GoDaddy

GoDaddy has acquired another domain name portfolio, which will be added to the company’s NameFind portfolio. Jamie Zoch first reported the acquisition in a tweet this morning:

It certainly looks like GoDaddy, via it’s NameFind division has acquired another domain portfolio. Pearl Advertising/Cayman Web/Quality Hosting/Internet Brands/ TD Domain Names are names I’m seeing in prior whois https://t.co/9aES3t3vce

— Jamie Zoch (@DotWeekly) January 12, 2021

GoDaddy SVP and Aftermarket GM Paul Nicks confirmed that the company made the acquisition in an email to me. “I can confirm, we acquired another portfolio and are excited to price the domains and bring them to market,” he told me.

Last October, I changed the phone number I have on my Whois address for domain names I acquire and have registered at NameBright. I am using a Google Voice account with “Do not disturb” on since any phone calls or text messages to that number will be spam from businesses who think my “new” looking domain name registrations mean I am in the market for development or design services.

Since setting up this Google Voice account, I have had over 1,000 phone calls with a bunch of voicemails and text messages. Having the Google Voice account has really helped reduce the volume of unsolicited calls and texts.

When I win an auction for a domain name that is registered at a registrar I use on an irregular basis, I tend to transfer the domain name to GoDaddy. Having many registrar accounts with few domain names is a good way to lose track of inventory, and my preferred registrar is GoDaddy. I have run into a bug transferring domain names, and it has not been fixed so I am going to report it here.

I recently won LeadershipAndStrength.com at NameJet. The domain name is registered at Register.com, so I attempted to transfer it to GoDaddy. My initial transfer attempt to GoDaddy failed, so I ensured the domain name was unlocked at Register.com and attempted the transfer again. When I re-initiated the transfer, I encountered an erroneous error message at GoDaddy:

GoDaddy’s security has been under the microscope lately, with two high profile security incidents reported by Krebs On Security on November 21 and on March 31. I wrote about the first incident, which involved an account held by Escrow.com. With many employees working from home because of Covid-19, it has likely become a much more challenging task to ensure GoDaddy employees use best security practices to avoid being hacked or having systems or accounts compromised.

According to an article in The Copper Courier, GoDaddy tested its employees by deploying an email promising a holiday bonus, but it was really a phishing test in disguise:

GoDaddy recently posted a job listing on LinkedIn for an Aftermarket Sales Account Executive, presumably on its Afternic team in the company’s Cambridge office. If you know of someone that is looking for a sales job and would be good at inbound domain name sales, perhaps this is the right opportunity for them.

When I was reading through the job description, something unusual caught my attention. The company is encouraging people who have a “side hustle” to keep it up while they are employed by GoDaddy: