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Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

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Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#2
This article is spot on. I can't fathom why anyone would put themselves through Godaddy, especially a startup. I feel like you're asking for trouble though if you use Godaddy's hosting, which has a reputation for being absolutely horrible.

Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#3
No one should use GoDaddy, ever; there are many other registrars in their price range that don't share their onerous practices with regards to transfer, takedown, security and privacy and which have much better customer service.

Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#5
Why is this news?! I can't count the number of times this has come up on HN, let alone reddit, let alone random prominent blogs, let alone from other big names that have had problems with GoDaddy suspending service, locking them out of their control panels and/or siding with law enforcement and acting before asking. Stop using GoDaddy. It's trivial to find other registrars, and not hard to find better ones.

(Examples of better registrars: Gandi, name.com)

Honestly, not a reassuring way to advertise your new company. There first intro blob admits that they knew this was a risk. "Yeah, we knew people have problems with this, but we were lazy and didn't bother taking the 30 minutes to transfer our domains elsewhere."

Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#7
I swore off GoDaddy years ago when I was setting up a website for a friend. It took an entire night to FTP up about 100k worth of files to his account. His website was extremely slow as well, so it wasn't just me.

We're talking about a website that got maybe dozens of hits per day.

He was a paying customer!!!! I've never had such a bad host, even from free ones.

Also, I absentmindedly signed myself up for their WHOIS privacy protection. Holy crap was that a mistake! I can't cancel it because it's actually offered by another company Domains By Proxy, but they won't let me log in because the account was magically setup using some bogus credentials and information which they got from the ether or something. So I can't even migrate that account away without sending them a driver's license, and THAT's assuming they have my correct name on file (which is a real possibility that they don't, since nothing else seems accurate). GoDaddy is no help, I have to call DomainsByProxy (which is GoDaddy, btw). DomainsByProxy is no help either, unless I send them a scan of my driver's license.

It pisses me off so much I just haven't been able to bring myself to do it. It's cheaper just to keep paying. Yuck.

Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#8
post #4

I've seen a lot of issues raised about godaddy recently, but any suggestions for domain registry that work better?

I use Dreamhost. $9.95 is reasonable, and it's great for placeholder, static or otherwise low-traffic, low-importance sites (which of course are the majority of domain registrations).

Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#9
post #4

I've seen a lot of issues raised about godaddy recently, but any suggestions for domain registry that work better?

My personal domain, registered through GoDaddy is up for renewal soon. Ashamed to say that I was in the dark about them until now. I'd also love to know about legitimate alternatives.

Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#10
post #4

I've seen a lot of issues raised about godaddy recently, but any suggestions for domain registry that work better?

I use gandi.net, for both personal and business domains. They're awesome.

Specifically: they have policies that strongly support the domain owner, they make a point of saying the domain owner owns the domain (not the registrar), they give back to many different Open Source projects, their management software works quite well, and they provide free email service for your domain so you don't have to run a mail server if you don't want to.

Their hosting works quite well too. Not the best for disk performance, but they have good unmetered bandwidth, tons of flexibility, and good management software.

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