LCM Web Hosting
Reviews
GoDaddy Web Hosting
I began my move from Authentic Hosting (www.authentic-hosting.com)
to GoDaddy (www.GoDaddy.com)
back in January of 2006. Authentic Hosting had not remained
competitive and in my opinion, their support was basically non-existent the last
year or two I used them. They also had a lot of down time, especially on Fridays
and the weekends when you could not get through to them. I had been using two
combined “Plan 2” accounts that supplied 1 gigs of space and 10 gigs of
bandwidth for $9.95/month each. Thus, I was paying a total of $19.90 per month
for 2 gigs of space and 20 gigs of bandwidth, which now seems to be outrageous!
I had seen GoDaddy’s ads on TV and on the
internet and decided to check out their hosting packages the latter part of
2005. I was impressed when I saw their large hosting space and bandwidth
packages at very economical prices. Frankly, I was completely surprised and
became skeptical when I saw their low prices. I figured that there must be
some sort of catch. I then looked at their support options, and was even more
surprised when I saw that they offered 24 X 7 “phone support!” I phoned the
number, expecting to get a recording that would tell me to submit a support
ticket or send them an e·mail. To my amazement, someone promptly answered the
phone to speak with me to help me with support. I was rather embarrassed when I
had to confess that at that time I was just checking to see if they really had
phone support. They were very gracious and understanding and asked all the
questions I asked.
For such small fees, I decided to risk it and give them a
chance a few months later. I purchased the “Deluxe Plan,” for
$6.99/month which offered:
• 50 GB Space •
500 GB Transfer
• 1000 E·mail
Accounts • FREE! Software
• 25 MySQL
Databases • Unlimited E·mail Forwards
• Forums,
Blogging, Photo Galleries • No ads
• FREE! $25
Google AdWords™ Credit
My account became active within a few hours after I set up
my account. I then uploaded my FrontPage site, and could not believe everything
went so smoothly! I had purchased another domain through them for $1.99, then
moved my three other domains to them to manage and renewed them at $7.99 to
$8.99 each.
Since January, I have phoned them several times (probably
at least two dozen times) with questions about matters ranging from installing
perl and cgi scripts, to domain forwarding and parking. I was pleased to get
someone that I did not have trouble understanding, or them understanding me
because of a thick accent or difference in dialect. The longest I ever waited on
the phone was about 12 minutes. The average wait for me has been about 5 – 6
minutes. Each support representative was courteous, patient – and most
importantly – very knowledgeable of my server account and any problems I was
having. If there was a problem they could fix, they fixed it right then and
there. If I was trying to do something beyond the scope of my plan or their
server, they would politely tell me so.
Equally important, before I moved to GoDaddy, I had
suffered frequent site down time due to something going wrong with the server at
Authentic Hosting. In April of 2006, I began running a free
website monitoring service that checks for specific words on each of my four
domains every 15 minutes. If the specified text cannot be found for any reason,
the service sends me an e·mail informing that my domain is down. The service is
called, MrAlert! (www.mralert.com).
Even before I began to use this service I found that my primary domain was down
too often. I have not found my site on GoDaddy down even once since I began
using them about five months ago!
If I have one complaint, it would be the following.
GoDaddy does not allow access to their servers’ “raw access logs.” The
free stats that come with the plan are far below what I had been accustomed to
using with Authentic Hosting. I would like to install and use
AWStats with my server account, but cannot because of no access to the raw
access logs. They do have a premium web stat plan, called “Traffic Facts,” which
you can purchased for $2.99 per month. But, what I have seen of these stats so
far suggest that the free stats I am already using may be just as good or
better. I have been using Site Meter (www.sitemeter.com)
and StatCounter (www.statcounter.com)
for years, and I recently began using Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics/),
which was formally Urchin Stats. These three are excellent and
among the best -- if not the best -- available. In either case, I would not have
any complaints with GoDaddy at this time if they added either the
free AWStats or
Analogue raw log analyzers
that can be installed and run on their servers. Yet, I
do believe I am getting a tremendous value from GoDaddy at this time.
I hope GoDaddy can keep their current performance and value
up. Many years ago, when I move to Authentic-Hosting, they too would have gotten
a good rating from me. However, everything about their hosting service degraded
over the years until I had to look for someone else. I do not expect this to
happen with GoDaddy. But if it does, I will update this review.
I have never written a web hosting review before. But so
far, I have been so happy with GoDaddy, I thought this was the time to write
one.
The Webmaster, Walter Robinson II
May 9, 2006
Copyright © 2000 Last Chance Ministries. All rights reserved.
Revised: June 13, 2006.
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