How to make Contact Form 7 Work with WordPress on GoDaddy Hosting
Filed in Tutorials & Resources
If you’re having issues with your WordPress Contact Forms, It might not be a plugin or code issues, it could well be your host.
This post is specifically targeted at people experiencing problems with their WordPress contact forms, and sending/ receiving mail functionality who happen to be hosting their site with GoDaddy.
This fix may resolve issues on other hosts too, but broken forms and failing send mail functions are common with WordPress sites hosted with GoDaddy.
Now personally, I would advise any client or fellow freelancer to avoid GoDaddy at all costs. I’ve used my fair share of web hosting companies and my frustrations working with them can be likened to those of a developer working with IE6.
Unfortunately, we freelancers don’t always get to select the web hosting with which we must work, and for those occasions where you’ve torn your hair out trying to figure out why your contact forms aren’t working on your WordPress site – if you’re on GoDaddy – this is probably the solution for you.
Step 1.
Relax, there is a solution. First of all, go make yourself a cup of tea. We’ll fix the problem whilst it cools down.
Step 2.
Download and Install the WordPress SMTP Plugin on your WordPress site.
Step 3.
Login to your Go Daddy Account and click on email.
Next up go to your specified email plan and create a new email address for your website – e.g. [email protected]
Step 4.
Go back to wp-admin and with the SMTP Plugin now activated (in step 2) go to Settings – > WP SMTP and enter the following settings:
From: Email Address you just set up e.g. [email protected]
From Name: Anything you like
SMTP Host: relay-hosting.secureserver.net
SMTP Secure: None
SMTP Port: 25
SMTP Authentication: None
Username: Email Address you just set up e.g. [email protected]
Password: The password you created for the above email address within GoDaddy.
Then save your settings.
Step 5.
Send yourself a test message, if all goes well you’re done. Your contact form 7 forms should all now work once more.
Magic!! Now drink your brew 🙂
Based in London, Working Everywhere
I’m a Freelance Web Designer and WordPress developer, I’m based in London but work with client’s in the UK and all over the world.
Thanks you – sorted a problem I had. And I concur, GoDaddy never again. I would describe it as a hosting ecosystem as opposed to hosting. The more you delve into the their platform, the more you will find that it cannot accommodate your requirements. There is a list (google it) of plugins they won’t support – try installing Jetpack – disappears after a few days – just deleted!
Also, the lack of support tickets is a real issue – a 15 – 30 minute call is a regular occurrence.
Never. Again.
Hello,
Thanks so much for your comment. I find GoDaddy to be totally unhelpful and unreliable. It’s shocking that they would just remove plugins without warning.
Still not working for me.
Tried this, still getting msg “some error occurred” while trying to send test mail …. godaddy useless
Worked. Bizarre that these steps need to be taken, but it works. Thanks!
Nope, didn;t help. I normally don’t use Godaddy either, this is a special project.
This is great! thank you
Thank you so much!!!
After the “customer support” had told me that using contact form 7 was like RUNNING FROM THE POLICE, I was quite ready to give up on a solution for this!!
I don’t have a problem getting emails with Contact 7, but replying to emails is messed up. Have you had the problem when you hit “reply” to the contact form email… that the email address (with GoDaddy hosting) is a combination of the sender’s email address, and some “secureserver.net” stuff added by GoDaddy? Any known solution?
Thanks!
still no solution for me…
I have email through google apps for work and could not get the above working. You can’t create email addresses on GoDaddy if the domain is managed through Google. Instead, I tried my GoDaddy standard mail account found under “Email” (using the user name for cPanel) and the settings provided under “Mail Configuration”, “Configure Mail Client for xxxx” (xxxx being my user name for cPanel without @domain). I got the outbound SMTP server and port from “Manual settings”. These settings worked for me.
Thanks for this article.
As if there weren’t enough reasons already for contact forms to not work properly, here’s a new issue (that’s going to get a lot bigger, quickly) – IPV6. Many, many WordPress plugins for contact and other forms save the visitor’s IP address, but have set their data table field to just 19 characters. That was fine for IPV4, but not IPV6.
The real problem is that WordPress does not give any message or error – it just quietly tosses the form’s entire submitted data if even one field is too large for the database’s settings.
You can read more about this issue on my blog at CompuSolver.com
Hi Hank,
Thanks for your comment and for the added insight to the article!
New settings for the WP-SMTP plugin has been changes. No option to provide email ID there. I tried It was working. But not now. Any other solutions?
Thank you so much for this. I have wasted sooo much time with Go Daddy on this.,