GoDaddy web hosting service review - after 1 year
Rankų darbo papuošalai. Elektroninė papuošalų parduotuvė.
1) Prior to transferring my site to GoDaddy a year ago, I phoned their customer support to ensure I was able to use htaccess and apache handlers with their Linux shared hosting plan. I had to be directed to 3 different people before the “tech support” understood my question fully. The guy I ended up with in the end was quite friendly and seemed to be on the same page as me, as he answered all of my questions. This has proved to be a rare occasion..
2) I use mod_rewrite extensively. About 3 months into my hosting my site mysteriously began throwing 404 errors. I didn’t recall touching a thing! So I phoned their “tech support” and explained my problem, in great detail. A half hour into the conversation, the personnel still hadn’t the slightest clue as to what I was asking. Ridiculous. So upon digging through my files MYSELF i noticed my htaccess file had been edited. By whom, who knows. I requested Godaddy inform me of the editing party’s IP, as I may have done it myself and not realized.. but would like to be sure. They told me this cannot be done without a court order. They wouldn’t even allow me to TELL THEM MY ip and compare.. they said it’s forbidden and that the server admin has strict access to that “confidential info” …
3) As expected, there are the occasional timeouts, sluggish speed and plain old non-responsive BS. What do you expect from a $14.99/mo plan? Not much more.. but when it happens repeatidly every 5 mins for a whole night straight, there’s clearly a problem.
Upon emailing their support with the details, I am told to run a cmd command and give them the results. By this time, whatever it was that caused the problem had stopped! DUh..
The next time this happened, before bothering with their support I tried to reach the website on two different computers:
- - Windows 2000 w/ Cable Internet
- - WinXP w/ Dialup
- … still the same response.
I told them of my test on two different PCs and again, I receive the auto-generated “It must be your connection. Run this cmd and give us the results…” (HOW is it my connection if I tried it on 2 different computers in different cities?)
4) Need I even mention the amount of ISP’s that can’t receive mail from my website because GoDaddy’s server is blocked for spamming?
After losing thousands of messages, I get a bit ticked and begin filling out the removal forms myself.
For a few days, all is dandy (because the removals seem to be automatic, which is odd if you ask me, but hey it worked. Who am I to complain!).. then bam - blacklisted again!!
Repeatidly, I have forwarded all of the bounces to Godaddy’s support and NOTHING has EVER been done!
One server admin that blocked Godaddy actually read my plea and explanation that I am on Godaddy. They forwarded me the mail that generated from another Godaddy customer that was housed on my server that caused the blacklist. I forwarded this entire message to Godaddy and nothing was ever done about it, because the server is STILL blacklisted on that ISP!
5) Close to a year after opening my Shared hosting account with them, I realize my site may have gotten too big for being on a shared account, and I am BEYOND tired of losing my sites connection, email being blacklisted, etc. because Godaddy doesn’t punish their abusive customers enough…
… so I send a few pre-sales questions into GoDaddy customer support about a VPS.
$29.99 for the server I wanted, but it wasn’t managed. I’m a noob with server stuff so I asked how much would it be for GoDaddy to secure the server and install any security patches (nothing else!) - they stated it’s $75 for that plan. OUCH!
Anyway, I follow through with my pre-sales questions and for that price, I’m curious as to how many other customers would be on the same VPS box as I.. their response (after ignoring it for approximately 3 emails):
“That information is confidential” A bit dodgy if you ask me…
That response (coupled with my previous nightmares above) gave me the decision to leave them. For good. I am still contemplating transferring my domains in hope I never have to deal with their half-wit support for anything else ever again..
This evening, before I started to work on my sites I noticed I cannot connect to my new host’s SQL database (which REEEEAAALLLYYY SUCKS!), I’d already worked with my new host for nearly 24 hours to fix this problem, the end decision is that their stuff was ready for the remote connections. (I connected to it via my PC’s localhost without error), but it just will NOT work on GoDaddy. Endless delays, cryptic error messages, etc. I have no idea what’s going on, but clearly it’s their problem… so I phone their support.
I explain my situation in great detail, aside from the cocky tone in the personnel’s voice (who continuously tries to talk over me as I try to re-explain my problem)… is an idiot. He said “Well I will forward this to tech support (WHAT! DIDN’T I JUST PHONE TECH SUPPORT?! YES, YES I DID!) and they will get back to you. I request to speak to them over the phone as this is an important issue to me. He stated “They don’t do tech support, only email” Fantastic. This guy gets to go on his donut break as I’m sitting here in the dark, never to hear from their “tech support” again. Thanks for the help jackass!
As I type this, I am working on hauling my sites over to PowerVPS linux hosting. I’ve only been with them for about 2 days or so, but their support has far beyond eclipsed Godaddy’s.
Godaddy’s supports #1 goal: Get the customer off the phone or answer their email in the best fashion to get rid of them ASAP. They don’t care whether or not your problem is rectified.
If it wasn’t for such the idiocy housed by their support, they’d be nothing more than an “average” host to me.
But because of this, they are awful, awful, AWFUL. I wouldn’t so much as recommend them to my competitor sites!
Reviewed by user GPL24.