![]() |
GoDaddy Review: Web Hosting |
| Sign up for GoDaddy | ||||||||||||||||
Rating: |
||||||||||||||||
| Easy for beginners but very limited; a lack of blog and shopping cart are disappointing | ||||||||||||||||
|
GoDaddy has made itself popular with its too-hot-for-TV Superbowl ads and sports personality spokespeople, making it the rock star of web hosts. It's an excess that spills over into the site's dizzying array of options, so many options that it was difficult to find one that would match the same criteria as other web hosts we reviewed. The most basic web host plan lacks a site-builder, which we see as a standard feature. On the other hand, the most basic plan with a sitebuilder, the Website Tonite plan that we review here, doesn't allow you to upload (or FTP) a site that you've created offline.
Pricing The Website Tonight plan has a hosting cost of $3.99 per month for three years (which includes a current 20%-off promotion), but domain privacy (which we recommend on any domain registration) is an additional $9.95 per year. It also does not include the domain registration after the first year, an annual cost of $9.99, something that's free or heavily discounted with some other web hosting companies. Twelve months of hosting is $4.49 per month, if the three-year commitment doesn't work for you. GoDaddy offers a pro-rated refund policy. As usual, domain names are not refunded. Features Website Tonight gave us a five-page site, which we built with a very nice WYSIWIG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. It really is one of the nicest you'll find and has some great bonus features such as the ability to add animated intros with sound. However, a five-page site is rather limiting, particularly when a blog is not included as a standard feature. You get 50MB of storage and 1GB of bandwidth. These are fairly low in general, but probably adequate for the five-page site. If you're willing to forego the site builder and create your page on your own, you can get the comparably priced Economy Hosting Plan. It offers more of the traditional web host offerings such as osCommerce and Zen Cart commerce solutions, and Wordpress for blogging. Performance Because GoDaddy's offering is a bit different our download speed and server response tests aren't truly applicable. We were able to look at its uptime. See the chart below for details. For uptime, higher percentages are better. For all others, lower numbers indicate better performance. GoDaddy Web Hosting test data:
Conclusion
|
||||||||||||||||
| Cheapest Price: | $3.99/mo |
| Storage/Data Transfer: | 50MB disk space 1GB transfer |
| Money-Back Guarantee: | Prorated refund |
| Domain: | $1.99/yr |
| Support: | Email, Phone |
NextAdvisor Web Hosting Blog Headlines
Yahoo Web Hosting Drops Its Prices, Great News for Beginners
Yahoo's web hosting has always been a great service for beginners, except for the price. Now Yahoo has made it even easier for beginners of web hosting to access their suite of services by dropping the prices for all their web hosting options. The cheapest plan is the Basic plan, for $4.99/month, but NextAdvisor readers [...]
Can I Set Up a Pay Pal Button on My Site with Yahoo Web Hosting?
Q: I'm a freelance writer, so I don't sell products, per say, but would like to be able to have a PayPal button so I can get deposits, and other payments. A shopping cart would just be silly. Can Yahoo do that? A: Yes, Yahoo can do that. Yahoo Web Hosting in fact has the [...]
Exclusive Yahoo Deal: Get 40% Off Web Hosting for 12 Months!
For one day only, Yahoo! Web Hosting is offering NextAdvisor users 40% off their web hosting services for 12 months. Yahoo! Small Business web hosting is one of the few stand-outs in web hosting, and will be perfect for the beginning site owner who doesn't really know what to expect from web hosting. It's the [...]
You Could Win Cash for the Holidays with the NextAdvisor $500 Giveaway!
Need some extra money for the holiday season? Well, you're in luck. NextAdvisor is giving away cash prizes every week of December! Just go to our Facebook page and click on the NextAdvisor $500 Giveaway, fill out the entry form, and you'll be entered to win. It's our way of saying thank you to our [...]


