Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#301

Post by ted0 » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:34 PM UTC

brlewis wrote: post #290

ted0 wrote: post #226

Ted 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 relia…

If a domain is unavailable, does the query on namecheap still go to third parties? Is it possible for third parties to snap up an available domain they know has just been queried?

When I say third parties, these are the registries (that operate each domain extension or TLD) that we query for availability. I've never heard of this happening and it's not likely that it would ever happen.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#302

Post by shadowprofile77 » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

ted0 wrote: post #226

Ted 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 relia…

Since you're here answering questions, what do you have to say about your policy of selling certain unregistered domains as premium offerings for a higher price simply because their names are considered more marketable? I know that this is far from unique to namecheap and at least you disclose it as a practice (albeit in a somewhat roundabout manner) but it seems to me as a sort of abuse of registrar privilege. In other words, if a domain is not yet registered to any buyer, should it not be available for a standard price like other unclaimed offerings?

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#303

Post by MiroF » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

timcederman wrote: post #252

ted0 wrote: post #226

Ted 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 relia…

Hi Ted - can you speak to Namecheap's stance on bulk spam domain registrations and the fact that Namecheap does nothing to stop it? There has been (at least in the Bay Area) a large increase in text spam. They all have a very similar format, e.g. pretending you missed a delivery, and try to get you to click on a link, usually a .info domain. They are all hosted on Alibaba Cloud, but they are registered in bulk via Na…

I'm somewhat surprised AlibabaCloud wouldn't act on it. The others, not so much - nor do I think namecheap has an obligation to do so.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#304

Post by aasasd » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

I've heard of this technique way back in the 00s. Just as I heard about GoDaddy being crappy registrar and crappy hoster. Namecheap and Gandi essentially rose as alternatives to GoDaddy that don't suck. So the surprising things here are that someone still uses that scam and that someone still uses GoDaddy.

BTW, I now remembered that this isn't even the main reason why GD sucks. IIRC perhaps the main reason is that their support is susceptible to all kinds of social attacks and transfer domains left and right. Basically, account security is rendered poof by support people who don't care. So probably don't want to use GD if you like to at least keep your purchases after paying.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#305

Post by brlewis » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

kovacs wrote: post #213

cloudwizard wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I talk to startups, I check their domain. If they are on GoDaddy, it means that they are technically incompetent.

Absolutely. You sound like someone that could really be of benefit to my latest startup. We're doing bigly things. If you're interested in finding out more drop me a line... gator3827@aol.com

I've never had an AOL email but you just inspired me to sign up for one.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#306

Post by _verandaguy » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #115

_verandaguy wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconding Gandi. I spent the past year transferring my domains over (as registrations lapsed with Route53, which is a Gandi frontend with fewer features). Their interface is very clean, their business model is no-nonsense, and I dig the managed DNSSEC.

https://domains.google is the best I found. Also, namecheap’s beast mode if you want to check hundreds of domains at once.

They were on my radar when I moved over to Gandi, but I'm avoiding using Google whenever possible.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#307

Post by mattl » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:37 PM UTC

ourcat wrote: post #286

gogopuppygogo wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love http://domains.Google You get free email forwarding (even wildcard), free domain privacy, free website forwarding (with ssl), Google infrastructure behind all of that and the authoritative DNS they offer. Cloudflare also offers a registrar service and its good.

Interesting. I'd never considered Google for my domains. Any idea if the '£10/year' is every year? Or does it go up after the first year? Also, I found it weird that they promote a .app and .dev TLD as 'More Secure'.

I think all domains under `dev` have HSTS turned on.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#308

Post by bitxbit » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:37 PM UTC

andylynch wrote: post #31

This is a scummy move. In the industry I work in, we call this front-running and it’s a criminal act. If the same laws applied here godaddy would be looking at a nine digit fine and jail time for whoever thought this is a good idea.

That gave me a chuckle. I take it you work in finance and a subtle form of front running is literally what bulge bracket trading desks do day in day out.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#309

Post by sloshnmosh » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:37 PM UTC

ted0 wrote: post #226

Ted 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 relia…

Hello Ted. A bit off-topic but I was wondering if you were aware of the massive amount of malicious sites that use NameCheap?

And do you have a better way of going about flagging these sites other than the “abuse” email that shows when doing a WhoIs lookup?

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#310

Post by danellis » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:38 PM UTC

ted0 wrote: post #294

danellis wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But can you please start handling .name domains? I have one last domain I want to transfer from Gandi. Your support agent spent five minutes trying to convince me that I didn't own a domain in xxx.yyy.name format, and that the reason it wasn't transfering is because I should be using yyy.name, before talking to a supervisor and finding out that you don't handle them anyway.

We do support .name now.

Really? Because when I try to transfer xxx.yyy.name, it says: "Uh-oh! Your domain yyy.name is not eligible for transfer to us." I don't own yyy.name. I own xxx.yyy.name.

(Of course xxx and yyy are placeholders here.)

Edit: xxx.yyy.name comes from the .name registry, just like xxx.co.uk comes from the .uk registry.