GoDaddy announced a big domain sale this week, advertising $9.99 domains. Had I been an innocent online beginner, I might have been tempted to snap up some new domains at a seemingly bargain price. Thing is, this isn’t really a sale at all, because if you hop over to Namecheap.com you can buy standard .com domains for $10.49 (they were under $10 before the price increase). Furthermore, if you want to hide your personal details from the WhoIs register, GoDaddy will charge you a further $9.99 for the privilege, whereas Namecheap offer the service for free. So even if you purchase a domain from Godaddy at $9.99 this week, you will still pay $19.98 all in if you want the private WhoIs service. And, when you renew next year, the domain will cost you nearer $15.
But price isn’t the only thing that puts me off registering domains with GoDaddy. Like many onliners, I am not exactly a fan, and believe me I am not the first to say negative things about GD. For such a successful company, you will find a multitude of gripes from dissatisfied customers on forums and websites. In my experience the hosting is reliable, but the service rather annoying for four key reasons.
Complicated Hosting Panel
The GD hosting panel is a nightmare to navigate. Even for an experienced online guy it is a chore every time you login to change settings. I just can’t understand why they haven’t invested in simplifying the entire process. For example, Hostgator’s Cpanel is a walk in the park compared with the NASA qualification required to get around GoDaddy.
Unethical Owner
Secondly, the boss, Bob Parsons, likes hunting innocent animals, and then photographing himself alongside his kill. Do a quick Google for Bob Parsons elephant and you will see the evidence. If that isn’t enough to put you off, the whole cheap “Go Daddy Girls” campaign that clutters the already overly cluttered page might well do so.
Restricted Customer Service
Thirdly, although you can get through to customer services very easily, and the guys there are very helpful, no matter how technical the problem, they don’t have the ability to go into your account and fix things. They read off the GoDaddy help sheets, which are readily available online, and insist on guiding you to do everything for yourself. For newbies/technophobes this must be an excruciating experience, one that will take forever and a day.
Overbearing Upselling
Lastly, every time you call up, whether for simple enquiry or technical direction, you can guarantee the call will end with a lead in to the selling of some service you don’t need. Occasionally it might benefit you, such as locking in domain or hosting renewals at a better price – but eve then you will find a more affordable and more efficient service elsewhere. More often than not though, it will be some amateur SEO/traffic add on or similar. Okay some things might be useful to some people, but I don’t want an overly friendly customer service rep pretending to be my friend but really trying to sell me something extra every time I call up with and enquiry.
So, in short, I couldn’t care less about this week’s GoDaddy domain sale…
I have been around and if you want to trade domains gd has the best support and fastest reliable transfer. I frequently succeed in buying $1 .com domains on ebay, and get free transfer because they are all GD domains. The domain control panel is not that difficult to navigate and works. To make a long story short, I tried around, and I am happy with GD, and plan to keep using it.
Hi Avraham. You get free domain transfer, really? I transfered a domain with Godaddy previously and had to pay almost the same price as the domain itself. Glad to hear your experience has been a positive one though, perhaps they are improving the service.
thanks for reading!