Yup, I searched for a desired domain name on GoDaddy once. It was available at the time (at the standard price), but when I checked again the next day it was registered to some reseller and said I could buy it for ~$2000. I had to wait 2 years for that registration to expire.
Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
691–700 of 751 posts
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#692The registrar of that domain is GoDaddy, but that doesn't mean that the owner of the domain is GoDaddy. If you look at who.godaddy.com you'll see that it's not GoDaddy that owns the domain. In this case, I don't see any evidence of front-running. It's more likely that it's a coincidence that someone registered the domain name a day after you searched for it. In fact, I personally would consider that to be more of a '…
Do you happen to be Bill Hartzer, contributor for GoDaddy? You might want to disclose your affiliation on these kinds of topics, especially when you're arguing the company's side.
I have no business affiliation with GoDaddy, and absolutely never have. I am active in the domain industry, so I happened to know how domains work.
I’ve written a ton about domains over the years, and the articles you’re referring to that appeared on the GoDaddy blog were syndicated. They actually picked them up through another source.
No disclosure needed, I’m not affiliated with GoDaddy in any way.
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#693Ted 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…
Ah Namecheap, the first and only domain registrar I've ever used, first used them to get a name for a Minecraft server I hosted almost a decade ago :) Definitely would recommend. Haven't used Godaddy myself, but i've heard horror stories from others
I used to use goDaddy like 15 years ago... than moved to namecheap. namecheap is so much better. I needed the godaddy support few times, it was always a terrible experience. And the UI was always bloated with unnecessary crap.
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#694Earlier quoted context omitted.
But I don't see any proof that GoDaddy is the registrant of that domain, they're just the registrar. I don't see any evidence of front-running in this case. I see it more as coincidence if anything else.
They've been doing it for years, it's a pretty well known thing at this point which is long past the point of needing new evidence. PS: Use gandi.net, both for search and registration.
When you recommend something, please mention what is good as well else I can't tell if it's a shill account or not.
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#695well known. only use domains.google (for searching).
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#696Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try our new Beast Mode tool for searching: https://www.namecheap.com/domains/registration/results/?doma...
Feedback on beast mode: it's super slow with bulk keywords (100s). It makes a separate request per keyword, and gets stuck in a minute. You should be doing the splitting server-side.
It's usually quite fast. It's using web sockets so it's full duplex. You may have hit a rate limit. Rate limits (albeit generous) are in place to prevent abuse.
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#697Ted 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…
Really? Because Namecheap recently lost one of my domains due to an API error on your side, resulting in SEDO picking it up. Namecheap has absolutely refused to help recover the domain even though it's 100% in your court.
Sedo is not a registrar. Do you mean that you tried to renew the domain via API and it failed, resulting the domain being deleted?
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#698This sucks and I feel for you. But the sad fact is that domain registrars have been doing this ever since domain names became big business in the 90s. As a PSA to everyone, you should only ever use whois in a terminal window to see if a domain is available. It's included with macOS, Windows (?), Linux or any other OS anyone's likely to use. [Edit: a reply says it's not included in Windows. It seems you can download i…
I've never had this issue with Gandi.net. They are excellent.
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#699Ted 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 love namecheap. Been a satisfied customer for close to a decade. I have to thank Drew Houston for this. Many many years ago, when YC was newish - I read a blog post featuring Drew. He registered the first Dropbox domain (getdropbox.com I think) on Namecheap. That's when I decided to give Namecheap a try, and I'm so glad I did. Haven't been disappointed since. Thank you!
I actually didn't know that Drew had registered getdropbox.com with us! That's awesome. Thanks for being a customer.
Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com
#700True. Heard this story many times.