GoDaddy shared hosting: too slow?
12th March 2007
Update 7: I’m now quite satisfied with page generation times. See other updates at the end of the post and comments to find out more.
Note: have a look at other hosting options.
I’m currently using GoDaddy shared hosting plan. I noticed that my blog, as it grows in popularity and visitors, displays a wide range of page-response times. The best I had seen so far was below 3 seconds of page generation time (note: _not_ page loading, but page generation). If it were the average, I would be happy. However, much more frequently observed times are in range of 20-30 seconds per page. Sometimes pages even timeout, as my uptime tracker service is reporting (For February, there were 100 minutes of unresponsive pages, for March - already over 10 hours!!!).
For example, today around 16:00 GMT the following statistics were reported by my blog:
22 queries.
33.416 seconds.
Evidently, this is unacceptably slow.
Based on that same tracker, when plain-html file was tracked, no downtime was observed. It was only after I started tracking the PHP-generated file, that “downtimes” became obvious. Evidently, CPU is not powerful enough to handle all the processing from multiple shared-hosting accounts at GoDaddy server(?s), thus time-outs are observed.
I used the reverse-IP tool from domaintools.com to find out, that
There are 3707 domains hosted on this IP address.
Here are a few of them:1. 100-downloads.com
2. 101artisanlane.com
3. 107threnegades.net
(Well, with 100GB storage and 1TB traffic I think I could have the 100-downloads-like web-site, but only based on pure-html pages, with no scripting at all. With scripting, that would be a dead site, deducing from my blog’s page generation speeds.)
I will contact GoDaddy support with the “slow page generation, low CPU?” question to see if anything can be done. So far I’m satisifed with GoDaddy, even as my demands continue to grow since 2005. With static pages I think there would be no problems, but who uses static pages nowadays?
Meanwhile, I found the Linux Tera-Host hosting plan from hostican attractive, as for 10$/month. Well, “unlimited bandwidth” does look slightly suspicious, as it can be 40kbit/sec “unlimited” :). Please comment if you had any previous experience with hostican… or with decreasing page-generation times on GoDaddy shared hosting.
Update: after I contacted GoDaddy support with “slow page generation”, the page generation speed actually increased. So far the timings for a single page generation are within 1-10 seconds, and I do not get any more “downtimes” in my hosting uptime tracker. However, communication with support did not reveal anything new concerning my question. As long as page generation times do not increase, I’ll archive and forget about this problem. (…doubting that any other shared hosting provider will ensure enough CPU to get less-than-a-second-per-page times.)
Update 2: there’s also more important information about GoDaddy hosting, namely about their scheme of preventing one shared hosting user eating up 100% of system resources.
Update 3: as of January 31, 2008, there are 2924 domains hosted on my shared hosting server (according to reverse-IP tool).
Update 4: as of April 6, 2008, there are 2834 domains hosted on the server with the same IP as mine. I must add that it seems as though since that short MySQL outage everything is faster at GoDaddy shared hosting. Did they upgrade database server(s)? I have no idea, but I like the change.
Update 5: as of June 3, 2008, there are 2754 domains hosted on my shared hosting server at GoDaddy.
Update 6: as of July 16, 2008, there are 2697 domains hosted on my shared hosting server at GoDaddy. Moreover, the Deluxe shared hosting plan now has 1.5 times higher disk and bandwidth limits, and 5 times more FTP users per account. Page generation times have improved noticeably, though some slowdowns in the peak hours can be still observed.
March 12th, 2007 at 20:47
I used GoDaddy’s hosting for my blog too (at first). I ran into TONS of problems with their system and eventually moved over to ServerGrid.com
March 13th, 2007 at 22:56
Donn, thanks for the suggestion. However, I’m not used to Windows hosting… It’s not a religion, just never hosted anything on W2k3 servers with my PHP+MySQL sites. ASP and MSSQL are (were? three years passed since I compared) no better than PHP and MySQL, so no stimulus to change. Besides, disk space currently offered at servergrid is way too small: at GoDaddy, I’m already using around 3GB of space, and I’m not running anything special there - just a photogallery of one of the bioinformatics courses with full-size photos :). And I’m sure my disk appetites will only grow, as entropy does, even though we don’t like that happening
January 30th, 2008 at 21:51
Ahh, thanks for the domaintool.com link. I checked my godaddy.com hosted site and my IP is currently shared with 2651 domains. No wonder my friend’s forum runs so much faster than mine! He only shares his IP with ~230 domains.
April 6th, 2008 at 1:32
Godaddy hosting is trash. It’s very slow, I’m sharing with over 2700+ other websites on the same server and I only run a data-slim forum. I get up to 30+ seconds page generation time with timeouts. Godaddy is terrible hosting and their customer relations just ignores you.
April 6th, 2008 at 9:19
Defaye, did this post load fast for you? I’m actually experiencing blog speedup (see update 4 in the post text). Page generation times are now usually within 4 seconds.
If you do have 30 seconds/page in multiple reloads - that’s really slow. I think you could enable some performance options in the forum control panel (like caching) to make it faster. If you plan moving - have a look at other hosting options, some of them are said to be good.
June 2nd, 2008 at 21:21
We host a pretty high traffic website with Godaddy called mySearchBonus.com and sometimes our servers slow way down. While we dont usually get anything like 20-30 second load times we do get up to 10-15 seconds for a very simple page to load.
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:53
Geoffrey, how “high-traffic” your site is?
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:56
and, I’ve to ask: do you use google’s adsense for search to monetize other people’s searches?
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:09
and two more things:
- there are 3 domains on your IP address. First I thought that you aren’t actually on GoDaddy, but I checked and you are: thus, you must have one of the VDS plans, not a shared hosting plan. Is that the case?
- if you do experience slowdowns, then it’s likely network clogs, unrelated to server performance. My post is more about server performance.
June 24th, 2008 at 22:28
I check my website with powweb, There are 10,363 domains hosted on this IP address. my website down at 20% of time, and they tell me they can do nothing and can not find my website down, I use siteuptime.com for free monitor. have to move now. thanks for the reverse ip tool
July 16th, 2008 at 10:42
I run a hunting guide Web site thats hosted through GoDaddy and uses the Joomla! CMS to dynamically create its pages and I have no problems with page load time. I’ll stick with GoDaddy and continue to recommend it to my friends.
July 16th, 2008 at 10:54
Jake,
please see my update 6 to the post text. And I’m still with GoDaddy, as the service quality trend seems to be positive.
August 16th, 2008 at 0:25
Im not a big fan of GD either. I have a web analytics consulting business that has terrible speeds with GD hosting. Come on GD, step it up!
I think the domain management is great, but the performance is horrendous
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:52
I had exactly the same problem. I use Gallery 2, installed through GoDaddy’s interface. Page loads are extremely slow at worst and barely acceptable at best. I had a long email exchange with GoDaddy. After trying to imply that it is my fault for a while (”you are running CPU-hungry code, optimize your database”) they finally suggested that I can get a virtual server account and that they think my load times are reasonable. Well, now I more or less decided that I have to switch. I am willing to pay a bit more and to get a reasonable service in exchange.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:38
Marcin,
I’m now more or less satisfied with page load times of this blog and gallery2 I have here.
However, I’m currently assembling my own server from off-the-shelf components
to collocate it with some ISP for about USD 20/mo 
That’s 3 times the price of Deluxe shared plan, but still a lot cheaper than VPS/VDS solutions, and I’ll have full (remote) control over server, and will be able to sell some of it if I want to. However, this adds the hassle of maintaining the server, which I’m prepared to face.
September 3rd, 2008 at 13:12
Bogdan,
I do have to admit that you do get quite a reasonable load times. I suspect that GoDaddy either accidentally or deliberately treats different customers differently. It may be that I originally got stuck with an overcrowded server but another possibility is that I am running a strictly private page without the visibility of your blog. I wonder if GoDaddy is more accommodating to pages that are more visible like yours.
September 3rd, 2008 at 13:32
Marcin,
might be the reason
Using reverse-ip tool, it looks like the number of domains hosted on my exact “shared” server at GoDaddy has fallen from ~3700 in March 2007 to ~2700 as of July 2008.
Also, I’m now some 3 years with GoDaddy, and it might be that long-staying customers get some “indirect” benefits.
But still, own server is way better :), especially if you don’t have to pay for the server’s outgoing bandwidth.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:58
Thanks for the tips. I’m hosting my site with Godaddy Economy hosting. Reverse-IP says there are 3,339 domains hosted on this IP. Does upgrading to Deluxe or Premium hosting make things any better?
I’m getting page load times between 25-30 seconds consistently for 383 KB. I am running Wordpress using their Hosting Connection.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:36
Andy,
when I tried (at 09:30 UTC), your blog was pretty fast. Actually, on the non-first front page load it was done in 4 seconds (measured by YSlow). All the other pages I tried were also below 5 seconds in loading times. (First page load was slower than those times)
Thus, I think that 25-30 seconds might be the case in peak hours only. From my experience I know that “peak hours” do exist at GoDaddy
As for Deluxe/Premium: I don’t know if moving to one of these will put you on a better server or increase some undisclosed CPU/speed quotas - you may ask the Support or some knowledgeable GoDaddy person. The main reason for me to move to Deluxe was the ability to host unlimited sites with it.
October 17th, 2008 at 12:20
I don’t think length of time with godaddy means anything. I have had 5+ linux shared hosting (currently 14) plans over the past 9 years with them. Servers are STILL extremely slow with any Wordpress blogs. With static html - fast enough. Recently I checked how many others shared my IP’s - the average was 3500. I guess that’s their limit. Hell of a limit! I am experimenting with buying dedicated IPs for my sites to see what effect that has. Must make them faster. But, overall the real problem is php code from wordpress. Caching helps but STILL slow. Tried virtual hosting at godaddy and ran into so many permissions issues because they run SAFE PHP whatever that is - and I can’t cache my pages because no matter what permissions I put on my folders - the plugin (super-cache) STILL can’t write to the correct directories. Ugggh. Anyone know a super host that CAN host Wordpress blogs WELL?
October 17th, 2008 at 13:07
Vern,
I always thought that the major problem is with their MySQL servers, as my log files very often show “MySQL server has gone away during query” messages (or similar “Cannot connect to MySQL server”). So if you manage to put together some PHP script which doesn’t use MySQL, I would expect it to be pretty fast
(an example would be switching to PHP’s built-in SQlite file-based database, but it looks like not that may programs support it at the moment).
Please report here if you succeed with “dedicated IP” positive performance effect (which I doubt).
As for the “super host” - I didn’t try anything else US-based except for GoDaddy. I suspect that Ukrainian hosting might be of little interest to you, so I won’t offer it.
I found SliceHost to be potentially interesting (VPS starting at 20$/mo, sound disk/BW limits for cheap). Theoretically interesting is also http://www.dreamhost.com/hosting-vps.html (mmm… “unlimited” with an added guarantee of CPU/RAM and/or MySQL performance).
Personally, I now have a server, which only needs to be collocated somewhere. After that, I’ll start playing with free Hosting Control Panels to choose one which will work for me. After that, I’ll be giving away free hosting accounts for about half-year of further testing. There will be separate announcement on this blog when that give-away happens. (After the free period, services provided and prices will be comparable to those of slicehost.)