WordPress Sites Hosted On GoDaddy Hacked For Second Week In A Row

I am sure by now you have all heard that the Internet web host,  GoDaddy, was hacked…again. On April 24th, GoDaddy was hacked with a malware virus that infected the host files and hundreds, if not thousands, of WordPress blogs. Many customers were notified by their readers about the infection, as their virus programs gave them a warning when they tried to visit their sites. GoDaddy apparently was unaware until they got a flood of calls from their clients. GoDaddy was unprepared to take care of this situation. They admitted that they had no idea how the malware infected their servers. They still don’t. The problem appeared to be resolved, until this past Saturday, May 1st, when yet another round of this virus was unleashed.

And this isn’t the first time this has happened. I doubt it will be the last. I found articles dating back to 2006.

MANY of the sites infected this time are the same ones who were infected last weekend. No sooner did they get their sites up and running, then they were hit again. Some customers even had the malware infect their whole hard drives and had to have their PC’s professionally fixed. That isn’t free, people.

I have several friends whose blogs are infected and they are getting no real help from GoDaddy to fix it. They were given instructions on how to do a back up to April 30th, but some of them are not tech savvy at all and very scared to touch anything in their core theme files or host. What if they mess something up that cannot be easily fixed? One friend was told to buy a MySQL for nearly $30, only to find out that she could have gotten the same thing for $12.99 on the GoDaddy website! How’s that for customer service and a bait and switch?

And still, GoDaddy doesn’t do much of anything to truly take care of their customers. Well unless you want to pay for it, that is. And GoDaddy hosting is expensive. Plus you don’t get a CPanel. I love my CPanel. It makes going into your host so simple and easy to understand.

I beg anyone who is still with GoDaddy as their host to run, not walk to new hosting. GoDaddy is not showing a very good track record for protecting their customers or for taking care of them. I use HostGator. I LOVE them. I can call anytime, day or night, and talk to a human being…no charge. I can have as many domains as I want, as many emails as I want and I have unlimited bandwidth and disk space.

If you would like proof of how wonderful HostGator is, go read this HostGator WordPress Review by a victim of  GoDaddy’s lax security and even worse customer service. Heather had just gotten her site back up and free from viruses when she got hit with the second wave of malware. And true to form, GoDaddy did nothing to help her. So she switched to Hostagtor and got it all taken care of. Go read about how happy she is with them.

When I first moved to WordPress from Blogger, I was using LoudMouth Hosting. It was wonderful. Brandy is wonderful. And her hosting is HostGator based. She is a reseller. But, I kept going over my bandwidth and disk space. Plus I knew I wanted to open more sites eventually and need the ability to have all my domains on one host. I saved up so that I could move. Let me tell you that HostGator is awesome. They moved everything for me. All I had to do was change my nameservers for my domain. In less than two hours, everything was back to normal. And I don’t even think any of my readers knew I was moving because they could still get to my blog.

So please, for your own sanity, change your host from GoDaddy to something else. I prefer and recommend HostGator, or any of the fine resellers that go through HostGator. My favorite reseller, being LoudMouth Hosting, of course. You can also choose FatCow, who my dear friend Jess, swears by.

It is your choice. I have given you my top 3:

1. HostGator
2. LoudMouth Hosting
3. FatCow

I will, however, tell you the other hosts, besides GoDaddy, that I do not recommend:

• DreamHost — No actual HUMAN telephone customer service, unless you pay for it, and they turn their “24 hour Help” chat off arbitrarily. Usually at the exact moment you need it most.
• CookieHost — NO customer service to be found.
• GoDaddy –  for obvious reasons

Here is a good way to judge whether or not a host is good or not:

1. If you cannot talk to a human being, ever.
2. If you must pay to talk to a human being.
3. If you only pay a minimal amount for an entire year of hosting. Cheap prices generally equal cheap customer services.
4. If you find articles about the host being hacked and customers’ sites being infected going back several years.

Now all you GoDaddy customers, go and get a reliable hoster so that you will not have to deal with the crap my friends are going through right now.

Just before I was about to publish this post, I found the following “update” from GoDaddy on Neowin.net:

As we continue to investigate the matter, our Security Team has noted that reports of sites with this malware that were not WordPress blogs have the commonality that an outdated version of WordPress is either powering part of the site or that it is not in use, but is still present on the hosting plan. Additionally, we have heard reports of the compromise occurring on other hosting providers.

Again, we are actively and aggressively working to identify the cause and we’ve published a means to correct it

If the fact that GoDaddy cannot protect your site after a WordPress update doesn’t get you to run far, far away in the complete opposite direction, I don’t know what will. I do find it funny that they are basically blaming WordPress for the virus and not themselves for not being more vigilant in keeping their paying customers’ sites safe from attack.

** The FTC requires me to tell you that I have put my affiliate link in this post. I was not paid or compensated to write this post. I did it because hate that GoDaddy is not protecting their customers from these malware attacks. But if you click my link and purchase hosting {PLEASE make sure you clear your cache and cookies before clicking any of my links. There seems to be problem with me getting credit for my sales lately}. I will make a few bucks. That is kind of the point of having an affiliate link, now isn’t it? D’OH!!**

Tags: GoDadddy Blames WP, GoDaddy BLOWS, GoDaddy WP Sites Hacked

Category: My Opinions