GoDaddy

Beware of Godaddy - They are bottom rung

Nine years ago, when I started using Godaddy, I thought their pricing and support were exceptional. However, as they have grown, they have completely lost their way.

I was hosting my company site with Godaddy, and not being a pro, I thought everything was the same as any other service. Then I noticed prices going up on all the offerings and these "auto renewals" on so called "services" I never knew I had or for "free" services that were auto-renewing with charges.
Then the email changed.

When I began with Godaddy, each domain would come with an email address. In November, that changed with my notification that all emails were switching to 365 and I would have to now pay for them. So my domain renewals were going up significantly, while they were also changing the terms of what came with them. Even the emails I paid for (for my business) were changing, including a significant price increase. Along with this, was the extensive work of backing up all of my emails, changing them over, and repopulating/reformatting each email (over 30). This was a change from a little over $100 per year to over $200 per month.

This had me closely examine my entire Godaddy account. With hosting and over 150 domain names, I was not a small customer for Godaddy. I found crazy "services" and charges that I had no idea of what they were. Two in particular stuck out: Godaddy had auto-renewed my hosting for three years (there is NO way I would have done that purposely) and they were charging $256 per year for SSL certificates - a $57 increase. I then read that SSL certificates were FREE with my hosting plan. But when I called, I was told that that was only for "NEW" customers. The NEXT DAY! The SSL auto-renewed even though the account stated that auto-renew would not come up for another 61 days! I had to call three times (one disconnect) to get refunded (the first time said no problem then I get an email saying they couldn't do it). The third time I threatened legal action.

I moved my hosting and requested a refund for the two years left on a hosting plan that I did not agree to, but that was a waste of 35 minutes.

There are many good and reasonable opinions on reddit for web services. If you choose to do business with Godaddy, you have been warned.

Where do I start? If you're suckered in by the "low" cost of their domains, think again. The renewal is far more than what the initial price is. It's normal for the price to go up a little, but not this much. My advice would be to turn renewals off and transfer your domains out ASAP. As an example of the price gauging is my.net domain, with privacy GoDaddy auto-renewed the domain for $110, the price with CloudFlare was around $33 as a comparison.
As I attempted to transfer domains, some would work, some wouldn't. The error? A vague "There was an error processing your request. Please try again. If the error continues contact support at (02) xxxx xxxx.". I verified that everything on my side was fine. After trying to work around calling the number, which is always a massive delay, I figured it was time to make the call. Investigating into the actual error from the server (not just the front-end), it confirmed the issue was on their end. A 500 "Internal Server Error" performing a standard task on their site. It's probably a great (for them) business strategy, as not answering the phone and not allowing transfers of domains out, the user is forced to pay the higher price. I'll be advising the ACCC for their input on this practice to ensure it's given adequate attention.
After 70 minutes on hold, listening to the same basic 4 chord tune every minute or so, I was beginning to wonder why I would have ever paid a premium price for domains has I known the support was so below zero.
First of all, I'm only calling them because the website is so poor that it is unable to provide an error message of any substance that I can use to solve the problem myself.
Eventually getting through, the level one support rep had to keep putting me on hold - my request was far beyond the "my password doesn't work" requests typically assigned to 1st level. GoDaddy tech support told the rep to ask me to email them at an internal only email address. I didn't know this until the email bounced stating as such. By now, my frustrations are at 100/10.
After 4 hours in total, I'm still at the mercy of GoDaddy support. Will they call back as promised? My expectations are low.
What would I do differently next time? I would find another provider - their domains are easy to buy, but good luck trying to transfer them out. There are many other providers for domains, my choice was CloudFlare and Google domains in the end. This company will waste your money and worst of all your time.

I ended up getting my domains transferred out after spending hours on the task. It took weeks to do a simple task. After a few weeks, I received an email telling me one of my domains will be auto-renewed. This was a problem as the domain had auto-renewal turned off and I had it with another provider. Subsequent queries to GoDaddy around clarification have been ignored and met with silence.

I've lost so much business because of their ridiculous 'upgrade' that I had absolutely no choice in or was even aware of until I began losing business. It took about 3 - 4 weeks before I noticed I was not receiving any emails from my site (I used to get anywhere from 3-8 / week depending). So, now that I don't have any business keeping me busy, I now have the time to research the problem and to write this review. Here's what I've found: GoDaddy changed my website's functionality by redirecting the link from the 'Request a Quote/Contact Us' link that used to send the forms to my email address to now sending them to some stupid Conversations App that, get this - in ONLY AVAILABLE on iPHONE/iOS devices. I have a Samsung, so guess what my options are - NONE. They've changed the functionality without asking or telling me. They did it before being completely capable of using their app on both android and iOS devices and they seem completely incapable of fixing it so now I'm continuing to lose business. The support desk kept me on the phone for 2 hours! And in the end said - well it's going to take 90 min - 24 hours before you see the change on your end but it looks good on our end - 3rd time I was told it was fixed and it's the 3rd time they were wrong. ABSOLUTELY NO HELP and have COST ME BUSINESS and is the direct result for LOST REVENUE.
Save yourself time, money and frustration and invest in a better website builder that will allow you to control your own site without them messing with it WITHOUT your permission or even communication regarding same.
I have two businesses. I've already removed one from GoDaddy, looks like I'll be doing the same for this 2nd one.

I am not familiar with computers, websites or WordPress. I purchased a domain through GoDaddy, hired a tech and had a website developed by a tech I found online. Long story short, I know nothing about website development. My error was that after the website was complete l, and $1200 spent on the website, the tech hijacked the website to namecheap and wanted an additional $500 to transfer it back. HE WAS TRYING TO GET ADDITIONAL MONEY AFTER I PAID HIM $1200. I found out the company that it was transferred to was namecheap. I got in touch with them they investigated the situation after I sent them proof of not only my ownership information, but asked them to call the phone number, my number which was still on the website. They called and I answered. The representative from namecheap was so helpful and told me that she would send me an email with instructions on how to get the domain and website back. Basically they asked GODADDY to send them a request and they would transfer it back. GODADDY REFUSED. They said they weren't going to get involved in a "civil matter" and told me to hire an attorney and sue the person in question. I found out that THEY ARE LOCATED IN BANGLADESH! I followed up with GODADDY and they JUST RE FORWARDED the initial email telling me to hire a lawyer. THIS IS AFTER NAMECHEAP VERIFIED MY INFORMATION AND SAID THAT THEY WOULD TRANSFER IT BACK. GODADDY REFUSED to help me! I am older and not familiar with the process of putting websites together. I trusted GoDaddy, but when it came time to TRULY help one of their customers, I WAS SHOCKED... BECAUSE THEY SAID NO. But I believe in Karma both in life and in business. I will not stop until my message reaches as many people as possible. STAY AWAY FROM GODADDY!