GoDaddy

In March, a video of  Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons  hunting “problem” elephant  in Zimbabwe” was posted on Video.me. This video angered and disappointed many people, including passionate domain owners who pledged to take their business elsewhere as a result.

Rival domain registrar, NameCheap, made a special offer for people who wanted to transfer domain names out of GoDaddy. In fact, they actually made an offer that cost them money, since the transfer price was less than the cost they pay for each domain name.  NameCheap also pledged to donate $1.00 for every transfer to the non-profit  Save the Elephants  organization.

The offer allowed NameCheap to donate more than $30,000 to Save the Elephants, and that donation was greatly appreciated. In a note to NameCheap posted on its Facebook wall for customers to read, Save the Elephants wrote, “you were the windfall from out of the blue and you really helped us this year. Thank you so much.”

I like seeing non-traditional fundraising efforts, and this one really helped a good cause.  I suppose Mr. Parsons’ elephant hunting trip ended up helping elephants in unexpected ways.

Earlier this year, I wrote about Go Daddy offering customers the opportunity to “Round Up and Give to Hope for Haiti” while checking out and paying for their products. If selected, the total would be rounded up to the next dollar, and that difference would be given to the Hope for Haiti non-profit.

In May, Godaddy reported $20,000 in customer donations to date, which were matched by the company, and I am sure the total is now far greater since this option has continued to be presented to customers. The company has already given over $1,000,000 in financial contributions to Hope for Haiti.

While purchasing some domain names this morning, I noticed that the round up option was still there, but it has changed just a bit. Instead of offering customers the chance to donate to one organization, they can now select one of three non profits, including  Hope for Haiti,  Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and  Arizona Humane Society.

I like to see companies like this giving back, especially when community organizations are involved. As we saw with the first iteration of this endeavor, they’re raising some serious money for these groups, while also raising awareness.

I noticed something interesting last night. It looks like Paypal is partnering up with Go Daddy to offer domain names at a discounted price of $7.49 a year. I would bet it’s probably some type of affiliate commission for domain names that are bought using the link.

I know that deals like this (and better) can be had when searching Google for GoDaddy discount codes or Godaddy coupons, but the presence of this offer on the Paypal homepage is a strong endorsement of the company by Paypal.

It’s interesting to see them send traffic to GoDaddy directly from the home page.