Website Hosting Reviews

Apple has a lot of fan-boys, so it should be no surprise that there are a lot of businesses out there that would like to use Mac OS X based cloud services. And Go Daddy was the first web hosting company to meet this demand.

Almost all web hosting providers offer either Linux or Windows based platforms.  Apple really hasn't been an option until GoDaddy launched their  GoDaddy Mac OSX Cloud hosting in early 2010.  At one point it looked like Media Temple was going to offer Mac OS X web hosting, but the product never made it out of testing.

Cloud Servers with Mac OS X by GoDaddy allow users to run virtual servers atop a Parallels hypervisor atop Xserve, Apple’s 1U rackmount server. Each customer server comes with email, address book and iCal server, offers iPhone integration, and comes with built-in wikis, blogs and podcasting, according to GoDaddy's website.

GoDaddy Mac OSX Cloud offers several different packaging options to clients. Prices begin at Economy plans around $99.99/ month for the basic package for up to 10 users, 2GB memory, 60GB storage, and 1TB bandwidth/month. Plan features increase depending on features, space, and other options up to the Ultimate plan for over 50 plus users with 16Gbmemoery, 480GB storage and 4TB/month starting at $549.99/month. 

Mac OS X’s control panels are preference panels, which can be accessed through System Preferences on the interface. Control panels depend largely on the virtual dedicated Linux server you opt to use including: CentOS 4, Fedora 2, Fedora 4, Fedora 6 or Fedora 7. Users can additionally purchase and install Parallels Panel and cPanel. These preference panels are easy to install and control all aspects of a webpage. While this system is unique to Mac systems, users find it very easy to use.

So if you're looking for Mac OSX Cloud web hosting, try GoDaddy today! 

Apple Mac OS X Cloud Server Web Hosting From GoDaddy

GoDaddy 4GH Review Update:  The balance of the information below was before I had a chance to actually use Go Daddy 4GH hosting.  Now that I have tried it, I can tell you the new 4GH GoDaddy hosting is basically more of the same below average hosting from GoDaddy. New name, same crap product.

A client of mine had a Wordpress based website hosted at GoDaddy.  The site page load times were way too high, despite a basic Wordpress install with only a handful of standard plugins.  GoDaddy promised the client that a move to the new 4GH hosting would cure the speed issues.  It didn't - even after numerous technical support calls and GoDaddy engineer support.

The client got me involved, and we moved the Wordpress site to Hostgator.  Page load times have improved dramatically without any changes to the Wordpress setup, which actually doesn't surprise me as I continue to have great luck with Hostgator. 

If you're considering GoDaddy Hosting, do yourself a favor and stay away.  Try Hostgator instead.  You can thank me later.

Don't get me wrong.  I think GoDaddy is a good company and I buy all my domain names from them.  I just avoid their web hosting at all costs, even their 4GH hosting product.

Original Go Daddy 4GH Hosting Review:

GoDaddy has recently rolled-out their new 4GH hosting, or 4th generation hosting. Go Daddy describes the new hosting plan this way - 

"4GH™ (Fourth-Generation Hosting) is a flexible hosting platform that matches performance with demand. If your site's traffic spikes, 4GH responds by allocating more resources and keeping your site live. If your site starts small, but is growing, 4GH grows with it so you don't have to manually upgrade and experience any unnecessary downtime.

4GH "pools" the resources of many servers and your site's content resides on multiple servers. This networked system helps achieve a high reliability—beyond 99.9%—for your website because if one server shuts down, only a fraction of the total resources are lost.

4GH has resources in reserve which are always available to allocate when necessary."

Look, we weren't fans of GoDaddy's "old" web hosting plans.  Their generation 1-3 shared hosting left a lot to be desired.  There's a reason we don't list the previous GoDaddy hosting in our top website hosting providers list. If you ever tried GoDaddy hosting in the past you probably understand the reasons why it was left off our top 10 list.

With 4GH hosting, GoDaddy has built a more flexible hosting platform that is performance based, so when your site's traffic spikes, 4GH can respond and allocate more resources to it, so it stays up and running, which wasn't the case with the old shared hosting plans. Compared with Shared Hosting, 4GH should have better availability and scalability when your website gets more traffic.

So, we have to say we're intrigued by this new 4GH hosting from GoDaddy.  And that's saying a lot because, again, we really didn't like GoDaddy's old shared web hosting platform performance.

But, we're not yet ready to recommend the new 4GH quite yet.  First, we haven't personally tried it yet, and need to.  Second, we're hearing from webmasters that have tried 4GH that the transition from the old GoDaddy hosting to the new 4GH isn't always as smooth as you'd hope.  Some PHP scripts that were working in the old environment are now suddenly broken in 4GH - that type of thing.

Which makes sense.  When you have a brand new product or platform, it can take some time to work out the launch kinks.  I'm guessing that's what GoDaddy's 4GH is going through now - they're fixing all the platform launch bugs and issues.

So, in our GoDaddy 4GH hosting review, we're going to recommend a wait and see approach.  Just like it's prudent not to buy the first technology product version or car and wait to wait for the next model, we think it's the right thing to give the new 4GH hosting time to prove itself in the marketplace.

Let Go Daddy use someone else's website as their guinea pigs to work out the bugs on their new product and platform.  We'll check back in and possibly update this review in 6 months or so after 4GH has had time to prove itself in the marketplace.  Who knows, GoDaddy 4GH may crack the top 10 list in the future.

In the meantime, if you need a web hosting package right away, I'd go with the web hosting offering that many in the industry say GoDaddy was trying to emulate - Hostgator.

We love Hostgator.   Try Hostgator web hosting today!

GoDaddy 4GH Supports these technologies currently: 
•ASP
•ASP .NET (1.1, 2.0, 3, 3.5, and 4.0)
•ASP .NET AJAX
•Python CGI
•PHP 4 and 5
•MS SQL
•MySQL
•Perl w/ FASTCGI

Databases:
•MySQL
•MS SQL

The following are not currently supported, but may be supported in a future release:
•Java
•ColdFusion
•Ruby on Rails
•FrontPage Extensions

GoDaddy 4GH Web Hosting Review

I like comments and emails from readers.  Keep 'em coming!

Sometimes I get a comment that, well, makes me chuckle.  I've pasted a comment below from a reader that is a proponent of GoDaddy's template website builder product "Website Tonight".  She took exception to a few points in one of my older blog posts, Should I Build My Website With Website Tonight.

I've taken out the links to her website in her comment.  I'd prefer not to give her a backlink from this site, which is the reason she left the comment in the first place.  However, I did go look at her website out of curiosity.  What I found was highly amusing ...

She's built her pro Website Tonight help web site with - wait for it - WORDPRESS!  That's right, she didn't even use Website Tonight herself for a website that is trying to sale Website Tonight and help Website Tonight users.  Hilarious.

The commenter made my point from my original blog post via her actions - Website Tonight or other similar template website builders are no longer the best way (if they ever were) to build an effective website. A website that "makes an impact" to borrow from Register.com's tagline.

In my opinion, and apparently the author of the comment really agrees based on her actions, Wordpress with a theme is the way to go.  Or, another CMS like Joomla, etc. would work as well (this website was built with Joomla).  Just please, don't use Website Tonight.

"Perhaps this post is very old, which would explain why the statements made here are incorrect.  Please allow me to clear some things up.

1) Yes, GoDaddy will give you discounts for purchasing longer terms, but you are NEVER "locked in".  You can cancel at any time and get a full refund for any unused time.  So if you buy 5 years and cancel after 2 months you will get 4 years and 10 months refunded in full.  Plus, the 2 months you did use will have been at the 5 year discount.

2) No, Website Tonight does not allow you to upload full HTML pages.  That's because its a website builder for people that do not know HTML and don't want to pay a web designer to build them a website.  However, you can add HTML to Website Tonight.  So if you have a PayPal button, e-newsletter signup form, etc, then you can put it into Website Tonight.

3) Canonical tags are nothing more than a meta tag.  Website Tonight does allow you to create custom canonical tags, or any other meta tag that you want.

The quote from NoDaddy is completely off base.  The functionality in Website Tonight is exceptional.  There is no web builder that's as easy-to-use and as customizable that's also supported by phone 24x7 for as low as Godaddy charges. 

Don't get me wrong.  I do love WordPress, but for many people even WordPress is too much to handle.  The term "install" leaves a blank look on their faces, and "install update" scares them.  That's GoDaddy's target market.  Is Website Tonight the greatest web design platform out there?  No, but for someone with no web building experience (Website Tonight's target market) it's perfect."

Yes, at GoDaddy a Wordpress install isn't easy.  But at other shared web hosts that use cPanel and Simple Scripts or Fantastico, it's a 1-click installation.  Simple.  Easy.  Hostpapa, Hostgator, and Bluehost (See best Wordpress web hosting provider) are all affordable and reliable shared WP hosts with 1-click WP installation.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of GoDaddy. They're great for registering domains or buying affordable SSL certificates.  But if I'm going to build a website, or recommend a way to build a website to someone else, it won't be via the utilization of Website Tonight.  

Again, I think this reader has proven my point by building her website that explains how to use Website Tonight with Wordpress! LOL.

Pro Website Tonight Help Web Site Built With Wordpress Not GoDaddy

We're seeing some web hosting providers offering 10 year web hosting plans.  That's a lot of years.  To entice the consumer to sign-up that long, the web hosts offer a fairly good size discount. 

Our reaction?  Be careful.  A lot of the best shared web hosting companies aren't even 10 years old! Some more detailed thoughts:

- Make sure the domain is in your name, and the company registers it for 10 years up front and doesn't renew the domain name yearly.  There are SEO benefits of registering a domain for multiple years.

- Have you done your homework on price and features?  Maybe that web host is trying so hard to lock you up for 10 years because their price, hosting features, and customer support are below par.  They know they'll lose you after 1 year if they don't get your long term money up front.  Check out the website hosting services list and reviews to do your homework if you haven't already. 

- Technology changes rapidly.  Will you be stuck with an old-fashioned host in the future?

- Web hosts fail at a high rate.  A lot of companies go out of business or are acquired over 10 years time.  Are you covered in the host's services agreement or TOS legal document for scenarios like this?

- What if your business goes under and you no longer need web hosting?   

- Can you get a rebate if you no longer need your site?  If yes, this should be in the services agreement, not a verbal commitment from the host.

- Can you get a rebate if the web host's performance drops?  If yes, this should be in the services agreement, not a verbal commitment from the host.

- What if your website, hopefully, grows so much you need to move from shared hosting to VPS or dedicated hosting?  What happens in that scenario?

- The cost of hosting has come down rapidly over the last few years.  If the costs continue to go down, you may end up paying more over the 10 years even though you're getting an initial discount.  Plus, you remember that economic principle "time value of money" from school, right?

Our opinion?  Buy your web hosting for 3 years max.  That should give you a good balance of initial cost reduction from the term discount, as well as future flexibility. 

Plus, make sure you vet web hosts using website hosting reviews.  Use the reviews to find the web host that best matches your personal website needs.  You may even find a better web hosting company at a cheaper cost - and coupons too!  

 

 Should I Buy a 10 Year Web Hosting Plan?