Though GoDaddy stands at a rating of 4.1 out of 5 on Trustpilot, it’s helpful to note Uber has point-one of a star less, on Google Play.
GoDaddy is the Uber of the hosting world: the largest in the world, powering nearly 80 million websites as of this time in 2023 (according to 4 independent studies).
9 million entrepreneurs, organizations and bloggers as customers make it the largest and most popular web hosting company out there, although it first began as a domain registrar.
Find a wide array of plans ranging from cheap shared hosting to budget Wordpress-managed. If you need more power, GoDaddy also has dedicated, cloud and VPS server plans.
European Servers 
GD has over 14 offices spanning the planet from Seattle to Cambridge.
More importantly, they have 37000 servers in total - in 9 locations. None of these are based in the UK but the closest two are in Europe : Amsterdam & Serbia.
And you get 24/7 international customer support, which this GoDaddy review gets into later. Overall, we love that they have a great customer review track record - with 75% of customers rating them as excellent, on Trustpilot UK.
Our Verdict ⚖️
Fast. Strong Uptime. Possibly Sluggish Customer Support. 🐌
Things become less personable once a company grows past a certain size.
Our GoDaddy review will question whether you can get better value-for-money from a smaller provider, or if the trade-offs are worth it.
PROS
CONS
GoDaddy Pros and Cons
Lots of Good with Substantial Drawbacks 
Fast 
The average loading time for a GoDaddy-hosted company is 545 milliseconds.
Note: 50% of websites do not load in under 2 seconds.
GoDaddy manages almost half a second.
Rest safe at night; you’ll have a chance to lose customers from a sluggish website.
Strong Uptime 
“Uptime” is code for reliable. With GoDaddy, you get stability when it matters.
For an interesting read, dial back to Thanksgiving 2019, when downtime became damaging for Costco. This criterion should not be underestimated.
Comprehensive Features 
Even the basic plan comes loaded with 100 GB of storage, loads of single click app services, & unlimited bandwidth.
For the average small business, GD’s plans are simply bursting out of the gate with options. Also included is a simple drag-and-drop quality website builder to knock something up quickly and go live.
Sluggish Customer Support 
Yes, you get 24/7 365 Live support through chat or telephone.
But they have over 4,700 representatives, supporting customers in 27 languages, in specific countries. We discuss this mixed bag in more detail in later sections.
From Cattle Ranches to Wall Street 
There are so many people on their roster, that experiences can widely vary.
Some say that the self-help features - or even the GoDaddy live chat and phone support - are not very useful or speedy.
Others think them excellent for support. You may just need to call a few times, to find a great rep.
Higher Fees 
As with any giant web hosts, there are lots of annoying upsells.
Also, and quite unfortunately, lots of the basic features you would expect for free require stunningly high payments.
For example, to get GoDaddy SSL certificates, you will need to pay an additional:
50 GBP for one site
124 GBP for multiple domains
228 GBP for all subdomains
And that doesn't take into consideration the high renewal fees. Astonishingly cheeky.
GoDaddy 👨 Review (UK 🇬🇧)
Absolute Need-to-Knows 🤫
If you want the super-quick summary of whether to choose this company, go ahead and jump forward to FAQs.
There, we deal with specific questions that are most commonly asked during this decision-making process.
GoDaddy Speed 💨
Once Reliably Online, Speed Matters 🚅
Did you know - Only half of websites load under 2 seconds?
The 1 second difference - between holding a customer's attention and them exiting after three-second cut off point - means the following:
To join the 50% of sites not losing 80% of customers, three areas need attention
Loading Time
Multi-Visitor Stress Tests
Server Response Times
Which also impacts Google's rankings of your site... In our opinion, GD has things pretty well handled here.
Test #1 Loading Time 
Otherwise known as loading speed.
This measures the time it takes for a website to fully load for a user, from the moment that they click to open it.
This is what separates average services from the best UK hosting options.
Underperforming in this area pushes your visitor away, statistically speaking.
There are things you can do to help yourself, such as using a Content Delivery Network (CDN). But even CDNs cannot solve the problem of a slow web host.
As we treat this factor so seriously, lets have a look at two years worth of data with a test, GoDaddy-hosted website.
Pingdom was used to get an accurate result.
- Nov 2019: 594 ms
- Oct 2019: 589 ms
- Sep 2019: 497 ms
- Aug 2019: 488 ms
- Jul 2019: 532 ms
- Jun 2019: 712 ms
- May 2019: 736 ms
- Apr 2019: 646 ms
- Mar 2019: 669 ms
- Feb 2019: 631 ms
- Jan 2019: 594 ms
- Dec 2018: 618 ms
- Nov 2018: 615 ms
- Oct 2018: 600 ms
- Sep 2018: 564 ms
- Aug 2018: 593 ms
Every figure is under the 1 second benchmark. GD performs well in this area.
Test #2 Stress Test 💦
Unfortunately, we are not able to test this performance.
It looks like GoDaddy has measures in place to prevent stress tests being running on sites that they host.
Let's move on to the third dimension.
Test #3 Server Response Speeds 📁
We weren’t really blown away by the server response times, which exceed 1 second - at 1053.1 ms.
In terms of the standards set by the best web hosts available, many are sub-400 ms.
As you can see from this map, most of the UK - with the exception of southern Ireland - can expect server response times of around 1 second or more.
Because these results were obtained from one website hosted by GoDaddy, this only gives you a glimpse into what to expect.
All in all, this GoDaddy UK review concludes the speed results are good enough for most small businesses if you take up the base plan.
GoDaddy Uptime 🟢
Star Sales Factor 👨🎤
Poor Uptime could cost your company millions, or whatever that number is relative to your business size.
Uptime refers to the amount of time a host can keep a website successfully online, during a period of time.
This is best calculated over a year, looking at the averages per month.
Sometimes, there can be disturbances to a service and everything is otherwise stellar, for the vast majority of the time that the service provider hosts the site.
Five-Nines Availability 🖐️
The hallmark standard is 99.999% uptime.
This is also known as the “five-nines availability.”
It basically looks at the ratio of uptime versus downtime on a hosted site, to calculate roughly what the provider’s reliability is.
As we always say, this element of web hosting is non-negotiable. Not unless you want to be out-completed by better performing websites.
Working with GD, is a good way to keep that number as high as possible.
Let’s have a look at how they performed over a 12-month period.
Test 📜
This range of results are from the months December 2018 to November 2019.
They run in descending order, and numbers in green represent figures that we considered to be above industry standard - in other words, acceptable to outstanding.
- Nov 2019: 100%
- Oct 2019: 99.84%
- Sep 2019: 100%
- Aug 2019: 99.99%
- Jul 2019: 99.95%
- Jun 2019: 100%
- May 2019: 100%
- Apr 2019: 99.99%
- Mar 2019: 99.97%
- Feb 2019: 99.99%
- Jan 2019: 99.99%
- Dec 2018: 100%
Figures in red represent months where we think the uptime was an unacceptable average level. As you can see, there was only one month where this was the case, in October 2019.
If not for that or the month, they would have been at the Five-Nines Availability target, so we will cut them some slack.
Even with the October anomaly, they still score 99.97% on average, which is higher than almost every other provider - other than a few top web hosts.
If speed is crucial, check out our A2 Hosting review where we go in-depth analysing the fastest UK host around.
GD can keep your website online for longer.
GoDaddy Pricing 💰
Hard Numbers Time 🔢
Here are the negatives you can expect:
Lots of upsells
Hidden renewal fees
Overpriced addon essentials like SSL's
Some of the money-back guarantee terms & conditions are confusing.
For example, rather than letting you cancel within 30 days, you only have 2 days, after first purchasing the guarantee.
You also get the standard trick that bigger hosting companies use, with near-hidden higher renewal fees.
Available Shared Plans
There are four tiers:
GoDaddy Economy Hosting
- 1 Site
- 100 GB Storage
- Unmetered Bandwidth
- 10 databases
- Free Office 365
- GoDaddy webmail - first year
- GoDaddy cPanel
- Free Domain - with the annual plan
All of the above is available for £3.99 /month. Let's look at more expensive plans:
Smaller business with a lot of data?
The Deluxe Plan that gives you more storage and subdomains for only a small increment in price, plus basic components like GoDaddy webmail. But watch out for the renewal fees - these always increase after your term ends.
GoDaddy VPS 
The best VPS host will charge more than the best shared, typically.
And a top notch free VPS may be an alternative.
Overall, paid VPS is for people who want more performance for the pound. VPS offers a virtual single server.
You get higher capability to handle traffic and faster loading times.
There are another four plans:
Finally - GoDaddy Dedicated Hosting 
Dedicated hosting is a Quantum Leap in the performance and budget required.
If you have high numbers of visitors, the best dedicated hosting solutions offer you a whole server to yourself.
Get:
A dedicated maintenance team that manages your server physically
Super increased performance
Higher security
Four more tiers:
DS-32
- 4C/8T – 3.0 GHz Turbo
- 32 GB DDR4 RAM
- 2 x 4 TB HDD Storage (RAID-1)
- Intel Xeon-D 2123IT
All for £99.99/month
DS-64
- 6C/12T – 4.5 GHz Turbo
- 64 GB DDR4 RAM
- 2 x 4 TB HDD Storage (RAID-1)
- Intel Xeon-E 2136
All for £139.99/month
DS-128
- 16C/32T – 2.9 GHz Turbo
- 128 GB DDR4 RAM
- 2 x 8 TB HDD Storage (RAID-1)
- AMD EPYC™ 7351P
All for £249.99/month
DS-256
- 16C/32T – 2.9 GHz Turbo
- 256 GB DDR4 RAM
- 2 x 8 TB HDD Storage (RAID-1)
- AMD EPYC™ 7351P
All for £329.99/month
GoDaddy Support
Who you gonna call? ☎️
We don't want to be overly harsh. The larger a company, the more the law of averages works both ways. Best to know the range here.
Largely, GD has become more reliable for support over the years.
Still, while some people think this customer support is solid, others see GoDaddy as a bloated company, with sluggish support as a result.
They provide the full range of support systems, with an enormous database of guides.
GoDaddy Live Chat 💬
Because there are so many people that use GoDaddy, your experience will probably depend on circumstances.
But you do have GoDaddy Live Chat Support, which first puts you in conversation with a bot.
After that, hone in on the specific issue, and after a few minutes there will be a representative on hand to find a specific solution.
They also have a knowledge base and phone support 24/7 365.
Email Tickets 📧
The one thing many can agree is consistent is the email ticket support, which some people might prefer if they have particularly busy lives.
Message your problem and get on with your day, then check later for an email reply.
Phone Support 📞
GD also provides phone support. In the past, and still now, they have been awarded with customer service prizes for it.
If you are fortunate, then you will get a speedy solution to your problem, from an expert technician.
If other reports are true, concerning an increase in delays over the years… Then you may need to block off a period of time to get a technical problem resolved, rather than getting a swift solution.
-- 🤫 It is worth noting that GD had a rock-solid infrastructure. With this in mind, you can expect less in the way of avoidable technical hiccups.
Larger businesses - with more to lose - should ideally be on premium plans with even tighter infrastructure standards in place.
GoDaddy Bonus Features
The Extra Perks List - Analyzed 🔬
Let’s analyze a few key tools more closely.
GoDaddy Website Builder 
Go Daddy has a beginner friendly website builder with over 300 templates and stock images. Notably, there are no SEO tools on the basic plan - which is not great - and the level of mobile optimization is limited.
The alternative is obviously grabbing a top WordPress host and using WP.
But not so fast! Their builder uses artificial design intelligence (ADI) too quickly customized is so - we’re talking minutes here.
*If you want a drag-and-dropper, look elsewhere. They use GoCentral which does not have that functionality.
We brabbed this example to show you how quick and simple everything is with the GoDaddy Site Builder. You can quickly insert images, video, and audio into blog posts and allow sign-ups with RSS.
If the goal is getting a website live as quickly as possible, this will do the job. Though it is not drag-and-drop, it is very easy to use.
The price is good. The main limit is the lack of features and ability to customize creatively. It also probably falls short of some of the better site builders, visually.
GoDaddy Insight 
GoDaddy has their own advanced analytics tool called GoDaddy Insight.
This is a hard sell, because Google Analytics is by far the number one choice for gaining SEO and general analytical data.
In fact, the top 1 million websites, the top 100,000 websites - and so on - mostly use Google Analytics to compete in the online arena.
Less Coverage, No Free Plan
Google Analytics has superior usage coverage across more website categories, from arts and entertainment to technology.
You also have to pay for the GoDaddy analytical tool, whereas Google Analytics offers both free and paid options.
You can look at this feature as a drawback - but we thought it was worthwhile to analyze. For a little bit more perspective, over 15 million websites use Google Analytics. Less than a thousand use GoDaddy site analytics tool
We recommend sticking to the former.
GoDaddy UK Review - Top SEO Tip 
Hop into your GoDaddy account
Choose Edit Site.
Select the Site Settings panel.
Choose Google Analytics > Sign up for Google Analytics.
There you go - an easy way to skip is their native tool.
GoDaddy Auctions 
You couldn't finish this GoDaddy review section without mentioning GD Auctions.
GoDaddy is in fact the biggest registrar on the planet, with tens of millions of domains under the name.
Webmasters can buy and sell pre-owned domains inside a 90 day listing.
You can also opt for a 7-Day auction, which is quite a popular choice. it will finally move into what is called the Closeout Stages, if nobody bids.
Overall, GD auctions:
Have good coverage for domains being sold
Are run by a reputable registrar
Offer great deals with different option
Are an awesome choice for top reseller hosting
GoDaddy FAQ
Onto the Storm Round 🌩️
Here, our GoDaddy review answers the most common questions around this topic - as simply as possible.
Is GoDaddy Reliable? 
GoDaddy generally delivers very high uptime, which is a measure of reliability.
This means your website will be online, rather than down for reasons to do with malware, high traffic, server mismanagement - and whatever other factors may come into play. We rank them as one of the top web host providers around.
Always ensure that you are on a suitable hosting plan. Small businesses may be able to manage with the basic plan particularly if they are just starting out.
Remember, the more resources your plan has access to, the more rugged & capable it will be.
If you already generate a good amount of traffic - that you hope to convert - being on a basic shared web hosting plan may not be wise.
Consider a more premium plan or even upgrading to VPS, in such a case.
Is GoDaddy Free? 
You get certain things for free depending on your plan.
GoDaddy however is not one of the top free web hosts out there.
They charge you a fee, from small to very high, depending on how many resources you need from your server.
On more premium shared web hosting plans, you can get a free GoDaddy SSL certificate. In some cases, you get unlimited bandwidth as well...
Most of the cool features are not available on the basic plan for shared web hosting. You need to upgrade, to gain access to unlimited domains and so on.
Still, no matter what plan you are on, everyone gets a free domain.
Is GoDaddy Website Builder Any Good? 
The main limitations our GoDaddy review sees with the website builder are:
The fact that it is not a drag-and-drop
The lack of creative customizability
The lack of impressive end results visually compared to other top site builders
The main strengths of using the GoDaddy website builder are:
You will be able to make a website quickly & easily
It’s cheap
If you are looking to get your business card online with an image and an About section, this may be the way to go, while you consider other options later on.
Maybe you are a photographer looking to share a niche portfolio.
In the second example, you may want to consider other options, due to the fact that - the more important branding is - the more crucial it is to have a website builder with creative visual capabilities.
GoDaddy vs. Wix 
Both of the services have an intuitive, fun interface.
But Wix has more capabilities and better creative power. Wix also has a broader range of good value-for-money plans - even a free one.
If you are looking for more advanced features - and, also, better support - this is absolutely the better way to go.
For example:
You get e-commerce tools with Wix, but you don't get this with GoDaddy.
Users get SEO tools with Wix, which you don't get with GoDaddy
Bottom Line?
If you are looking for a super-quick solution to get a site live, GoDaddy can do this for you in a matter of minutes.
Go Daddy uses an artificial intelligence-based ADI editor which makes the process super-streamlined.
If you want complete control over the design of your website, then go for Wix. This is also crucial if you want to get into e-commerce.
However, if you just need a live site that comes with 24/7 support, GoDaddy is a good manager for that.
Conclusion 📓
The Final Host-ifesto
GoDaddy offers very stable hosting, with industry-leading speed.
You get tons of features on the basic plan, with up to 100 GB storage. Every advanced feature you could want is available.
They do not come officially recommended by WordPress but that’s non-important.
The infrastructure is highly integrated with third-party apps and WP itself - with one click installations 🐁. The main drawback is the customer service.
We have said many times before, support can be sluggish when you are dealing with enormous companies.
All that said, our GoDaddy review rates them as one of the top web hosts ever.
But, there are smaller web hosts that outperform it with better value - classic local barista v. Starbucks paradox.
☕ … Let it cool down first. Make a decision after.
You Might Also Like:
Add your own review:
We do our best to independently research products to better help our readers make decisions. That being said, we also want to hear your opinions. We accept individual reviews that are informative and non promotional. Please fill the form below and we’ll publish your review. Promotional reviews by companies themselves will not be published. Thanks!