20 Things You Didn’t Know About GoDaddy

When you’re looking for a website builder to register a domain, one of the highest ranking companies that will appear on your search results is GoDaddy. It’s known throughout the world as a site that can save you a lot of time in setting up a new website for e-commerce or just for personal use. There are, however, many things that most people do not know about GoDaddy that they should. We’ve done our research on the company and here are 20 interesting things about GoDaddy that you probably didn’t know.

1. Its one of the largest web host on the planet

There are several popular web hosting sites, but so far, GoDaddy has risen to become that largest in the world. It hosts more than fifty-seven million domains, making it the largest registrar in the whole world. This is quite a feat considering the fact that there are hundreds of such companies currently in business, offering similar services.

2. You can buy shares in GoDaddy

The company is a publicly traded entity. If you’re looking for an investment and you want to put your money on internet hosting, then you can purchase shares in GoDaddy and become a stockholder. To do this, all you need to do is go to a broker and they’ll let you know what the stock is currently going for along with a brief history of its performance and the minimum number of shares that are required.

3. GoDaddy’s reviews are mixed

When you check through the reviews that have been posted by GoDaddy customers you’ll find a variety of things there. The reviews are mixed. There are some customers who love the services they receive and are quite satisfied, but there are also those who are very unhappy with them and they’ve freely shared the frustrations that they have. This is common for a large company though. You can’t please everyone all the time. The fact that they’re so large and have managed to stay in business for so long suggests that they must have a lot of satisfied customers.

4. GoDaddy was sued by a film studio

The studio who filmed the movie “The Expendables 3” sued GoDaddy because of a leak about the film which was released on one of their hosted sites. The company cited damages and huge financial loss when the film reached theaters, citing that the box office revenues were far lower because of the leaked information. The suit alleged that GoDaddy assisted the parties who leaked the film prior to its release and accused them of copyright infringement which is a serious charge.

5. A site was created by GoDaddy haters

A special website called NoDaddy.com was created by the person who owned seclists.org which is now shut down. The site was made to troll GoDaddy. It was made specifically for people who had a bone to pick with GoDaddy. It continued in existence for some time before GoDaddy was finally able to purchase the website and then it was promptly deleted.

6. GoDaddy can’t offer Chinese extensions

One issue that GoDaddy has dealt with since its inception is its inability to provide Chinese extensions. These are characterized by a .cn at the end of the domain name. The reason for this is because there are massive quantities of data required for this type of website to qualify. It’s not something that GoDaddy was prepared or willing to do.

7. GoDaddy is not yet accredited

Here is an interesting fact that we discovered about GoDaddy. It’s a brand that is currently unaccredited. We visited the Consumer Affairs website to check it out and this is the information that it had on file about GoDaddy.com.

8. You need to watch out for their overselling practices

It’s apparent that GoDaddy is in the habit of overselling products and services, even if all you’re interested in is a domain name. They are constantly trying to sell domain extensions that are not necessary by the majority of users. These include .info, .net, and .org. They also push add-ons for promoting extra services to go along with your domain name. They offer a website builder and web hosting, email services which are free at GoogleHost, privacy protection, and long-term domain registration.

9. Your domain may be stolen if you forget to renew it

One common complaint that has been lodged against GoDaddy by former customers is that some forgot to renew their domain name and those with good traffic numbers discovered that the domain was not deleted. Instead, the company placed them on auctions and sold them. It’s not an illegal practice but it’s not very customer oriented for certain.

10. The economy package may not be worth the money

If your website draws in 2000 visits per day or more the website speed is curbed. This can be devastating and result in lost repeat visitors and it can even cost you business. There are also lots of restrictions on connection session, and on I/O, Php execution. If you’re anticipating building your site for a lot of traffic then you’ll probably want to go with one of the advanced packages.

11. Bob Parsons is the founder

One of the most prominent names commonly associated with GoDaddy is Blake Irving. He’s leading the company as CEO and many assume that he is the founder and owner, but this isn’t the case. The company was actually founded by entrepreneur Bob Parsons in 1997, in Baltimore, Maryland. The company was established initially under the name of Jomax Technologies and the name was later changed to Go Daddy Group Inc. in 1999 but in 2006, they changed the name slightly by putting the two words together to form Godaddy.

12. Within four years, GoDaddy passed its competitors

Godaddy was estimated to be the same size as eNom and Dotster, its direct competitors in 100`. By 2005 it rose to the top rung of the ladder to become the largest accredited registrar for domain names on the entire internet. This was quite a feat and it is currently the largest web hosting company as ranked by market share in the world.

13. GoDaddy made several acquisitions

As most larger companies, GoDaddy was growing at an impressive rate. They purchased Outright in the summer of 2012, but the amount that they paid for the company was not disclosed. Just a little over a year later, the announcement came that they were going to buy Locu and this business came at a price tag of $70 million. A month later they would go on to purchase the Afternic company from NameMedia, and they added the name generator NameFind along with the domain parking service SmartName. The following month they acquired Media Temple, another web hosting service, however, even though it fell under GoDaddy as a parent company, Media Temple continued to operate independently with no disruptions to their regular customer’s services.

14. GoDaddy offered yet more services in 2014

Part of the success behind GoDaddy is their innovation and acquisition of service providers that continually enhanced the products and service offerings they maintained for their customers. In 2014, the acquisition of Canary gave them access to smart calendar services. Next, they added an email marketing service from yet another acquisition of the Mad Mini company.

15. GoDaddy began offering development services in 2015

It hasn’t been that long since GoDaddy purchased Elto, the company that offered a marketplace for businessmen and women as well as other people who were not technically inclined to form connections with professionals with web development expertise to assist them in more fully developing their websites and enhancing their web presence. They also purchased the Worldwide Media and Marchex domain portfolios in yet another expansion.

16. GoDaddy moved to cloud services in 2016

GoDaddy has remained consistent in keeping up with the needs of their customers and they followed a brilliant plan that included acquiring companies that offered products and services that would expand their current portfolio and give them more to offer prospective customers. They made yet more hefty investments to provide cloud-based services and in May of 2016, they paid $42 million for FreedomVoice which offered VoIP phone systems in networks that were connected throughout the United States. While they were at it, they acquired Host Europe Group, ManageWP, and the following year added Sucuri and in 2018, they added Main Street Hub to the list of their subsidiaries. GoDaddy’s growth was nothing short of exponential. By 2013 alone, GoDaddy operated a facility in Phoenix, Arizona that measured 270,000 square feet and they had achieved the status of not only being the largest ICANN-accredited registrar in the world, they were also four times larger than their next closest competition.

17. Blake Irving led the company into maturity

In 2013, Blake Irving, the current CEO of GoDaddy took the helm of the massive company. He brought a maturity to the company that had not previously been a characteristic. He joined them at the ideal time in their development. Just two years into his leadership, GoDaddy went public. He’s an interesting leader and is also a Board Director for GD. He is a former vice president of the Windows Live Platform Group when he was employed at Microsoft from 1992 through 2007. It’s hard to believe that he began college as a business major but wasn’t enjoying it so he earned his 4-year degree in art instead. He seems to thrive in a business environment and he’s shown the world what he’s capable of as GoDaddy continues to advance in its niche market as a world leader in the industry.

18. GoDaddy is a major sports sponsor

GoDaddy is also involved in their community. After they shelled out the hefty sums required for advertising spots in the 2005 Super Bowl, they included sports sponsorships in their marketing plans. This not only gives them some great exposure, but it helps athletes and promoters with the help that is needed to purchase equipment and pay for operational expenses to make their games possible.

19. GoDaddy has won multiple awards

Although not everyone is a fan of GoDaddy and they even have a few enemies out there, the company has been recognized for excellence in its niche by a host of impressive awards and acknowledgments. in 2010, GoDaddy was a finalist in the Better Business Bureau of Great Arizona Business Ethics Awards. In 2011 they received the Bulby Award for “Best Use of a Single Letter Domain,” along with SC Magazine’s Best Security Team Rating and they were a finalist for the award in 2012. They were also acknowledged with three awards from the International MarCom Competition, Inc. Magazine’s 500/5000 list for eight years in a row, the Phoenix Business Journal’s Best Places to Work in the valley for eight years in a row and the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility. They went on the win a Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For acknowledgment in 2012 along with a Gold Stevie Award, Domain Wire’s Best Registrar, a nomination of the 2012 Small Business Influencer Awards in Corporations and n 2017, they completed a sixth consecutive year of winning with a 2017 Stevie Awards for Exceptional Customer Service.

20. GoDaddy has some super celebrity and sports personality promoters

GoDaddy began working with celebrity personalities in sports to promote their services. They began with Anna Rawson, pro-golfer in the Fall of 2009, Jean Claude Van Damme also appeared in several GoDaddy commercials. They also brought on Marina Orlova, the online linguist from Russia discussing the origins of words as well as Jillian Michaels, the year after as another GoDaddy Girl, along with Orlova. You might remember Michaels from her involvement as one of the coaches on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” There are plenty of people who are happy to represent GoDaddy because it is a highly reputable company that is loved and appreciated by some. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but the company has certainly provided some outstanding services for business owners at a reasonable cost.