Back in 2016 we started a series here that looked at the best and worst about companies in the domain industry. Over the last 30 months a lot has changed at many companies so we are revisiting the good, the bad and the ugly.
Each post will deal with just one company, readers are encouraged to share their positive and negative experiences. Suggestions for improvement are also encouraged.
One of the goals of the column is that company representatives will see how their customers think of them. This can lead to a conversation on fixing problems.
What is not allowed:
- Personal attacks on individuals at the chosen company
- Promoting a competitor
- Posting domains for sale
The company in the spotlight today is GoDaddy.
Founder: Bob Parsons
Founded: 1997
Far too many bugs at both GoDaddy and Afternic. If they were not such a big player, I would not use them at all.
I love GoDaddy’s pricing, as well as their 24 hour help line. I’ve called it often and only once had a negative experience, and that was with auction help. That experience, however, was completely wipped away by a follow up awesome response by a particular individual who knew way more then the person I’d originally tried to work with. I am a fan of Godaddy, without a doubt.
GoDaddy screwed up and removed forwarding on something like 35 of my domains. I have hundreds of names, so it took me about a month to figure it out, and by that time I had lost traffic and potential sales from my landing pages. GoDaddy support admitted that it was their fault, but said they didn’t have the ability to credit me. All I was asking for was pro-rated reg fees for the month that those domains weren’t working properly, which was about $32 I think. If they are not willing to fix their mistake for such a small amount, what would happen if they cause a bigger problem? I decided not to deal with them any more. I started transferring away my names when they come up for renewal, and I couldn’t be happier with my new registrar. 220 names moved, and 260 to go. Bye GoDaddy!
They seem to struggle with Aussie domains when it comes to following the regulator’s rules regarding Change of Registrant. We don’t do simple “pushes” in our space.
Godaddy never credits anyone, they are very tight when it comes to that type of stuff. Even when they mess up. They’re a total reactive company. Say you win an auction, and the original owner buys it back in redemption. They don’t notify you of a refund or loss of the win. They can answer questions and their phones really well. But their platform is now lightyears behind and constantly full of bugs!
Godaddy’s auction platform is totally messed up with automatic bidders who just keep bidding, and bidding like robots for hours on end.
GoDaddy has been great! Whenever I have an issue and I call support they have been very helpful, I must commend them for that. From my experience so far, they have good customer service.
As pertaining to the auctions, I notice that the GoDaddy investor app doesn’t give notifications on domains that I am watching and are ending soon. I have lost the chance to bid on some domains because of this, so I had to uninstall it and transfer an older version that I had on my former phone. Only then did I begin to get notifications again.
It will be quite rewarding to see Godaddy extend the time given to pay for domains won in auctions from 48rs (2 days) to at least 120hrs (5 days). I am quite certain other domainers will agree with me on this. Their platform is great, we only want to enjoy the experience of it being greater in the light of more customer satisfaction.
I suggest changing the title to: The bad, the worse and the very ugly because that’s what comes to mind when I think about GoDaddy and the fact that the biggest company in the domain industry still has no app to manage your domain portfolio… IN 2019 !!! I have no idea how they ever got so big.
They used to have an app and they killed it in 2017 I think.
We have an app. We pulled it down for a bit and redid it and sent it back out as a new app about a year ago.
Thanks everyone for the feedback so far.
The app store says you don’t have one.
I’m not talking about GoDaddy Investor, although this piece of software is also buggy aa hell.
we have one – https://www.apple.com/us/search/godaddy?src=globalnav we have an android one as well.
Thanks everyone for the feedback. Feel free to reach out to me directly with any feedback and I will help if I can.
jstyler at godaddy
GoDaddy just changed their logo to GoMommy for mother’s day!
They are the best!
I hate that they dont have email support. How are you supposed to mail them some documents when they only allow phone calls? They don’t even consider their customers in other countries that have to pay heavily to make international calls. I feel they have the worst support system ever. Their chat option is always offline and it makes me cringe that such a big company like that couldn’t invest in a better support system.
Its messed up, really.
Good – End-users use Godaddy. The only reason I stay with GoDaddy.
Bad – They got too big. Customers come last now.
Ugly – Domain pricing. You have to buy their Domain Discount Club just to receive regular domain pricing at other domain registrars ( NameBright NameSilo CloudFlare etc). That annoys me the most!
the good:
Premium phone support is outstanding. Great Brokers at Afternic and they really understand the system. Super nice too.
Also I enjoy the godaddy rewards points. A little hard to find on the site but once I realized it was a thing I had like $5000 in points lol.
the bad:
Afternic site isn’t the best and in need of a huge facelift. Buggy and domain transfer process is still slow but I can tell they are working on it. I am assuming this is because of ACH payments, chargebacks, etc. Maybe blockchain could fix that. hint. hint.
Also, if I sell a domain on Afternic, my VIP rep should have access to my account to transfer the name. Once I put a name up for sale, and it sells, that is the last time I should have to deal with it (unless it is on a non-godaddy registrar, or something weird happens.
the ugly:
There is this huge company buying names with bots on the aftermarket. It’s not hard to find out how they are buying names. I mean, if they have API access, why not give it to everyone? That’s lopsided and unfair if I am correct. Bidding system is a little unfair. Don’t make it anonymous bidding anymore to big players, that would fix the problem. Let them show their face. Open up the competition. Would make godaddy millions more.
Also, domainers kind of get the shaft now in aftermarket listings. There are nowhere near the good names like there were years ago. Only thing I can think of is previous owners are getting more time to renew now. Sucks for us but I get it.