So I saw the blog post of DomainNameWire.com today which refers to a post by Hybrid Domainer:
“””Go Daddy Auctions has increased its sales commission three-fold from 5% to 15%.
This change was noticed by Hybrid Domainer earlier today.””
So my issue is a simple one.
Why did a blogger have to “notice” a change where Godaddy tripled its rate?
Why didn’t Godaddy send out notices to its customers or even bloggers well in advance of such an increase?
TheDomains.com gets notices, lets call them Press Releases (PR) several times a month from Godaddy.com about all sorts of crap.
Lets put it this way.
Godaddy knows how to send out a press release and is not shy about discussing their achievements.
But when they raise their rates there is no notice?
No notice to bloggers?
Bad
No notice to customers?
Terrible
If you raise your rates you should have the courtesy of letting your customers and everyone in the industry know it, in advance with as much passion and publicity as who is going to be the new Godaddy.co girl.
Its just the right thing to do.
All credit to Hybrid Domainer for noticing the change, and for Andrew for re-publishing it, but a 3X increase in rates deserves a notice from the provider well in advance.
Maybe they need more money to buy more bullets and guns so they can kill more elephants.
Another reason to to take privacy off your domain names, you never know what end user is going to contact you. Privacy email’s never get to you.
Don
Good eye Ray and congratulations in breaking the story!
More exposure by Andrew and berkens
Curious how godadddy will respond. A bit silly not doing a PR notice. That’s a huge increase
@ Don said, “Maybe they need more money to buy more bullets and guns so they can kill more elephants.” Would you get off that?
Godaddy needs the $$ to settle with the employees over their class action, now that the employees hired Mark Thierman. Judge Snow has issued an order saying that a strict case management schedule will be followed, TRIAL WILL OCCUR IN 18 MONTHS NO EXCEPTIONS AT ALL. It’s in the discovery phase. No scorched earth allowed.
This is great it will help out websites like mine! 🙂
godaddy is no.3 on Google trends Hot Searches and TheDomains.com gets two listings, one on the news articles section and one in blog posts http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?
@Dual
Nope.
As far as I’m concerned, the domain industry only needs one blog: TheDomains.Com!
The rest of them might as well close theirs.
keep it up.
(Now, I’ve made some petty enemies for real, haha. I should wear a helmet to sleep!)
A: maybe, to hire a dozen of new GoDaddy girls? 🙂
when you’re the number 1 in a market, you can do whatever you want … just see what Google, Microsoft, Apple, eBay, Facebook, etc. do in their (nearly) monopolistic markets
godaddy’s slogan should be: “our best customer is an uninformed one.” there’s a lot of truth in that.
Other issues with TDNAM – http://www.dnforum.com/f77/godaddy-expiring-auctions-do-you-think-fair-thread-457987.html
I stopped doing business with GoDaddy, for a number of reasons, earlier this year, and moved all my domains from there. I always had a feeling something was not quite above board there, and after the last few calls to their tech support, over what should have been simple issues for me to handle, alone, I resolved (get it?) to cease and desist doing domain or any other business there. And the GoDaddy Girls don’t turn me on; so there was definitely no reason to hang around. LOL!
Wonder if GoDaddy will get as “scammy” as Enom/Namejet ?. Looks like headed in that direction.
@James: Thanks for posting that link, didn’t realize that was their deadbeat policy.
And the customer service responses are a classic example of the Godaddy experience.
It’s my opinion that GoDaddy has gotten sloppy and careless with their systems lately.
There are many things that have not been rolled out after much time and the site is riddled with bugs. It did not use to be this way.
I personally think, outside the elephant incident, that GoDaddy is a good company and has a great interface and such, but I realize I am in the minority.
They could easily do much better by themselves and by us.
So I have parked about 30-40 names, most owned for years at godaddy for over a year and have had them listed for auction all this time. Not a single bid or inquiry. Although I own a lot of domains, maybe 60-70, I am not an experienced domainer. But I have a few organic one-and- two word .com domains and a several one-and-tw0 word .us, .tv and some truly great .co domains.
Because I don’t really know how to market domains and don’t have the time to learn with other business obligations, I depended on GoDaddy, my registrar for over a decade, to help me sell these domains. I am sorely disappointed although I will say that a few months ago I learned about Sedo a few months ago and listed them all with same results. Am I delusional that these are pretty good domains…maybe not “A++” but at least a good solid “B”? (These are just a few):
sarahforpresident.co
draftsarah.co
draftsarah2012.co
drillalaska.us
gasrevolt.us
bigshots.co
cheapshots.co
politicallists.com
showtickets.co
vegasshow.co
poledancers.co
donorlists.us
shrimpgram.co
ideaincubator.us
So if neither GoDaddy or Sedo have produced anything, what should I do? At least I did not need to pay Sedo to list like I did with GoDady for the auction membership!
Typical GoDaddy. for years they have spent millions to sign up new customers. once signed the new customers join the Godaddy ranks of the “Forgotten/Neglected/Ripped off” . We customers made them #1, I imagine us customers could take that away. Just my opinion.
So if neither GoDaddy or Sedo have produced anything, what should I do?
—–
The problem there isn’t with Godaddy or Sedo.
Godaddy brings more business in during 1 week, that most registers do in a year, they might lose 100,000 domains or so, but they will soon enough gain 1 million more, they pretty much can do whatever they want, and are just cushioning some bottom line margins
@Mimi: FWIW, I agree with LS though he’s putting it more succinctly than me.
There’s way too much koolaid drinking these days, like the thousands of 3D posts a while back. Folks were sticking 3D in front of every piece of crap phrase thinking they would eventually be worth thousands of dollars. Only 50-100 will ever end up being worth 4 figures or more, and they were registered years ago. They’re relying solely on the greater fool theory which you don’t want to do (same with .co btw).
Having said that, you’re lucky that your initial investment is only 60-70 regs. Many have bought *thousands* of crappy domains expecting the same thing. Then they get stuck on the renewal treadmill and eventually drop them with nothing to show for it.
So it’s a part of the domaining learning curve that almost everyone goes through and the lesson is always the same. Study everything including recent prices, keyword tools for frequency and a million other things first. Figure out what makes a domain worth something to someone else. But don’t spend too much time on forums, and take a lot of what you read there with a grain of salt.
After a while, then dip your feet in the water and try to flip one or two half-decent names.
Finally, I’d actually suggest looking through drop lists and look for reasons *not* to grab each domain you see. It’s a great exercise in developing a critical eye which is absolutely mandatory to have any success doing this stuff.
Best of luck.
LS Morgan,
“So if neither GoDaddy or Sedo have produced anything, what should I do?”
—–
“The problem there isn’t with Godaddy or Sedo.”
Morgan, That was Not answer at all . Anyone could say that. Pathetical response…
Actually, yes, unfortunately, that is the answer.
Those names are mostly worthless garbage.
There are names on there I might not even bother to renew in .com, nevertheless own in .co and expect the world to be beating down my door to buy them.
Just another example of Newbie 101 stuff. Either learn from your mistakes and go from there, or find something else to do that might be more suited to your talents.
You shouldnt so hard on the names. Remember that without such bad names “our” good names would not look quite so good . Likewise, without poor people there would not be rich people.
[..]The Question Is Why Did Godaddy Triple Its Fees Without Sending Out A Notice To Its Customers?[..]
Elephant hunting becoming more expensive maybe? perhaps Mugabe’s up’ed the hunting fee on bob thinking there’s an extra penny or two to be made here.
just my 2c worth 😉
[..]@Mimi
So if neither GoDaddy or Sedo have produced anything, what should I do? At least I did not need to pay Sedo to list like I did with GoDady for the auction membership![..]
[..]LS Morgan
@Mimi “So if neither GoDaddy or Sedo have produced anything, what should I do?” The problem there isn’t with Godaddy or Sedo.[..]
sarahforpresident.co
draftsarah.co
draftsarah2012.co
drillalaska.us
gasrevolt.us
bigshots.co
*****cheapshots.co ***** 😉
politicallists.com
showtickets.co
vegasshow.co
poledancers.co
donorlists.us
shrimpgram.co
ideaincubator.us
lol sorry mini he maybe right with pun intented “hey you said it!”
sadly, mimi, you have illustrated my point.
to godaddy you are a great customer.
i can only imagine how many people have decided to try their hand at domaining and selected godaddy as their registrar. when it doesn’t work out as they expected, they move on. meanwhile godaddy has profited nicely from others’ in experience.
and the cycle just keeps repeating.
though they are not “innocent” by any means, i would not put namejet or sedo in the same category as godaddy. unlike godaddy, they recognise some of their customers are well-informed, e.g., they provide some amount of “raw data” intended for use by more knowledgeable domainers.
imo, godaddy will never acknowledge any informed customers they might have. they are a budget regsistrar, but not a true domainer’s registrar. they know a large number of their customers are uninformed about domaining (not to mention uninformed about the web in general). this is in their favour. godaddy itself is a domainer and a very big one. how much parking income do they receive? they are in effect competing with any aspiring domainer who signs up with them. think about the number of sites godaddy parks for godaddy’s benefit. i don’t even want to know. sad state of affairs.
as others have said, you will not learn much applied knowledge about domaining by reading forums. domaining involves a lot of tedious work that is never discussed in detail on any forum.
the best way to learn about this stuff is trial and error, aka experimentation. the closer to being scientific you can be (try to prove that your assumptions are WRONG), the better.
you’ve just performed an experiment with godaddy’s help. you’ve realised an error you made. at 60-70 domains, the damage is not that bad. so, what did you learn? every new mistake you make gives you new information.
process this information and revise your plan. test it. and repeat. if this sounds boring, that’s because it is. domaining is not for everyone.
Godaddy is slowly going to hell.
Few months ago they got rid of the personal assistants and now it is impossible to get any information from whoever answer their phones.
Also to talk to these people you have to wait on the phone up to a half an hour
Godaddy is starting to STINK
I have got trial and error like Mimi …
a few painful trial …:
dailyehow.com
zaarlymarket.com
toonad & bigassvenus …..
what happen if names on Premium listing of GD and they triple the fee and get 90 % of payment …maybe i can sell a name a get 2 $ after paying to GD ,then use this 2$ to buy another name in next GDaddy promotion …
The system did not accept my newest post and it when I tried to resubmit it said I was submitting a duplicate comment. But neither showup! 🙁
MESSAGE TO SYSTEM: THIS IS NOT A DUPLICATE COMMENT!
First a huge thanks to SL and a few others who showed great professional generousity in taking the name to offer some real help and advice. Those that seem to glory in patronizing others because they are “newbies” or less experienced are just sad examples of what I hope the rest of us never become. In my “regular” business, direct marketing data for over 25 years, I have always tried to help those on the way up and to mentor them to the extent that I could. At the end of my life, gloating over how much richer or smarter I was than the next guy will not be on my radar screen but those who I have helped along the way will be. Please smack me down if you ever see me patronizing anyone on this board.
Now to set the record straight: I did not intend to ever go into the domain business. Most of the names I have are ones I registered for my own projects which I completed, never got around to, etc. For instance, sprayoncrayon.com was created because my husband came up with an idea for a pump device for washable crayons that children could use on concrete outdoor surfaces. Unfortunately, he became too ill to carry on with it (and still is). Shrimpgram.com originated because of the fabulous success of lobstergram.com and because of the shrimp farms in our state that I hoped to collaborate with on the project (I just have not had the extra funds to invest outside of my primary business to date). Apologygram.com was a similar concept that I hoped to develop.
The political domains and issue domains were created because a large part of my direct marketing data business (postal, mobile, landline phones & email lists) is in the political segment. I have also been a political activist throughout my career and run apolitical committee now in addition to my data business. drillalaska.us, gasrevolt.us, etc. relate to initiatives I planned to undertake when the gas crisis was at its height.
IdeaIncubator.us is another project (with website) because I hoped to develop it as a think tank for entrepreneurial projects.
My Koolaid drinking (great, descriptive term that communicates!) was in relation to the Dot-Co names I speculated on. Guilty as charged! I bought the hype about Dot-Co (although just yesterday I read that women.co sold for $25,000 so someone is buying!) 🙂
When I looked back on names that I may have foolishly let go in years past, and that I was the first owner of, I have some regrets. For instance, when a company I co-founded was sold and the new owner re-branded everything, I let great names like familyhost.com, familylink.com, kidssearch.com (childrens’ search engine) and guardian-angel.com simply lapse. Same goes for web-pay.com (I know hyphenated names aren’t the greatest but they can be popular) and heavensent.com (latter was a Christian email host). FamilyLink.com alone was purchased for big bucks and that site today has 60 million users and is the #1 Facebook application.
Then I think of the ones that “got away” . . . I had the opportunity to register santaclaus.com and valentinesday.com, years ago as the first registrant but then thought “what would I do with these?” since i was only previously buying domains I planned to develop businesses around.
So, when the dot-co hype came around, and I had several domains acquired for my own businesses that i was no longer using or planning to develop, I thought it made sense to grab some one or two word Dot-Cos to put with my domains to have a nice portfolio to sell.
I understand that I don’t have highly-prized one word, organic keyword dot-coms. But are they really THAT terrible (honest opinions please). At least they are not comprised of words with no vowels, can all be found in the dictionary, are largely one or two words, and are not sound-a-like domains (i.e. domainz, good4you, reeltor, etc.).
Are you all recommending that I would be wise to let each and every one of these lapse rather than continuing to renew them all (all my GD domains and services do cost me $1,500+ a year so I really do want an honest opinion. I am not so much interested in breaking in to the domainer business (knowing my time is limited with my other ventures and the years of study and experience it would take to get the knowledge to do it right) — as I am hoping to make the right decisions about my current domains (hopefully so that I can get the best deal possible in disposing of them).
So, no, I am not one looking to domaining as a Get rich Quick scheme. But I did swallow the hype about the dot-CO names although i was only trying to “pad” my portfolio to make my existing domain names a more attractive buy. Or . . . so I thought!! 🙂
Thanks for the help to those willing!
Best,
Mimi
First a huge thanks to SL and a few others who showed great professional generousity in taking the name to offer some real help and advice. Those that seem to glory in patronizing others because they are “newbies” or less experienced are just sad examples of what I hope the rest of us never become. In my “regular” business, direct marketing data for over 25 years, I have always tried to help those on the way up and to mentor them to the extent that I could. At the end of my life, gloating over how much richer or smarter I was than the next guy will not be on my radar screen but those who I have helped along the way will be. Please smack me down if you ever see me patronizing anyone on this board.
Now to set the record straight: I did not intend to ever go into the domain business. Most of the names I have are ones I registered for my own projects which I completed, never got around to, etc.
For instance, sprayoncrayon.com was created because my husband came up with an idea for a pump device for washable crayons that children could use on concrete outdoor surfaces. Unfortunately, he became too ill to carry on with it (and still is). Shrimpgram.com originated because of the fabulous success of lobstergram.com and because of the shrimp farms in our state that I hoped to collaborate with on the project (I just have not had the extra funds to invest outside of my primary business to date). Apologygram.com was a similar concept that I hoped to develop.
The political domains and issue domains were created because a large part of my direct marketing data business (postal, mobile, landline phones & email lists) is in the political segment. I have also been a political activist throughout my career and run apolitical committee now in addition to my data business. drillalaska.us, gasrevolt.us, etc. relate to initiatives I planned to undertake when the gas crisis was at its height.
IdeaIncubator.us is another project (with website) because I hoped to develop it as a think tank for entrepreneurial projects.
My Koolaid drinking (great, descriptive term that communicates!) was in relation to the Dot-Co names I speculated on. Guilty as charged! I bought the hype about Dot-Co (although just yesterday I read that women.co sold for $25,000 so someone is buying!) 🙂
When I looked back on names that I may have foolishly let go in years past, and that I was the first owner of, I have some regrets. For instance, when a company I co-founded was sold and the new owner re-branded everything, I let great names like familyhost.com, familylink.com, kidssearch.com (childrens’ search engine) and guardian-angel.com simply lapse. Same goes for web-pay.com (I know hyphenated names aren’t the greatest but they can be popular) and heavensent.com (latter was a Christian email host). FamilyLink.com alone was purchased for big bucks and that site today has 60 million users and is the #1 Facebook application.
Then I think of the ones that “got away” . . . I had the opportunity to register santaclaus.com and valentinesday.com, years ago as the first registrant but then thought “what would I do with these?” since i was only previously buying domains I planned to develop businesses around.
Now to set the record straight: I did not intend to ever go into the domain business. Most of the names I have are ones I registered for my own projects which I completed, never got around to, etc. For instance, sprayoncrayon.com was created because my husband came up with an idea for a pump device for washable crayons that children could use on concrete outdoor surfaces. Unfortunately, he became too ill to carry on with it (and still is). Shrimpgram.com originated because of the fabulous success of lobstergram.com and because of the shrimp farms in our state that I hoped to collaborate with on the project (I just have not had the extra funds to invest outside of my primary business to date). Apologygram.com was a similar concept that I hoped to develop.
The political domains and issue domains were created because a large part of my direct marketing data business (postal, mobile, landline phones & email lists) is in the political segment. I have also been a political activist throughout my career and run apolitical committee now in addition to my data business. drillalaska.us, gasrevolt.us, etc. relate to initiatives I planned to undertake when the gas crisis was at its height.
IdeaIncubator.us is another project (with website) because I hoped to develop it as a think tank for entrepreneurial projects.
My Koolaid drinking (great, descriptive term that communicates!) was in relation to the Dot-Co names I speculated on. Guilty as charged! I bought the hype about Dot-Co (although just yesterday I read that women.co sold for $25,000 so someone is buying!) 🙂
When I looked back on names that I may have foolishly let go in years past, and that I was the first owner of, I have some regrets. For instance, when a company I co-founded was sold and the new owner re-branded everything, I let great names like familyhost.com, familylink.com, kidssearch.com (childrens’ search engine) and guardian-angel.com simply lapse. Same goes for web-pay.com (I know hyphenated names aren’t the greatest but they can be popular) and heavensent.com (latter was a Christian email host). FamilyLink.com alone was purchased for big bucks and that site today has 60 million users and is the #1 Facebook application.
Then I think of the ones that “got away” . . . I had the opportunity to register santaclaus.com and valentinesday.com, years ago as the first registrant but then thought “what would I do with these?” since i was only previously buying domains I planned to develop businesses around.
So, when the dot-co hype came around, and I had several domains acquired for my own businesses that i was no longer using or planning to develop, I thought it made sense to grab some one or two word Dot-Cos to put with my domains to have a nice portfolio to sell.
I understand that I don’t have highly-prized one word, organic keyword dot-coms. But are they really THAT terrible (honest opinions please). At least they are not comprised of words with no vowels, can all be found in the dictionary, are largely one or two words, and are not sound-a-like domains (i.e. domainz, good4you, reeltor, etc.).
Are you all recommending that I would be wise to let each and every one of these lapse rather than continuing to renew them all (all my GD domains and services do cost me $1,500+ a year so I really do want an honest opinion. I am not so much interested in breaking in to the domainer business (knowing my time is limited with my other ventures and the years of study and experience it would take to get the knowledge to do it right) — as I am hoping to make the right decisions about my current domains (hopefully so that I can get the best deal possible in disposing of them).
So, no, I am not one looking to domaining as a Get rich Quick scheme. But I did swallow the hype about the dot-CO names although i was only trying to “pad” my portfolio to make my existing domain names a more attractive buy. Or . . . so I thought!! 🙂
Thanks for the help to those willing!
Best,
Mimi
ONTINUED FRM PREVIOUS POST…
So, when the dot-co hype came around, and I had several domains acquired for my own businesses that i was no longer using or planning to develop, I thought it made sense to grab some one or two word Dot-Cos to put with my domains to have a nice portfolio to sell.
I understand that I don’t have highly-prized one word, organic keyword dot-coms. But are they really THAT terrible (honest opinions please). At least they are not comprised of words with no vowels, can all be found in the dictionary, are largely one or two words, and are not sound-a-like domains (i.e. domainz, good4you, reeltor, etc.).
Are you all recommending that I would be wise to let each and every one of these lapse rather than continuing to renew them all (all my GD domains and services do cost me $1,500+ a year so I really do want an honest opinion. I am not so much interested in breaking in to the domainer business (knowing my time is limited with my other ventures and the years of study and experience it would take to get the knowledge to do it right) — as I am hoping to make the right decisions about my current domains (hopefully so that I can get the best deal possible in disposing of them).
So, no, I am not one looking to domaining as a Get rich Quick scheme. But I did swallow the hype about the dot-CO names although i was only trying to “pad” my portfolio to make my existing domain names a more attractive buy. Or . . . so I thought!! 🙂
Thanks for the help to those willing!
Best,
Mimi
Hi Mimi,
My apologies for the way some people on this blog have replied to your post. Some get a buzz from putting others down on blogs and talking to them like they are trash. It’s a form of bullying. These dipsticks were probably bullies at school, and now delight in being bullies in cyberspace. They don’t know the meaning of respect. Don’t listen to them – they’re a waste of space.
To answer your question in the way you would like it to be answered, your domain names are not great names at this point in time, but that shouldn’t stop you trying to cash in on them. Forget about auctioning them – they have no value as far as auctions are concerned. Also, forget about the Sarah names – they’re not worth mucking around with. Focus on names such as vegasshow.co and showticket.co and try to find an end user to buy them. Do some research and establish who might be likely candidates to develop these names and then approach them, with the view to selling the domains to them. If they were .com domains, you would have a better chance of selling them, but that shouldn’t stop you selling them. If you can pitch a good story to an end user, people will buy. They are good niche names, and .co is a respectful extension, so there is the potential to do well. It all comes back to how well you do your research and how good a salesperson you are.
Poledancers.co could be a good name to develop yourself. Put up a content site with loads of content on pole dancers – if you get enough stuff up on the web, and you do it well enough, you might get some good traffic through the door, and then your domain could be worth something. You might even enjoy doing it – it’s an interesting topic. I’ve always found that if you do something you like, you generally end up doing it well and making good.
Good luck with your endeavours. Try not to spread yourself too much across the ground. Focus on one good domain, and once you are getting somewhere with it, look for a second good domain to experiement with.
The main thing is to forget about auctioning these domains. It’s mainly domainers who buy from auctions, and they will only buy names that they can easily flip and make a quick buck on. One other thing to be aware of is that there are a lot of meaningful two-word .com names around that, even after 17 years, are still worth bugger all – where the registrants haven’t been able to cash in. These names are like real estate and appreciate in value over a long period of time, in relation to supply and demaind. It could take a further 20-30 years for even meaningful .com domains to realise their potential.
Remember, making money out of domains at this point in time means either developing them, or selling them to others who have the desire and capability to develop them. If you can master that, you’ll do well.
🙂
Muster,
Thank you SO much!! This is advice I can get my arms around and so very helpful! I will follow it to the letter.
Your generosity in taking the time to give me such a thoughtful and helpful response couldn’t be more appreciated!
Kindest regards,
Mimi
yeah GD auctions blow (agrees with LSM so hell will be freezing over)
who cares
no one uses GD auctions
(damn I hope they believe this misdirection…)
@Mimi: Muster’s reply was better than mine. Great summary.
Here’s an example of the flipside, and how tough this hobby can be.
Back in 2005 I registered a domain with two generic words that, put together, formed a term used in computer aided design. Back then it didn’t mean anything outside of CAD so it didn’t have much search volume or real commercial value. But my gut always said “keep it” so I renewed it year after year while keeping it listed at Sedo.
Last year renewal time came around and figured it was finally time to let it go. Then a couple weeks before expiration a bid came in for the min $250 from Sedo. Obviously it was a slam dunk, why bother haggling, just grab the couple hundred bucks and move on.
So I didn’t think much of it until a few weeks later I checked what the new owner did with domain. I typed it in and it redirected to a fancy ad agency in London. Not understanding why they would be interested in a CAD related topic, I typed the exact two word term into Google.
Long story short, the front page lit up with (phrase) taking the advertising world by storm, etc. It was a new technology for advertising and the term had only latched on in the previous 6 months or so. I nailed the category killer completely by accident. And had I done one simple search before accepting the bid, the embarrassment of admitting all this in public could have been avoided 😉
The moral of this story is left as an exercise for the reader.
GoDaddy claims they register 1.6 domains per second.
They’ve done the math. Maybe their customers should too.
Listen to Ron.
I don’t like this outfit anymore and I am slowly moving all my domains to name.com
Doesnt matter to me. I had one buyer meet the asking price and then never heard boo from the buyer nor Godaddy. Godaddy wouldnt give me as much as the time of day regarding the deadbeat buyer and the failed transaction. So, in my book, Godaddy supports dead beat buyers on their auctions and not those listing domains. Secondly, someone has to pay for that 2+ billion dollar investment just recently made. You KNOW that these investors do not spend a dime without getting 2 back. Just saying……