Never Fear, Hosting Hero is Here!
I’ve always sort of fancied myself as a super hero, kinda like Batman or WonderFish. But until recently, I’ve been missing a very important component of my super hero identity….I had no arch nemesis. Well, I have one now!
It seems that GoDaddy has stepped forward to play this very important role in my super hero identity. Yes, GoDaddy…the mega domain wholesaler and, uh um, web hosting provider. So, now it is time for me to put on the leotard suit and puff my chest out while I do battle with GoDaddy.com. Okay, here’s my story and a message. (Prepare yourself, even the abridged version of the story is long.)
My Story:
A little over a month ago I decided to move one of my blogs off of my GoDaddy shared hosting account due to problems with installing WordPress on GoDaddy servers (there are a multitude of websites that have the detailed instructions) and some data problems that I could not trace the cause of. I backed up my WordPress data and attempted to install with the new host.
Unfortunately, the data backup was incomplete for some reason. When I went back to my database on the GoDaddy server, the database had been renamed. GoDaddy tech support admitted to having problems with WordPress hosting during the past 48 hours, but claimed that the database name change was not possibly created by anyone but me. BTW, the name was changed to something like “AAsad4q24Asdf0-45″. Not a name I would have readily thought of. To read more about this adventure, visit “6 Unheralded Benefits of Blogging” at UTurnAhead.com.
Well, I finally settled in with my new hosting provider, BlueHost.com and even started a couple more blogs. I let my GoDaddy hosting account just sit until last week. Then I decided to give GoDaddy a second chance. I set up a WordPress website for our local disc golf club and for my employer. All was fine for a few days.
But today I was adding a post on the disc golf site and had a problem with uploading a photo. I figured it has to be a WordPress problem (although it worked yesterday), so I reinstalled WordPress. Still didn’t work. On a whim, I decided to see if I could upload photos in my other GoDaddy hosted site…still didn’t work. Finally, I tested the photo uploads on all my BlueHost sites and had no problem at all.
So, is it a GoDaddy problem or something else? To be fair, I really don’t know. The evidence is that the problem occurs on both GoDaddy sites but not on the three BlueHost sites. I began searching for a solution to my problem and started finding a plethora (you like that word?) of blog posts and articles of GoDaddy problems. Here is a sampling…
WordPress and GoDaddy:
- Trippin - “GoDaddy is Killing Me Here“
- DarcyNorman - “Thinking of Ditching GoDaddy“
- Ramblings of a Bored Geek - “GoDaddy 500 Internal Server Error“
- Venetsian - “GoDaddy Web Hosting Causes WordPress Search Engine Privacy Issues“
- Off Topic - “Hosting on GoDaddy“
- Charles Online Review Element - “Problem with Trailing Slash for WordPress in GoDaddy“
- Online Dating Guide & Blog - “Using WP-Cache on GoDaddy (500 Error)“
- Tim Sisk - “WordPress and GoDaddy.com“
- Late Night PC Service - “Mod_Rewrite on GoDaddy with WordPress“
- Romantica.name - “WP-Cache and GoDaddy Hosting“
- Uberdose 2.0 - “Some Thoughts on WordPress Hosting“
- Inside Google - “Great, Now GoDaddy is Screwing Me!“
- StyloMilo.com - “Dumped GoDaddy Host and Migrated to BlueHost“
General GoDaddy Concerns:
- ShoeMoney - “GoDaddy Frustrations Have Hit Me First Hand“
- Building My Empire - “Things About GoDaddy.com“
- The Consumerist - “GoDaddy’s Customer Service Suffers Wardrobe Malfunction“
- 8008135 - “Is GoDaddy Blackmailing Me?” (This is a must read.)
- ZDNet - “GoDaddy Hosting Customers Victim to Massive Hack“
- c|net News - “GoDaddy Pulls Security Site After MySpace Complaints“
- Bad Behavior / Bad Behaviour - “GoDaddy Sucks“
- Forever Geek - “GoDaddy Sucks” (Another original title)
- Miranda Writes (Blog) - “GoDaddy Sucks” (Hmm, same copywriter?)
- RabidGadfly - “GoDaddy Still Sucks” (Still? Really?)
- Blue Mushrooms - “GoDaddy Sucks More than I Thought” (The expanded version)
- Ken Hada - “Archive for the ‘GoDaddy VPS Problems’ Category“
- Ramblings of a Web Guy - “GoDaddy Support is Awful“
- Smaxor’s Musings - “Why GoDaddy Sucks Ballz?“
- Chrono Tron - “[More] GoDaddy Woes…“
- ThreadWatch.org - “Godaddy Grabs a Valuable Domain Name from Their Customer Because of Invalid Email and Profits From It” AND “GoDaddy Holding Customer Sites to Ransom?“
- Jim Boykin’s Blog - “GoDaddy Jobs Problem“
- Wired News - GoDaddy Defends SecLists Takedown
- San Francisco Bay Guardian - “The Self-Appointed Censors at GoDaddy“
- NoDaddy.com - “My Story“
- Geek Daily - “GoDaddy Surpressing Search Engine Indexing“
- Colin McNamara - “Why GoDaddy Linux Virtual Dedicated Hosting Sucks & How to Fix It“
- Johnon.com - “GoDaddy Has a Problem“
- Oregon Herald - “GoDaddy.com/TDNam.com: Are They Careless or Just Stupid?
- DNForum - “GoDaddy Charged Us $29 for Trademark Violation!“
- Geeks With Blogs - “The Woes of Plesk Control Panel for Shared Web Hosting“
And what’s with GoDaddy tech support always needing to put me on hold for another three or four minutes while the rep “Checks on something?” Does he have a burrito in the microwave or just wanting me to rack up more minutes on my phone bill. That’s right, there is no toll-free tech support at GoDaddy.
The Message:
So, is GoDaddy really an evil hosting and domain provider? Nah, probably not on the level of Jerry Springer and Dr. Phil. But I’m writing this post for a different reason. As an advisor to new bloggers, I owe it to you to share this information. The fact is, when you are choosing a host for your blog you need to ask: Do I want to risk the problems that are broadly reported at GoDaddy? Or will I simply take the low cost deal and hope I’m one of the thousands of satisfied GoDaddy customers? (Oh yeah, some of my best friends are GoDaddy fans.)
The bottom line is, shop around and know the potential problems. A great place to start is the BlogFlux Hosting Directory. They have customer reviews and comparisons for a multitude of hosting providers.
[PhotoCredit:FuzzCat]
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Comments
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I am only here to say I signed up to be an affiliate for bluehost and before spending any time creating any promotions on them I signed up for their hosting just to see what my future leads were going to get.
Well… bluehost KILLED my hosting account within 24 hours accusing me to giving them inaccurate contact info.
They won’t reply to any emails now. (???)
Their affiliate manager sound like those fascists that john belushi almost ran over in “Blues Brothers”.
I don’t understand what’s happening with bluehost nor why they treated me like this, nor do I care. I am just here to warn anyone who might be thinking of joining them. These are proper cowboys, they’ll shoot first then they’ll ask “who is there”. I still don’t have a clue what their problem with me was and life’s too short to even bother. I just hope my paypal dispute will help get my $95 back. Oh and while I was in there, it isn’t true that you get adwords and yahoo credits! You only get them if you JOIN adwords and yahoo via bluehost’s AFFILIATE’s link!

I get all of my domains from GoDaddy, they’re cheap (with discount codes) and it’s easy for me to register a new one as they already have all of my details (I’m lazy, can’t be bothered signing up for a new account elsewhere)…