GoDaddy is a privately owned, Internet-based company that provides a variety of services including domain name registration, web hosting and e-business software sales. The company, which is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, was founded by Bob Parsons. Parsons previously owned a financial services software company, which he sold in the mid-1990s upon retirement. He came out of retirement in 1997 to form Jomax Technologies, the predecessor to GoDaddy.
Since it’s inception, GoDaddy has risen to become the largest domain registrar in the world, with tens of million of domains registered to its clients. The company ranks as the world’s largest ICANN-accredited registrar; it’s approximately four times larger than its nearest competition. Recent corporate acquisitions include Outright, Locu, Afternic, and Media Temple.
GoDaddy has redefined Internet hosting services, and it has been the recipient of numerous industry awards and accolades. Among these awards are the 2001 Arizona BBB award for Business Ethics and the 2011 SC Magazine award for Best Security Team. In 2011, it ranked number four in the Phoenix Business Magazine list of “Best Places to Work in the Valley” and it made the 2012 Forbes list of “Best 100 Companies to Work For.”
Known for its sometimes controversial commercials and interesting spokespersons, GoDaddy also sponsors a number of charitable causes in support of domestic violence and child abuse awareness, and sports events, including NASCAR and the Super Bowl. In 2013, the company shifted its advertising strategy to focus more on small to medium sized business owners (SMB). Reflecting this change, its commercials and advertising materials shifted from “sexy” to smart.
The NamesCon live domain name auction will be held on Thursday, January 30, 2020 at 4:30pm Central Time. The auction is being held via GoDaddy Auctions this year, but the live domain name auction will be held via Proxibid. In order to bid remotely via Proxibid, advance registration is required. NamesCon attendees bidding on the auction floor will also need to register prior to the auction start to get a bidding paddle. The auction is being operated by Right of the Dot, Monte Cahn’s company.
There have been several times I have seen my domain names in an “on hold” status at GoDaddy and “pending sale” status at Afternic. These designations mean the same thing, although it has always been a bit confusing because this status has not always resulted in a completed sale. In fact, I would guesstimate that my sale rate is about 50/50 when I notice a domain name in this status.
Because I have been confused about the meaning of this status, I am sure others are as well. I reached out to Alan Shiflett, Director of Sales for the Aftermarket at GoDaddy, to ask him to explain the following things about hold / pending sale status to give us a better idea of what they mean and why some deals fall off:
Once again, Monte Cahn (from Right of the Dot) is responsible for organizing and managing the NamesCon auction that is scheduled for January 30, 2020. There will be a live auction held during the NamesCon conference, and that will be followed by a silent, extended auction that runs through February 14th. The biggest change this year is that the auction will be running via GoDaddy Auctions rather than NameJet.
Monte shared a video interview he did with the 27.be website where he discussed the upcoming auction:
If you visited GoDaddy’s website or its social media pages this morning, you probably noticed the company’s new logo, icon, and color scheme. GoDaddy will now be using two different color schemes in its logo – black and white or teal. The company last made a major change to its logo in May of 2018. When that change was announced by the company, I shared the different versions of GoDaddy’s logo since the company was founded.
I was sent a few variations of the new corporate branding that people should expect to see going forward:
A week ago, there was an active discussion about whether a small startup called Userbase should acquire its brand match .com domain name which was in an expiry auction at GoDaddy Auctions. The company has been operating on Userbase.dev, and the company’s founder (Daniel Vassallo) had polled Twitter to seek out opinions on whether he should spend the money required to buy the domain name. The auction ended at $33,500, and it appeared the company was passing on the opportunity.
it turns out that the winning bidder at GoDaddy Auctions apparently defaulted and did not complete the purchase. As the underbidder in the auction, Daniel was given the opportunity to buy the domain name at his highest bid after the winning bidder’s bids were removed. It looks like he is jumping at the opportunity to purchase the domain name for just shy of $25,000:
GoDaddy recently uploaded a video with a general discussion about how to price domain names. I think Joe Styler shared some good advice, particularly for people who are not domain investors but own valuable domain names and want to put them up for sale.
It’s no secret that I think GoDaddy‘s automated appraisal tool can be harmful to a negotiation involving a high value domain name. It may help sell lower value names, but I would need to sell a whole lot of $1,000 domain names to make up for a lost six figure sale if someone is influenced by a low appraised value. With that in mind, a few people were amused when I suggested that GoDaddy could help domain investors price their domain names. I don’t think I was super clear in that post, so I want to be more specific using an example.
GoDaddy has a bulk domain appraisal tool, although it’s not really promoted much that I can see. The neat thing about this tool is that it doesn’t just spit out the GoValue appraisal. It has additional information included. Here’s an example of what information the tool gives using one of my domain names, Advantageous.com:
