GoDaddy's New Code Policy

[ulterios]

As many of you know, GoDaddy is no longer letting existing customers us more than 1 code in a given price range for the life of their account (or until GD changes it's mind).

To those who haven't found out yet, a couple weeks ago GoDaddy changed it's code usage policy so that a customer can only use 1 code at a given price. That means that if you have used a $.99 code in the past you won't be able to use $.99 codes again, even if they are new codes. Myself and some other domain investors have called GoDaddy to find out why and from out calls the reason that was given is that because of the viral sharing of coupon codes, GoDaddy made this change to their code policy.

This sucks for us in the domain business but perhaps GoDaddy will have a change of mind sometime down the road when they see so many people leaving for other cheaper or better registrars.

Since there are registrars with cheaper registrations and/or free extras like privacy protection and so on, GoDaddy will soon be losing a large amount of business. Granted, it's just a small amount to the overall number of customers they have but a lot of those users have and will be leaving GoDaddy soon.

Who knows, there might be a glitch in there system from time to time and an occasional cheap code might work but I don't think anyone should be holding their breath while waiting for that to happen.

All of us domain investors can just hope that GoDaddy will see that they are losing customers and make a change back to the old way, or something similar. Even if they only allowed 1 $.99 code or other code per week, month or so on, that would be a little better than stopping them all together.

Cross you fingers and let's hope GoDaddy has a change of heart.

P.S. There is one code that is working for existing customers who have used all the cheap codes and it is REV10, but that only brings the price for a .com down to $8.99.

 

[katherine]

Verisign charges the registrars $7.85 for each .com domain, and I don't think that includes the icann fee.
So they can't be spreading those coupons like wildfire and keep selling at a loss.

Real investors shouldn't be chasing coupons to save a few bucks here and there imho

This sucks for us in the domain business but perhaps GoDaddy will have a change of mind sometime down the road when they see so many people leaving for other cheaper or better registrars.

That's the whole point, why use godaddy or bother with coupons if there are cheaper/better registrars ?

 

[DavidH]

Are we all really so bothered about saving up to say $7 on a domain name registration?

If we were to choose fewer but much better quality names that we could sell more easily to end users, is that amount really going to make such a difference?

If we put as much time and energy that we spent looking for coupons instead into looking for better quality names and finding more potential end users, would we not be rather better off?

I am as guilty as anyone in the past, but who is to say that there is not a better way ..... ?

Just my 2 cents!

 

[Jen-Sin]

Cheap domain registrations do help restrict the supply of available names, which is not a bad thing for the industry.

 

[ulterios]

Verisign charges the registrars $7.85 for each .com domain, and I don't think that includes the icann fee.
So they can't be spreading those coupons like wildfire and keep selling at a loss.

Real investors shouldn't be chasing coupons to save a few bucks here and there imho

That's the whole point, why use godaddy or bother with coupons if there are cheaper/better registrars ?

Well, GoDaddy is trying to make the loss up by charging high renewal fees. Also, people who aren't going to renew then will see them off cheap and the new domain owner will renew them sometimes. They also have the chance to make their money back and then some if the domains aren't getting renewed that eventually go to GoDaddy auctions, closeouts, etc.

I feel the same that real investors should be looking for better names to flip and there aren't many real good names available for hand reg. Yes, there are some, but they are few and far between. To get a higher $ profit, you have to spend higher amounts of $ to get that. I know that almost all new domainers go for the GD codes so they can build up their inventory, not realizing that quality is better than quantity.

Are we all really so bothered about saving up to say $7 on a domain name registration?

If we were to choose fewer but much better quality names that we could sell more easily to end users, is that amount really going to make such a difference?

If we put as much time and energy that we spent looking for coupons instead into looking for better quality names and finding more potential end users, would we not be rather better off?

I am as guilty as anyone in the past, but who is to say that there is not a better way ..... ?

Just my 2 cents!

Many of the new domainers are the ones that are going to be affected by having to spend $7 or so more on a name. This might help weed out some of the people who come in, buy a few cheap names then leave the business.

I am thinking that since the cheap codes are gone for existing customers, maybe people will actually do more research and buy better quality names since they aren't a buck or so anymore.
 

Cheap domain registrations do help restrict the supply of available names, which is not a bad thing for the industry.

Sorry, you confused me a bit there. So you are saying when people can get names cheap with coupons, thus reducing the supply of available names, that is good?

 

[fm1234]

People said the same sort of thing about eBay and PayPal in the previous decade -- with every new restriction, every price increase, "Looks like eBay is ripe to be overtaken by competition." It didn't happen, because their lock on the "basic consumers" who don't give a rat's ass about policies that don't affect their day-to-day lives in any way at all are the bread and butter of those companies, not the sellers who whine endlessly about policies but can't sell 5% of their eBay volume on another platform.

In a similar vein, GoDaddy pretty well has a lock on the non-domainer domain market. They don't need domain investors anymore. People who clip coupons to register a truckload of domains that they will probably never renew even once are not good for business; people who register their stupid dog's name at retail then leave it on autorenew for four years before it occurs to them to cancel it are great for business. So GD is done courting the savvy domain buyers, because savvy domain buyers absolutely suck for business.

Switch to someone else, as long as you don't do a lot of end user sales -- in seven years of actively selling to non-domainers, nearly every single sale I've made of a domain that was not registered at GD I ended up paying to get it transferred to GD as part of the sale, because the end users mainly use GD.

If you're a developer, or mainly deal with other domainers and more savvy types, then you can survive without GoDaddy. Otherwise you're kind of locked in.


Frank

 

[ulterios]

People said the same sort of thing about eBay and PayPal in the previous decade -- with every new restriction, every price increase, "Looks like eBay is ripe to be overtaken by competition." It didn't happen, because their lock on the "basic consumers" who don't give a rat's ass about policies that don't affect their day-to-day lives in any way at all are the bread and butter of those companies, not the sellers who whine endlessly about policies but can't sell 5% of their eBay volume on another platform.

In a similar vein, GoDaddy pretty well has a lock on the non-domainer domain market. They don't need domain investors anymore. People who clip coupons to register a truckload of domains that they will probably never renew even once are not good for business; people who register their stupid dog's name at retail then leave it on autorenew for four years before it occurs to them to cancel it are great for business. So GD is done courting the savvy domain buyers, because savvy domain buyers absolutely suck for business.

Switch to someone else, as long as you don't do a lot of end user sales -- in seven years of actively selling to non-domainers, nearly every single sale I've made of a domain that was not registered at GD I ended up paying to get it transferred to GD as part of the sale, because the end users mainly use GD.

If you're a developer, or mainly deal with other domainers and more savvy types, then you can survive without GoDaddy. Otherwise you're kind of locked in.


Frank

As for myself, the domains that I did reg cheap at GD, most of the buyers of the buyers of the domains wound up renewing them after transfer and at the renewal fees that GD charges they made back there money. Who knows, maybe some of the buyers bought hosting, email or other add-on services.

Not too many of my sales of domains I had at GD wound up being transferred out of GD.

 

[elevatoria]

GD knew why they started giving out coupon code and it is best known to them why it was stopped. But IMO given out at such rates are to get more customers and they have gotten enough and it's time for them to stop it.
Though! It is painful for investors as it was stopped but GD is doing business and they must be careful not to over run their biz at shortage anymore. We just have to understand why it is stopped.

Though, I still hand reg NicheAce.com for $2.45 yesterday. I think if you have bought one on a particular coupon code you may not be able to buy at that same rate anymore; meaning, I may not be able to reg another domain at that same amount again, but could still reg at another cheaper rate of say $4, $5, $6 and etc.
I arrived at this assumption because I could not reg at any of the lower rate which I have regged before, until I tried the higher price of $2,45 and was successful.