This article shows you how to buy a domain name with GoDaddy. I’ll point out a few things you’re likely to be offered and tell you those you can safely ignore and one that’s worth considering.
If you haven’t yet opened a GoDaddy account, please see: How to set up your GoDaddy account
To get to the Domain search screen, click on Products in the green menu bar. You’ll then see this:
Enter the domain name you would like to use. If this is more than one word, the preferred option is without hyphens. So, for example, type in mybrilliantdomain and not my-brilliant-domain. Then hit the search icon.
If the .com is available, this will be automatically selected – because .com is the definitive first-choice domain name. The next best choices are .net and .org. But be careful if the .com is already taken and there is another gite business using it. You will usually be better off rethinking your domain name until you can find one with .com still available.
GoDaddy will always offer you add-ons and upgrades you don’t need
Be warned, GoDaddy is like a salesman with eight arms, and will offer you a raft of optional add-ons. The only one I recommend you take is the one showing in the image above next to the large Add to Cart button. You can see the price for one year is £13.10, and the price for two years is just 99p more. Pretty good deal – so if it comes up for you, I suggest you take it.
It’s entirely up to you whether you say yes to any of the other add-ons, but you don’t really need them. You might be tempted by the offer of the .co.uk domain for just 1p for the first year. But unless you have a reason to run a separate website on a parallel domain, this is completely unnecessary. Even if you plan to have a French version of your site, you do not need to buy the .fr version of your domain. I can simply set up your French version as a distinct part of your website on the.com domain.
On the first screen you see after you’ve added your domain to your cart, you’ll most likely see something like this:
It’s your call, but personally I have never said yes to privacy protection. If you’re happy to pay the extra annual fee, fine. If not, select No Thanks.
As for that next pre-filled offer “Start your website for FREE” you don’t need that.
Two words that keep on saving you money: No Thanks
The next option is something you will want, but not from GoDaddy – an email address that matches your domain. GiteWise will provide this for you at no extra cost as part of your hosting package.
So make sure you stay opted out of this GoDaddy offer too.
Do not buy SSL from GoDaddy
SSL is the next big thing for websites. Google has announced that from 1 October 2017, having SSL will give you an advantage over competitors who do not have it. What is SSL? In short, a certificate of security that reassures visitors to your site because your web address begins not with http but with https.
Don’t misunderstand me – I do recommend you add SSL to your site. I will be writing more about this in another article. But I do not recommend you buy SSL from GoDaddy – not even if they offer the first year at a rock-bottom price.
When I did a test with GoDaddy for this article, the crafty foxes included Standard SSL at the checkout and I had to click Remove to opt out. So do be careful.
Check what’s in your cart carefully before you buy
You can see here that I’ve chosen to keep the offer to upgrade to a two-year deal at the discounted price. For reference, you can double-check the actual cost of a single year by changing the Term to one year. When I did this, the fee became £9.09 because GoDaddy automatically applied a discount of 30% off. So the saving on the second year is a slightly less generous than it first seemed, but still worth taking.
One other thing – check your spelling of the domain name. I once bought a domain name with a misspelling that made it an instant waste of money.
