I lost my .com in a similar way.
Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
221–230 of 751 posts
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#222Obviously.
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#223This. Never use them, and never work with people who insist on using them.
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
so do I. the other day I renewed a domain I got 5 years ago and I didn't even remember what I planned.
Then why did you renew? Domain squatters suck.
If it's a good domain it would be snatched by someone who wants to make a profit flipping domains. The domain business is broken.
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#225I had this happen as well in the past when researching domain names for a new product. Pro Tip: Stay the hell away from GoDaddy for everything. I've had the unfortunate task of managing a server hosted with them and it's been consistently awful (ex. I literally cannot upgrade PHP because the VPS doesn't support it and there is no upgrade path without spinning up an entirely new VPS on a different, and of course more…
Recommendations for superior alternatives? I'm an indifferent GoDaddy user but would be happy to switch to something else since I've never liked them as a company.
For DNS hosting, not just name registration, EasyDNS is far and away the best. Epik and Namecheap are also really good, and a bit cheaper, if you don't need all the services EasyDNS provides. Both EasyDNS and Epik have a strong commitment to supporting free speech (especially Epik, the DNS hoster for Gab).
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#226Ted from Namecheap here.
I cannot speak to GoDaddy's practices. However, I can say that for Namecheap, this is not something we would ever even consider doing.
In my experience though, lookups are more complex than most think. We are querying so many different sources to give you availability status, some of which are less reliable than others. For example, with smaller TLDs like .ai or .is, lookups may be less reliable than a well-oiled machine like Verisign, which operates the .com and .net TLDs, among others. As a result, sometimes with a less reliable registry, there can be false positives, resulting in the registrar showing a domain as "available" when it is actually registered.
In addition to registry connection reliability, there are also many different aftermarket sources that registrars often pull from. You know when you see a Premium domain (registered and usually higher priced) in search? That could be coming from any number of 3rd party aftermarket platforms, which also can have varying reliability and/or stale listings.
Lastly, you have to consider that some registrars handle the "drop window" differently than others. If a domain deletes and is removed from the zone, ergo, becoming available again, some registrars have a buffer period before they show it as available again.
It does not appear that Felons.io had ever been registered before, which makes this case pretty strange.
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#227Also got this happen with me on Namecheap, but aint mad since they got top notch customer support anyways (if you've tried their live chat, thats what im talkin about).
Trick is to NOT include the domain extension, in your case just search for "felons" and dont add to cart anything at all unless you're ready to pay for it immediately. These sites naturally got behaviour analytics behind them that they lever up against their customers for a higher ask price for their domains. If you behave in a way they can precisely predict your real wants, well that is exactly what happens.
Edit: some guy from Namecheap just commented claiming they dont do this. That is possible imo, maybe its all just coincidence and we're all conspiracy theorists, but eitherway err on the side of cautious if you want og domain names, lol.
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spam
honestly, the company is amazing, they are the discord equivalent of domain hosting
Wait, do you mean something positive by this? Discord has always struck me as pretty horrible...
I'm not even quite sure how to interpret what you've said in a positive way. Maybe implied popularity, but it's debatable whether popularity is in fact a positive even.
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://domains.google is the best I found. Also, namecheap’s beast mode if you want to check hundreds of domains at once.
Google Domains did the same thing to me a few years ago. There's a reason my personal domain is nothingofvalue.org instead of .com. Because when I went to register the .com originally and backed out at the last minute to give myself time to setup a PO Box (didn't like the ICANN publicly displaying my mailing address), I came back two days later and noticed that someone had registered the .com domain.
Did you type nothingofvalue.com in the URL bar? If so, your ISP (assuming you use their DNS) might have sold that data to a squatter.
You could be right that it's Google, but I doubt they would risk a scandal to make a few bucks like that.
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#230I guess I am one of the few who thinks GoDaddy is a decent service. Yes, they front run, which sucks. Could I move? Sure. Moving a large amount of domains with differing end dates is painful and expensive.