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.
This morning, I received an email from Dan.com announcing its new in-house domain brokerage offering. Dan sellers can now utilize brokers when they receive an offer and prefer to have a third party broker the sale on their behalf. The brokerage offering is powered by GoDaddy’s broker services.
Here are the details that were shared with me this morning:
GoDaddy is looking to hire a Senior Manager who will be responsible for connecting with and networking with domain investors. The aim of the position is to attract new GoDaddy customers from the domain investing community while driving revenue growth from current investor clients.
Here’s an excerpt from the job listing, which was posted on LinkedIn a few days ago:
Domains By Proxy, LLC (DomainsByProxy.com) may be one of the most prolific domain registrants. Domains By Proxy isn’t actually the owner of most domain names registered to the entity. Domains By Proxy, LLC is the Whois privacy service operated by GoDaddy.
Customers of GoDaddy who do not want their contact information shown on a public Whois record may use Domains By Proxy as the Registrant Name for an additional fee. By using Domains by Proxy, a domain registrant’s name, email address, phone number, mailing address, and other private contact details are not shown in Whois lookups. Earlier this year, GoDaddy began offering Whois privacy by default on most new registrations and inbound domain transfers, but some people still pay to use this service.
Many years ago right after I graduated from college, I went to graduate school and earned a Master’s Degree in Direct and Interactive Marketing. The program no longer exists as it was, and it was rolled up into another program at NYU.
Nearly every one of my other classmates but had already started their professional careers and had jobs related to Interactive Marketing. I probably would have directly benefitted more from the program had I done that, but that’s another story. I think the thing I retained the most from my graduate studies is the importance of testing.
In my opinion, the GoDaddy brand is the biggest advantage for domain name sellers who use Dan.com following GoDaddy’s acquisition of the domain name sales platform. Domain name buyers who are unfamiliar with the Dan.com brand will likely recognize GoDaddy’s brand name. This could help domain sellers close more deals on Dan.com.
One of the biggest gripes at GoDaddy auctions seems to be the high number of post-auction refunds. If a domain name is registered at a partner domain registrar, auctioned at GoDaddy Auctions, and then renewed by the domain registrant, the auction is canceled and high bidder is refunded. Any time spent on research and bidding is wasted.
Within the last few years, GoDaddy changed its own renewal policy to cut down on post-auction renewals and refunds. From what I understand, if a GoDaddy-registered domain name is not renewed 3 days prior to the start of the expiry auction, the registrant can no longer renew the domain name.
