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

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

#551

Post by ted0 » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 1:53 AM UTC

davchana wrote: post #516

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…

My experience with Namecheap, Dynadot, Godaddy, Hexonet is, in current times, I prefer Dynadot, then Namecheap, then Hexonet & never Godaddy. I found Dynadot prices very competitive, Namecheap is not shoving ads but dns management is not easy, & is expensive. Hexonet offers way more tlds, have robust search, & retains domains in cart for months if you are not ready. Dynadot record manager is better. Hexonet is expens…

We are good friends with the folks over at Dynadot!

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

#552

Post by ted0 » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 1:53 AM UTC

selsta wrote: post #530

adam1210 wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the abuse team always reply to abuse reports? I've had one open since the 5th with no activity and I'm unsure if it is just being ignored.

I have reported a large amount of phishing domains and never received a reply, they also never got taken down.

There is a backlog. Like I said, they're a very busy team and are quite thorough in their review. Feel free to ping @namecheap on Twitter with the ticket number and they may be able to help escalate, depending on the severity of the case.

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

#553

Post by 1123581321 » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 1:53 AM UTC

ted0 wrote: post #546

usaphp wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Namecheap’s interface for domain verification is very unintuitive, you have to jump through hoops to actually get a dns record you need to add, in order for you to verify your domain.

Are you talking about verifying a domain (say for GSuite) with a TXT record? Unfortunately, there's no way to make this one-click since the TXT records provided are unique but we appreciate the feedback and will explore how we can make this use case more straightforward.

Would you consider the ability to export a zone file? I realize you may be withholding it because it aids transferring it out, but we often wish we could do that instead of taking screenshots or manually copying each record before we make a major DNS change.

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

#554

Post by ted0 » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 1:55 AM UTC

Freaken wrote: post #476

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…

Hey Ted, Is there a way to migrate a bunch of domain names from Godaddy to Namecheap ? We own about 200 domain names and I would like nothing more than to drop Godaddy for Namecheap, but I cannot justify the manpower (basically just me) required to migrate domains one by one. Thanks.

Yes, we have a concierge service. If you shoot me an email, I'll help kick off the process for you: ted [at] namecheap.com.

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

#555

Post by ted0 » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 1:57 AM UTC

j2bax wrote: post #397

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…

Hey Ted! Been my favorite registrar for over a decade. Just registered a genius domain that I thought of the other night !:)

We need to introduce some sort of "lifer" discount code for these decade+ customers! Thank you for your business!

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

#556

Post by SpaceNugget » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 1:57 AM UTC

stanislavb wrote: post #549

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…

Thanks for chiming in, Ted! Another happy customer here. Namecheap has been my registrar of choice, too, and I have slowly moved most of my domain names to it. I also believe that Namecheap is not involved in any shady practices. In the light of this thread, I've shared my experience with domain names search and how to perform it securely without worrying that someone will grab your name https://stanbright.com/domain…

I currently use namecheap. Ironically it's actually one of their biggest mistakes that convinced me to stay with them. When namecheap rolled out its custom 2fa authenticator app thing I started to look for alternatives but stuck it out long enough for them to switch to u2f and reading the 'we took the wrong turn' kind of explanation post they made was enough for me to have a bit of faith that they listen to their users AND act on it.

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

#557

Post by joering2 » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 1:58 AM UTC

usaphp wrote: post #432

lordnacho wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Namecheap is so much better than godaddy. Interface : just give me the records. I don't want to buy more stuff. Somehow namecheap lets me but the same extras like email, without badgering me. Godaddy is just ads ads ads and interfaces to sell stuff to people who aren't tech savvy. Squatting: this definitely happens with godaddy, like the OP says. Never use them, it's a disgusting practice. I use namecheap for dozens…

Namecheap’s interface for domain verification is very unintuitive, you have to jump through hoops to actually get a dns record you need to add, in order for you to verify your domain.

Sadly I still have few domains with them, after disgrunted ex-employee claimed few domains via chat (knowing company details) and namecheap put our domains into 2 weeks suspension (loss of about $250,000 of revenue) until we finally get them back and it wasn't about providing some additional evidence of who's the real owner, it was more of a pushing hard thru chat to the point majority of their Eastern European-based only chat crew knew my company by name.

But I still get some weird error messages, empty red alert boxes that doesnt say anything, and general burps time to time when trying to navigate their GUI. At least GoDaddy GUI is much more intuitive but yet they try to sell more - an obvious goal of any for-profit company.

I eventually routed most of my domains to dynadot that has much more safe chat and is US based only. No Easter European have access to my names, contacts, credit card info etc - God only knows what they can do with that info knowing an average salary in countries like Ukraine is $200 per month.

Sometimes when I read these comments like "Namecheap is the best domain provider ever" I chuckle a little - every company has an outstanding record until you test them in times when rubber truly hits the road. 99% of domain users never had any issues because ownership of domain is pretty straightforward business. So these folks than never have a problem are the last one you should be listening to when you pick a domain provider.

Just my 2c.

Edit: I don't have a dog in this race, I don't work for any domain provider and my business is entirely unrelated so I have no business in badmouthing namecheap other than personally having crappy experience with them. But I am sure for every me there is 100 people who got no issues, so that's that.

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

#558

Post by ted0 » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 1:58 AM UTC

suifbwish wrote: post #473

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…

The best way to do this securely is to do a whois lookup on the domain via command line to see if it has a registered date or not. Only way to steal ideas then is if someone works for the icann lookup db

Command line is a great way to query whois. It actually doesn't even ever hit ICANN. The request goes straight to the whois server.

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

#559

Post by hnzix » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 2:00 AM UTC

Cyphus wrote: post #439

marcosdumay wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of startups are rather low in engineering talent early on when they're trying to find market fit and make a product. I imagine that is the class of companies the GP is trying to avoid.

It would be worth avoiding at that initial stage, but would be less and less of a factor as the company grows and matures. I work for a startup with ~60 employees. The DNS was setup through GoDaddy by our CEO over 6 years ago when the company consisted of just founders. Employee #1 updated GoDaddy to point to AWS for nameservers. We've been managing DNS through Route53 ever since. It's tech debt, sure, but migrating…

> It would pain me to find out that a candidate would red flag the company based on domain registrar.

GoDaddy are on my shitlist after the elephant killing incident, their predatory business practices and low quality tooling. And don't ever forget to renew your domain or GoDaddy will squat it.

I would absolutely yellow flag a tech company for using GoDaddy.

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

#560

Post by ted0 » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 2:00 AM UTC

OakNinja wrote: post #435

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…

I’ve used a fair share of registrars, and Namecheap is the best! I just miss .SE domains, I have quite a few of them and would really like to move them over to Namecheap. Keep up the great service, it’s really unique among registrars to be user friendly, cheap, well documented and without bloat and ads. Love it!

Who else wants .se? ;) Upvote and I'll see what I can do.