Here is why GoDaddy sucks in hosting, what about alternative?

by jagbir on July 29, 2010

Hosting my wordpress blog in GoDaddy was a big mistake, I realized this when one of my regular visitor alerted me that my blog is having suspicious activity. I promptly downloaded all of my blog files in my local system to scan and that operation took around 2 hours because of terrible FTP download rate from GoDaddy. Upon looking inside the files, almost all php files were having suspicious code and certainly infected by some malware. I did a clean of each and every file including database scan for any malicious records, users etc (referred this while cleaning). Uploaded all new files by replacing existing completely. I checked my logs and thought for a while about why such thing happened. My wordpress version was latest, strong FTP password and in fact no regular FTP activities from my side. I’ve Mac for myself. So I didnt’ found any reason and forgot that incident.

Suddenly after few days, same problem popped up. My friend complained that rss feed page of blog is not working. Now my eyebrow raised as I didn’t touched the site from my side since last cleanup (few days before) and entire blog files were again infected by that malware. Submitted a ticket with GoDaddy explaining everything but got lame response having points like We were unable to find any issue in your site, Make sure you are not running outdated version of blogging software blah blah.

When I searched over net about that issue, there were thousands of users having sites/blogs on GoDaddy who were facing same thing. I got many references/conversations like here and here indicating massive no. of users facing this issue. Whatever, I didn’t got any promising/supportive response from GoDaddy even after its very clear that hacking/malware spread was happened in their servers and instead of accepting and investigating, all they replying is crap.

This was a good indication for me to hunt another hosting provider and after lots of hunting, I zeroed down on nearlyfreespeech.net. These guys are simply awesome. Pay per usage plan, only SSH access (no FTP by default), very simple but intuitive interface and dirt cheap rates. I promptly shifted my personal/financial blog www.investorshine.com from GoDaddy to them and its now more than 3 months and honestly, I’m more than happy with them. Now going to shift this blog also very soon.

Just an update as on July, 2011, I’m running this blog on HostGator and very satisfied with their services.

At the end, GoDaddy lost one more customer having several domains and deluxe Linux hosting package. I will put all efforts to educate my friends as well to keep a distance from GoDaddy, at least as far as Hosting is concerned. Do you also have kind of same experience with GoDaddy? Please share here in comments for benefit of all community.

Tagged as: godaddy, hacking, malware

  • Ronen

    “I’ve Mac for myself” ???? and you think that because you have a MAC you’re more secured than Window$ ?? think again my brother.

    I agree with on the whole GoDaddy fuck-ups. They are terrible !!! i myself have several clients i set up website with GoDaddy, and needless to say it almost ruined me professionally. I will definitely check nearlyfreespeech.net out. Thanks for the head’s-up.

  • http://retrovision.tv Kevin

    I have the blog above on Godaddy and it has been hacked a couple times. I don’t think Godaddy is any more insecure than any other bulk hosting plan. It is a larger target because it hosts a lot of web sites.

    SSH is so slow that it’s not practical for site backups. Use ftp.

    Yep, you’re not secure. Is that Godaddy or wordpress? Is it more likely to have people try to attack vulnerable wordpress sites en masse because they are hosted on Godaddy? Sure.

    Expect shared hosting to get hacked and you’ll have a realistic attitude about shared hosting in general. You can’t pick on Godaddy in particular. I had a dedicated server hacked once too. $100 a month doesn’t mean you won’t get hacked either.

    Macs are a little better about security and a lot lesser target because 95% of people use a PC. You may find some security advantage in Macs or linux, but it’s sure not bulletproof.

  • http://pmvk.in Krishna

    alternative? give http://www.bigrock.in/ a try :)

    • http://www.jagbir.info jagbir

      Hi Krishna, nice to see your comment here. I’m exploring bigrock.in now and it looks appealing. moreover, it has one distinguished advantage, I can poke you if there’s any issue ;)

      Jagbir

  • http://www.eatingdisorderstreatment.org  Eating Disorders Treatment

    Goddady is the best registrar, another one is Enom~;”

  • http://www.internetvisa.net Afam

    It’s no news that Godaddy are wack when it comes to hosting.They’re better of as a domain registrar.

    • http://www.jagbir.info jagbir

      yah Afam. But their level in hosting touching new low now. Even in domain registration, I dont know what’s special they are offering?

  • http://www.kids-pools.org Kids Pools 

    Godaddy has great prices on .info domains but their private domain service is so damn expensive:;,

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    godaddy is not always the best registrar, the private registration of godaddy is too expensive “

  • http://www.whiteshoes.net Max

    My website hosted with Godaddy went down today. I have been on hold for 15 minutes already!

  • jack

    GODADDY sucks bigtime…….I am going to leave them for another host and take all 50 domains with me. I hate godaddy!

    I will take domains to 1 & 1 through myself and make commissions and most of the sites will be hosted at http://www.hostgator.com/

  • http://www.jagbir.info jagbir

    @Jack: Rightly said. Do you find hostgator comparatively better than other providers?

    -
    Jagbir

  • http://wpmix.com wordpress designer

    As a blog reader, I am readily on the search for information that are both awesome and pleasing to digest and I must say your blog passed my criteria. Many thanks for the enlightening content you have shared! Will be coming back soon!

  • http://Godaddy Raider

    I hate that the fact Godaddy will lie to you about pricing. The setup
    is difficult and expensive. The tech support is awful too. I will never recommend or ever use Godaddy ever again.

    • http://www.jagbir.info jagbir

      @Raider, thanks for comment. So which provider you are using now?

  • http://www.peter-urda.com/ Urda

    I host a ton of websites out of GoDaddy and I have had ZERO issues. I run wordpress, joomla, mercurial, and a few other custom services on their Linux Boxes.

    I have had ZERO issues with GoDaddy. There is a reason why they are the largest hosting group and domain provider out there.

    Your millage may vary, but this article is ambiguous and stinks to high heaven.

  • http://www.peter-urda.com/ Urda

    On a HILARIOUS note this blog still lives on the GoDaddy farm. Do a `tracert` to linuxadminzone.com to prove it for yourself.

    Why don’t you post the ‘nasty’ code instead of just saying “it was there promise!”

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  • justin

    @ Urda just because you have had zero problems doesnt mean that no one else has!!!! You must work for them because you sure are taking this blog personally.Ha! A LOT of folks say Go Daddy is s joke – they cant ALL be lying dude. Just face it Go daddy.trash is garbage.

  • GoDaddySucks Big Balls

    GoDaddy now has a new problem that they are trying to hide. They are improperly scanning their own customers’ emails and comparing the contents to the spamhaus.org database (after resolving any URL’s in the email). If they find you have referenced a URL that is associated in anyway with an IP address in spamhaus they will block your outbound email. They will do this even if the URL you place in your email has nothing to do with Spam or malware.

    The Tech Support people at GoDaddy have their heads way up their asses! They are incapable of properly configuring their own spam monitoring software. As usual when you call them on the carpet they tell you “Too bad so sad”. The problems at GoDaddy are directly linked to the stupidity of the people working there!

  • http://www.marinepaint.org Marine Paint

    `~- I am very thankful to this topic because it really gives great information “`*

  • http://www.it-asset-inventory.com/ Marcus @ it inventory

    I’m using Daddy services for nearly 3 years, and I have nothing but a good experience with them. The only annoying thing that Godaddy does – they trying to sell and sell all the way during the purchase…

  • http://www.jagbir.info jagbir

    @Marcus: good to hear that you are a happy GoDaddy customer. I feel GoDaddy is very good for domains but for hosting, I myself had very bad time with them, not to mention pathetic support.

    My Domains are still with GoDaddy and remain there but for hosting, I’ve moved to HostGator and so far having very good experience with them.

  • http://goo.gl/VWuLc Rafael Kinlin

    Thank you for providing me valuable information.

  • Ach3r0n

    GoDaddy sucks and Brian Goble (Office of the President) is a lying scumbag.

  • Patrick Freeman

    I’m so happy that I left Godaddy a few years ago. It was the website http://best-inexpensive-web-hosting.com/godaddy-sucks-scam that put me on the right track so I think that Linux Hosts Inc. with very professional support representatives, is a good alternative to Godaddy sucks.

  • halle

    I have about 40 domains with godaddy ultimate hosting account and … this plan is a shame!
    Here is a list of problems with this registrar:
    - page loading is very slow
    - regularly error 404 not found
    - regularly error 500 int serv error
    - ftp connection w/ filezilla or other software return error 503
    - assistance is unusable and will not solve your problem

    Next time I’ll think before giving my money to these gentlemens

  • http://linuxadminzone.com jagbir

    Thanks halle for comment, agreed that GoDaddy is insensitive. I never got good speed in ftp when I used their account. GoDaddy can be used to register your domains only, if you want, nothing else.

  • J

    I am on day 8 of trying to set up a website with GoDaddy hosting, not counting a weekend. As of now I still cannot access that website. I am working past a deadline that has already been pushed forward and which we are now going to still be late on.

    To summarize, GoDaddy’s support is as quick as possible to get you off the phone, and has no idea what the next-step in any resolution is. They will get you off the phone waiting for e-mails that are never going to be sent, or tell you to go to URLs which will never work. They very simply do not know what they are talking about.

    I work for a company that designs webpages for small businesses. We were given a project to re-design someones website.

    I started out trying to move a domain name from one GoDaddy account to another. I was told this would be an easy process as it’s just from account to account. No, I would not be charged anything, and it would only take about an hour.

    We were going to do the domain transfer after, but all of GoDaddy’s hosting solutions REQUIRE you have the domain name on the account or you cannot set them up. We were trying to set up a Quick Shopping Cart and a WordPress Blog, and neither would finish the setup process because the domain name was not on the account. The entire process will not work until the domain is in the account. We are stalled.

    When I actually went to transfer this domain name, it turned out to be more complicated than originally projected. For starters, I am on a reseller account. The company I work for has set one up so they make a small amount of money for the webhosting space they sell. On GoDaddy, reseller accounts are technically under a different Domain Controller, “WildWestDomains”.

    What they do not tell you is that support for WildWestDomains is the same support as GoDaddy. It’s literally the same people. However they do not let their technicians admit this. If a call comes in from a reseller account, they have to pretend like they have no idea how GoDaddy ‘works’, can’t admit they’re GoDaddy and speak vaguely about how GoDaddy will handle things on their end. Even though they are GoDaddy and are the exact same people.

    While this is still GoDaddy, WildWestDomains is technically a separate company for liability reasons. So the domain actually had to be transferred, which then cost us money. Fine, okay, that’s complicated but it extends the domain name for another year so it’s not so bad.

    The first tech I spoke to said he was adding the domain transfer to our account and that an E-Mail was being sent, right now, to the Account Manager on the ‘losing’ side of the transfer. That’s our client. The client had to be called so we could get this authorization number from him so we could start the transfer. We were told this was all we would need.

    For starters, no e-mail was sent. We lost a day on this, while he tried to find it. I called another technician. It turns out no e-mail was sent. We have to purchase the transfer, and THEN an e-mail gets sent. I ask if we’ll need anything else, they give me a vague “it depends on the losing domain and how they handle things” and they spend 10 minutes denying they’re GoDaddy and know EXACTLY what the ‘losing’ domain will do in this specific situation.

    Okay fine, we purchase the transfer and we bug our client again to forward this e-mail. It takes them a few hours to get back to the office and forward this e-mail to us. Okay. By the time we enter in the authorization codes, it’s in the evening. The account says ‘pending transfer’ and we decide to wait for it and check back the next day.

    It is now day three, and I make my fourth phonecall. The domain has still not transferred. It still says ‘pending’ in the account. I call again. I am told that the previous tech was incorrect, and that YET ANOTHER e-mail has been sent to our client to ‘confirm’ this transfer, and this is why things are held up. I am told this e-mail will contain a link to accept the transfer and that all I have to do is click on this link. I call our client. They are setting up for a concert, in the rain, and will not be back to their office until very late. They cannot forward us anything until late into the evening.

    I get these forwarded e-mails on the morning of day 4. None of them contain any links to anything. I make a fifth phonecall. The previous tech was incorrect, and there is no link being e-mailed. Instead, we need to log into the clients account and accept the transfer from there. We could have done this yesterday and not hassle our client yet another time. Every single time I call, the technician I speak to does not know what the next step is and leaves us waiting for nothing.

    I log into this account, which we have the information for. I accept the transfer. I am told it can take a few hours but it should be ready ‘soon’. We spend day 4 trying to set up the WordPress account and the Quick Shopping cart. Both do not work, at all. They say the domain name is already in use. The domain name shows up in our account, but is inaccessible to use to set up products. We assume it is still transferring.

    The morning of day 5 we stop assuming and call a sixth time. It turns out that while the domain is in our account, and we should have full control over it, it is ‘linked’ to another GoDaddy account and thus we cannot do anything to it. This other account is the client’s previous account. Why it did not remove this ‘link’ when we did the transfer is not explained to me. We remove this ‘link’ and I am told it should be ready in ‘another couple of hours’.

    It is not done by end-of-day. We come back the following Monday finally able to access the domain name that is in our account. We set this up, but it is ‘pending DNS change’. This is day 6, not counting the weekend. We are due to show the client some progress to the design changes this afternoon. We still do not even have access to the account. Day 6, call 7. I am told that it can take up to 48 hours for a server to go live. I ask, when it is live, can I use this IP address I see here to access it? I am told yes. We can FTP into the IP address and see the files for wordpress, but when we enter the IP address into a browser we get a 404. I am told it is because the server is still setting up and that once it is set up we will be able to use that IP address to view the site.

    We spend day 7 refreshing the site, waiting for it to go up. We were told it could take up to 48 hours. I have been calling support frequently so I decide to be patient. By the end of day 7 the site is still not working by that IP address.

    At the beginning of day 8 the site is still not functioning. It is Wednesday. Our due date for showing design changes has been pushed to today, and we still do not have access to our server. I call again, now the 8th phonecall to technical support. I am told that the previous tech was incorrect, and that the IP address listed will not resolve into the website. I will need to set up a preview DNS in order to view it. This could have been done 2 days ago but the tech said the site was still being set up. The previous tech told me I could view it by the IP address that was already listed. The previous tech was wrong. The preview DNS should take ‘a couple of hours’. I have heard ‘a couple of hours’ quite a few times before. I’m still waiting for the preview DNS.

    Every single time I call, the technician is entirely incorrect about what my next step should be and what I can do right now to get this website working. I always ask ‘What is my next step, what am I waiting for, what is my expectation.’ Everytime I am told to wait for incorrect details. They are as quick as possible to get me off the phone and waiting for a solution that will not come because it is entirely incorrect.

    On two separate occasions, I asked for a manager. I have never spoken to one.

    If this was my project, I would have demanded a refund by now. I am just a designer; I do not get to make those decisions. But under my own power, I will never use GoDaddy hosting for any reason ever again. Their support is terrible and always leaves me waiting for things that will not happen.

    I can only hope that now, finally, within a few hours, I should be able to preview this server. However given that every time I called there has been some missed ‘next step’, I am fully expecting to still not see this website by friday.

    Do not use GoDaddy hosting for any reason.

  • http://linuxadminzone.com jagbir

    Thanks a lot J for sharing your terrible experience with GoDaddy. Its indeed the worst hosting provider I’ve ever seen. I’m glad that I was out in initial phase itself from it. I hope you should be out of this mess soon. I’ve good experience with HostGator and BlueHost, they are not only cheaper than GoDaddy but have excellent support as well.

  • rich

    The current #1 google search for “godaddy sucks” is a lie;

    http://www.hostingsthatsuck.com/godaddy-web-hosting-sucks/

    The article read like a sales brochure from a typical pitch, complete with graphs and charts. Decided to do a quick whois search and follow the money.

    Any guesses who owns it?

    1-hostingsthatsuck.com was registred by Domains By Proxy Inc. (i.e. domainsbyproxy.com) at godaddy.
    2-domainsbyproxy.com was registered by Domains By Proxy Inc. Even though both hostingsthatsuck and domainsbyproxy are both in AZ, they made a mistake in trying to hide the origin of it by the contacts email addy. “dns@jomax.net”
    3-Any guesses who jomax.net is owned by? Godaddy directly.

    The reason I posted this here is that this blog is currently in the #2 spot on google for “godaddy sucks”

    Be well all

  • http://linuxadminzone.com jagbir

    Thanks a ton rich for pointing out this interesting fact. Guess Godaddy left no stone untouched to divert people about its pathetic services. I can confirm they have awesome people at least in sales department. Sad truth is that more and more newbie population fall prey to GoDaddy first, learn hard lesson and then move on.

  • a godaddy victim

    godaddy does suck. considering a refund on my website tonight acct.

  • http://digitalsuperheroes.com photojames

    Godaddy SUCKS! I have 15 domains and a couple are doing OK, not good, but OK. A few of them I have not been able to access for the past week and after spending hours working on one of them today their server died.

    I called to see what was going on and they said that it was “a known issue” and that they were working on it. Last week I reactivated the domain and couldn’t get to it because their “parked” page was all I could see. After hours on the phone over the period of three or four days they decided to migrate my domain to a different server which took three days. Today’s issue is supposedly unrelated, but I doubt it. Everyone at GD is an idiot and their customer service sucks.

    I asked to speak with a supervisor and was put on hold for over ten minutes. When the clown came back on the phone and told me that it would be “another few minutes” I told him that he had 30 seconds to get a supervisor on the phone. He insisted that his supervisor was busy taking care of other customers or some BS. I told him that there wasn’t anything or anyone more important than me. I repeated that he had 30 seconds to get a supervisor on the phone or I was going to call the BBB and that I was going to make as much noise as possible. About 25 seconds later I had a supervisor on the phone who was such a weiner (even bigger than Anthony Weiner) and kept trying to sell me the same BS as the first guy.

    Don’t get me started about that horrible crap they play when you’re on hold. They do it on purpose so that you will either hang up go insane. I’m going to be moving all of my domains somewhere else. Any recommendations?

  • http://linuxadminzone.com jagbir

    Thank you “photojames” for sharing your experience here with GoDaddy. Some of us learn from the mistakes of others. The rest of us have to be the others. So we are others here who done a big mistake to take hosting from GoDaddy but I hope by reading these experiences here, more and more people would know in advance about this pathetic company and avoid it.

    About domains, I heard good things about netfirms, moniker and dnsmadeeasy but no first hand experience as of now. Please share here when you find any other good provider.

  • http://linuxadminzone.com/here-is-why-godaddy-sucks-in-hosting-what-about-alternative/?& Casper

    Aw, i thought this was a really good post. In idea I have to put in writing such as this in addition – taking time and actual energy to produce a good write-up

  • http://www.pdvictor.com Peter Drinnan

    There are a lot of decent hosting companies that are better than GoDaddy but you have to remember than when GoDaddy started, they WERE a good choice. I gazillion customers later they are just a cash cow for some big corporation. Time to move on and get with something worth more than $1 per month.

  • http://linuxadminzone.com/here-is-why-godaddy-sucks-in-hosting-what-about-alternative/?& Clarence

    Hey there. I needed to drop you a quick note to state my thanks. I’ve been following your website for a month or so and also have acquired lots of good information in addition to appreciated how you’ve set up your web site. I am wanting to perform my personal weblog however believe its very general and I would like to focus more about smaller topics.

  • http://linuxadminzone.com jagbir

    @Peter Drinnan: Thanks for your comment and yes its fact that GoDaddy is not longer any good, should be avoided at all costs.

    @Clarnece: Thanks for your words. Best of luck for your blog :)

  • http://linuxadminzone.com/here-is-why-godaddy-sucks-in-hosting-what-about-alternative/?& Barrett

    Hi all, I ran across your web site by using Google even as hunting for a very similar topic, your website came out, it seems very good. I have saved as a favorite it in my google book mark

    • http://linuxadminzone.com jagbir

      Hello Barret, Thanks for comment and nice words. Hope you are not a customer of Godaddy :)

  • Derrick

    Hello, I have had to tons of problems with godaddy. First, if you want to run Joomla or WordPress, do not use their Windows Hosting because it is slow. Takes like 30 sec for the page to load. Yes 30 sec is a long time. Second, there customer support tries every which way to put the blame of their problems on you or your isp when the problem is on their end. Also, I have experience a number of load time problems with godaddy and their application setup is awful.

  • http://linuxadminzone.com jagbir

    @Derrick, Thanks for comment. No experience about their windows hosting but yes their support is super pathetic. I guess the support guys there get training only to blame customer for all their problems and somebody said “Customer is God”. Wish GoDaddy learn the lesson.

  • yagata

    Hi there! I’m still GoDaddy customer, but I had some very interesting issues these days. All my services were suspended for some period because of a stupid payment processing. I write this just for an advice what to do and am I wrong or not.
    My GoDaddy services were still in their first active year, expiring in the middle of October, some of them in November. Services priced $ 370. I initiated renewal transactions around a month before these expiration periods – for the same products for one more year. What happened next – my transactions were reversed back to my credit card from PayPal. I didn’t want that to happen and that was not my fault. It happened cause I initiated dispute with PayPal about an incorrect currency conversions. I didn’t required payment reversal, just a conversation why I that happens. Anyway, there was an automatic response, the payments were treated as unauthorized, and reversal was initiated. My next step was to inform GoDaddy about that and that I am going to pay my renewals immediately again after the reversal happen. They responded me that the reversal didn’t happen at this point, but I have 2 options – to pay again the services by credit card, and they will send the other payment back to PayPal, or to wait the reverse to occur and they will send me instructions for the payment. They told me that I can pay twice to avoid service suspension, but my logic was that my renewals will be suspended. This didn’t worried me, because there was still time until my services expire before the renewal.

    But SURPRISE on the next day – all my domains – locked! Hosting, many e-mails, Online File Folder with files and documents in it, and many other services – suspended. Even my e-mail, that I use with PayPal was deleted in a moment I needed to resolve my problems. ONLY one e-mail was still online – maybe not not lose the connection with GoDaddy. I called them immediately, asking them how because of a reversed payment for a FUTURE period, to shut down already charged services? The answer was “it’s just the way it is”, so I have to pay first for this future period, so they can initiate my already charged services for this year to be restarted. Of course I told them in advance that I’ll pay again, and that happened – the money were back to GoDaddy just the day after.
    They reactivated my products, but there was a big time wasting with everything – tons of e-mails, recreating the e-mail accounts, a lot of nerves. I found that now my Online File Folder will expire on 27 Sept 2012, It’s not right, because the fist year this product was purchased, is from 19 Oct. 2010 to 19 Oct. 2011. With the renewal the new expire period has to be through 19 Oct. 2012!
    By the way, they assigned a temporary DNS addresses for one of my domains, and the address included something like: “suspended because of spam and fraud activity” which was not true and even offends me.

    As there was no understanding I just wanted to give a Feedback addressed to their management. Just Feedback, no demands. I wrote them the next one:
    Quote:
    “I’ll appreciate a lot if you refer my last incidents to be reviewed from your company’s higher management. I think it can contribute a lot for the quality of your otherwise amazing products and for the other customers. I found it inadmissible because of a reversed payment for a FUTURE period, payed on the next day, to shut down already charged services – domains, hosting, e-mails, everything…My e-mails even had to be setup again one by one. This is a method not only to lose profits, but even to lose clients and businesses.”

    There was not answer to this. Actually the answer is that if I can’t understand the Legal Agreements, to contact my legal counsel if any terms of the agreements seem unclear to me. Also “However,we are not able to provide any further explanation or clarification…”

    What’s your opinion? Can this happen with other hosting providers – because of a reversed payment for a future period, all the present prepaid services to be suspended?

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  • Kasha

    I’m trying to back up a client’s site, and the file manager won’t allow me to archive a file larger than 20MB??????? That’s ridiculous.

    Worst hosting in the galaxy.

  • http://linuxadminzone.com jagbir

    Thanks Kasha for comment. It’s an old news that Godaddy sucks but it sucks in whole galaxy is something new to hear.. LOL. I would advise you to get out of it asap.

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