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.
Afternic recently introduced the lease to own (LTO) purchase model for domain names bought via GoDaddy. Domain names listed for sale via Afternic with LTO enabled have been shown to US-based buyers with the LTO options next to the BIN price.
This morning, the company announced two changes to its LTO offering that should benefit sellers:
I list nearly all of my inventory quality domain names with BIN prices on Dan.com and/or Afternic. The majority of these domain names utilize the Dan.com BIN landing page. I want to share my thought process behind why I choose the Dan.com landing page and why I prefer to list names separately on both platforms.
When I list a domain name for sale on Dan.com with a BIN price, it syndicates to GoDaddy and its sales network. A prospective buyer searching for a domain name on GoDaddy’s website – or a partner like Namecheap – will see my domain name sale listing whether it is listed on Dan.com or Afternic.
If the domain name is not listed directly on Afternic with the LTO option enabled, the prospective buyer won’t have the option to buy it with a payment plan even if that option is available via the Dan.com landing page.
Here’s how the registration path looks without LTO enabled at Afternic:
I won a domain name at GoDaddy Auctions on April 18, and it was delivered to my GoDaddy account this morning at around 4am. A few hours later, I went into my GoDaddy account, changed the nameservers to point to Afternic, and attempted to add it to my Afternic account so I could list it for sale.
For some reason, the domain name couldn’t be added to my account without verification via the addition of a third nameserver. The error message can be seen here for those who aren’t aware of what it looks like:
Nissan is an automaker that uses NissanUSA.com for its website here in the US. The reason it uses an off-brand domain name is because it lost a very long legal battle to try and wrest control of Nissan.com. That domain name had long been owned by a man named Uzi Nissan, who had it for his business. You can read about the legal battle on Wikipedia. Mr. Nissan passed away in 2022.
It looks like Nissan is now trying to take control of another Nissan domain name. This time, the company has its sights set on Nissan.ai, and it is using the UDRP process. As you know, .AI is the ccTLD extension for the country of Anguilla, and it has become popular with the advancements in artificial intelligence and the venture funding devoted to AI-related companies.
Now that April Fool’s Day has passed, I will skip to the end – this was an April Fool’s Day joke.
Following its payout policy change involving LTO deals at Dan.com and Afternic, GoDaddy is making another change to LTO payments.
First, some background. From inception at Dan.com, if a lease to own deal was started on the 2nd of the month, subsequent payouts would be made to sellers on the 2nd or 3rd of each month during the lease term. Once the money from the buyer was received, it was sent to the seller like clockwork. Following the payout change, payment plan distributions were moved to the 7th, 14th, 21st, or 28th of each month. If a payment plan was started on the 2nd of the month, subsequent payments would be sent days later on the 7th. If made on the 7th, payment would be sent on the 14th.
This morning, I noticed something different in a domain name renewal email from GoDaddy. Instead of telling me exactly what domain names I renewed in the renewal receipt email, it simply said “.COM Domain Renewal” along with the term and price. You can see what this looks like below:
This is either a change that was made today or a data retrieval error.
