out what the fuss is all about!

Shared Hosting Plan

The Shared plans you will see listed on the GoDaddy are really nice. Moreover, they are totally tempting, with all the great features and excellent support you can expect from the GoDaddy. Three shared hosting plans are available, which all offer some great features. There are Linux and Windows shared plans too. The Linux-based starter plan, the Economy starts at $3.99, and it grants you 1 site, free domain with a yearly plan, backup option, 100GB storage and unmetered traffic. It’s good if you plan to run one site, and you don’t mind if the storage is a bit limited, although 100GB is still quite a lot.

Your options would be a bit better with the slightly better package, the $4.99 Deluxe plan that gives you unlimited sites option, storage, and bandwidth. This plan is perfect if you would like to run more than one site. The biggest shared plan is the Ultimate, which gives you a large selection of tools and options: naturally, you get the unlimited and unmetered options, along with the free domain and backup. But, there are more goodies: you get twice as much RAM and processing power, premium DNS services, and to increase your site’s security, one-year SSL certification is also yours. The Windows-based shared plans are all the same, and they grant you top-notch performance.

The GoDaddy got a WordPress hosting service too, and there are four plans related to this if you are looking for a reliable host with a selection of WordPress hosting – and at an affordable price. The first three plans are almost identical to the shared plans of the same level – at least, their starting prices are. However, the Basic and the Deluxe gives you 1 website, and there are different set limits: e.g. 10-15GB SSD storage, and with Basic, you can have 25,000 visitors, while with Deluxe you can have 100,000 monthly visitors.

Some extra goodies are available too: e.g. the Deluxe plan offers SEO plugin, there are management tools and others. The two higher-level WordPress hosting plans offer you more sites (2 for the Ultimate, 5 for the Developer plan) and higher storage and visitor number. The plans all include a free domain if you buy an annual plan. The two higher-level plans also give you the option to add more sites, an SSL certificate for a year, and so on. Also, you can install a lot of plugins and other useful things with one click.

VPS Plan

The VPS service is a bit on the expensive end, but it’s still in the affordable category. As you are going to see, the GoDaddy has some really good VPS offers, and the high level of scalability is something you have to consider when you choose a hosting plan. The Virtual Private Servers themselves change as you go on with the different plans. The first VPS offers you 1GB RAM, free SSL for a year, 3 Dedicated IP addresses, and 40 Gigabytes of storage, along with a nice unmetered bandwidth offer. All this is on offer for a starting price of $16.99 per month if you buy at least a one-year plan. The highest level of VPS offers a virtual server with 8GB RAM, unmetered traffic, 240 GB storage, along with the 3 dedicated IP and the 1-year SSL.

Dedicated Hosting

For the most professional users, and for those who expect high traffic, the Dedicated hosting plans would be the best. As you are going to see, these plans are not that cheap, but even the lowest level of dedicated hosting grants you more power than any other plans. The Economy dedicated plan starts at $69.99 per month. You will get a Dedicated server of 4 cores (3.1 GHz), 4 GB RAM, 1 TB Raid-1 storage. The bandwidth is unlimited of course, and there are 3 dedicated IPs for you along with a 1-year SSL. The higher plans offer more memory and storage, while the other features remain the same. In case you are in need of high performance, the dedicated plans are the best ones you could opt for.

Other Features

There are several other, highly recommended things you should consider getting. One of such features is the security expansion, which you can get for $1.99 per month, and which gives you just enough security to keep you interested. There is a professional email solution provided by GoDaddy, which offers you different features. The Email Essentials grants (starting at $2.99) offers you a pro email and 5 GB mail storage. It’s the simplest plan. For more professional users the Online Essentials or the Business Premium would be a great option. These include professional email with your domain, 50 GB storage and MS Office access (online office for Essentials, downloadable installments for Business Premium). We suggest you to check the different offers of GoDaddy, especially those which might be essential to your business.

GoDaddy is dependable when it comes to online security, and if you are looking for a highly secured hosting service, the GoDaddy is a perfect choice. When it comes to launching and maintaining a website, security, reliability, and safety are essential. The Plans at GoDaddy include some base-provided protection (separate data centers, 24/7 monitoring), and you can opt-in for more. The GoDaddy has three plans for Website Security, and it provides these plans at quite low prices. The Essential plan includes website scanning and protection: malware monitoring and removal, and Google Blacklist scan and removal – also, the experts respond to your queries in 12 hours.

The other package, the Deluxe, includes everything the Essential does, but you get CDN boosting, and also Web-Application Firewall, to protect and remove malware. There is a plan for already infected sites, which offers 30-minutes response time, and you get a load of online protection and prevention after they remove the infestation.

Apart from this, the servers are protected against DDoS attacks, and if you use a good password, your account would be safe too. On the other hand, the GoDaddy offers different SSL certificates too along with the different plans. If you are aware of this option, then that’s good, but in case you don’t really know what you are going to do with your site, you should pick a basic protection. Just in case.

The GoDaddy has numerous data centers, located worldwide. If you are from Europe, Asia, or from Africa, you can find a data center closer, and thus, your site will load much faster for the local viewers.

As for the uptime, that’s pretty good too. Our tests showed the industry standard uptime of over 99.5%, with consistent 100% uptime throughout months.

The GoDaddy has a phone line for support and a live chat. And of course, if you don’t need an immediate answer, or you can’t express yourself too well in chat or verbal communication, you can write emails to them. In case you call them, it will usually take an about a minute to get the support you need, and it’s going to be a surprisingly good experience. The support agents are all knowledgeable, so they will give you a thorough explanation for all your problems. The same goes for the live chat option too, though you should be ready: if you ask something that’s available in the knowledge base of GoDaddy, they will send you a link. It’s good, especially because GoDaddy has a good knowledge base, and it’s going to provide you with answers to your questions in about 99% of the time.

On the other hand, if we have to draw a bottom line, we must say, that GoDaddy is recommended for most levels of businesses, including big ones, as their prices are quite cheap, and they are going to provide you with all the tools and features you need. The GoDaddy is a large company and they really care about their customer support experience. There are many ways one could feel about GoDaddy, but as you are going to see, there are some really good discounts and features which eventually turn the tides in favor of the GoDaddy.