GoDaddy Prepares for IPO

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579439542130264508?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304914904579439542130264508.html

by seancoleman • 12 years ago

34 41 12 years ago

online.wsj.com

gesman• 12 years ago

Attempt to maximize profits out of deteriorating giant before it's too late.

Kind of "Upsell of a century"

RexRollman• 12 years ago

GoDaddy has too many bad practices for me to recommend them to anyone. I hope the IPO falls flat.

ethikal• 12 years ago

I feel the same way. I have to wonder - how much has negative sentiment from the hacker community affected GoDaddy's earnings?

rhizome• 12 years ago

It would seem to be a good effort to research the history of cancelled IPOs and see if there are any lessons there that can be put to use here.

cordite• 12 years ago

I would not buy it.

zaidf2• 12 years ago

GoDaddy is the perfect example of a company killing it with the mainstream while getting (often unjustified) hate inside the tech community. If you look beyond the common complaints against it, you'll find a company that has made smart product acquisitions that solve real painpoints for their small business customers.

adamors• 12 years ago

often unjustified hate

If there's one justified reaction in the tech community is the hate that Godaddy receives.

Their interface that manages domains is so crap, that the tech support person had to get their supervisor to help me out. Even their tech support people are confused, that should tell you something.

thenmar3• 12 years ago

After I registered a domain with them, they called my personal phone to sell me their hosting services...

Karunamon• 12 years ago

Unjustified? The hate I see on GoDaddy stems from a number of concrete, substantive things:

* Skeevy, pandering advertising

* Skeevy, pandering CEO

* Bad behavior when it comes to transfers (i.e. wait to the last possible second to complete a transfer out because fuck you, that's why)

* A checkout workflow that makes it very hard to avoid adding extra things to your cart that you probably don't want

* Weak, script-bound CS

* Shoot first, ask questions later attitude to third party complaints (whether they be copyright based or otherwise)

* Their sponsorship of and carving out a fucking exemption for themselves on SOPA

* Unintuitive, badly designed, and confusing management tools

* Unlisted restrictions (their VPS services block certain ports outbound. This is not listed anywhere.)

GoDaddy is the PayPal of web hosting. They're ubiquitous, but I'd bet a high number people who've been in the hosting/domain for any length of time have a horror story to tell.

Network Solutions seems positively angelic by comparison.

sharkweek• 12 years ago

Almost every time I have to work on a client's site hosted with GoDaddy, their unintuitive interface basically requires I call into support (read: sales).

Despite their attempts to pitch me, I always tell them that I'm just working on a client's site, but they still tell me "if you've got the access code, you can make these decisions."

Yeah, that's a great way to keep my clients happy...

nivla• 12 years ago

Skeevy, pandering advertising

Agree with you on that, you have to jump though a bunch of product options before you finally see you cart.

Skeevy, pandering CEO

Also agree with you on that especially the elephant and SOPA issue.

Bad behavior when it comes to transfers.

Nope I have transferred over so many domains with absolutely no issues. Unlock, get your transfer code, give it to the next registrar and done.

A checkout workflow that makes it very hard to avoid adding extra things to your cart that you probably don't want.

Disagree even though you have a ton of things offered, none of them are check by default, hit next > next > next and you are at the cart. Its a smooth checkout after that.

Shoot first, ask questions later attitude to third party complaints

Disagree, even Namecheap has a list of blacklisted keywords that if your domain matches, cannot be transferred over or registered without the help of CS. Gandi has the a weirder TOS that can says they can pull your domain for any reason. Lavabit's or other major domains were located with Godaddy and it was never pulled. So Godaddy is on par with other domain registrations when it comes to complaints.

Unintuitive, badly designed, and confusing management tools.

Agree but I haven't found better ones elsewhere either.

Weak, script-bound CS

I had the opportunity to contact them multiple time in the past and they have been helpful and able to resolve the issue.

Network Solutions seems positively angelic by comparison. Then you have never had any experience with NetSol. They are most shadiest registrar in history.

pasbesoin• 12 years ago

I seem to recall that at times they were fairly strongly implicated in effecting and/or enabling domain name "snatching" against users' name searches. (If you don't immediately buy the name you searched, they or someone else will make a provisional claim and then try to flip it to you at a profit. The provisional claim can be backed out of within some number of days if you don't bite in the meantime, for little or no expense to the party doing so.)

If that's true (it's been a while and my memory is faded), that would definitely be scummy behaviour.

joelrunyon• 12 years ago

A better way to put this is to say that Godaddy is a great company from an investor standpoint - but a terrible company from a user standpoint.

booruguru• 12 years ago

GoDaddy is the perfect example of a company killing it with the mainstream while getting (often unjustified) hate inside the tech community.

Either you're a shill for GoDaddy or you've never done a cursory Google search on the company. Hell, every month or so there's a horror story posted on HN about someone who got royally screwed over by GoDaddy in new and astonishing ways. And the common reply is along the lines of, "You're a tech geek. You should have known better." And I think the same could be said of you.

zaidf2• 12 years ago

At GoDaddy's scale, a horror story is hardly any evidence of much. If we are going on anecdotal horror stories, every Fortune 10000 company would qualify.

I couldn't be farther from a shill. My company directly competes with them. Most our customers have their domains and websites on godaddy and they pay us to upgrade.

adam74• 12 years ago

I haven't read the article. I wonder if it involves enticing people with pretty girls.

netw1z• 12 years ago

is just me or does he always pick girls who look like men

ricardonunez2• 12 years ago

No, you will find coupons in FatWallet.

seancoleman3• 12 years ago

I'm a product manager at GoDaddy helping to head up enhancements for web professionals (hackers, web designers, SEO, etc.). I know we've had a checkered past, but things are drastically changing and we're making huge commitments to the web professional market. I think you'll find a different company emerge over the next few years. It's going to take some time before the outside world sees what the amazing talent inside is coming out with, but it's coming, and it's exciting.

skore• 12 years ago

I know we've had a checkered past, but things are drastically changing[...]

Wait, how is this supposed to compute?

"Checkered past" (= "sleazy business practices to maximize profit") plus this IPO (= "woo! shareholder value!") suddenly equals "enhancements for web professionals"?

I'll believe it when I see it.

thenmar3• 12 years ago

So you want us to pretend all that SOPA stuff just didn't happen? Has the leadership changed?

seancoleman3• 12 years ago

The leadership has changed. We have a new CEO, and virtually a whole new leadership team.

jamesbritt• 12 years ago

I think you'll find a different company emerge over the next few years.

The question I think many people have is, why hasn't this change already happened?

Otherwise this just sounds like some skeevy boyfriend moaning, "No, baby, I'll change, I swear, don't leave me. It's going to be different this time."

Over year ago I went to some local hackfesty thing which, after I got settled in, turned out to have GoDaddy as a sponsor. The GoDaddy rep talked about how they're all different now, all new management, etc. But it still smelled of geekwashing. I left at the first break.

The site is still the same, the ads are still cringe-inducing. And now you say the change is still yet to come.

You need a better story.

ereckers• 12 years ago

The last time I checked near half of YC companies were using some Godaddy services so you guys can't be all that bad.

mctx• 12 years ago

They probably just can't figure out how to use the site's horrible UI to transfer out

bashinator2• 12 years ago

So you're ditching the incredibly sleazy and offensive advertising?

wj• 12 years ago

I believe they did that with the ownership change last year.

seancoleman3• 12 years ago

Yes, it has all stopped.

ricardonunez2• 12 years ago

They will offer a .net, .org, ssl certificate and a private registration with the purchase of 1 share. Jokes aside I'm wondering how their bad reputation in the tech community will affect the IPO.

cicero19• 12 years ago

I really hate how the link to this is a non-free article...

maxmcd• 12 years ago

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

decentrality2• 12 years ago

I've read every single comment. I think there is 90% bias.

I've been a GoDaddy customer for a decade at least, and yes, it has sucked. But in the past tense... when it comes to customer support, checkout ease of use and honesty, etc.

SOPA? Right now even ICANN is a US only institution, so I am not expecting registrars to be entirely respectful. The Bill & Monica factor works for registrars too, like it does for married men in positions of power. I am adamantly against what I see people do, but I don't ever expect it to change unless it changes systemically first.

As I commented elsewhere, yes - domains get bought out from under me all the time if I leave them in my cart and don't buy them immediately. Do I think that's shady? No. I think my ideas are golden, and I treat it like - "if I'm stupid enough to share before I just flat out buy - my bad." They've capitalized on so many things, subtly. Key being subtly.

Their checkout process absolutely looks better, and is not like exiting Tijuana and avoiding buying "chicklets" any more. It is radically different. Their management interface too. Perfect? No! Way better? Absolutely. I am almost to the point of recommending them to others. Now, I just say "I'll deal with it" and use GoDaddy anyway. Not out of any real loyalty, just out of the inability to really say there is anything better to the point of wanting to migrate away hundreds of domains, or starting to monitor two separate registrars. Call me lazy, but they haven't given enough incentive to leave, and they do provide incentive to stay.

Case in point: my wife wanted to surprise me one day and saw that I had domains expiring while I was out of cell reception on a business trip. She obviously has all the necessary to verify she is my wife, and has access to my domains. If she used this to do something bad, this would be a different story. Instead, she was able to have a good conversation with someone who ended up giving her discount codes because she "knew I used them, but didn't know where to get them" and she wouldn't make the purchase until she saved at least 35% as I always said I did, minimum. All my domains got renewed, with a new card being added just to be sure it wasn't using money I didn't authorize - no matter who called. She is afraid of breaking things and still got through the process with positive experiences!

I am not finding the horror stories in my experience, now.

BESebastian• 12 years ago

Case in point: my wife wanted to surprise me one day and saw that I had domains expiring while I was out of cell reception on a business trip. She obviously has all the necessary to verify she is my wife, and has access to my domains. If she used this to do something bad, this would be a different story. Instead, she was able to have a good conversation with someone who ended up giving her discount codes because she "knew I used them, but didn't know where to get them" and she wouldn't make the purchase until she saved at least 35% as I always said I did, minimum. All my domains got renewed, with a new card being added just to be sure it wasn't using money I didn't authorize - no matter who called. She is afraid of breaking things and still got through the process with positive experiences!

Here's your horror story.

They allowed an unverified (by the account holder) third party to make changes to your account.

That's fucking terrifying.

tobehonest• 12 years ago

I know what I'll be shorting this summer.

Jugurtha• 12 years ago

Haven't read the article (requires registration) but I am with GoDaddy for a year. Frankly, it has driven my blood pressure up to the sky.

The is just bloated and slow. Why I must click on Sign In button on the right, to get a drop-down thing with the inputs to the left ? Are you kidding me ? I shouldn't click on a button to unlock the form.

The cPanel ? You have to click through a shit-ton of buttons to do the simplest things. Click My Account, click Hosting, then I have to click "Launch" to get to the point...

When you try to register a domain, somehow, some things are checked by default and God forbid you don't check how much money they're going to debit you before you check out.. So you unclutter the order from all the crap that magically got added. If I remember, they tried to charge me a second time for the "Domains by Proxy" service (I'm not sure) which I already had (since it was simply renewing my hosting, and not the domain which is still valid).

I don't know.. It just left a bad taste in my mouth, and bear in mind that it's the first company I deal with, so I don't have any other reference point of greatness to compare it to, still, I think it sucks.

Their support articles don't take into account shared hosting or something. Nobody tells you that you can't do stuff if you don't have a dedicated server unless you specifically ask, which you don't at first because you want to figure things out before you bother a human being.. Which means countless hours spent reading about an issue and searching the web. It's good in the long run, since I'm learning, but the info should've been there. If you have a shared account, you can't do this. One line that would've saved me so much effort.

Click, click, click, click. Bloated interface that makes it really slow to load. Bad UX design. I'm as mad as hell.

Next company will be SiteGround. I've seen the ad on htmldog.com. The site is greatly done. I got the link from ESR's article (How to Become a Hacker). And since ESR is referring htmldog, and htmldog is referring SiteGround, they get points of confidence in my naïve, newbie opinion.

Grrrrrrr !

uvTwitch• 12 years ago

I'll offer four dollars for 80% of their shares.

GoDaddy Prepares for IPO

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