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Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

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Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Namecheap personally

How long have you been using it?

Only a couple times in the last year, just used them to register the name for the startup my wife and I are hacking on, however they came highly recommended by a friend of mine and Googling turned up many happy customers.

Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Namecheap personally

How long have you been using it?

Only a couple times in the last year, just used them to register the name for the startup my wife and I are hacking on, however they came highly recommended by a friend of mine and Googling turned up many happy customers.

Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter anecdote: I've quite a few domains on GoDaddy. I've transfered a few over the years, both to and from GoDaddy, and while the steps where not explained clearly I never had an issue where I was prevented from controlling my domains. I also used their DNS service for the first time last month and found it pretty straightforward. Maybe I wasn't trying to do something that would have been complex (I didn't set up…

I share both your criticism and praise, but would add that GoDaddy allowed me to do bulk contact editing which (along with pricing) was the reason I switched to them c. 3 years ago. Margins may be low, but the domain registrar market seems ripe for disruption. Are there any interesting upstarts in this space?

That's true - there definitely would be some room for disruption in the domain registration market.

The thing with GoDaddy, which is bigger than it's 8 nearest competitors combined, is that they've been successful on the back of mass marketing, and earning more dollars off of every single customer they have.

All those add ons, that we geeks so easily ignore, are just mindlessly added on by a large majority of other customers who really have no idea what they need. So instead of earning $2 or $3 for the domain registration service, like other registrars do, GoDaddy ends up earning $200 or $300 from those customers (which gives them more money to use towards marketing again).

I think a major hosting company with a good reputation might be able to make inroads into the domain registration industry (Amazon or Rackspace perhaps), but I don't think most people would trust their domains with a startup.

Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#155
post #150

OK kids, here's what you need to know. There are three levels of your relationship with Godaddy: Level 1: You're in balls deep. You register your domains with GoDaddy, use their DNS servers and host your shit on their servers. You also get your SSL certs from them. That's what the OP was doing. Level 2: You're in up to the balls, but that's where it stops. You register with them, host your DNS with them but your webs…

I agree with hosting your site and DNS elsewhere but isn't it OK to get SSL from GoDaddy?

Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#157
post #150

OK kids, here's what you need to know. There are three levels of your relationship with Godaddy: Level 1: You're in balls deep. You register your domains with GoDaddy, use their DNS servers and host your shit on their servers. You also get your SSL certs from them. That's what the OP was doing. Level 2: You're in up to the balls, but that's where it stops. You register with them, host your DNS with them but your webs…

And people wonder why there aren't more women in computer science...

Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#158

I moved away from GoDaddy a couple of years ago. Now I have a few expiring domains left on there. Last week I got a notice they were going to charge me for a renewal, which I did not want. So I called the support guy. Twenty or so minutes later, he sent me to a link to fill out a form where all would be taken care of. Except it wasn't. Just like my previous few encounters with GoDaddy, when I went to the link I learn…

Wow. Well... Wow. Domain registrars are things you touch once every few years, and their entire goal is to make it more time consuming to remove yourself from them then switch since its such an insignificant task, most people ignore it and keep with the same one. Is this even legal?

If vendor lock strategies (which this plain and simply is) were illegal, we wouldn't have some certain monopolies - I doubt, for example, that Windows would still hold such a big market share.

Re: Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever

#159
post #150

OK kids, here's what you need to know. There are three levels of your relationship with Godaddy: Level 1: You're in balls deep. You register your domains with GoDaddy, use their DNS servers and host your shit on their servers. You also get your SSL certs from them. That's what the OP was doing. Level 2: You're in up to the balls, but that's where it stops. You register with them, host your DNS with them but your webs…

I would still be worried about the domain.

If my DNS provider messes up, I change to a new one and I am back within 72 hours (at most). If the mail provider messes up, I change to a new one and I am back within X hours (where X is the TTL set for the domain). If my webhost messes up, I am back within X hours (because I of course make offsite backups), etc.

The only part where one needs a 100% reliable business partner is domain registration. And after hearing all the horror stories about Godaddy, I would not trust them, not even if I was wearing your methaphorical condom.

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