GoDaddy SEO Review: Is GoDaddy SEO a Waste of Money?

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in January of 2023 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

If you’re one of GoDaddy’s 21 million customers, you might be interested to know that the domain registrar and web hosting giant also offers SEO (search engine optimization) tools and services.

Maybe the idea of a one-stop shop for SEO services and hosting appeals to you. Or maybe you use a different hosting provider and are just looking for a good deal on SEO.

This raises the question: Is GoDaddy SEO worth it?

A quick look at reviews for the service may not fill you with confidence. Some users have even labeled GoDaddy SEO a “scam.” Yet GoDaddy claims that most of their clients make it to the first page of search results within six months for their target keywords.

So, who should you believe? 

In this post, we’ll break down the GoDaddy SEO service offering so you can decide if it’s the best way to spend your SEO budget.

What Is GoDaddy SEO?

GoDaddy offers two solutions designed to help with your SEO: the SEO tool and a managed SEO service.

Let’s look at each in turn.

GoDaddy’s SEO Tool

The SEO tool is a DIY solution designed to help users enhance their site’s ability to rank for relevant keywords.

It’s available within the GoDaddy dashboard for all Digital Marketing plan customers and most Websites + Marketing plan customers.

An SEO wizard guides you through the process of adding keywords to your page titles, headlines, body copy, and meta descriptions. You simply enter some terms related to each page, and the tool will provide you with a list of recommended keywords and the ability to add them to your page.

While GoDaddy claims users of the tool have seen 2x more website traffic and 2.5x more traffic from Google, we’re a little skeptical. Although keyword optimization is indeed an essential ingredient for boosting your search engine visibility, there are several other factors that are equally important for successful SEO.

What’s more, the tool is just very basic. 

Keyword suggestion tools are widely available—often for free. And at the very least, you can find one that doesn’t lock you into a 12-month plan at $10.99 per month like GoDaddy does.

GoDaddy’s Managed SEO Service

That brings us to GoDaddy’s other SEO offering: managed SEO services. 

This is GoDaddy’s version of an SEO agency. You hand over your SEO project to GoDaddy’s team for a custom fee, and they learn about your business and target audience, audit your site, and implement SEO updates to boost your organic visibility. 

It’s available whether or not you use GoDaddy to build or host your website.

Here’s what’s included in GoDaddy’s managed SEO service:

• Site review
• Keyword research
• Site submission to search engines
• Submission to directories
• Comment link-building
• Social bookmarking
• Short-form blog posts 
• Article posts
• On-page keyword optimization (optional)
• Installation and monitoring of Google Search Console and Google Analytics
• Ongoing management
• Ranking and reporting dashboard

GoDaddy claims that 80% of customers manage to rank on the first page of Google’s search results within six months of using their service (provided that the customer opts for the recommended plan and allows for on-page keyword optimization).

Sounds pretty good, right?

Well, before you rush to your credit card, let’s first dive into the details of GoDaddy’s managed SEO service.

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Pros and cons of GoDaddy SEO services

What’s Good About GoDaddy SEO

GoDaddy’s SEO service comes with many things you’d expect from a good SEO provider—at least on paper.

First, the service assigns you an account manager, and when that person isn’t available, you can track your site’s SEO developments through a ranking and reporting dashboard. You’ll also get monthly or quarterly calls to update you on your site’s progress.

Second, the service goes beyond mere keyword research and on-page optimizations. It also takes care of some content creation and link-building efforts to help boost your site’s authority and credibility in the eyes of search engines. 

But perhaps the biggest appeal of GoDaddy’s SEO services is the price. While there’s no way to know exactly how much you’d pay without getting an official quote, past customers have reported paying as little as $50 per hour for the service.

To put this into perspective, the average SEO agency in the U.S. charges between $75 and $150 per hour.

And finally, the main draw of any outsourced SEO service is that it takes work off your hands. You can focus on running your business while an SEO expert takes care of your site’s rankings.

What’s Bad About GoDaddy SEO

Despite paying lip service to some core pillars of SEO—like on-page optimization, content creation, and link building—GoDaddy’s SEO service offering leaves much to be desired.

Here’s how various service components fall short:

On-Page Keyword Optimization 

GoDaddy offers optional “onsite recommendations,” which entails adding their suggested keywords to your page titles, meta descriptions, and “at least on image alt tag.” 

But effective keyword optimization requires much more than this (and, as a side note, on-page optimization isn’t “optional” for SEO). 

Relevant keywords should also appear in your page subheadings, body copy, and your URLs. 

More importantly, your use of keywords should seem natural and unforced to maintain a positive user experience and avoid charges of keyword stuffing. 

It’s also essential to ensure your page aligns with the search intent behind whatever keywords you target. In other words, your content should address and solve whatever problem the user had in mind when they entered the keyword into Google.

Adding a few keywords here and there simply isn’t good enough.

Link Building

GoDaddy also offers “offsite SEO optimization.” This is the practice of increasing the authority of your website by getting high-quality, respected websites to link back to yours.

However, GoDaddy’s choice of link-building tactics is outdated and could even harm your SEO efforts.

Let’s look at each one in turn:

• Business citation building: GoDaddy adds your site to directories like the Bing Business Portal, Foursquare, and Yahoo Listings. However, these huge directories don’t offer much benefit in terms of boosting your site’s authority and rankings. Search engines perceive these links as low-value because they are so easy to obtain and don’t indicate a genuine endorsement of your business. A better option would be to list your site on niche or industry-specific directories.
• Comment link-building: According to GoDaddy, “Our system finds applicable websites… We then compose a short, unique comment with the relevant content and keyword and include a link back to your site.” This is textbook comment spam and can lead to search engine penalties. Google interprets this practice as an attempt to manipulate search rankings rather than contribute meaningfully to discussions.
• Social bookmarking: GoDaddy adds all the links they create for your site to social sites like Pinterest and Reddit. While social media can be extremely beneficial for promoting content when done right, social links generally don’t carry much weight for ranking purposes. Most social media links are “nofollow,” which means they don’t influence the ranking potential of the linked-to website.

It’s important to remember that link-building best practices have changed a lot over the years. Sites used to be able to boost rankings by buying low-quality links from link farms or using other spammy techniques like linking from blog comments.

But Google’s systems have become much better at recognizing the difference between good and bad links. These days, the goal is to earn links from authoritative websites that are relevant to your business or industry. GoDaddy’s methodologies are inherently flawed in this regard.

Content Creation

Finally, GoDaddy’s SEO services include content creation, which is critical for maximizing your site’s visibility for relevant keywords. 

However, GoDaddy’s content offering doesn’t seem to include content creation for your own site. Rather, the content pieces they create are posted to other sites in an attempt to earn a link back to yours.

The first type of content they provide is short-form blog posts. And by short, we mean short—”usually around two paragraphs.” This sounds like low-quality, thin content that offers no value to potential readers. 

What’s more, GoDaddy claims their team will “use your keywords multiple times” throughout these short posts. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to do when it comes to longer-form content, but it could constitute keyword stuffing (a Google no-no) in the context of a two-paragraph post. 

The second type of content on offer is articles. These are longer and more thoroughly researched than GoDaddy’s blog posts. Your articles will be posted to sites like Hubpages and Squidoo, which will distribute the content nationally. Although links from these sites may provide some SEO value, they’re no substitute for securing backlinks from more authoritative sources with more relevance to your business.

What Else Is Missing?

Some of the most important factors in modern SEO aren’t even mentioned on GoDaddy’s website.

For example, optimizing site speed is essential. Page speed has been an official Google ranking factor on mobile since 2018, and Google has used mobile-first indexing for all searches since October 2023. In other words, how fast your site loads can affect your rankings on both desktop and mobile.  

Another key pillar of SEO that isn’t mentioned is technical SEO. This covers things like optimizing site architecture, setting up redirect chains, and ensuring proper indexing and crawlability. Without tending to these factors, your site can become hard for visitors to use and for search engines to find.

Lastly, GoDaddy doesn’t appear to place much emphasis on the importance of local SEO. In 2023, 21% of U.S. consumers used the web to find a nearby business every day, and around 32% did so several times a week. 

Put simply, local SEO is essential if you serve customers within a specific geographic area. It involves maintaining up-to-date local business listings (especially a completed Google Business Profile), developing location-based content, and gathering and managing local customer reviews. 

Further reading: Check out our guide to local SEO to learn more about why it matters and how to do it.

GoDaddy SEO Reviews

By now, it should be clear we’re not the biggest advocates of GoDaddy’s SEO services.

But don’t take our word for it.

Here are just a few comments and reviews we’ve found about the service from past customers.

“GoDaddy SEO services turned into a pure nightmare for our little business.” (Source)

“After one month, we got one 200-word article written on a completely irrelevant blog… from a site that is clearly a link farm. We also got three links in forums/comments, all being “no-follow” links, which are completely useless for SEO.” (Source)

“I worked with a client who operates in a unique market with very little competition. Said client was using GoDaddy SEO services, and unfortunately, the service did not deliver on its promise… Bottom line, this site was super simple to rank.” (Source)

“GoDaddy is offering SEO services the same way that McDonald’s is providing nutrition. What GoDaddy is offering isn’t really SEO, it’s an incredibly basic plan that is unlikely to do anything significant for your business. Despite its low cost, this is an extremely pointless SEO option and highly inadvisable for business owners.” (Source)

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Are GoDaddy SEO services a waste of money?

Clearly, GoDaddy’s SEO service has some serious downsides. 

But is the discounted price worth missing out on a few key SEO features?

Probably not.

Good SEO costs money. But businesses generally find it’s money well spent. 

Clients who invest over $500 per month for SEO are 53.3% more likely to be “extremely satisfied” compared to those who spend less than $500 per month.

The fact is that what you get from GoDaddy’s SEO service is the bare minimum you’d expect from any worthwhile SEO provider. As we see it, the service offering is simply inadequate for most businesses that are serious about SEO. 

On top of that, there’s the real risk that some of GoDaddy’s SEO practices will do more harm than good.

Specifically, building low-quality links and consistently publishing thin content that provides little value to readers can lead to penalties from Google and damage your site’s reputation. 

And if GoDaddy SEO actually harms your SEO efforts, it’s fair to say it’s a waste of money.

What to Use Instead of GoDaddy SEO

It’s worth keeping in mind that GoDaddy’s core offerings are hosting services and domain name registration. Organic search isn’t their bread and butter.

For real SEO expertise, it’s best to turn to a dedicated SEO agency.

Hiring a top SEO agency may cost a little more than the GoDaddy SEO service, but it’s still an affordable way to do SEO.

Why You Should Invest In SEO

If you’re a website owner and want more traffic, leads, and customers, you can’t afford to ignore SEO. 

Around 49% of marketers say it’s their most profitable channel. Also, organic leads convert at a rate of 14.6% compared to just 1.7% for those sourced from outbound efforts.

But what’s the best way to get a successful SEO campaign off the ground?

You could do it yourself. But if you’re not already an SEO guru, you should expect a fairly steep learning curve. Chances are, you already have enough on your plate.

You could hire a full-time employee for your business. But bear in mind that the average yearly salary for a senior SEO manager is around $80k—significantly more than you’d likely pay for a whole team of SEOs at an agency.

You could hire a freelancer. But an individual contractor doesn’t have the broad expertise of an SEO agency’s entire team. Clients tend to report being less satisfied with freelancers than agencies.

Finally, you could partner with a reputable SEO firm. This option gets you the most SEO expertise for the best price.

A good SEO agency will:

• Stay up-to-speed on changes to Google’s algorithm and the latest SEO trends and best practices.
• Provide multiple types of SEO, including on-page optimization, link building, technical SEO, content development, and local SEO.
• Keep you updated on your campaign progress and provide regular reports.
• Have a good reputation, glowing reviews, and industry-recognized awards.

For a real-life example of what an SEO agency can do, let’s look at SmartBox.

SmartBox came to HigherVisibility looking for help with a rebranding project and hoping to grow its organic traffic.

HigherVisibility started by performing individualized competitive research in the storage and moving space to identify short- and long-term opportunities.

We performed a continuous technical audit of SmartBox’s website to identify any issues that might affect rankings. We also audited the site’s backlink profile to ensure there were no quality links being disavowed.

Our team also researched new backlink opportunities and reached out to relevant sites. We didn’t just target sites where anyone could post content; we specifically looked for sites with previously unlinked mentions of the SmartBox brand.

We also found that SmartBox was suffering from low-quality content. We worked on pruning any content that no longer added value and rewrote other content to better satisfy the user intent behind our target keywords.

You’ll notice that most of what we did here went far beyond what’s included in GoDaddy’s approach to SEO services. And it paid off. In the end, HigherVisibility increased organic traffic for SmartBox by almost 160% and organic conversions by over 210%.

GoDaddy SEO FAQs

Is GoDaddy A Good SEO Company?

GoDaddy is a well-known web hosting and domain registration company, but it is not renowned for its SEO services. 

While GoDaddy does offer a basic SEO tool and managed SEO service, these are fairly limited in scope and don’t provide the comprehensive optimization needed to achieve sustainable, long-term rankings. 

For businesses looking for professional help with their digital marketing efforts, it’s best to look elsewhere for an experienced and reputable SEO provider.

How Much Does GoDaddy Charge for SEO?

GoDaddy’s SEO tool is available for most customers of its Website + Marketing plans and all customers of its Digital Marketing plan. The cheapest of all these options starts at $10.99 for 12 months.

GoDaddy’s managed SEO services are priced on a per-customer basis. What you pay depends on the scope of your SEO project. However, past customers report paying as little as $50 per hour for the service—significantly lower than the average SEO agency hourly rate.

Is SEO Free on GoDaddy?

No. GoDaddy does not offer any free SEO tools or services. Access to the SEO tool is only available to customers of GoDaddy’s Website + Marketing and Digital Marketing plans. GoDaddy’s managed SEO services depend on your unique SEO project requirements and business needs. 

It’s important to note that while SEO may require an upfront investment, it can pay off in the long run with increased visibility and higher search engine rankings.

Is It Worth Paying for SEO Services?

Yes, it is worth paying for SEO services. SEO is a core component of any digital marketing strategy, helping your site appear more prominently in Google for your target customers’ search queries. 

Investing in professional SEO services ensures your website meets all the necessary technical requirements for optimal performance, which often leads to higher search engine rankings and increased traffic over time.

Final Thoughts

GoDaddy’s SEO service may seem a tempting option given its relatively low costs and the company’s claim to help 80% of customers achieve page-one rankings within six months.

However, when we look under the hood, we see that what’s on offer is basic at best and seriously inadequate at worst. 

Of course, a simple SEO plan might work if you run a small business. After all, some SEO is better than none. 

But if you believe that SEO is essential for your business growth, your best bet is to hire a dedicated agency to design and implement a comprehensive strategy tailored to your specific needs.

Don’t let a web hosting company do your SEO

The cost of cheap SEO is expensive. Talk with the 4X SEO Company of the Year and let us put together a custom strategy for you for free.

Request a Proposal