The Evolution of Go Daddy (in pictures)

Go Daddy, the Scottsdale, Arizona based company, is by far the world's most popular domain name registrar dominating all other ICANN-accredited registrars due to competitive pricing and shrewd and sometime controversial publicity methods. 

Go Daddy was originally named Jomax Technologies, and it wasn't until late 1999 that it became an ICANN-accredited registrar.  The first domain registered by a customer at Go Daddy was GhettoJustice.com. 

I thought it would be cool to chronicle the evolution of the Go Daddy main web page from 1999-2008 to see how Go Daddy changed their marketing campaigns with the growing popularity of domaining.  All picture and date information provided courtesy of Archive.org.

Enjoy the pictorial timeline!

November 27, 1999

This is the first and original website design.  Go Daddy did not sell domain names yet so the website only offered web site development services and hosting.  For $89, you could purchase the WebSite Complete 2.5 Deluxe Edition.  

May 10, 2000

This was the first major design change for the main web page.  The emphasis was creating  your own website with no experience required.  A Real Estate Edition of their services was introduced.  Notice the lack of sexy girls integrated into the design. 

May 7, 2001

Hey, now we have some color!  A one-year .com registration was $8.95 and a 10-year was only $6.95/yr.  Crazy cheap back then!

November 27, 2001

The domain extensions .biz and .info are introduced and private email accounts cost $11. The design looks scattered and odd.  Get ready for a storm of links and buttons.

June 2, 2002

Another confusing and complicated design with a plethora of links.  It's funny how fully-dressed the female on the front page is.  Don't worry, this will change soon. 

February 7, 2003

It's been 4 years since the original website design and private registrations are going for $9 with Go Daddy offering Federal Copyright Protection for $59.95. Starting to look more and more cluttered.

December 31, 2003

There's a sale for $7.95 .com registrations instead of the regular $8.95 price.  Awards show Registrar of the Year for 2002 and 2003.  

July 1, 2004

Major design change with emphasis on the free extras you get with each new domain registration.  Hosting is now only $3.95  and Traffic Blazer is $29.95/yr. 

  

December 31, 2004

The new look of this Go Daddy main page is by far the best and easiest to navigate.  CEO Bob Parsons begins his blog and links it on the front page. 

 

November 23, 2005

It's 2005 and customers wanting to purchase Domain Privacy now pay $4.95 (was $9).  Radio Go Daddy is introduced.

March 6, 2006

Price drop on private domain registrations to $1.99.  50GB hosting is now only $6.95.  Lots of tabs, links and buttons. 

December 30, 2006

Go Daddy girl, Danica Patrick, makes and appearance and after almost 7 years, Go Daddy begins to show signs of sticking to this template design.  The Domain Name Aftermarket Auctions are integrated into the front page to drive traffic to them. 

Today 2008

And this is where we are today. This screen shot was taken on March 28,2008. Go Daddy has come a long way since their original first design in 1999. Their prices have consistently dropped and more and more services were added on a regular basis. Seems Go Daddy has also taken a liking to featuring some sort of female on their front page and inundating website visitors with a ton of links and buttons. I personally like the web design of 2004 since it seems far less complicated and cluttered. Either way, Go Daddy has shown that they have their finger on the pulse of the domain industry by frequently altering and changing their website to accommodate the changing of the domain industry. I wonder what Bob Parsons has up his sleeve for their next website design concept. We'll just have to wait and see.

Happy Domaining.

-Rudy

Link Love Tuesday: Domaining

Lots of stuff going on in the domain industry, and we are lucky to have some great resources that help cover and inform all of us about the current events and present trends.  Below are some articles, tools and news that caught my attention this week.  Thanks to everybody for suggesting some of these reading selections and enjoy the domain link love.

1. Domaining.com - A special thanks to Francois at domaining.com for inviting Logistik Labs to be part of their blog news feed.  What an honor! This site is great for getting all your latest domain headline news in one steady feed from some of the best domain blogs out there. Bookmark this site.

2. URLacademy.com - Good domain article about how the Canadian extension .ca is picking up way better than the .us national extension. Check out the article here. 

3. FractionalDomaining - This blog written  by Neal Voron is a look at the world of buying, selling, owning, developing and monetizing of fractional domains. As fractional domain ownership increasingly becomes a more popular, Neal will be there to cover this every step of the way. Bookmark this.

4. DotSauce - If you don't check out this site on a regular basis, you're really missing out. Mark at DotSauce has committed himself to bringing a constant flow of good information on a regular basis to all domainers. Almost 700 RSS subscribers can't be wrong. 

5. IsItMeOrIsEveryoneElseStupid.com - My day wouldn't be complete without stopping by Julia's domain blog and checking out the latest rant or opinion about our domain industry. Beware, very addictive.

6. What’s Up With GoDaddy’s .Biz Pricing? - DomainNameWire.com article covering the recent price raise in Go Daddy's .biz extension pricing. 

7. Domain-Pop- (tool) I recommend this backlink checker over a few others when checking backlinks for your domains. It allows you to check Link Popularity, Domain Popularity & IP Popularity. 

Wanna get some Link Love? Send us a link to your domain article, tool or post.

info@LogistikLabs.com

7 Ways To Improve Go Daddy

In the land of today’s ICANN-accredited domain name registrars, one company leads them all. This company is of course Scottsdale, AZ based Go Daddy.
With discounted registration prices, budget-friendly hosting packages, free value added services and the always popular and edgy Super Bowl commercials, Go Daddy has undoubtedly positioned itself as the world’s most popular domain name registrar.

With all this exposure and publicity, it’s easy to believe Go Daddy has figured everything out when it comes to dominating the domain registrar industry. While this may true in some aspects, there are a few things that noticeably need to be improved in order for Go Daddy to not only stay on top, but to evolve into the next generation of domain registrar.

Today, we will be covering 7 Ways To Improve Go Daddy.

1.Chill with the upsells.
This issue seems to be a common agreement amongst most Go Daddy users. If you’ve ever registered a domain with Go Daddy, you know exactly what I mean. Extra available options seem to flood the screen as you begin to process your purchase and every user must be careful not to accidentally add special services or domains to their cart. The default interface assumes every customer wants to also purchase other tld extensions of their domain and relies on you to manually uncheck the option before continuing with your purchase. As you continue, other add-on services continue to complicate the buying procedure and the once simple task of registering your domain begins to turn into an overwhelming marketing attack of impulse buying and upselling. Offering options is certainly acceptable with any domain purchase, but this method needs to be toned down. Even the confirmation email sent from Go Daddy to your email after your domain purchase is riddled with more special offers and promotions.


2.Chat support would be nice
At the time of this writing, Go Daddy boasts an impressive 6 hour response time for email inquiry responses and a 9 minute wait time for telephone support. As good as this may seem, there is room for improvement. Today’s domainers expect a certain level of support from the companies they choose to do business with and Go Daddy has proved they take their customer service seriously. As the world’s largest domain registrar, it would seem the option of instant chat support would be implemented to assure their customers immediate and real-time solutions to possible problems or complicated situations. Just imagine typing out a problem you are experiencing and having a live agent respond back with a simple link you could click on and instantly be taken to the web page that would help you to solve your situation. No hold times, no delayed email responses and the added value of being able to figure out your problem when it’s convenient for you. Extra complicated situations may still need to be resolved with telephone support but most daily dilemmas or questions could benefit from this chat support option.


3.Be more visible at domain industry conferences and events
Now here’s a question: Why is it that the company that sells the most domains in the world is nowhere to be seen when it comes to important domain industry conferences and premier events? Does Go Daddy feel these professional engagements have nothing to offer to them? If so, shame on them. Events such as DomainFest and the GeoDomain Expo have noticeably lacked the presence of Go Daddy even though these prominent events continue to factor the overall pulse of our industry. If I were them, I’d be front and center showing my dedication to the people who drive the marketplace commerce. Oh, and don’t forget to bring the Go Daddy girls.

4.Accept MoneyBookers as a payment method
Go Daddy currently accepts payments by credit card, check, gift card and PayPal. The option to choose MoneyBookers as a payment preference would greatly widen the customer base for Go Daddy. Domain registrar Dynadot offers this choice and benefits from tons of domainers who choose not to deal with PayPal and instead opt to use MoneyBookers. Limiting this popular payment method certainly is not helping Go Daddy reach out to new customers.


5.Better forums, please
Have you taken the time to visit Go Daddy’s latest attempt at a customer forum? If not, don’t feel bad. You’re not missing much. Go Daddy has taken the liberty to launch Go Daddy Connections, a forum-style business community that let’s users post comment threads and such. At the time of this writing, there are only 35 discussions created and 20 of them were started by Go Daddy staff. A lively and interactive forum environment is what I assume was expected but instead, a graveyard of old posts and unanswered user questions is what was produced. Forums rely on a few key characteristics to allow it to succeed and Go Daddy Connections fails to meet the expectations. First of all, a better forum layout, such as at NamePros or DNForum is what domainers seem to migrate to. Ditch the fancy business-theme atmosphere and make it a straight forward user forum that people will actually utilize.
And don’t forget to have a few customer support experts constantly roaming the forum to help and assist members. Go Daddy has the customer-base to create a thriving and huge domainer forum if they want. Maybe enticing people to use the forum by accruing points towards Go Daddy discounts with a certain amount of posts would build the buzz? Just a thought.

6.Uncomplicate the interface
Do me a favor and and check out the Go Daddy homepage and compare it to the homepage of Register.com. Notice a difference? Register.com’s user interface is clean, minimal and a lot less distracting. Registering a domain is the focal point on Register.com unlike Go Daddy’s perplexing multiple click options. With 6 different text fields on Go Daddy’s homepage, a potential customer immediately has to go into “search mode” just to find out where to search for a possible domain. Too many initial buttons and links (there are easily over 50) on the homepage create a sense of unneeded clutter. Do us all a favor and uncomplicated the interface.

7.If at first you don’t succeed, try again
So Go Daddy’s first attempt at a signature auction didn’t exactly do as well as expected. Only 2 domains were sold and domain insiders questioned the quality of premier domains being offered. Chalk it up to learning but I feel Go Daddy has learned a great deal from their first auction fiasco and should be eager to redeem itself as a major contender of aftermarket auctions. The hiring of Adam Dicker of DNForum to head up their Domain Name Aftermaket division definitely gives hope to a possibly upcoming and hugely successful signature domain auction. I personally look forward to this.

As a long time fan and user, I am genuinely pleased with the service, support and pricing I have come to expected from Go Daddy.  As the domain industry grows and the popularity of registering domains become more and more mainstream, companies such as  Go Daddy must continue to stay one step ahead of the pack and pioneer new and exciting endeavors to accommodate the always evolving domain industry.  But hey, that's just one domainer's opinion. 

Cheers,

Rudy

Watch The Banned Go Daddy Super Bowl Video (EXPOSURE)

Here's the internet-only Go Daddy video that was announced to the world during the second quarter of the 2008 Super Bowl.  The title of the video is "Exposure" and features sexy Go Daddy girl Danica Patrick. 

Go Daddy originally intended “Exposure” to be its Super Bowl ad, but Fox rejected it, insisting the word “beaver” be removed. Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons refused, saying instead, he would “make lemonade out of lemons.”

Also, I've included the internet-only White Light Directors Cut video.

As the post-game celebrations were being broadcast, GoDaddy.com was already reporting more than 1.5 million visits to its site. Those numbers continue to climb rapidly.

"White Light" Director's Ad Cut

Go Daddy's Brilliant Super Bowl ad.... sort of

Seems powerhouse domain name registrar, Go Daddy, has failed to get approval from the Fox Television Network on their latest attempt to air a provocative and edgy 30-second commercial during this year's Super Bowl game. 

But instead of bowing to defeat, Bob Parsons and his ever-adapting marketing team has chosen to take the same 30-second time segment and utilize it to lure television watchers to visit www.GoDaddy.com/SuperBowl08 and watch the originally intended Super Bowl commercial that was denied by Fox Television.

Simply brilliant. 

Not only does Go Daddy allow the video to still be seen by a huge audience, but in turn, it will drive tons of new traffic to their website and allow them another media platforms on which to advertise the highly anticipated video: EXPOSURE. 

Using a tv commercial to advertise a web commercial. Still brilliant. 

And, I wouldn't be surprised if the above mentioned trend-setting marketing team implements some sort of contest or giveaway during a portion of this year's Super Bowl on their website to take advantage of winning over the always growing customer base of customer domain registers. 

Either way, I can't think of another domain registrar that has penetrated their intended audience as much as Go Daddy.  Now that's exposure. 

;)

-Rudy

Go Daddy Announces .ME Domain Extension

.ME - THE NEW DOMAIN THAT'S ALL ABOUT YOU!

GoDaddy.com has announced Internet users around the world can register the catchy new domain extension for personal or business use later this year.

Imagine the possibilities. After all, .ME translates to a wide range of catchy words throughout the world - including the obvious English translations, such as "about me.” Others include "amar.me," which means "love me" in Spanish, and "secondo.me," which is Italian for "in my opinion."

Read more of the Go Daddy Press Release here.

Go Daddy Girls Set To Light Up CES Show in Las Vegas

Go Daddy, the world's largest registrar of domain names, is set to showcase the ever- popular Go Daddy Girls at this years Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The world's largest domain name registrar is participating in the world's largest technology tradeshow with a Go Daddy booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The girls will be signing autographs and helping Go Daddy give away free domain name registrations to booth visitors.

The original Go Daddy Girl, Candice Michelle, along with IndyCar driver Danica Patrick, will be signing autographs Monday.  On Tuesday,  seven-time Olympic swimming medalist Amanda Beard, who's also appeared in Playboy, will be on hand.

There will  be interview opportunities with Go Daddy Girls Candice, Danica & Amanda.
Also a visual opportunity to see The Go Daddy Chopper.

More info at GoDaddyGirls.info

GoDaddy Sets Record For Charitable Donations

Web hosting giant’s philanthropic work for 2007 totaled $1.4 million.

Go Daddy, a Scottsdale-based company, helped organizations dedicated to a variety of causes, including domestic violence, child abuse, blind children, unwed mothers, homelessness, as well as Parkinson’s disease, Juvenile Diabetes, food banks and animal shelters.

Go Daddy’s own employees have also benefited from the company’s most successful year ever. More than $1 million was awarded to employees in 2007. Employee prizes included cash, cars, a year’s mortgage paid, a four-year college scholarship and a trip around the world that included 20 paid vacation days and $10,000 spending money.

GoDaddy signs NASCAR deal with Dale Earnhardt Jr.

GoDaddy.com is announcing their debut into NASCAR – joining Hendrick Motorsports in a sponsorship deal. Go Daddy’s first NASCAR sponsorship teams NASCAR’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., with the sport's number one racing team and the world’s largest domain name registrar.

The sponsorship deal makes Go Daddy the primary sponsor for the No. 5 NASCAR Nationwide Series Chevrolets for six events in 2008 featuring Earnhardt Jr., along with Mark Martin and Ron Fellows. Go Daddy will also serve as an associate-level partner for the No. 5 cars all season.

They Mystery Behind Go Daddy and ePerks.com

Last week I started a forum thread over at NamePros regarding the recent death and removal of the infamous, old-school instant domain appraising tool we all knew as: Leapfish.com

The old Leapfish site all of a sudden now seems to be directed to the homepage of a company known as ePerks.

Not alot is known about ePerks except that they provide real estate, car and home improvement deals & incentives, and are owned by a division of Brabus Ventures.

The fact that Leapfish is no longer around is not the mystery. The top choice in domain appraising tool support nowdays is Estibot.com and the exit of Leapfish from the domain game is not exactly a surprising shock to anyone.  So what's the big mystery? The buzz in the domain industry is the obvious similarity between the Go Daddy logo and the ePerks logo that has people suggesting a possible affiliation partnerships between both companies.

Below are a few forum threads I found while researching that suggest there are others out there  who have heard this "rumor".

YahooAnswers

PropertyMaven

Yesterday'sTrucks

ContractorTalk

As far as I can tell right now, Go Daddy is in no way, shape or form affiliated with ePerks.com. There is no domain-related information on the new leapfish site and the whois for both names does not indicate a similar owner. Other that forum "buzz" this seems probably to be false.

But don't get me wrong, The ePerk's logos definitely resembles the cartoonish Go Daddy guy logo right down to the sunglasses, but that simply may be coincidence or bad market branding.

But the fact that the owners of ePerks decided to buy a well-known domain industry appraising domain name and have it link to their own homepage  is what has me scratching my head. Did they want the traffic? If so, why use the targeted traffic of a domain appraisals site and forward it knowing that 100% of that traffic will bounce because of an unrelated topic. Maybe there's more to it than this?

HHmmm... seems I may have to pull out the ol' detective hat and do some rooting around. 

If anybody else has heard anything or finds any other information, please post it here for us to see. Thanks in advance.

I'll be back to post my findings.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Rudy

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