Posts tagged Domain
Namecheapp Accuses GoDaddy of Delaying Domain Transfers [Updated]
Dec 26th
One of the competitors to domain registrar GoDaddy is accusing the service of purposefully delaying domain name transfer requests. Namecheap, which stands to gain a lot of accounts from businesses and consumers switching away from GoDaddy, accuses GoDaddy of withholding WHOIS information to Namscheap, delaying the transfer process.
Update: GoDaddy has responded to Namecheap’s accusations. See the statement below.
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Here is what Namecheap has to say about GoDaddy as written on the company blog:
We wanted to give our customers a quick update on the status of domain transfers associated with one of our competitors, GoDaddy.
First, we’re very sorry that some of you in the past 24 hours have experienced delays in transferring domains over to us.
As many customers have recently complained of transfer issues, we suspect that this competitor is thwarting efforts to transfer domains away from them.
Specifically, GoDaddy appears to be returning incomplete WHOIS information to Namecheap, delaying the transfer process. This practice is against ICANN rules.
We at Namecheap believe that this action speaks volumes about the impact that informed customers are having on GoDaddy’s business.
It’s a shame that GoDaddy feels they have to block their (former) customers from voting with their dollars. We can only guess that at GoDaddy, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Don’t worry – each and every transfer request will be processed manually by our team. Every request will go through. We won’t rest until everyone who wants to join the Namecheap family can do so!
Note: Italics emphasis is ours, bold by Namecheap.
The Verge reports that GoDaddy lost 21,054 domains on Dec. 23, 2011 yet gained 20,034 domains. While it has been widely reported that there has been an exodus from GoDaddy, it appears that much of the churn has been business as usual for the domain registrar.
Users began to boycott GoDaddy and transfer their domains away from the service after GoDaddy was revealed to be one of the official supporters of the Stop Online Piracy Act that has become very unpopular among technology circles. GoDaddy has since rescinded its support of SOPA but the damage has been done and the fact of the matter is that GoDaddy still supports SOPA in theory, if not in an official capacity.
Here is a screen shot from a user trying to transfer his website:
Reports surfaced last week that GoDaddy was calling clients with large numbers of registries that were trying to transfer away, begging them to stay. GoDaddy realizes that the cost of the SOPA blunder and PR nightmare could mean millions of dollars lost in the short term and less public trust in the longer run. Namecheap wants to position itself as the go-to destination for GoDaddy refugees. Hence, whatever Namecheap can do to make GoDaddy look bad in the process is good for business.
Are you transferring out of GoDaddy? Has the process been easy? Have you experienced delays? Let us know in the comments.
Update 5:18 EST, Dec. 26:
GoDaddy has responded to Namecheap’s accusations in an email to tech blog TechCrunch. In the statement, Richard Merdinger, senior director of product development at GoDaddy, says that Namecheap never contacted GoDaddy about normal rate limit blocking for transferring of domains. According to Merdinger, the block has been removed and GoDaddy is not hindering domain transfers to Namecheap. See the statement sent to tech blog TechCrunch below:
Namecheap posted their accusations in a blog, but to the best our of knowledge, has yet to contact Go Daddy directly, which would be common practice for situations like this. Normally, the fellow registrar would make a request for us to remove the normal rate limiting block which is a standard practice used by Go Daddy, and many other registrars, to rate limit Whois queries to combat WhoIs abuse.
Because some registrars (and other data gathering, analyzing and reporting entities) have legitimate need for heavy port 43 access, we routinely grant requests for expanded access per an SOP we’ve had in place for many years. Should we make contact with Namecheap, and learn they need similar access, we would treat that request similarly.
As a side note, we have seen some nefarious activity this weekend which came from non-registrar sources. But, that is not unusual for a holiday weekend, nor would it cause legitimate requests to be rejected. Nevertheless, we have now proactively removed the rate limit for Namecheap, as a courtesy, but it is important to point out, there still may be back-end IP addresses affiliated with Namecheap of which we are unaware. For complete resolution, we should be talking to each other — an effort we are initiating since they have not done so themselves.
-Rich Merdinger
Sr. Director of Product Development – Domains
Go Daddy
What we appear to have hear is a failure to communicate. So, the company’s will communicate through the press. This comes down to a “he said, she said” confrontation. Namecheap says that GoDaddy is violating ICANN rules while GoDaddy says that this is normal operating procedure in domain transferring.
Several commenters and people on Twitter have noted that of the several domains they transferred off of GoDaddy, the last few have taken a lot longer than the first. What has been your experience? Let us know in the comments.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Competitor Accuses GoDaddy of Delaying Domain Transfers
Dec 26th
One of the competitors to domain registrar GoDaddy is accusing the service of purposefully delaying domain name transfer requests. Namecheap, which stands to gain a lot of accounts from businesses and consumers switching away from GoDaddy, accuses GoDaddy of withholding WHOIS information to Namscheap, delaying the transfer process.
Sponsor
Here is what Namecheap has to say about GoDaddy as written on the company blog:
We wanted to give our customers a quick update on the status of domain transfers associated with one of our competitors, GoDaddy.
First, we’re very sorry that some of you in the past 24 hours have experienced delays in transferring domains over to us.
As many customers have recently complained of transfer issues, we suspect that this competitor is thwarting efforts to transfer domains away from them.
Specifically, GoDaddy appears to be returning incomplete WHOIS information to Namecheap, delaying the transfer process. This practice is against ICANN rules.
We at Namecheap believe that this action speaks volumes about the impact that informed customers are having on GoDaddy’s business.
It’s a shame that GoDaddy feels they have to block their (former) customers from voting with their dollars. We can only guess that at GoDaddy, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Don’t worry – each and every transfer request will be processed manually by our team. Every request will go through. We won’t rest until everyone who wants to join the Namecheap family can do so!
Note: Italics emphasis is ours, bold by Namecheap.
The Verge reports that GoDaddy lost 21,054 domains on Dec. 23, 2011 yet gained 20,034 domains. While it has been widely reported that there has been an exodus from GoDaddy, it appears that much of the churn has been business as usual for the domain registrar.
Users began to boycott GoDaddy and transfer their domains away from the service after GoDaddy was revealed to be one of the official supporters of the Stop Online Piracy Act that has become very unpopular among technology circles. GoDaddy has since rescinded its support of SOPA but the damage has been done and the fact of the matter is that GoDaddy still supports SOPA in theory, if not in an official capacity.
Here is a screen shot from a user trying to transfer his website:
Reports surfaced last week that GoDaddy was calling clients with large numbers of registries that were trying to transfer away, begging them to stay. GoDaddy realizes that the cost of the SOPA blunder and PR nightmare could mean millions of dollars lost in the short term and less public trust in the longer run. Namecheap wants to position itself as the go-to destination for GoDaddy refugees. Hence, whatever Namecheap can do to make GoDaddy look bad in the process is good for business.
Are you transferring out of GoDaddy? Has the process been easy? Have you experienced delays? Let us know in the comments.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
GoDaddy’s SOPA Support Sparks Calls for Boycotts and Domain Transfers
Dec 22nd
The list of companies that support the controversial piece of U.S. legislation called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is fairly predictable. It includes huge media conglomerates, music industry groups, pharmaceutical companies and the like. One name that stands out, however, is that of domain name registrar GoDaddy. Whereas many of the big Web technology companies have come out in opposition to SOPA, GoDaddy enthusiastically supports the proposed law.
Not unsurprisingly, this news does not sit well with many of the Internet’s most vocal SOPA opponents, especially on Reddit. A thread that popped up on the site today decries GoDaddy’s support for SOPA and encourages users to transfer their domains to another provider. The conversation, which has more than a few choice words for GoDaddy, has grown quite long.
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The thread was kicked off by a user called selfprodigy, a small business owner who promises to transfer all 51 of his company’s domains to another registrar, something that is seldom a simple, speedy process. Reddit users are proposing that December 29 be named “Move Your Domain Away From GoDaddy Day” in response to the company’s support of SOPA.
So Why Does GoDaddy Support SOPA Anyway?
“As much as some would like to paint a bleak picture, this debate is not about Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley,” reads a statement GoDaddy filed with the U.S. House of Representatives. ”This debate is about preserving, protecting, and creating American jobs, and protecting American consumers from the dangers that they face on-line.”
GoDaddy goes on to condemn the ease with which people can conduct illegal activity like selling fake drugs and sharing copyrighted material on the Internet today and dismisses concerns about the potential drawbacks of SOPA and the Protect IP Act. Critics claim that this legislation hands too much power over to corporations and authorities to police the Internet and could lead to wholesale censorship online. GoDaddy disagrees.
“This bill cannot reasonably be equated with censorship. This bill promotes action pursuant to preexisting criminal and civil laws,” the company said. ”Not only is there no First Amendment concern, but the notion that we should turn a blind eye to criminal conduct because other countries may take oppressive steps in response is an affront to the very fabric of this nation.”
Whatever the logic of GoDaddy’s position may be, SOPA critics are not buying it. The calls to boycott the company have begun to spread beyond Reddit and competing domain registrars are using the opportunity to promote their own services. Namecheap, a provider frequently cited in the Reddit thread (Namecheap’s social media manager is active in the discussion), has offered up discount codes like BYEBYEGD for users who wish to move away from GoDaddy.
Still, we’re talking about a company that has over 50 million domains registered and it’s not yet clear how widespread opposition to SOPA is beyond the tech community. Whether or not these efforts will have a sizable impact on GoDaddy’s business remains to be seen.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Domain Name Matters: Searchers Pick Brand Over Quality, Study Finds
Dec 13th
A new study from Microsoft Research confirms what most SEOs have known for years—that domain names are a crucial element for capturing clicks and conversions from search results. Unlike what’s been published in most search marketing forums, however, this research was not focused on SEO…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
10 Google Search Changes Include Long Tail Indexing, Parked Domain Classifier
Dec 5th
Google has announced 10 search changes – a mix of algorithmic, crawling, and user interface updates. Better long-tail indexing and parked domain detection are among the announced changes. Additionally, Google has committed to writi…
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Domain Seizures, De-Indexing And Censorship: Nevada Judge Dramatically Exceeds Limits Of His Authority
Dec 1st
There’s a multi-pronged assault on the internet going on now. It comes from over-zealous legislators, the US executive branch and individual judges. There’s an effort on multiple fronts to grant over-broad powers to copyright owners to instigate domain seizures, cut-off funds and…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Do You Have Duplicate Content Issues Across Domain? Google Will Now Alert You
Oct 31st
Today, Google webmaster tools has launched a new message alert to let site owners know when a particular URL doesn’t appear because Google sees it as duplicate of a URL on a different domain. In the blog post announcing the feature and in an in-depth help topic, they provide details on how…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
SEO Web Dvelopers Ad Agencies Benefit From Rapid Growth Of Domain Name … – AddPR.com (press release)
Oct 24th
Blocking Domain Ownership Information Could Harm Your SEO Work – Hit Search
Aug 7th
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Blocking Domain Ownership Information Could Harm Your SEO Work
Hit Search It goes without saying that this will drastically affect your SEO performance; and not in a good way. If you are transparent with your information you send a clear signal that you are a legitimate entity and you stand a better chance of ranking well … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
Web.com Acquires the Web’s First Domain Registrar for $400m (Down from $21B)
Aug 3rd
Web.com is a business that helps small and medium businesses build websites and Facebook apps. Business is good, too, and today the company announced that it has acquired Network Solutions, a company with a long and complex history, for more than $400 million in cash, plus stock, debt and more. Network Solutions was, among other things, the first company to issue domain names, with the blessing of the US Defense Department and funding from the National Science Foundation. It began doing so 20 years ago next month. At that time domains were issued for free.
Four years later, Network Solutions was given permission to start charging for .com and .org domains. The company charged $100 for two years and 30% of the revenue went to the National Science Foundation to create an “Internet Intellectual Infrastructure Fund.” (Which sounds awesome.) Five years after that, the company was acquired by Verisign for an amazing $21 billion.
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Today it’s an equity firm called General Atlantic that sold Network Solutions for hundreds of millions of dollars. General Atlantic bought control over Network Solutions in 2007 for a reported $800 million. Ouch.
From the genesis of the domain name world, complete with subsidies for “national intelectual infrastructure,” to a $21 billion acquisition, to an $800 million deal to now $400 million plus – that seems like quite a fall for Network Solutions.
Now it’s a property of mega-URL Web.com, where customers can buy pop-up websites, apps for the leading Walled Garden (Facebook) and a “Gorilla Online Marketing Solution”
Who knows what it all means? Perhaps it means that creation of your own little corner of the Internet has fallen from grace and huge financial value, but remains a large business even if it is commodified.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
