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GoDaddy

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 Announces Layoffs of “About 8%”

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In some unfortunate domain industry news this evening, GoDaddy announced a round of layoffs that will impact “about 8%” of its global workforce. The news was shared today in a press release entitled, “A message from GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani.” The content of the press release was an email that was reportedly sent to GoDaddy employees today.

Layoffs at a large company like GoDaddy aren’t surprising right now. Tech companies around the world have been laying off varying amounts of staff lately. In fact, Fast Company published an article with the question, Why is every tech company suddenly laying off about 6% of its workforce?

I know quite a few GoDaddy employees, and I was sorry to read the news today. Hopefully those who are impacted by these layoffs are able to find employment quickly. Perhaps some will go off and build a successful business on their own.

Here’s the press release from today:

Dan.com Buyers Not Updating Whois

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I received an auto-renewal reminder email from GoDaddy this morning. When I looked at the domain name that will be auto-renewed next week, I realized it was for a domain name I previously sold via Dan.com. The first thing I noticed was the account number in the top of the email was different than my account number, so the domain name is definitely not in my account.

When a domain name owner sells a domain name via Dan.com, he is given two options to get the domain name to Dan. The seller can either start an account change to the Dan holding account at GoDaddy or unlock the domain name and provide the transfer authorization code for Dan to transfer it to Metaregistrar.

Friction with LTO + Make Offer

I use Dan.com landing pages for a great deal of my portfolio. Many of these domain names, particularly at price points above a few thousand dollars, use the Buy It Now (BIN) + Make Offer + Lease to Own (LTO). I have been running in to a bit of friction with this setup.

The way it is suppose to work is that someone can either buy the domain name immediately for the list price in one payment, buy the domain name in monthly installments of their choosing, or submit an offer to buy the domain name. If a prospect submits an offer and the owner accepts it, the buyer is sent to a payment page to submit payment for the agreed upon amount.

TurnOn.TV: GoDaddy Registry Relaunches .TV Extension

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GoDaddy Registry relaunched the .TV domain extension and created a marketing campaign to promote it. The relaunch was announced yesterday by Nicolai Bezsonoff on the GoDaddy Registry blog. The .TV extension is infamously the ccTLD for the island of Tuvalu, but it has become more synonymous with its generic usage. GoDaddy Registry won the contract to operate the .TV extension in December of 2021.

The website for GoDaddy Registry’s .TV marketing campaign can be found at TurnOn.TV. The GoDaddy Registry team created a new logo, tagline, creative assets, and messaging for the campaign. The .TV about page shares how GoDaddy Registry envisions .TV domain names will be used and by whom:

GoDaddy Cancels KKK.com Expiry Auction

KKK.com is registered at Enom, and the domain name expired in mid-October. As a result of its expiration, KKK.com was automatically sent to an expiry auction at GoDaddy Auctions. By mid-day yesterday, the auction had a high bid of nearly $100,000 with a little over a week until the auction would end.

In response to a tweet mentioning the KKK.com auction, Media Options CEO Andrew Rosener wrote about the domain name and suggested that GoDaddy cancel the auction:

More Data Added to GoDaddy Auctions Listings

If you visited GoDaddy Auctions over the last few days, you probably noticed a big addition to search results pages. Late last week, GoDaddy added Majestic SEO data to domain names coming up for auction. GoDaddy highlighted the addition in a tweet last night:

The Majestic SEO data can only be viewed when using the beta version of GoDaddy Auctions. The data does not appear in the classic view of GoDaddy Auctions.

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