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 NYSE welcomes @GoDaddy and Walton Goggins to celebrate its 10th anniversary of listing! $GDDY https://t.co/9XYaVN4Moh
— NYSE 🏛 (@NYSE) April 1, 2025
GoDaddy executives range the opening bell this morning at the New York Stock Exchange. The honor was given to GoDaddy to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of GoDaddy becoming a publicly traded company. At the center of the GoDaddy team is Aman Bhutani, CEO of GoDaddy for the last 5+ years.
My Afternic Lead Center is full of Stalled, Qualifying, Confused, and Unknown leads. As a domain investor, this is pretty confusing and slightly frustrating. I don’t blame Afternic brokers for this because I have become familiar with how their platform works, but I do think Afternic and GoDaddy should better educate its sellers on the brokerage process.
When a prospective buyer submits an offer or inquiry, I am pretty certain they quickly receive an automated email with information about the domain name and a broker contact. The Afternic broker will follow up various times via email and a phone call if they have the correct phone number. Afternic brokers earn a living on commissions, so they have a vested interest in selling domain names.
I enabled Afternic’s self-brokerage option as soon as I heard it went live. I immediately tested it out with one of my own domain names so I could see how the platform works as a buyer and as a seller. Before I got started, I ran into an issue, and I couldn’t tell if it was a feature or a bug. James Iles confirmed to me that it this difference is intentional.
When sellers have the self-brokerage option disabled, prospective buyers will be shown a form to submit an offer. On the form, they need to provide their name, email address, and phone number. There are also a few pop-up questions that appear after submitting the form. When sellers have self-brokerage enabled, prospective buyers who wish to submit an offer will need to sign-in to a GoDaddy account to proceed or create a new GoDaddy account. You can have a look at the difference here:
I am sure one of the most popular requests of GoDaddy is the ability to manage inbound purchase inquiries and offers for domain names listed for sale via Afternic. This is no surprise considering this was a major selling point of two companies GoDaddy acquired – Dan.com and Uniregistry.
Afternic just announced self-brokerage capabilities have been enabled for approximately 100,000 people who are members of GoDaddy’s Discount Domain Club’s top tier. I can see this has been enabled in my account, and I am going to test the platform to see how it works for a buyer and seller to get a feel for how it works, how it looks, and the timing of inquiries and responses.
Notably, the sale commission for a successful transaction is the same percentage as it would be if a GoDaddy/Afternic broker were negotiating on behalf of the owner. The advantage (or disadvantage depending on your perspective) is the domain registrant can respond and negotiate in their own style and at their own pace.
When a user searches for a domain name at GoDaddy, and it is not listed for sale via its network, the Domain Broker Service offering is shown. To utilize DBS, a customer pays north of $100 and an additional 20% fee if a deal is reached.
If a customer pays to utilize a GoDaddy DBS broker, the broker will connect directly with the prospect to understand the budget and discuss the acquisition. It is during this initial conversation, I believe, the broker understands if the buyer intended to make an offer or if the DBS purchase was in error, believing the domain name could be bought for that amount. Assuming the buyer genuinely wants to use the DBS, the buyer and broker discuss budget and offer before connecting with the domain registrant.
While these discussions do not include the domain registrant, GoDaddy customers do have a dashboard where they can see their domain names that are subject to a DBS lead. DBS.GoDaddy.com will take GoDaddy customers to a dashboard with their DBS purchase inquiries as well as purchase inquiries that were made for their registered domain names.
On February 21, and then again on February 26, @dnacademy will host a live, three-hour Afternic masterclass session!
Join @jjstyler and members of our team to dive deep into our platform to help refine your Afternic sales strategy. Sign up details:https://t.co/dRFt4EYrZe
— Afternic (@afternic) February 14, 2025
Afternic will be hosting a free three hour “Masterclass” for members of its Domain Discount Club on February 21 and again on February 26. The live program will be led by GoDaddy’s Joe Styler and other members of the Afternic team.
Afternic published a blog post offering details about this event. In addition, GoDaddy’s James Iles discussed the Masterclass with Joe Styler in a video interview to give people an understanding of what they can expect from the program:
