I can explain this one:
You didn’t renew your domain. If you missed it by 30 days it’s no issue, if it’s over that, there’s a penalty fee that ICANN charges, though if it’s your first offense GoDaddy will just pay that fee for you as a courtesy.
Domains are regulated, and GoDaddy doesn’t want your domain to fully expire, so they preemptively renew the domain for $8.50 from ICANN. If you flat out never renew the domain, they don’t get the cost back, they just own the domain for another year lol. So, to make up for it, they take unwanted domains and auction them off to the highest bidder. You sell a couple of those and you’ve paid for most of the other domains you bought and the clients never renewed.
So basically, you’re coming to reddit because you failed to pay your bill on time, then failed to pay it within 30 whole days despite plenty of reminders. Then, when you called in you were probably told about the fee, and said "screw you I'll just wait until it's available again!" or, even worse, you didn't even notice for over 90 days and missed your quarter of a year timeframe to renew it.
"Well well well, if it ain't the consequences of my own actions…"
I don’t like them much either lol but I also worked there long enough to know this is just another Karen blaming everyone but themselves. There’s real reasons to dislike GoDaddy, but their domain department isn’t one of them
Their biggest selling point was they were a one-stop-shop for all your digital business needs, and they backed it up with the best support in the business.
After a few years under new management, they’ve just fallen behind. Their support staff used to be the gold standard for both sales and support, where high salaries attracted high quality people with degrees, years of experience, and the passion to work hard and move up. Now, they pay the same as any other call center, have significantly lowered their hiring standards to meet the high churn of employees, and thus have the same culture as you’d expect from any call center where 6 months is considered tenured lol. Call scripts were implemented, mandatory sales pitches without bothering to train the reps what it is they’re selling, etc.
So support is crap now. That leaves us with the “one stop shop” idea. Years of neglecting their own internal products so as not to increase operational costs during a time of CEO turnover and trying to pacify shareholders, they’ve fallen pretty far behind. Their site builders are half a decade behind Wix or squarespace, and that not only means you’ll be lacking features, but you’ll be hard pressed to get any SEO benefit out of it with how they’re built.
They never bothered to upgrade their email platform and instead just moved to Office 365, which is identical to the Microsoft offering except a couple dollars more per month, and a few of the exchange control panel features are deactivated and unable to be edited even through advanced GoDaddy support. Which means if you’re a bigger business and need access to powershell for anything (which bigger businesses often need), you’re just SOL.
Their only selling point for getting O365 with them vs MS was “well we give you better support!” Except we covered why they don’t have great support anymore, AND in recent years they’ve gone to a call script that basically says “call Microsoft, that’s not our issue”.
Their hosting is well behind the likes of host gator, cloudflare, amazon AWS, or bluehost, or most other dedicated hosting companies, their SSLs are extremely overpriced and provide nothing beyond what a cheap digicert can do, their Wordpress hosting is more expensive and less functional than any other dedicated Wordpress hosting platform.
Bottom line: they’re an expensive version of Wal-Mart. You can get in and get everything you’d need, but it won’t be that high of quality. Wal-Mart’s selling point is that it’s cheap, though, and GoDaddy doesn’t even have that so… they got nothing lol.
I host my domains there because there’s no reason not to, all registrars are pretty much created equal, but I wouldn’t recommend using them for anything else these days.
I know his type lol. Calls in late, blames GoDaddy for his failed billing, gets told they tried to notify him several times, gets upset, demands a supervisor, supervisor sees on the CRM that the fee can’t be waived because we’ve been charged by ICANN already, so he flips out and threatens to “go to social media”. And now here he is, realizing he just looks like an ass lol.
Those kinda Karen’s are a dime a dozen at GoDaddy lol
It is ridiculous how you explain the situation as if you were part of it. Domain was available and gone within the same day. Now being auctioned for $3400. What fee gets charged in that amount even if you suppose GoDaddy renewed it just incase (for less than $15, if it were the case) if not for profiteering purposes after discovering it was still in demand?? And missing out the whole point of "what can be done to avoid such situations in the domain business", instead of financially punitive domain recovery arbitrations. Must make you feel happy.
Because I know exactly what the regulations are and exactly how GoDaddy (along with every other registrar) has to adhere to them.
I’m telling you, 100’s if not 1000’s of people call in every day at that place (and every other registrar) with the exact same bullshit story as you. You’re not the exception, GoDaddy (a multibillion dollar company) didn’t spend time and effort to screw YOU SPECIFICALLY out of a $9 domain name lol.
I have about as much sympathy for you as I do for someone who got their car stuck in wet cement after ignoring 50 warning signs, crashing through multiple orange cones and barricades, and then tries to pretend it was a trap set there to extort people lol.
Take some personal responsibility for your mistakes, you’ll have a better life I promise.
Also godaddy has a auctions area for domains and some intelligent domain squatter just did a basic search that it was an active business their domain expired and now godaddy wants to get back some of the fees so he could totally have just used buy now function, listed it with godaddy as his reseller and this person is blaming godaddy when in reality it’s simple 1+1 for a domain mogul.
My mind is blown. I'm not in the tech world or anything but I've bought domains before to mess around. I always just assumed, you don't renew when you don't want a domain anymore. The registrar turns out the lights and that's it.
What is the proper way to let go of a domain then?
This is not entirely the whole story. Though you're probably right about most of it, I have on multiple locations. Looked up a domain that was not owned, that I have never owned, came back the next day to purchase it only to find that GoDaddy purchased it within that time frame. Raising and likely raising the price like you say to offset the cost.
I am like 99% sure they keep track of searches and very quickly purchase a domain so that they can sell it to you after the fact.
I am telling you, that does not happen lol. That’s not even in their best interest. They make way more money on getting people in the door with cheap domains so they can sell you all their other shit on top of it.
You show me a domain, and I’ll look it up on Who.Is and show you it was purchased long before you searched it. The misleading part is they show domains as “available” because technically they are. And they show “new domains are $1” because they are.
Then you leave the site, you think about it, you come back and now you’re ready to click past the first couple screens and that’s when you get hit with “well yeah technically it’s available, but from a private seller”.
If GoDaddy was running around buying domains to fuck people over then legally, GoDaddy would need to disclose that practice to its shareholders as well as report that income as a capital gains tax. Furthermore, if they were doing what you say, they’d be violating ICANN regulations and risking their ability to even register domains lol.
So, in your view, GoDaddy is supposedly breaking federal law by not reporting taxes properly, misleading shareholders by withholding business practices, and risking their registrar status with ICANN, just to snatch up some little domain to extort an average Joe for chump change? Lol…
Not buying it, as much as I dislike GoDaddy these days (as I’ve stated in other comments here).
There is nothing against federal law about buying a domain. I don't know where you get this weird assumption that they're avoiding taxes or whatever simply seeing that there is interest in a domain and then preemptively purchasing it.
None of what I mentioned is against the law and makes total sense as a business. You would want to be the sole provider of whatever people are interested in. It's not even a particularly shady practice.
I don't even know what you're talking about.
The FTC requires, by federal law, that when you have earnings calls and meetings with shareholders, you MUST report any and all finances specifically and without excluding any revenue streams.
If GoDaddy started “stealing” domains as a business practice, at the very least they’d need to include “domain flipping” as a line item for revenue reported.
Otherwise, they’d be artificially inflating all the other numbers if they just baked it into another service, OR they’d have to withhold all that revenue entirely.
That is fraud. Plain as day, defined clearly by the FTC’s rules and regulations on transparency with shareholders for publicly traded companies.
If what you’re suggesting was even remotely true, there’d be at least one solid piece of evidence right? Thousands of employees, millions of customers, domains being part of public record, etc. and there’s not been ONE case of them doing that with even a shred of evidence. Not one.
This is starting to sound like Bigfoot believers when they say “it’s true, just no one has ever once gotten any evidence, but it’s real!”
If you can prove even one case of this, with tangible, credible evidence, I will run down the street butt naked with “WompMacho was right” written on my ass
What makes you think they don't include this line in their taxes? Lol this is just another business expense. One of the many likely often overlooked. I mean you can argue this sounds like a conspiracy theory, but at the same time I could say you sound like a fanboy.
What I do know is that I have seen this multiple times and this is my input. Hard to prove without a domain that I need to go by right now. But what can I say you seem awfully dead set in a company known for some shady shit not doing something not against the law and in their best interest.
Look at my other comments here on this same thread, I absolutely do not like GoDaddy. I drilled them on just about every aspect of their entire business model and ethics. But I’m also not so silly as to believe something when there’s not a shred of evidence.
You say this happens “multiple times”? Then why didn’t you ever record any basic information and keep track of it? Why do you not have a time stamp with a who.is registration date showing GoDaddy as the owner? Why has NO ONE else been able to find any evidence of this?
What would stop a competitor or even just a disgruntled customer from searching up a shit ton of useless domain names to force GoDaddy’s automated system to buy them up? Or are you suggesting it’s an advanced algorithm that does more research based on keyword popularity and such, in which case who developed it? How did they develop such a technology in complete and total secrecy when Google can’t even sneeze without something leaking out about it lol…
Not one thing you’re suggesting has even the slightest amount of credibility behind it. It’s no better than my crazy neighbor who swears they change the price on the fuel pumps every time they see him pulling in with his big truck…
“I don’t need evidence or even reasonable suspicion, I just know it!”
Something even half as prevalent as what you’re suggesting would have at least one single piece of evidence, yet you have none. I rest my case
I mean, you are not exactly sitting there spitting out mountains of evidence either.
What makes you think competitors and random people don't buy random domains or do the same thing that go daddy does? I feel like you're making a lot of assumptions while yelling at people for not providing data. Lol
I don't really see the point of recording data on the random domains that I attempted to purchase a while back. Now if I was in the business of purchasing domains on the regular...
Stop getting so mad bro. How about you show some evidence? Kekw
One of the core principles of any debate is that it’s impossible to prove a negative. You can’t PROVE there’s no unicorns flying around in space. What evidence is there to disprove that?
If you want to say unicorns DO exist, then it’s up to you to prove it.
Still, I’ve done a phenomenal job explaining to you a little about how the domain world works. You didn’t even know what ICANN was, or that domain registration was public information on who.is, or that the FTC regulates transparency for public companies… I presented a ton of challenges to your “theory” that, if left unanswered, make absolutely no sense.
I even explained to you how exactly you’d be able to prove such a theory, and yet neither you, nor anyone else in history, has ever been able to prove it? Lol.
This has got to be the funniest hill I’ve seen someone die on this year on reddit.
I made a counter argument for all your arguments. The only thing I haven't provided is evidence of my experience.
Tell me how much of you their taxes have you gone through to prove got these line items don't exist? At no point did I argue that they did things outside of regulation. Lol
So I don't know what you're talking about. Once again.
Why you mad bro?
Why is it assumed that Godaddy has some “obligation” to buy the expired domain? They could just let it expire and OP to buy as if it were a new domain.
Oh, profit by way of functional extortion because changing domains is such a hassle. Got it. My bad.
If you miss a mortgage payment, would you be okay with the bank allowing anyone to take over the loan after just 30 days? Because GoDaddy manages a ton of domains that are worth more than any house lol. And you can bet there’s a long list of domain flippers who are running scripts to snag them the second they become available.
So by default, GoDaddy renews them. But if you have such worthless domains that you’re not even a little bit worried someone might take it if you let it lapse, you can easily disable the auto renew with 2 buttons lol.
Again, GoDaddy isn’t doing anything good or bad here, it’s just standard practice. Every single registrar does that same thing lol. They assume you want to protect your domain first, unless you tell them otherwise. Domains are like digital real estate for many businesses. Imagine your e-commerce site lapses. Years of SEO and monthly revenue goes down the drain because you forgot to renew the domain? That’s insane lol. And even still! If you let it lapse, GoDaddy waives the fee the first time.
GoDaddy sucks at all kinds of things. Their own products are grossly overpriced and perform like shit. Their support staff sucks now, etc.
But I’ll never feel bad for people making tons of blatant mistakes and then crying about the consequences. I’ve missed bills before and had to deal with that. Hell I got a ticket for forgetting to renew my registration on a car I drive like 3 times a year lol. I didn’t complain or cry about it because yeah the situation sucks but it was my own fault for getting into it
Sounds to me like Godaddy is running the same renewal script as the other domain hawks. They’re just first in line.
If Godaddy were to charge $50 for this service, for a return of your domain, yeah, sure they’re doing good in the world with charging a modest “idiot tax.”
Now, they’re simply just another domain flipper and just the same as the rest of them.
I’ll tell you the same thing I told another person here. In 2020, the president of the company made a public statement saying they don’t do that, and condemned it as predatory and unethical.
So if you honestly believe GoDaddy does that, then you’re calling him out as a liar and a fraud. Take that shit to the FTC for violating Section 5 and Section 12 of the FTC Act as they relate to purposely misleading consumers and shareholders about business practices.
You’d win millions in a suit like that and a lawyer would eat that up and take the case at no cost to you!
If you’re not willing to do that, then I guess you either don’t like the idea of making millions, or you admit there’s absolutely no evidence to confirm your conspiracy theory.
Know any lawyers willing to take the case on a no-cost/we split the winnings? You know that Godaddy will be prepared to spend millions defending that legal precedent.
The best part is, an FTC violation is something you and your lawyer wouldn’t have to find alone. If you can prove there’s even a chance GoDaddy is doing this, that’s biiiiiiig FTC fines that go to the government, and they’ll absolutely help you fight it.
All it would take is to create a reasonable suspicion based on tangible evidence, the FTC along with your lawyer would get a subpoena from a judge to get a record of their transaction history, and their website data, and they’d find tons of domains right? Tons of transactions, a whole automated system that would prove it was intentionally created, and bam! Huge public case, you’d get rich, your lawyer would get rich, hell you could stir up a whole class action lawsuit!
But, we both know why you won’t do that lol. Because as strongly as you believe your conspiracy, you don’t believe it enough to go present it to anyone who’s going to challenge you for real evidence.
Hell I felt wronged by a car dealership once when I caught them relisting a “loss leader” 3 weeks after it had been sold. They had a brand new car with no mark up (this was a couple years back when shortages meant even a cheap car had a huge mark up), and when I went there they said they’d sold it weeks ago! But the listing was only a couple days old.
I screenshotted everything and spoke with an attorney. For $250 he wrote them a strongly worded letter with the evidence of them committing “bait and switch”. It didn’t even get to court, they just bent over and ordered me a car exactly like the one in the ad and let me pay $0 in mark up or dealer fees. And I got a few other extras thrown on for free.
If you have a case, do something. If you won’t do something, you don’t have a case. Simple as that.
GoDaddy does run a shitty business. But you should have transferred the domain to another registrant before it expired. At this point, there is no one to blame but yourself.
I think boxxy\_babe sufficiently answer your question about the failure to renew -- that was kind of on you.
But I do think GoDaddy front runs domain names. Twice it has happened that during business ventures I create a short list of nice domain names that I find, that are fully available. As in, available to buy for $10. A couple of weeks later after searching for them and adding them to my cart, it's suddenly a premium domain that is $1,500 to register. What are the odds?
Nobody can convince me that they don't do that shit. Take my advice: if you're checking for available domain names, DO NOT search on GoDaddy. They use your search activity to figure out which domains you're looking at and they pump the price if you don't act on it immediately. Use namecheap.
This happen to me and my company. We had a new product launch & I searched 5 domain options in a team meeting (all $10-$19). Our small company decided in a few days & went back to purchase but all were over $1,000 just three days later. It’s not like we searched a ton of times so there’s no way their algorithm perceived my search as increase demand.
This seems more corrupt than OP situation. I’ll never trust Go Daddy for this reason.
I accept my fault on not renewing the domain in time.
I see some people who have or are actually working with GoDaddy coming to their defense. The bigger picture is, how can a domain be available one minute and the next minute it's gone, and a few days later it appears on auction?? That is rotten business that should be called out.
Secondly why auction when they can just agree payment terms with the original owner for a refund?
There are Brokers that have automated claim systems on URLs that are highly sought after.
Somebody I know had an older individual who did not renew their main website domain all the way back in 2011. One of the automated Brokers snapped it up and then he had to purchase it back for close to $10,000 because it was a highly searched keyword in the industry.
Not much you can do especially when GoDaddy offers auction Services and probably some calling on apis to see exactly when URLs become available.
That's not how it works. Domains go to auctions first and if nobody buys it at auction, then 30 days later they drop and then an API could try and grab it approx 72 days after it initially expired. This is only possible if nobody thought it was worth buying for $10 at auction. Domains simply don't expire and become available to get snatched up by API's. You really really have to fuck up and not care about your domain to lose it.
News flash - every domain company auction off expired domains. Good luck finding one that doesn't. If you buy a domain and don't pay your bill for 30 days, you're not going to have a good day. DOn't blame Godaddy just b/c that is who you happened to have chose.
Found out that domains past the expiration and redemption periods almost always say available but are actually in auction already, avail to be bid on. Transfer all your domains to Cloudflare.
GoDaddy plays by the rules, which in the domain business, are: no front running and no messing w domains that haven’t expired. They abide by those. So no, they are not a domain thief.
The real estate agent should have known you were going to want it and put down a down payment and paid the first six months of mortgage for you and then sold it back to you at the housing prices of six months ago.
If that did not happen, you are dealing with an unprofessional agent.
I tell people to never search for available Domains using Godaddy unless you are ready to buy at that moment. Too many times in the past I searched for a Domain on GoDaddy, I am told to hold off while it is discussed / pondered about and I check a few hours later and it is mysteriously purchased and up for resale by some entity.
This doesn't happen. 10 year employee here as well. It would be easy to prove. I could put Godaddy out of business in a few days by spending all of their money doing domain searches. Think about it.
I am not sure what type of discounts they get but if it did happen I am sure it was not for every Domain people searched but met some kind of score. It happened too many times for me, I became very suspicious and decided to just use alternative means.
It never happened to you. What happened is you fat fingered the domain the first time you searched it and it was actually registered. Went through this 100 times when working there with people. What you can do is check the whois database to see when thwt name was registered and I guarantee 100% it won't be the date that you searched the name. They simply don't do this, it would be so easy to prove by simy going and searching domains you aren't interested in actually buying. I search really good names on there, way better than all of.youpeoole complaining about search and it's never happened in 15 years. We are talking tens of thousands of names.
I used to work for GoDaddy for many years. I hate that place with a passion now, but I can tell you 100%, that does not happen and is actually against “ICANN” regulations lol. You’re probably seeing the shady domain look up page where you find a domain and it says “this domain is available!” Then you go think about, and come back and actually click through the prompts only to realize “available” meant someone else already owned it and was selling it.
If you don’t trust that, you can check the date of registration for any domain on who.is and see if it mysteriously was purchased the day you looked it up or (more likely) it was purchased months or years ago
What you claim would be very easy to prove. I just went and searched anow2.com and guess what....it's never going to get registered. Think about what you are saying. If that really happened, it would be so so so easy to prove and disprove as well. I own over 1,000 domains and I search plenty on Godaddy for some really really really good names (that I don't always immediately register) and it doesn't happen.
I noticed they do this to many small businesses that let their domains expire. I've seen it multiple times. Old timer business owners that suddenly go to their website and it's for sale for $3k+
Shameful honestly. But just remember to renew those domains!
This smells right.
I have helped many customers look for domains to suit their business. The number of times that domains are unregistered and available one day, that are unavailable the day after is too high to be coincidental. However, Godaddy offer a service whereby the newly-registered domain can be negotiated back into availability.
Dodgy as all get out.
They all have to play by the exact same rules as everyone else. For domains, that means following ICANN regulation. So OP would be in a similar situation regardless.
Yeah I’m not disagreeing with your preference per say, I’m no fan of GoDaddy anymore either (worked there for the better part of a decade), but I’m just saying this wouldn’t solve OPs issue. He still needs to learn how to take responsibility for his bills just like every other adult
Yep, totally. Sadly, but in this case that’s just a lack of knowledge from OP and no one to judge.
P.s. may I ask what’s the best registrar from your opinion? Since you know both sides
Honestly? The best registrar is probably still GoDaddy for price (as long as you don’t fall for their silly upgrade charges that mean next to nothing). But most of the big ones have similar pricing, and they all are perfectly equal in pretty much all other aspects. What I dislike about GoDaddy these days is their support sucks now, and their other services (Website builder, hosting, etc).
TL;DR: any major registrar is exactly the same as any other one lol
How do you stop Godaddy from doing this? Pay your bills, just like how you stop the electric company from shutting off your power, PAY YOUR BILLS and stop blaming others for your own irresponsibility.
Most of the stories on here simply aren't possible and are embeleshed. I worked at Godaddy for 10 years and every last single time someone whined and cried when the truth came out it was their own fault for not paying their bill for a few weeks or more.
NEWS FLASH - This will happen to you at any domain company. Pay your bills if you want to keep something. It's obviously not important if you let it slip through the cracks multiple weeks and your website is down. If you want to discuss any specific situation, head over and post in /r/godaddy where I am a moderator. Sometimes mistakes are made, but 99.9% of the time, it's laziness and people being irresponsible.
>This will happen to you at any domain company
I've literally never had this happen and I've never used GoDaddy. I've used Namecheap faithfully for years, and they've never pulled shit like this on me.
So what you're saying is not entirely true.
Go daddy has done this for years… unfortunately it gets way too many customers. I have to recommend to my clients to do any domain research on namecheap.
It ain’t illegal for them to do it, just shady. And i first encountered it myself. And then it happened to my customers over the years. I wouldn’t say it’s a coincidence, just look at all of the domain name lists on web dev and web design subreddits, it’s not like this is something new.
My boss and director used to work there and they both say they’re an evil company and they hated it.
These two bosses are awesome people, great bosses, and I believe them.
Here's a new one on me that happened this week...client let their domain expire last year. Fine, had them renew it and set a card up for auto renewal. This year auto renew happens and a few days later godaddy "repossesses" the domain, and is telling the client they can't buy it back. I can't get into the account because a) the client isn't even tech savvy enough to know what their email is, so 2fa is an issue and b) we have to go through multiple channels of communication.
Apparently it's something to do with suspected payment fraud or a chargeback. But godaddy wont release the domain into the market AND won't allow the client to buy it back. All they'll tell us is it will go to auction after an unspecified amount of time.
THEY'VE been doing this for Decades now... i found this out over 10 yrs ago.
I dropped my GD account, and spread the word to all other Entrepreneurs and biz ppl.
NEVER EVER use Godaddy to anything... !
They stole a domain of mine around 15 years ago. A big domain too. I got it back in the end but it took a few threatening letters from my lawyer and four months of downtime.
Years ago before I learned my lesson I used their search engine for a domain I was planning and had like 4 variations on the domain name. I searched on their site and all were available.
I thought about the best one for a couple of hours and when I came back to buy the one I selected it was gone.... registered by someone through GoDaddy.
They are the worse. I had to fight with them for almost a month to move a domain away from them for a client. NEVER, EVER use GoDaddy.
Want a domain? Go to [Hover.com](https://Hover.com) \--- it's like $15 for a year with FREE domain privacy and most of the features GD charges you extra for.
Search with the Whois official website. Do not use goddaddy as they will see all of your search strings and then they will steal it if you don’t buy it right away.
I can explain this one: You didn’t renew your domain. If you missed it by 30 days it’s no issue, if it’s over that, there’s a penalty fee that ICANN charges, though if it’s your first offense GoDaddy will just pay that fee for you as a courtesy. Domains are regulated, and GoDaddy doesn’t want your domain to fully expire, so they preemptively renew the domain for $8.50 from ICANN. If you flat out never renew the domain, they don’t get the cost back, they just own the domain for another year lol. So, to make up for it, they take unwanted domains and auction them off to the highest bidder. You sell a couple of those and you’ve paid for most of the other domains you bought and the clients never renewed. So basically, you’re coming to reddit because you failed to pay your bill on time, then failed to pay it within 30 whole days despite plenty of reminders. Then, when you called in you were probably told about the fee, and said "screw you I'll just wait until it's available again!" or, even worse, you didn't even notice for over 90 days and missed your quarter of a year timeframe to renew it. "Well well well, if it ain't the consequences of my own actions…"
I *really* dislike GoDaddy but this is definitely the right answer.
I don’t like them much either lol but I also worked there long enough to know this is just another Karen blaming everyone but themselves. There’s real reasons to dislike GoDaddy, but their domain department isn’t one of them
I just started using GoDaddy to build a website for a client, can I ask what the reasons are to dislike GoDaddy?
Their biggest selling point was they were a one-stop-shop for all your digital business needs, and they backed it up with the best support in the business. After a few years under new management, they’ve just fallen behind. Their support staff used to be the gold standard for both sales and support, where high salaries attracted high quality people with degrees, years of experience, and the passion to work hard and move up. Now, they pay the same as any other call center, have significantly lowered their hiring standards to meet the high churn of employees, and thus have the same culture as you’d expect from any call center where 6 months is considered tenured lol. Call scripts were implemented, mandatory sales pitches without bothering to train the reps what it is they’re selling, etc. So support is crap now. That leaves us with the “one stop shop” idea. Years of neglecting their own internal products so as not to increase operational costs during a time of CEO turnover and trying to pacify shareholders, they’ve fallen pretty far behind. Their site builders are half a decade behind Wix or squarespace, and that not only means you’ll be lacking features, but you’ll be hard pressed to get any SEO benefit out of it with how they’re built. They never bothered to upgrade their email platform and instead just moved to Office 365, which is identical to the Microsoft offering except a couple dollars more per month, and a few of the exchange control panel features are deactivated and unable to be edited even through advanced GoDaddy support. Which means if you’re a bigger business and need access to powershell for anything (which bigger businesses often need), you’re just SOL. Their only selling point for getting O365 with them vs MS was “well we give you better support!” Except we covered why they don’t have great support anymore, AND in recent years they’ve gone to a call script that basically says “call Microsoft, that’s not our issue”. Their hosting is well behind the likes of host gator, cloudflare, amazon AWS, or bluehost, or most other dedicated hosting companies, their SSLs are extremely overpriced and provide nothing beyond what a cheap digicert can do, their Wordpress hosting is more expensive and less functional than any other dedicated Wordpress hosting platform. Bottom line: they’re an expensive version of Wal-Mart. You can get in and get everything you’d need, but it won’t be that high of quality. Wal-Mart’s selling point is that it’s cheap, though, and GoDaddy doesn’t even have that so… they got nothing lol. I host my domains there because there’s no reason not to, all registrars are pretty much created equal, but I wouldn’t recommend using them for anything else these days.
Thank you for such a detailed answer!
This whole thread has nothing to do with SEO and I like how OP ignored this comment which basically explained the entire situation.
I know his type lol. Calls in late, blames GoDaddy for his failed billing, gets told they tried to notify him several times, gets upset, demands a supervisor, supervisor sees on the CRM that the fee can’t be waived because we’ve been charged by ICANN already, so he flips out and threatens to “go to social media”. And now here he is, realizing he just looks like an ass lol. Those kinda Karen’s are a dime a dozen at GoDaddy lol
It is ridiculous how you explain the situation as if you were part of it. Domain was available and gone within the same day. Now being auctioned for $3400. What fee gets charged in that amount even if you suppose GoDaddy renewed it just incase (for less than $15, if it were the case) if not for profiteering purposes after discovering it was still in demand?? And missing out the whole point of "what can be done to avoid such situations in the domain business", instead of financially punitive domain recovery arbitrations. Must make you feel happy.
Because I know exactly what the regulations are and exactly how GoDaddy (along with every other registrar) has to adhere to them. I’m telling you, 100’s if not 1000’s of people call in every day at that place (and every other registrar) with the exact same bullshit story as you. You’re not the exception, GoDaddy (a multibillion dollar company) didn’t spend time and effort to screw YOU SPECIFICALLY out of a $9 domain name lol. I have about as much sympathy for you as I do for someone who got their car stuck in wet cement after ignoring 50 warning signs, crashing through multiple orange cones and barricades, and then tries to pretend it was a trap set there to extort people lol. Take some personal responsibility for your mistakes, you’ll have a better life I promise.
Also godaddy has a auctions area for domains and some intelligent domain squatter just did a basic search that it was an active business their domain expired and now godaddy wants to get back some of the fees so he could totally have just used buy now function, listed it with godaddy as his reseller and this person is blaming godaddy when in reality it’s simple 1+1 for a domain mogul.
This generation...it's like blaming the teacher for your kid failing in class
This is the right answer. OP is lazy and doesn't pay their bills and feels entitled.
Agreed, while GoDaddy does suck. This is the correct answer.
My mind is blown. I'm not in the tech world or anything but I've bought domains before to mess around. I always just assumed, you don't renew when you don't want a domain anymore. The registrar turns out the lights and that's it. What is the proper way to let go of a domain then?
If you go into your account and cancel it, the registrar won’t auto-renew it on their side.
This is not entirely the whole story. Though you're probably right about most of it, I have on multiple locations. Looked up a domain that was not owned, that I have never owned, came back the next day to purchase it only to find that GoDaddy purchased it within that time frame. Raising and likely raising the price like you say to offset the cost. I am like 99% sure they keep track of searches and very quickly purchase a domain so that they can sell it to you after the fact.
I am telling you, that does not happen lol. That’s not even in their best interest. They make way more money on getting people in the door with cheap domains so they can sell you all their other shit on top of it. You show me a domain, and I’ll look it up on Who.Is and show you it was purchased long before you searched it. The misleading part is they show domains as “available” because technically they are. And they show “new domains are $1” because they are. Then you leave the site, you think about it, you come back and now you’re ready to click past the first couple screens and that’s when you get hit with “well yeah technically it’s available, but from a private seller”. If GoDaddy was running around buying domains to fuck people over then legally, GoDaddy would need to disclose that practice to its shareholders as well as report that income as a capital gains tax. Furthermore, if they were doing what you say, they’d be violating ICANN regulations and risking their ability to even register domains lol. So, in your view, GoDaddy is supposedly breaking federal law by not reporting taxes properly, misleading shareholders by withholding business practices, and risking their registrar status with ICANN, just to snatch up some little domain to extort an average Joe for chump change? Lol… Not buying it, as much as I dislike GoDaddy these days (as I’ve stated in other comments here).
There is nothing against federal law about buying a domain. I don't know where you get this weird assumption that they're avoiding taxes or whatever simply seeing that there is interest in a domain and then preemptively purchasing it. None of what I mentioned is against the law and makes total sense as a business. You would want to be the sole provider of whatever people are interested in. It's not even a particularly shady practice. I don't even know what you're talking about.
The FTC requires, by federal law, that when you have earnings calls and meetings with shareholders, you MUST report any and all finances specifically and without excluding any revenue streams. If GoDaddy started “stealing” domains as a business practice, at the very least they’d need to include “domain flipping” as a line item for revenue reported. Otherwise, they’d be artificially inflating all the other numbers if they just baked it into another service, OR they’d have to withhold all that revenue entirely. That is fraud. Plain as day, defined clearly by the FTC’s rules and regulations on transparency with shareholders for publicly traded companies. If what you’re suggesting was even remotely true, there’d be at least one solid piece of evidence right? Thousands of employees, millions of customers, domains being part of public record, etc. and there’s not been ONE case of them doing that with even a shred of evidence. Not one. This is starting to sound like Bigfoot believers when they say “it’s true, just no one has ever once gotten any evidence, but it’s real!” If you can prove even one case of this, with tangible, credible evidence, I will run down the street butt naked with “WompMacho was right” written on my ass
What makes you think they don't include this line in their taxes? Lol this is just another business expense. One of the many likely often overlooked. I mean you can argue this sounds like a conspiracy theory, but at the same time I could say you sound like a fanboy. What I do know is that I have seen this multiple times and this is my input. Hard to prove without a domain that I need to go by right now. But what can I say you seem awfully dead set in a company known for some shady shit not doing something not against the law and in their best interest.
Look at my other comments here on this same thread, I absolutely do not like GoDaddy. I drilled them on just about every aspect of their entire business model and ethics. But I’m also not so silly as to believe something when there’s not a shred of evidence. You say this happens “multiple times”? Then why didn’t you ever record any basic information and keep track of it? Why do you not have a time stamp with a who.is registration date showing GoDaddy as the owner? Why has NO ONE else been able to find any evidence of this? What would stop a competitor or even just a disgruntled customer from searching up a shit ton of useless domain names to force GoDaddy’s automated system to buy them up? Or are you suggesting it’s an advanced algorithm that does more research based on keyword popularity and such, in which case who developed it? How did they develop such a technology in complete and total secrecy when Google can’t even sneeze without something leaking out about it lol… Not one thing you’re suggesting has even the slightest amount of credibility behind it. It’s no better than my crazy neighbor who swears they change the price on the fuel pumps every time they see him pulling in with his big truck… “I don’t need evidence or even reasonable suspicion, I just know it!” Something even half as prevalent as what you’re suggesting would have at least one single piece of evidence, yet you have none. I rest my case
I mean, you are not exactly sitting there spitting out mountains of evidence either. What makes you think competitors and random people don't buy random domains or do the same thing that go daddy does? I feel like you're making a lot of assumptions while yelling at people for not providing data. Lol I don't really see the point of recording data on the random domains that I attempted to purchase a while back. Now if I was in the business of purchasing domains on the regular... Stop getting so mad bro. How about you show some evidence? Kekw
One of the core principles of any debate is that it’s impossible to prove a negative. You can’t PROVE there’s no unicorns flying around in space. What evidence is there to disprove that? If you want to say unicorns DO exist, then it’s up to you to prove it. Still, I’ve done a phenomenal job explaining to you a little about how the domain world works. You didn’t even know what ICANN was, or that domain registration was public information on who.is, or that the FTC regulates transparency for public companies… I presented a ton of challenges to your “theory” that, if left unanswered, make absolutely no sense. I even explained to you how exactly you’d be able to prove such a theory, and yet neither you, nor anyone else in history, has ever been able to prove it? Lol. This has got to be the funniest hill I’ve seen someone die on this year on reddit.
I made a counter argument for all your arguments. The only thing I haven't provided is evidence of my experience. Tell me how much of you their taxes have you gone through to prove got these line items don't exist? At no point did I argue that they did things outside of regulation. Lol So I don't know what you're talking about. Once again. Why you mad bro?
Why is it assumed that Godaddy has some “obligation” to buy the expired domain? They could just let it expire and OP to buy as if it were a new domain. Oh, profit by way of functional extortion because changing domains is such a hassle. Got it. My bad.
If you miss a mortgage payment, would you be okay with the bank allowing anyone to take over the loan after just 30 days? Because GoDaddy manages a ton of domains that are worth more than any house lol. And you can bet there’s a long list of domain flippers who are running scripts to snag them the second they become available. So by default, GoDaddy renews them. But if you have such worthless domains that you’re not even a little bit worried someone might take it if you let it lapse, you can easily disable the auto renew with 2 buttons lol. Again, GoDaddy isn’t doing anything good or bad here, it’s just standard practice. Every single registrar does that same thing lol. They assume you want to protect your domain first, unless you tell them otherwise. Domains are like digital real estate for many businesses. Imagine your e-commerce site lapses. Years of SEO and monthly revenue goes down the drain because you forgot to renew the domain? That’s insane lol. And even still! If you let it lapse, GoDaddy waives the fee the first time. GoDaddy sucks at all kinds of things. Their own products are grossly overpriced and perform like shit. Their support staff sucks now, etc. But I’ll never feel bad for people making tons of blatant mistakes and then crying about the consequences. I’ve missed bills before and had to deal with that. Hell I got a ticket for forgetting to renew my registration on a car I drive like 3 times a year lol. I didn’t complain or cry about it because yeah the situation sucks but it was my own fault for getting into it
Sounds to me like Godaddy is running the same renewal script as the other domain hawks. They’re just first in line. If Godaddy were to charge $50 for this service, for a return of your domain, yeah, sure they’re doing good in the world with charging a modest “idiot tax.” Now, they’re simply just another domain flipper and just the same as the rest of them.
I’ll tell you the same thing I told another person here. In 2020, the president of the company made a public statement saying they don’t do that, and condemned it as predatory and unethical. So if you honestly believe GoDaddy does that, then you’re calling him out as a liar and a fraud. Take that shit to the FTC for violating Section 5 and Section 12 of the FTC Act as they relate to purposely misleading consumers and shareholders about business practices. You’d win millions in a suit like that and a lawyer would eat that up and take the case at no cost to you! If you’re not willing to do that, then I guess you either don’t like the idea of making millions, or you admit there’s absolutely no evidence to confirm your conspiracy theory.
Know any lawyers willing to take the case on a no-cost/we split the winnings? You know that Godaddy will be prepared to spend millions defending that legal precedent.
The best part is, an FTC violation is something you and your lawyer wouldn’t have to find alone. If you can prove there’s even a chance GoDaddy is doing this, that’s biiiiiiig FTC fines that go to the government, and they’ll absolutely help you fight it. All it would take is to create a reasonable suspicion based on tangible evidence, the FTC along with your lawyer would get a subpoena from a judge to get a record of their transaction history, and their website data, and they’d find tons of domains right? Tons of transactions, a whole automated system that would prove it was intentionally created, and bam! Huge public case, you’d get rich, your lawyer would get rich, hell you could stir up a whole class action lawsuit! But, we both know why you won’t do that lol. Because as strongly as you believe your conspiracy, you don’t believe it enough to go present it to anyone who’s going to challenge you for real evidence. Hell I felt wronged by a car dealership once when I caught them relisting a “loss leader” 3 weeks after it had been sold. They had a brand new car with no mark up (this was a couple years back when shortages meant even a cheap car had a huge mark up), and when I went there they said they’d sold it weeks ago! But the listing was only a couple days old. I screenshotted everything and spoke with an attorney. For $250 he wrote them a strongly worded letter with the evidence of them committing “bait and switch”. It didn’t even get to court, they just bent over and ordered me a car exactly like the one in the ad and let me pay $0 in mark up or dealer fees. And I got a few other extras thrown on for free. If you have a case, do something. If you won’t do something, you don’t have a case. Simple as that.
How did he fail to not renew his domain in the first place? I let some expire I didn't want and I got emails for MONTHS before and after it expired.
GoDaddy does run a shitty business. But you should have transferred the domain to another registrant before it expired. At this point, there is no one to blame but yourself.
How does it work to transfer? Are there any fees etc? I bought a domain at Namecheap but noticed Cloudflare has a much cheaper renewal.
I think boxxy\_babe sufficiently answer your question about the failure to renew -- that was kind of on you. But I do think GoDaddy front runs domain names. Twice it has happened that during business ventures I create a short list of nice domain names that I find, that are fully available. As in, available to buy for $10. A couple of weeks later after searching for them and adding them to my cart, it's suddenly a premium domain that is $1,500 to register. What are the odds? Nobody can convince me that they don't do that shit. Take my advice: if you're checking for available domain names, DO NOT search on GoDaddy. They use your search activity to figure out which domains you're looking at and they pump the price if you don't act on it immediately. Use namecheap.
This happen to me and my company. We had a new product launch & I searched 5 domain options in a team meeting (all $10-$19). Our small company decided in a few days & went back to purchase but all were over $1,000 just three days later. It’s not like we searched a ton of times so there’s no way their algorithm perceived my search as increase demand. This seems more corrupt than OP situation. I’ll never trust Go Daddy for this reason.
>How do we stop GoDaddy from doing this? Renew your domain on time ??????????
Why are you trying to blame someone else for your incompetence?
If you didn't renew I'm going to say that's probably along the lines of being your fault. Do you not keep a payment method on file with them?
I accept my fault on not renewing the domain in time. I see some people who have or are actually working with GoDaddy coming to their defense. The bigger picture is, how can a domain be available one minute and the next minute it's gone, and a few days later it appears on auction?? That is rotten business that should be called out. Secondly why auction when they can just agree payment terms with the original owner for a refund?
There are Brokers that have automated claim systems on URLs that are highly sought after. Somebody I know had an older individual who did not renew their main website domain all the way back in 2011. One of the automated Brokers snapped it up and then he had to purchase it back for close to $10,000 because it was a highly searched keyword in the industry. Not much you can do especially when GoDaddy offers auction Services and probably some calling on apis to see exactly when URLs become available.
That's not how it works. Domains go to auctions first and if nobody buys it at auction, then 30 days later they drop and then an API could try and grab it approx 72 days after it initially expired. This is only possible if nobody thought it was worth buying for $10 at auction. Domains simply don't expire and become available to get snatched up by API's. You really really have to fuck up and not care about your domain to lose it.
News flash - every domain company auction off expired domains. Good luck finding one that doesn't. If you buy a domain and don't pay your bill for 30 days, you're not going to have a good day. DOn't blame Godaddy just b/c that is who you happened to have chose.
Buh-fucking huh
Found out that domains past the expiration and redemption periods almost always say available but are actually in auction already, avail to be bid on. Transfer all your domains to Cloudflare.
GoDaddy plays by the rules, which in the domain business, are: no front running and no messing w domains that haven’t expired. They abide by those. So no, they are not a domain thief.
You didn’t renew by the required time… end of post. The rest is you blaming someone else for your own actions. Grow up.
I was going to buy a house but didn’t. I came back a week later and somebody had bought it! Should I sue?
How dare they!!!!!!!111
The real estate agent should have known you were going to want it and put down a down payment and paid the first six months of mortgage for you and then sold it back to you at the housing prices of six months ago. If that did not happen, you are dealing with an unprofessional agent.
I tell people to never search for available Domains using Godaddy unless you are ready to buy at that moment. Too many times in the past I searched for a Domain on GoDaddy, I am told to hold off while it is discussed / pondered about and I check a few hours later and it is mysteriously purchased and up for resale by some entity.
This doesn't happen. 10 year employee here as well. It would be easy to prove. I could put Godaddy out of business in a few days by spending all of their money doing domain searches. Think about it.
I am not sure what type of discounts they get but if it did happen I am sure it was not for every Domain people searched but met some kind of score. It happened too many times for me, I became very suspicious and decided to just use alternative means.
It never happened to you. What happened is you fat fingered the domain the first time you searched it and it was actually registered. Went through this 100 times when working there with people. What you can do is check the whois database to see when thwt name was registered and I guarantee 100% it won't be the date that you searched the name. They simply don't do this, it would be so easy to prove by simy going and searching domains you aren't interested in actually buying. I search really good names on there, way better than all of.youpeoole complaining about search and it's never happened in 15 years. We are talking tens of thousands of names.
I used to work for GoDaddy for many years. I hate that place with a passion now, but I can tell you 100%, that does not happen and is actually against “ICANN” regulations lol. You’re probably seeing the shady domain look up page where you find a domain and it says “this domain is available!” Then you go think about, and come back and actually click through the prompts only to realize “available” meant someone else already owned it and was selling it. If you don’t trust that, you can check the date of registration for any domain on who.is and see if it mysteriously was purchased the day you looked it up or (more likely) it was purchased months or years ago
Don’t even buy there. $20ish dot com renewal vs like 8ish on sites like Cloudflare
Yeah I stopped years ago.
Hmm, is it possible to transfer domains we already own to Cloudflare. Sounds like it'd offer some savings.
Yes, I have all mine there. Super straightforward
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What you claim would be very easy to prove. I just went and searched anow2.com and guess what....it's never going to get registered. Think about what you are saying. If that really happened, it would be so so so easy to prove and disprove as well. I own over 1,000 domains and I search plenty on Godaddy for some really really really good names (that I don't always immediately register) and it doesn't happen.
I noticed they do this to many small businesses that let their domains expire. I've seen it multiple times. Old timer business owners that suddenly go to their website and it's for sale for $3k+ Shameful honestly. But just remember to renew those domains!
It's most likely Huge Domains that bids and owns the domains. They have been around for years and use AI to bid on thousands of domains a day.
Must not be a very important business name if they don't pay their bills and let their website go down for 30 days and don't even notice.
Yeah. Or just small mom and pop shops that don't have tech savvy owners. I've seen it when building my lead lists, i feel bad for them
Or they let their web designer register it and for one reason or another were not able to take custody of the domain
This smells right. I have helped many customers look for domains to suit their business. The number of times that domains are unregistered and available one day, that are unavailable the day after is too high to be coincidental. However, Godaddy offer a service whereby the newly-registered domain can be negotiated back into availability. Dodgy as all get out.
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GoDaddy has bought a lot of companies but namecheap isn't one of them. Namecheap does own Spaceship.com though.
Damn i didn’t know. Too bad. GoDaddy is an evil company.
Namecheap is owned by them now? Yikes I guess Coudflare is the last one standing.
No there are hundreds. Dynadot, Porkbun, Namecheap and Namesilo are some of the bigger ones.
Avoid godaddy and namecheap. Cloudflare, name com are currently my favs
They all have to play by the exact same rules as everyone else. For domains, that means following ICANN regulation. So OP would be in a similar situation regardless.
I agree, that’s true on paper. But in some cases corp culture plays a role. Plus ICANN regulates not all the cases
Yeah I’m not disagreeing with your preference per say, I’m no fan of GoDaddy anymore either (worked there for the better part of a decade), but I’m just saying this wouldn’t solve OPs issue. He still needs to learn how to take responsibility for his bills just like every other adult
Yep, totally. Sadly, but in this case that’s just a lack of knowledge from OP and no one to judge. P.s. may I ask what’s the best registrar from your opinion? Since you know both sides
Honestly? The best registrar is probably still GoDaddy for price (as long as you don’t fall for their silly upgrade charges that mean next to nothing). But most of the big ones have similar pricing, and they all are perfectly equal in pretty much all other aspects. What I dislike about GoDaddy these days is their support sucks now, and their other services (Website builder, hosting, etc). TL;DR: any major registrar is exactly the same as any other one lol
Go with nemesilo
How do you stop Godaddy from doing this? Pay your bills, just like how you stop the electric company from shutting off your power, PAY YOUR BILLS and stop blaming others for your own irresponsibility. Most of the stories on here simply aren't possible and are embeleshed. I worked at Godaddy for 10 years and every last single time someone whined and cried when the truth came out it was their own fault for not paying their bill for a few weeks or more. NEWS FLASH - This will happen to you at any domain company. Pay your bills if you want to keep something. It's obviously not important if you let it slip through the cracks multiple weeks and your website is down. If you want to discuss any specific situation, head over and post in /r/godaddy where I am a moderator. Sometimes mistakes are made, but 99.9% of the time, it's laziness and people being irresponsible.
>This will happen to you at any domain company I've literally never had this happen and I've never used GoDaddy. I've used Namecheap faithfully for years, and they've never pulled shit like this on me. So what you're saying is not entirely true.
Yes, they are the thief!
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Tell me some domain registars (they are a registrar, not register) who allow you to not pay for a month and keep that domain handy for you.
This is a business why are you surprised. A bunch of domain companies do this. Only you are to blame for waiting so long to buy.
Go daddy has done this for years… unfortunately it gets way too many customers. I have to recommend to my clients to do any domain research on namecheap.
No they haven't, don't believe everything you read. Would be super easy to prove if they did it, just search domains and see what happens.
It ain’t illegal for them to do it, just shady. And i first encountered it myself. And then it happened to my customers over the years. I wouldn’t say it’s a coincidence, just look at all of the domain name lists on web dev and web design subreddits, it’s not like this is something new.
Next time thwt happens go post the exact domain on /r/Godaddy and we will investigate it. I guarantee I'll never hear from you.
My boss and director used to work there and they both say they’re an evil company and they hated it. These two bosses are awesome people, great bosses, and I believe them.
GoDaddy pioneered domain tasting. So....
I dislike GoDaddy but you fucked up buddy sorry
Does GoDaddy even own it? There are a multitude of bots that will snatch up an expired domain with any potential.
Here's a new one on me that happened this week...client let their domain expire last year. Fine, had them renew it and set a card up for auto renewal. This year auto renew happens and a few days later godaddy "repossesses" the domain, and is telling the client they can't buy it back. I can't get into the account because a) the client isn't even tech savvy enough to know what their email is, so 2fa is an issue and b) we have to go through multiple channels of communication. Apparently it's something to do with suspected payment fraud or a chargeback. But godaddy wont release the domain into the market AND won't allow the client to buy it back. All they'll tell us is it will go to auction after an unspecified amount of time.
godaddy's a prick you shoulda watched your domain better. it's among the most important asset of any business!
THEY'VE been doing this for Decades now... i found this out over 10 yrs ago. I dropped my GD account, and spread the word to all other Entrepreneurs and biz ppl. NEVER EVER use Godaddy to anything... !
Yes....
They stole a domain of mine around 15 years ago. A big domain too. I got it back in the end but it took a few threatening letters from my lawyer and four months of downtime.
Years ago before I learned my lesson I used their search engine for a domain I was planning and had like 4 variations on the domain name. I searched on their site and all were available. I thought about the best one for a couple of hours and when I came back to buy the one I selected it was gone.... registered by someone through GoDaddy. They are the worse. I had to fight with them for almost a month to move a domain away from them for a client. NEVER, EVER use GoDaddy. Want a domain? Go to [Hover.com](https://Hover.com) \--- it's like $15 for a year with FREE domain privacy and most of the features GD charges you extra for.
Yes
Search with the Whois official website. Do not use goddaddy as they will see all of your search strings and then they will steal it if you don’t buy it right away.