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.
GoDaddy is continuing to expand its domain name Aftermarket reach into the China market. The company is looking to hire a Manager for the Domain Aftermarket in China. The job opening and news about the Chinese expansion was announced on LinkedIn by Bob Mountain, Chief Revenue Officer at Afternic (a division of GoDaddy):
GoDaddy did not have a Super Bowl commercial this year (probably a good thing because of the audience size), but the company is set to embark on a new advertising campaign, “Make the World You Want.” This campaign starts airing on television tomorrow. Here’s the first television commercial, which GoDaddy shared earlier this morning:
GoDaddy has been an off and on Super Bowl advertiser for many years. Some might attribute a great deal of the company’s early growth and success to its prominent and controversial Super Bowl commercials. For many years, GoDaddy commercials were a fixture during the Super Bowl, but the company took a break several years ago, and they have been advertising sporadically since then.
GoDaddy’s Paul Nicks was the keynote speaker at NamesCon yesterday, and he shared quite a bit of data about the domain name aftermarket. Andrew Allemann shared some of the data from Paul’s keynote yesterday, and GoDaddy also wrote an article about the presentation.
Paul had a bit of a different approach to his keynote this year, illustrating how a customer might be able to make money investing in domain names over the long term. Paul and his GoDaddy team used an amalgam of customer results as well as results from GoDaddy’s own portfolio to create this fictional customer named Dominique and track her journey to profitability.
GoDaddy is now offering its clients the ability to log in to their account with YubiKey as a form of two factor authentication, according to Paul Nicks, Vice President and GM of GoDaddy’s Aftermarket. Previously, customers with 2FA on their accounts could only choose SMS or Google Authenticator for 2FA.
Almost a year ago, I shared a video from GoDaddy that explains what a premium domain name is. The video is shown as a pop-up when a searched domain name is listed for sale via Afternic and available to purchase during the standard registration sale process. In the sales box at the top of a page, there is a link that says “What are premium domains?” and clicking the link generates a pop up with the video.
