GoDaddy Stats

According to information from Bob Parsons at the GoDaddy holiday party in Arizona, every minute 75 domain names are registered, transferred, or renewed, 43 customers call the call center (just imagine), 13 email/ forwarding accounts are set up and an SSL certificate is sold.  Godaddy pushes off 2 hosting accounts per minute and evidently 30 URLs are shortened with the (name).co shortener. So who says domaining is dead? Who dat? Let’s roll on the Super Bowl commercial!

Godaddy Shows Its Auction Color to $350K

Color.com has been sold by Godaddy for $350,000 via account Executive Brad Parsons. This marks yet another resonant gong for the big ticket domain auction heard in every sector of this business. Sedo and other big auction house sites have been rolling domains in flour and frying them up large in tombstones all this season, and it looks like Big Daddy  isn’t going to be left out in the cold.

To generate fees and pay for the electric bill ($4 million party this week) , Godaddy.com has been succeeding in the domain name arena lately selling single name two party domains via auction in the five to six figures. Flexing its muscles in the domain auction slice of the industry, Godaddy also recently strong-armed Homeownersinsurance.com for $570,000.

Chinese Firm to Buy Godaddy.com?

China and its leading Google competitors may soon be shopping down Godaddy’s lane. Bob Parsons may need to be raising some extra cash because Godaddy.com is up on the auction block. Reliable news or rumor? Domainers were stunned today when the Wall Street Journal announced the celebrated blog-era registrar and massive hosting company Godaddy.com is for sale.

Priced at about 9or over) $1 billion, Godaddy owns a significant share of both all internet domain name business and beginner-to-intermediate web hosting enterprises online. Domainers mourned that the days of the dollar discount and Godaddy coupon codes may sadly be over. Whomever buys Godaddy will have 43 million domain name contracts with ICANN intact, and the owners reading their new partner’s email at rapt attention.

Godaddy is in decent shape for an auction. The company posted revenue (after a few choppy years in a row) between $750 million and $800 million in 2009, and has a whopping 50% of web hosting market share hands down. This is one of the healthiest industries in America today.

Godaddy enjoys a reputation among online customers a reliable warhorse with flexible hosting plans for every level of computer user. Domain names and bundled third party applications canted at the beginner webmaster through the career website administrator regularly accompany domain sales.

The Scottsdale, Arizona company offers tiered web hosting services and discount-code name promotions that have kept Godaddy hopping with the general public and industry regulars.Internet pricing wars between web hosting companies led Godaddy to scale its offerings in every shape and size, including online carts, forums, security, and traffic building.

After several hard years shaking off many smaller hosting competitors,  and promotional representation by Danica Patrick (et.al) Godaddy is archly the common friend/enemy of most domainers.  Yet almost every domain name owner has a Godaddy account and/or hosting plan. Godaddy antics have been chewed over in the blogosphere by domainer cognoscienti daily.

Why sell Godaddy.com now? Speculators wonder if Parsons is low on cash or simply looking to take a profit in the best domainer tradition. Google has been suggested as a buyer, but more interesting acquisitions of Godaddy.com might be by Oracle, a company long rumored to try and match its hardware industry presence with online services and interactive client sales potential.

Certainly Oracle (or Sun, for that matter) could power their Sparcstations with self telephony and owned packets for a lower price that leased VPS or whatever redundancy they have now. If Hewlett Packard somehow assembled a leadership squad, then they might arise anew as the Internet business phoenix of all time.

Could Conde Nast or Trump be thinking of expanding online?

Or could China, newly emerging as the era’s leading moneymaker, pick off Godaddy and suddenly own 50% of the Western world’s hosting files? If a China firm marshals one of the private equity bidders to acquire the webhost monolith, China could grasp a tenterhook on Western media and global consumer eyeballs in a one-check power play. (And become Paypal’s new best friend).

Godaddy.com goes on sale shopped by Qatalyst Partners of London and San Francisco. (Danica Patrick not included).

To register domains with NetworkSolutions just a waste of money?

I really don’t like NetworkSolutions mainly because of their expensive renewal prices. But unfortunately, I ended up having a few domains there because I won them at Namejet. They are charging around $34 per year for renewal and it is over 4 times that of Moniker or even Godaddy. It is just radiculous and outrageous pricing in this era. At Moniker, renewal fees is only around $8 per year and with Godaddy, it is even less then $8 per year if bulk pricing.

I have talked to the NetworkSolutions’ customer department but they said they charge more than others because their domain management is more secure. I don’t agree with that. With godaddy, you could arrange “extra security” feature “Free” by arranging with “account executive” and I bought MaxLock for domains at Moniker to be more secure. I am moving all the domains from NetworkSolutions either to Moniker or Godaddy and unless they (NetworkSolutions) change their pricing, they would lose more and more business in the long run to other big domain registeration companies.

Godaddy Boots .CN Namesells

Concerned about new Chinese data collection policies, Go Daddy announced Wednesday that it will no longer allow customers to sign up for new .CN domain names. While .CN management is currently intact, Americana and global customers may ultimately vended to a third party if GoDaddy washes it hands of .CN altogether. China’s surveillance and monitoring of the Internet activities of its citizens has unsettled many human rights legislators and internet business operators.

As China changes the internet model, so may they also see declines in international traffic and online profit taking opportunities from Western consumers. The domain registrar follows recent reporting of rejection of Google data management policies inside the Asian meganation. The curtailing of sales of  .CN domain names spells the end of the open book playing field for internet domainers.

Sun / Oracle to Enter Domain/Hosting Industry

Word on the wires is that the new compendium of Oracle after swallowing Sun is giving birth to a great new brainchild. This new bonanza is a crashing spear into the world of domaining; A new domain name registrar and hosting company that will blow the socks off current market leaders (rhymes with Schmoe-daddy).  Sparcstations off the forward bow!

No name has been chosen by Sun/Oracle yet, but super secret teams in Cupertino and Mountain View are already clashing over turf. The technical entity will not be in violation of any super secret hosting or redundancy agreements because the new spinoff corporate entity will be a separate company. Sweet! The domainer’s mouth waters at the possible debut deals offered….

Domainers in the know and technical cognoscienti scoff that nobody can toppled the Danica-fronted Big Daddy.  But hosting service watchers have heeded the firestorm of complaints that “Schmoe-daddy” customers have. Buying the registrar is the nice part, some domainer running an ICANN-powered fruit stand will make a tidy bundle.

(from Domainowl.com)

BigDaddy.com sold for $20,000

When I saw the domain sale of bigdaddy.com for $20,000, I was thinking whether it was sold at that price due to the success of Godaddy. The domain was sold via Sedo domain marketplace.  The domain was first registered in 1998 and it is around 12 years old domain.

But when I research about the keyword, I found out that “Big Daddy” was a film made in 1999 and that the keyword “big daddy” was searched many times a month (over 160,000 EXACT searches per month) in Google. There are over 4 million google search results for the keyword “big daddy”.

Auction House Rodeo

The heat is on between Latona’s, SEDO and even Godaddy.com for premiership of the domain auction market. Six figure sales posting for Latona and SEDO mark a successful transition from still domain name turnover many feared in 2009 Q4 and current vibrant sales.

Super-Premium Domain Lock Feature

The news among domainers of the stolen p2p.com name from Godaddy (and the subsequent resale on Ebay to an NBA player) has spurred industry debate about the relative security of registrar domains. Obviously, there needs to be a premium service for those premium value domains that required voice print technology approving the transfer. The recording of vocal digital signature and source IP, home phone and/or webcam requirement should be a basic feature for domains in the $160,000 and $200,000 range.

Amanda Beards Godaddy Sharks

Amanda Beard has launched a lawsuit on Godaddy.com. Talk about swimming with the sharks. Beard challenged her former sponsor, Godaddy.com and the two entities are headed to court.

This a weird outcome for a presumably entertaining woman who led the appeal-based Godaddy campaign, which had earned derision from some domainers.

Beard was in the “Danica Patrick” lead car ad onslaught for the massive hosting provider and registrar. Beard used to be the s been accused by many domainers as having very “feminine” ad strategies. Beard was a pitchwoman for the site, and has filed her lawsuit claiming in related news that Godaddy.com unlawfully exploited her name and image for sales purposes.

We don’t know what caused the break up between the two, but a current check of Godaddy.com shows no signs of a Beard. Amanda is seeking unspecified damages.

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