Comments on: GoDaddy Sucks

By: Robert Garofalo

Robert Garofalo — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:39:01 +0000

I’ve been in the web design and consulting business a long time. In the mid-nineties Network Solutions the only player in town, and domain names regularly cost around $50 a year to register (now people complain if someone charges $10.25 versus $9.75). Later, after InterNic gave way to ICANN and industry competition opened up, Godaddy came along and took a new approach. They said “hey, what if we sell domain names at only a few bucks above cost, and make it up in volume?” They realized an Internet growth explosion was on its way, and they positioned themselves to be on the forefront. Well, their strategy worked– too well. They went from a small store that knowing insiders visited to a practical household name, which is amazing considering that there are some people that don’t even know what a domain name is. But in a classic case of underdog-startup-company-transforms-into-bloated-behemoth, they went from a small company that us web designers were all too happy to patronize and recommend to a total mess.

I wholeheartedly agree with the upselling critique. Upselling at checkout is commonplace and almost expected in the cyberworld, but I’ve never seen such a high level of abuse. It’s excessive to the point of absurdity. Since I make the majority of my money doing consulting and not selling domains, I’ve never really cared where my customers buy them. But starting several years ago, customers would come back to me and say, “hey I bought that domain name you recommended at Godaddy… it cost me sixty bucks– I thought it would be cheaper!” And I’d say, “Sixty bucks? What’d you buy? A domain name is around ten dollars.”
So they’d show me their receipt and sure enough there would be all these charges for online storage, addons, sometimes hosting – all this crap the customer didn’t need and didn’t even realize they were purchasing. So not only is the GD upselling excessive, it definitely is deceptive.

Hey, even brink-and-mortar retailers upsell (“wanna supersize that?”), and I don’t have a problem with it, but could you imagine if they took Godaddy’s approach? There is a Dunkin’ Donuts shop near me where I go. If I order a cup of coffee, the clerk asks me if I would like a donut. If I say no, that’s it. If Godaddy ran the coffee shop, they would then ask me “would I like a muffin?” No. “do you want a sandwich?” No. “how ’bout an eclair?” NO! “a bagel? Nooooo. “a slice of pie?” and it would go on until I finally walked out. But a lot of online stores, including GD somehow get away with this bullshit and even thrive.

As you can probably tell, I gave up on Godaddy many years back, and highly dis-recommend them to my clients. And to think I was one of their big fans…

FWIW, the two companies I currently recommend are Namecheap.com and Webhostingandmorestore.com. Namecheap gives you a lot for your money, but their control panel is a little bit busy. They also limit you in the types and amount of DNS records you can set (I realize that this will not necessarily be important to the average Joe, but registry-level DNS capabilities are very important to me for my web design and SEM business) so for this reason Webhostingandmorestore.com (or ‘WHAMS’ as I call them due to the long name) is my preferred registrar of the moment. I was so impressed I actually signed up to become a reseller (private only)– not because there’s a lot of money in it (unless maybe I started selling the hosting or one of the other products), but sometimes I’m asked by a client to register 20 or 30 domains at a clip, so I don’t mind at least making a couple of extra bucks for my trouble.

By the way, going back to DNS access for a moment, Godaddy was actually one of the early companies to expose a lot of this control, which I used to appreciate, but their control panel and even log-in system has grown so ridiculously convoluted over the years that I breathe a sigh of disgust whenever a customer asks me to access their GD-registered domains just to change some name servers or the like. I know I’m gonna be wasting quite a bit of time navigating around in that maze they call a control panel.

So, in the end, even though the original post is over 3 years old, its– ironically– probably worse since then, and in any case I enjoyed reading about something that has always frustrated me. I’m also secretly glad that at least a few other people have noticed it too.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:37:40 +0000

#22 is absolutely true. Check out the ABestweb article “GoDaddy.com Unethical Practice: Class Action Law-suite?” on how GoDaddy will go after their own customers to hold their domains hostage until the customer pays $200 for something the customer was not responsible for.

Anybody interested in joining the class action against godaddy?

http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread.php?t=124367

By: curt

curt — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:10:29 +0000

FREE FREE Anti Godaddy Shirts to those who will wear them…..

nodaddytshirt@yahoo.com

send size and address and phone number and get free anti godaddy shirts

By: JLayn

JLayn — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:07:25 +0000

I use another domain service AND Godaddy. I have never had any problem with them but I can see why some people might not like the buying pages. They do put a lot of stuff there. It’s overwhelming But you get used to it.

By: Dean

Dean — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:50:42 +0000

WOW. A self-procalimed expert unable to figure out how to register a domain at godaddy has to call tech support. Now how did those other 40 million names get registered, mostly by nontechnical people? Go figure.

By: jamie

jamie — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:07:58 +0000

btw…. every site I’ve ever pulled hosted on Godady is a slug to load. Why….. overload.. bandwidth. I can honestly say as a provider we have the fastest connection/bandwidth probably across the nation. My sites pop quick…. even with intense graphics. Why….. because we are plugged into the actual source , no rerouting. Our connectivity is completely independent on any one carrier. And guess what.. we’re one of those small companies….
so much for going with the big guys!!

By: jamie

jamie — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:54:29 +0000

This is a great article… and so true. Godaddy is my worst mightmare. As a new web hosting company owner I typically only go with Dotster. Maybe theres a blog on the to?? I’ve never had an issue with Dotster ever!! and have always found their customer service reps to be very helpful bending over backwards to help me and fix any issue. Ok so back to my rant……..
I had thought maybe I’d give godaddy a try (BAD IDEA) and set up 4 domains as guinee pigs if you will. Wow did they ever F–k up on the 1st one. I couldn’t find my way through their site to even purchase the domain… way too conveluded. Actually I think you said it best in your article. (LOL) anyways… I ended up having to call just to purchase the domain (boy am I dumb.. there was my 1st clue and I missed it right off the bat) and unbenounst to me the rep had to of added the famous “domains by proxy” to the domain. Well at the time we wee under another comapny name so our emails addys were different and a few months later we sold that domain name which inturn shut down those email addys we must of used for the domains by proxy. A year later as I am desperately trying to pull the domain away from godady I find I can’t because I don’t know my password to domains by proxy in order to shut the dam thing off in order to move it. I try to explain that email is no longer valid….. and of course all you get is the DRONE godaddy rep response. It’s not worth repeating.
As it turns out someone in their customer service did add that option to the domain and I just never caught on…. durp!! wow leesons learned in running your 1st web hosting business. :-( Trust me… I will never use godaddy again for anything. Interesting to note…. every now and then I have a customer who thinks they can get it cheaper else where… so they move to godaddy… my comment now…. “he he he…. yea…. good luck with that one” SUCKER!! apparently those infasive continous ads actually do work on some people.

By: dean

dean — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 18:24:37 +0000

You just spent 1000x more time and work complaing about the purchase than it took to complete the purchase. That’s an internal contradiction that invalidates what you claim you don’t like.

By: Michael Nicholson

Michael Nicholson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:33:28 +0000

OK the problem was that the technician in fixing the account that I couldn’t bring up transferred the account to the bank and it hasn’t arrived yet. I am having problems getting my website up but I am using mac and need reliable 3rd Party means with HTML to use both Pay Pal and a contact page and I’m not there yet. I do wish they made workng with Mac easier but the money does exist apparently. I remember all that music during the swing craze and the Poppin’ Daddies or whatever. The warped tour was where you could move around and cool and indoors and the Bosstones and Rancid were playing a real and pretty hard game of stickball while the Raomones drummer and musician where playing a CBGB setlist and he was passing out Pizza I think from his trailer that was parked in the back. That was a cool show!

By: Michael Nicholson

Michael Nicholson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:25:03 +0000

Does anyone know how I can get my money back? I couldn’t use the Macdaddy site for building a website with Mac and needed $179.46 back as a refund through Pay Pal. Pay Pal screwed up my registration and had to get the technician to fix the problem. The accountant at Go Daddy basically said tough luck over and over again. So do I just have to lose the money or how do I get it back? Pay Pal is saying there is no activity on the account, Go Daddy says it is not there fault so they are not responsible. What can I do?

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 18:17:19 +0000

I use them, my clients use them. I love them, never any problems. The hosting and registration are the most reliable you’ll find.

You have two options when checking out: “show me related offers” or “skip straight to checkout.” You chose the first, then you complain that there are too many ads? Give me a break.

By: Sheraz Ahmed

Sheraz Ahmed — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:22:14 +0000

I could use a review about http://www.mybizhost.net

By: Jen

Jen — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:01:28 +0000

I think it’s hilarious when people complain about Go Daddy’s website, and say it’s hard to use. Only a very small percentage of their customers even need to contact them for support, and of that small percentage, only a portion of them find the site difficult to use. The others praise the usability. It doesn’t say much for you if you can’t figure out how to use it.

By: Susan

Susan — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:39:14 +0000

I hate their interface. It was confusing at first but now I know where everything is. They follow all the examples of how NOT to create a control panel. Their website looks more like a classified ads page. I guess one of us will need to write an addon for firefox to redesign their shitty webpage using CSS.

I do like the fact that they provide a 1GB mailbox for free with the domain. I’m hosting the website myself but because of not getting control over RDNS from the ISP, I cannot run my own mailserver, so this works out for me. Godaddy hosts the mail, and I host the site. And I pay only ~$10 a year.

Maybe other providers do offer a better deal, I dunno.

I did read about some horror stories about GoDaddy which makes me feel a bit uncomfortable about continuing with them. I’ll keep checking out more registrars until I find one that works the best for me.

By: Douglas

Douglas — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:14:58 +0000

I forgot to add, it took me like 10 clicks and 6 new windows later (yes their menu options open up new windows with more confusing options).. so yes 10 clicks and 6 new windows later.. i finally find where I can install joomla.

By: Douglas

Douglas — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:13:48 +0000

The company I work for uses godaddy and they suck so bad. They have their own version of cpanel which is slow, painful and did I mention slow? It took an hour for the thing to install Joomla.

Godaddy uses crappy servers.

I personally use hostgator for everything I do web related. The accounts set up fast.. they have cPanel and Fantastico, which works instantly. Just about all features / changes in hostgator are instant where godaddy can take up to 48 hours.

Also who cares about saving $2.00 a month for a cheaper plan… stick with hostgator. Their plans and service far exceed godaddy.

By: Rob H

Rob H — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:18:58 +0000

Is this hosted by GoDaddy? My previous post dissapeared.

By: Endymion

Endymion — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:29:52 +0000

YES!!! GoDaddy BLOOOOOWS. Their support is completely sub-par and their system is completely complicated and convoluted. They are, in my opinion, making everything on their site completely user UNfriendly. No chat support? What is that? If they are the biggest host around, why do you have to talk on the phone with people who have no clue after waiting forever?? Their help documents are completely uncomprehensive as well. Want help on GoDaddy? Try Google search for solutions, not GoDaddy’s own support team or documents. You’ll find thousands of people having GoDaddy issues. They are really cheap because they are just gobbling up customers with no real regard for customer satisfaction or service.

By: OA

OA — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:22:20 +0000

I deleted my CMS system on accident because of how confusing their Your Apps panel is. I have two domains both hosted with them and instead of separating installed apps for each domain they put it on one screen. So I went to uninstall the CMS on one domain but deleted the one for my primary domain.

The site was lost and I also got hit with the $150 restore fee. As of this post they are still working on it. It’s my fault for not having a proper back up of the database table but that fee is steep. I guess that I learned my lesson.

By far the best host is mediatemple.com | Top quality for sure. I will be switching to them next year.

By: RAF

RAF — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:44:24 +0000

Single email forwarding accounts that were included with DomainDirect registrations are not included with Hover.com registrations since the transition. If you just want to be able to forward emails to existing accounts you must purchase five additional email addresses for $30./year, increasing total registration cost to approximately $45./year

By: James Negele

James Negele — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:21:45 +0000

Not a fan of Go Daddy anymore. Got 4 or 5 emails telling me that I had until 3-19-2009 to renew 5 domains. I got an email the morning of 3-19, the very deadline day to renew, and it showed that 3 of the domains had been canceled!

I called support and was told that .cn and .tw domains cancel the day of the deadline at 12:02 am, and that is why I should have renewed the day before! I told them I relied on the notices I got from Go Daddy, and he said: “Those emails are only a courtesy, they are not reliable and cannot be counted on.”

Where is that in the fine print?

I was on the phone for 30 minutes, and learned that I could get the three domains back for an extra $50 each. I told him that Go Daddy should pick up the extra cost as it was the result of Go Daddy’s defective notices. He said it was unfair, and that he would bring it to the higher ups, but there was nothing he could do. Two complaints by email, resulted in canned corporate responses that did not even address the big issues of bad management and unreliable notices.

Go Daddy’s “recommendation” is to automatically renew domains 30 days ahead of the expiration date! No wonder, they pick up a full extra 30 days of cash flow in the process! Nice business model. Also, no explanation as to why there was no disclosure of their later claims that .cn and .tw domains are difficult and operate differently than other domains! When were they going to tell us customers?

GO DADDY may sell well, but support is down right deceptive. BEWARE, BEWARE, BEWARE… they tell you not to rely on their own notices!

By: Steven

Steven — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:59:34 +0000

I thought this article was awesome. I also cannot stand the GoDaddy purchase process. I was going to buy a domain with them for the low intro price but halfway through I canceled.

If you want the anti-GoDaddy then try Hover, http://www.hover.com

Hover sells domain registration with forwarding, domain privacy and DNS services. The only problem with Hover is they don’t sell any web hosting. If you want web hosting, then lunarpages.com is a really good alternative.

I’ve also used domainmonger.com which someone else here recommended, and I like their website too. It’s clean and straightforward. I just wish domainmonger.com didn’t charge extra for domain privacy.

There are companies out there to register your domains with who don’t try to upsell you at every turn.

By: Imran

Imran — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:15:10 +0000

I have a different story!!

They sent me email to renew domain. I renewed domain. Then my site stopped working.

I called them and they say well we sent u an email, problem with your card and we deleted ur site!!! I was like, my 2 phone number and 3 email addresses are right there!!! They said well the one we used didn’t work so we deleted the site.

I had to pay $150 restore fee!!!

I’m their customer since 2004!

By: Sick of them

Sick of them — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:29:53 +0000

I am using them for hosting and their interface is the worst I have experienced on the internet for any business. And their documentation is flawed. When you sign up, the easiest thing to do is cancel your account, if the prominence of the Cancel your Account button is any indication. They are clueless.

I just tried them out with one domain name and hosting for three months to see what they were like. But even the ordering process was from hell. I selected my domain name and then looked in my cart and my cart was empty. They have a few things that are actually designed for people, but the rest is just absurdly bad it its design. They are selling commodities for cheap, but it is like getting a deal at WalMart and waiting in line a half hour–it just isn’t worth it at all.

The worst is having to adapt your intelligence to their stupid system.

By: eighty

eighty — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:17:28 +0000

The name registration is annoying, but that’s not the worst of it. DO NOT use them for hosting. The service and customer service is AWFUL.

By: Josh Best

Josh Best — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 02:07:33 +0000

The only problem I had with Godaddy was that my hosting account was slow when I would ftp to it, they said it was my connection to the net after like 3 emails. And yet when I would connect to a clients site that I webmaster for it was fast. Go figure. Well that was my only problem until this week when they said I was spamming from 2 of my sites on my hosting account, even though I have never sent an email from any of the sites on my account. I do however have a contact form on 4 of the sites for people who are looking to modify their mortgages. I have emailed Godaddy several times and get the same response. Pay $75 dollars to transfer my domains or let them stay suspended and they have yet to provide me with any evidence. So now the 6 or so sites that are on my hosting account have basically been shut down since they suspended my hosting account. Some people I have talked to about this say that someone probably wants to my domains and this is Godaddy’s way of making some extra coin! Wouldn’t surprise me. I could care less about moving my domains somewhere else.. but loosing the $120 I paid for supposedly 1 year of hosting bites the big one! Oh and I will not pay $75 flipping dollars to transfer my domains! Could anyone give me some names of some good company’s to host and register domains with? Thanks :) SUCK IT GODADDY!

By: fedmich

fedmich — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:17:37 +0000

I totally agree, they suck…
I cant also use multiple tabs properly with their site using firefox.

they are really pain in the b~

By: ramon

ramon — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:25:50 +0000

for the geniuses that LIKE godaddy – tech support is not simply someone that you can understand and can read from their “knowledge base” – its someone that can think out of the box and provide solutions.

btw, cheap is not a feature – a yugo is cheap.

By: ramon

ramon — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:19:29 +0000

use godaddy for 3 things:

1. a cheap hosting for a simple web page with no database access or functionality – a HELLO WORLD web page

2. if you have a lot of time to sit through their death slow interfaces

3. you want to live in a fantasy where you THINK you have tech support

By: ramon

ramon — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:17:01 +0000

cheap – and that is. their tech support for anything that they cant find in their “knowledge base” is not possible and the use of the stupid ‘we dont provide custom script support’ is their only option.

so we get this message that a sendmail was placed in the dead.letter folder – which doesnt exist so we contact tech support and the idiot geniuses write back and say that there is no such folder but that it can be accessed by a custom script that they cant help us with because they dont help with custom scripts.

imagine that – a folder that doesnt exist can be read by a program!

f&*$^ing brilliant.

By: John

John — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:17:16 +0000

BONUS SAVINGS: If you renew your domain(s) now, you can take 10% off your order of $50 or more.* Simply enter “gd49bbnd15″ in your shopping cart or mention the offer code when you call (480) 505-8877

So I went online and after going thru all the loops I was trying to renew 5 domains, but when I entered the code gd49bbnd15 nothing happened.

I contacted support this is their reply.

********************************
Thank you for contacting online support.

If you are attempting to renew many domains at once, this may cause the order to appear as a bulk renewal. Unfortunately, the bulk renewal discount is not able to be stacked with other discounts. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Please let us know if we can assist you in any other way.
Regards,

Quinn C.
Online Support Representative

***************************************

BONUS SAVINGS: If you renew your domain(s) now,

Look above it says DOMAIN(S)

That’s my rant, will be moving to another registrar, also they have raised their renewal rates, .biz $14.99

By: Rudy SEO

Rudy SEO — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:44:00 +0000

check this link: http://www.rdezine.com/blog/tag/go-daddy-toll-free-number/ for go daddy toll free number

By: Jo

Jo — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 18:34:55 +0000

Godaddy is suck, very slow support response time, need more thant 48 hours to just setup shared hosting,

By: Delano

Delano — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:20:17 +0000

Anyone who says that Godaddy.com is a good company, knows very little about a good service.

I signed up with them 6 months ago.
- virtual dedicated server
- Plesk Support
- 100 Domains Plesk support

Soon after that Plesk response times were really slow.
It was really bad. One day they did something and it stopped being that way.
They fixed it after I sent a trouble ticket.

I bought a new SSL Certificate. I followed all the instructions as the site gave for installing the certificate. A host support rep. told me to do the steps. I did them. It did not work. I was sent to ssl group. Followed the instructions. It did not work. The ssl guy said I could chat on line with support and they would installed it. I went to the chat online. I told them my problem. They said that I need to follow the steps. I did them. He told me to delete the csr and then past my .cer files into the appropriate place. I did that.. then he realized he told me incorrectly. So he made me start over and first create a csr file. I did that. Then I had to re download a new file with a certificate. I did that … finally he told me to do the same steps as earlier… then he said that the cert was self signing… I did not make a self signing cert. I make everything correct. in the end he says to me… oh well please create a trouble ticket and we will get to it. I told him I already create one. They did not respond to my ticket. He just said sorry we are busy. I have been trying to solve this for a long time now. They always require us to create a trouble ticket. Why ?! Why you ask?! It is simple. They are incompetent to set anything up right the first time. They make people wait forever to make anything work correctly. This is a really good example of how this company is no good. Plus the advertisement mentioned above. People who get a certified Red hat or certified windows certificate does not mean you know anything about systems. It just means you know how to follow pre defined steps and with out years of experience, ever solve any real problems. These problems I call, real world problems. So those of you who suport Go Daddy can’t just bash other people giving real reasons… Get more than 10 years of real experience then post on here and say something that makes sense.

By: YellowShark

YellowShark — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:15:25 +0000

just wanted to stick up for godaddy. their deluxe hosting is what i’m currently on. when i phone, i get a person who speaks AMERICAN, and the staff has gone above and beyond for me on a number of occasions.

granted the checkout process is very annoying. but for most users, they offer exactly what we need. yeah there’s times where i wish i had more control over some server settings. and not being able to make a(n) SQL connection from outside of my hosting account is a bit weak. but by and large, they’re very very cheap, and they do the job. those are really my only complaints with them. their SSL is cheap too.