You might think registering your domain with Go Daddy is a good way to save money. I did when I registered a .de domain with the company for around $16 USD. But as I learned today, the registrar makes up for its low domain prices with ridiculous hidden charges.

The particular fee Go Daddy charged me with is called the “Software Administrative Fee.” Go Daddy charges this $9.95 fee whenever someone sends an inquiry about your domain. In my particular instance, the required German administrative contact Go Daddy assigned to my .de domain was contacting me about a possible intellectual rights issue. All Go Daddy did was forward the email to me– for $9.95.

My advice to anyone looking for a cheap registrar is to avoid Go Daddy like the plague. The information about this charge is hidden in the company’s vague and lengthy customer terms. No reputable company would charge $9.95 for forwarding an official inquiry– that’s what the registration fee is for. Save your money and use a domain provider that treats its customers like real people.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Watch out for Go Daddy's "Software Administrative Fee"

A report from blog Domain Incite yields some intriguing information on Go Daddy’s sales practices. According to information obtained from documents related to a lawsuit against the company, Go Daddy’s support staff up-sell hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of products and services each day.

That’s right– each day. Customers call Go Daddy support for help with their purchases, but apparently are simply told to buy more Go Daddy products. One employee in the document, Toby Harris, generated some $10,000 in gross sales for the domain registrar over 9 working days. Not bad at all considering support staff also receive a 5% commission on all sales.

While this news do not necessarily mean it is hard to get real help from Go Daddy, I definitely would not buy from a company that uses sales tactics like this.

Continue reading: Lawsuit sheds light on sneaky sales tactics at Go Daddy call center

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, better known as the Academy Awards, gave Go Daddy something far different from an Oscar this week: a 134-page lawsuit for cybersquatting.

Here’s the catch: the lawsuit doesn’t accuse Go Daddy of cybersquatting. Rather, it is seeking millions in damages because the company ran advertisements on parked domains such as 2011oscars.com, academyawardz.com, jaylenososcars.com, and betacademyawards.com.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has hired three lawyers to handle the case. It has a reputation for vigorously pursuing legal claims. And this isn’t the only lawsuit Go Daddy is facing regarding its domain monetization practices. A group of domain owners are currently suing the company for displaying advertisements on customer domains without authorization.

Source | THR, Esq.
Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Academy Awards takes aim at Go Daddy

According to reports, Chinese hackers have infiltrated a number of Wordpress and Joomla sites hosted by Go Daddy. The sites are still under attack today as the cyber criminals exploit vulnerabilities in outdated scripts.

The hackers are uploading malware to the sites, which visitors to the sites have been prompted to download. Network Solutions experienced a similar problem several weeks ago.

It is always important to keep CMS’s and other scripts up-to-date. This situation isn’t so much Go Daddy’s fault as the customers’ for failing to update their installations. However, Go Daddy’s large size also makes it an attractive target for hackers.

Photo | simonok

Continue reading: Chinese hackers implicated in CMS hack attack

Thought you were having a bad day? Disgruntled domain owners filed class action lawsuits against Go Daddy in Arizona and Arkansas today over the PPC ads it displays on customers’ domains. These advertisements appear only when the domain is parked at Go Daddy or no name servers have been set up.

Matthew McBride, the representative of the domain owners, states that he registered four domains with the company and is upset that it placed advertisements on them without his authorisation.

Currently Go Daddy, as well as many other registers, display these PPC ads on domains without consent of the owners. Personally, I think McBride has a genuine complaint and am glad he’s raising the issue. No registrar should be able to use customer property like this for profit.

Continue reading: Go Daddy hit with class auction lawsuits over PPC ads

Exactly one week after covering Go Daddy’s sham backorder service, here’s a prime example of the company in action. After a customer failed to renew the domain PondPumps.com, the registrar sold it at auction for $15,671 USD. Talk about a great deal for Go Daddy.

While I’m all for a free market economy, something just doesn’t seem right here. Registrars should not have first-grabs at expired domains. Companies like Go Daddy are using their position to capitalize on customers and exploit the domain industry.

In other news, the domains H3.com and 9s.com sold for $12,752 USD and $10,599 USD respectively. Both look like great buys, especially H3.com because of the popularity of the Hummer H3.

Source | The Domains
Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: GoDaddy sells expired domain for $15,671

For years, Go Daddy has offered a backorder service. At a price of $18.99, the company claims the product provides a leg-up in acquiring soon-to-expire domains. But as the New York Post reveals, this isn’t necessarily the case.

It turns out that Go Daddy has been allowing multiple customers to backorder the same domain, taking their money without mentioning the other prospective owners. When this happens, it forces the clients to bid against each other in an auction. As one dissatisfied domainer said:

When I paid my $18.99 back order fee in January, I thought GoDaddy would act as my agent to go out and buy the domain name. But what I learned was that several other customers had also paid the fee and that we would all be pitted against one another in an auction.

Go Daddy takes all the revenue from these expired domain auctions. So if four customers backorder a domain that eventually sells at auction for $100, it’s collecting the auction price plus the backorder fees, a total of $175.96. And it’s not even legally clear if registars have legal ownership of expired names.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Godaddy's backorder service is a sham

In a Google-esque move, Go Daddy will no longer offer .cn domains to customers. The announcement was made by spokesperson Christine Jones during a testimony to Congress yesterday.

The domain registrar made its decision in light of China’s increasingly strict registration requirements, including copies of identification and in some cases, a valid business license. According to Jones:

We were immediately concerned about the motives behind the increased level of registrant verification being required. The intent of the procedures appeared, to us, to be based on a desire by the Chinese authorities to exercise increased control over the subject matter of domain name registrations by Chinese nationals.

My guess is Godaddy isn’t really concerned about censorship, but rather found a good opportunity to jump on the PR bandwagon. Although the company has some 27,000 .cn registrations, these names only make up less than 1% of its revenue. It knows that the new requirements will made selling the domains much harder, so it probably opted to drop .cn and look good at the same time.

Photo | pushbeyond

Continue reading: Go Daddy to stop offering .cn domains

If you’re thinking about transferring a domain from Go Daddy to another registrar, you would do well to read the fine print. As one Go Daddy customer found out, the company does not permit you to transfer a domain if you have updated the contact information in the last 60 days:

I called support about transferring my domain (almost 3 years old) after getting the dreaded 60 day email. As soon as I conveyed what I was trying to do her demeanor took an authoritative tone and she started talking over me….

I went over with him how godaddy’s policy states that I cannot transfer a domain name for 60 days after updating contact info to which he stated I agreed to by checking an opt-in and also started talking over me…

Even though Go Daddy is violating ICANN policy by not letting customers transfer their domains, it refuses to change its policy. Domain owners should be encouraged to keep their contact data up-to-date and accurate. In the case of Go Daddy, it is abusing its power in hopes that the customer will have to renew their domain during the 60-day lock period.

What can you do? Short of finding another registrar and complaining to ICANN, nothing. It’s a shame that registrars are allowed to take advantage of customers so readily.

Continue reading: Go Daddy's sneaky domain transfer policy

If you’re looking for a way to burn $2.99, Go Daddy’s new Certified Domain service is a sure way to do it. Designed for website owners looking to “ease fears” and “inspire confidence,” all the service does is give you a small seal to place on your site verifying you are in fact the owner.

Go Daddy boasts that certifying a domain will “prove to customers that you’re the ‘real deal.’” Proving that someone owns a domain, however, does not in any way guarantee that the person is question is safe to do business with.

In issuing a Certified Domain sale, Go Daddy does not verify the integrity of the site. Anyone can get one, assuming they have $2.99 a year to spend. This service is an obvious sham and only a fool would pay for it. Stay classy, Go Daddy.

Continue reading: Go Daddy's Certified Domain service is a joke

From time to time, you may find that you want to delete a domain name registration. Perhaps the domain has served its use and is no longer useful to you, or maybe you no longer wish to be associated with it. But because so many people simply don’t renew a name instead of deleting it, the process isn’t always straightforward.

At Go Daddy and many other large registrars, however, removing a domain from your account is quite simple. Read step-by-step instructions after the jump.

Continue reading: How to delete a domain

I’ve worked with a number of domain registrars over the years and have had to navigate through dozens of different control panels in the process. While no interface or check out process is perfect, the control panel I hate using the most has to be Go Daddy’s. Why? The company barrages me with dozens of special offers every time I register a domain.

I know what I want to buy and would rather not be told what I need. I don’t want a .net and .org with my .com, and I’m most certainly not reserving a .name. I’m not doing ecommerce so I don’t need SSL. Getting indexed in Google isn’t hard, so I won’t buy your search engine submission package.

Go Daddy should stop overwhelming their customers with “special offers.” Granted, a lot of online stores do this and Go Daddy does offer an express checkout, but even that entails scrolling through a long page of ads. Out of all the registrars, Godaddy is by far the most annoying to order from. And no, a couple of hot girls doesn’t make up for it.

Continue reading: What really irks me about Go Daddy's control panel