First off, I want to be very clear in stating that I am ardently opposed to SOPA as it is currently written, and I think anyone who makes a living online should be opposed to SOPA right now. In fact, I met with a US Congressman a couple of weeks ago, and I told him that was the most important issue I wanted to discuss with him when we met.
That being said, I think some of the headlines about Go Daddy losing massive amounts of domain names and/or customers are borderline ridiculous. Take for example a headline that was on DrudgeReport.com yesterday, linking to the article at Techi.com. The article title was “GoDaddy lost 72,354 domains this week. It’s not enough.” Â The author appears to attribute this large loss of domain names to GoDaddy’s original support of SOPA, which it later retracted.
While 72,000 lost domain names in a week sounds like a huge number, especially when you take the revenue figure into consideration, it really isn’t all that significant when you look at previous weeks. According to DailyChanges.com, during the same week last year, Go Daddy lost over 86,000 domain names:
- 12/18 – 11,715
- 12/19 – 11,444
- 12/20 – 9,542
- 12/21 – 10,312
- 12/22 – 20,688
- 12/23 – 11,658
- 12/24 – 10,895
As  Mike Berkens mentioned, you need to keep in mind that not everyone uses the DomainControl.com DNS, so these numbers may not entirely reflect the actual changes that have occurred. However, the same could be said about last year’s numbers as well.
I think it’s pretty appalling that GoDaddy would publicly support a bill that many technical and Internet experts say will cause major problems for companies that operate online, even if they did retract that support later. However, reports indicating a mass exodus of domain names at GoDaddy (or a widespread boycott) seem  erroneous to me based on a historical look at the data that others are citing.
Dennis Prager said…”First you report the facts, then give your opinions.” You are spot on.
Good post Elliot and you are right, I did a post asking will people stop watching Espn or going to NFL football games because they still support SOPA. Its interesting that most don’t want to boycott anyone but Go Daddy, I am against SOPA 100 % but its odd that no one seems to want to boycott the other companies maybe they don’t see domains as important than their sports news or for that matter their boner pill, Pfizer makers of Viagra support SOPA.
I realize your post is targeting others with misleading headlines but most are a result of misinformation and lack of research. The authors didn’t take the time to learn that DNS changes is not a legitimate indication of domain name registrar changes. Something I point out for your benefit as well. 😉
Regardless, you’re on the right track with people writing to their readers rather than for their readers.
I used to read your blog regularly now very seldom I visit your site.
I was simply tired of reading articles in which you advertised other people `s services, sites etc.
Since I remeber you always defended gd.
I recommend people to read your article about gd and elephent.
You simply lost your credibility in the eyes of many people.
@ junk
That’s funny… Godaddy isn’t an advertiser, has never advertised on my blog, has never paid me a dime, nor have I ever used or signed up for an affiliate program.
If you think there’s something inaccurate with what I’ve written, by all means, correct me. If not, your personal feelings about GD are likely clouding your business judgment. This particular article isn’t about SOPA… It’s about reporting that is misleading because there’s no research on historical changes, which is important for the context.
Incidentally, one of the beneficiaries of any GD domain losses is Name.com, which is an advertiser on my blog. Based on your flawed logic, I would have written a post about their marketing efforts in light of GD’s SOPA positioning.
In fairness, Elliot, MHB did disclaim a few things about the stats he posted. If anything, it gave a more-or-less figure. 🙂
Would be nice if RegistrarStats would provide more data instead. Oh well…
@ Dave
I agree with you and my post wasn’t directed at Mike’s article. It was directed at some of the tech pubs that were later disseminated in some mainstream publications.
I wonder how many people didn’t even know what SOPA was before Godaddy screwed up and supported it.
Maybe it was all one of Bob Parson’s clever marketing tricks to get SOPA more attention . You notice that every time GD screws up it helps a worthy cause ? 🙂 Just ask SavetheElephants.org http://twitter.com/#!/Namecheap/status/55267281063776256