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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.

NameFind Sells Large Chunk of its Best Inventory

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I monitor thousands of high quality domain names with the help of DomainTools. I use the Registrant Monitor tool to keep track of certain domain registrants, and I also use the Domain Monitor tool to track thousands of great domain names.

Over the last week, I noticed a large swath of exceptional domain names in the NameFind portfolio appear to have been sold. This includes some of its top one word, two word, and short acronym.com domain names. This is in addition to the well-publicized NameFind auction on GoDaddy Auctions.

This **Looks** Like Front Running at GoDaddy

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At least a couple of times a year, I am either emailed by someone who thinks GoDaddy is front running their attempted domain name registrations or I am sent a link to this type of accusation on social media. While front running was an issue many years ago, I am pretty confident it doesn’t happen any longer at any sort of scale, particularly at large domain registrars like GoDaddy. There are too many reasons why registrar front running doesn’t make sense.

I want to highlight something I just experienced that could easily look like front running to someone without domain name industry knowledge. It is definitely not front running, but it could appear that way to someone who just wants to buy a single domain name at GoDaddy.

How to Get a NameFind Auction Win Delivered Quickly

Over the weekend, I noticed the Micro.CO domain name was forwarding to Micro.Company. In the normal course of web browsing, this wouldn’t be surprising, but given the context, it surprised me. GoDaddy Auctions had announced that Micro.CO was included in its NameFind private auctions closing on December 15th:

How the heck did the winning bidder manage to secure the domain name in such a short period of time? It generally takes many days for GoDaddy to provision domain names won via GoDaddy Auctions. In addition, I had won a domain name on December 15th, and it was not delivered to my GoDaddy account.

Flood of Opt-in to the Afternic Premium Network Emails

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If you have .XYZ or .IO domain names listed for sale on Afternic, you probably received emails with the subject: “Opt-in to the Afternic Premium Network.” Last night, I received 31 of these emails from Afternic because I own 31 .XYZ domain names that are listed for sale on Afternic. In addition, I received several corresponding “Action required: Authorize your domain listings.” emails from GoDaddy. Michael Cyger mentioned this last night on Twitter.

The reason for these emails is that .XYZ and .IO domain names joined the Afternic Fast Transfer network. This was announced last week by Afternic:

GoDaddy Auctions Minimum Bid Increases to $25

For as long as I can recall, the minimum and opening bid for domain names in expiry auction at GoDaddy Auctions has been $12 + the renewal fee. The minimum bid amount has changed to $25 for domain names entering into auction at GoDaddy Auctions. The change was announced in a blog post on GoDaddy’s website on October 26.

Here’s what GoDaddy wrote about this change:

Confirmed: Accelerator.com Sold for $145k at GoDaddy Auctions

I had to be a soccer dad on Friday afternoon, and I missed the close of the Accelerator.com expiry auction at GoDaddy Auctions. When I returned, I saw the domain name had sold for $145,050, according to NameBio. When I clicked the auction page link, however, I saw a message that said “Auction cancelled,” which I shared on Twitter to see if someone could shed light on this:

I reached out to a contact at GoDaddy to ask if the domain name was sold or if the auction was cancelled. A GoDaddy contact replied to me and told me he thought the auction is still valid and awaiting payment.

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