Using the GoDaddy website builder

Another review in our series looking at online website builder tools, and next on the list is GoDaddy. As with the rest of this series, it’s been done by my 12 year old son, who’s technical – but 12, so doesn’t have any business experience or much experience of online systems.

GoDaddy website builder: a review

I recently tried using GoDaddy to create a website for a made-up business, Magenta Interiors, in order to see what it was like as a website builder. These are my findings.

To begin with I went to their website and created a free account. I then created a website called “Magenta Interiors” and was given some questions. I was asked to select what features I wanted on my site. However, there were only 3 options, “Sell with an online store”, “Book appointments online,” and “Something Else”. I chose the third one. Usually, with website builders, you are given the choice to make your website from a template, or have AI do it. I wasn’t given that choice here, so I presume that my site was made by AI. It then asked me to choose a category for my site. The category I wanted was Interior design, so I searched for that. However, even when I put in just an “I”, nothing came up. To begin with, I thought this was just due to an abysmally small number of categories, but don’t be fooled by that. You just need to wait for a few seconds for the search to complete. I found my category, and continued. After naming my project, entering contact info for my site and giving GoDaddy a short description of my business, I was given a website. 

Immediately it tried to get me to upgrade my plan, but I ignored it and continued. I could choose what sections I wanted on my homepage, and was then given a handy, optional tour of the interface. However, on its second point it glitched out and wouldn’t let me continue. This could be easily solved by just refreshing the page, but even so. The editor was good at some things, but I couldn’t figure out how to move an image from the right of my page to the left. I felt like it could have been a little more intuitive, but it was workable. The website I was given was really good to begin with, and I could substitute in my own text and images.

For free, I could publish my website under a (not ideal) domain name such as “https://site-vicdlcjvi.godaddysites.com”. However, if you’re not paying, your site has a watermark at the top stating that it was made by GoDaddy. The real drawback, though, is that you can only have one page (not including your privacy policy, which I haven’t seen other website builders automatically implement).

I could, however, add page equivalents in the form of sections. For example, my single page included a blog section, an about section, a contact section, a services section, and more. According to Google, you can add up to 20 sections per page. One page doesn’t sound so bad when you put it like that. When it comes to blog posts, I could get an AI called “Airo” (I can’t stop thinking about a chocolate bar making me content) to write my posts and make/supply images.

It might have just been when I was using it, but the GoDaddy site was really slow. From loading category searches to trying to pull up section options, it certainly takes its time. In fact, I gave up on trying to add a certain section because the menu just wouldn’t load, even after I had waited for 5 minutes. It got so bad that I had to just stop working on my website.

Overall, I think GoDaddy is a good website builder, especially considering its free plan, with an intuitive interface and capable engine, but for me it was painfully slow to use.