

GoDaddy Purchased the Domain Name Market Today - ohashi
http://kevinohashi.com/20/09/2013/godaddy-purchased-domain-name-market-today

======
shawnee_
_GoDaddy is now the biggest player in the domain name sales channels both for
new registrations and selling in the secondary market. With the upcoming
release of new gTLDs, they couldn 't be better positioned to sell more domain
names and make more money._

The author's conclusion here is kind of obvious, but wow is he wrong in his
sentiment that this is going to somehow be good for consumers. Because GoDaddy
is private, its strategy to dominate by size and market share alone is kinda
evil. How this company has managed to stay private for so long while getting
so big and controlling so much bandwidth -- now this would be an interesting
case study.

 _A lot of domainers don 't use GoDaddy and don't want to put their domain
names there. Acquiring Afternic solves the technical and business problems
that may have blocked GoDaddy in previous attempts to gain more of the
secondary market._

Hmm. So GoDaddy is trying to hide from itself?

~~~
gaadd33
Does GoDaddy control that much bandwidth compared to some hosts like Hurriance
Electric/OVH/Hetzner/etc?

Also GoDaddy was recently (past 5 years I think) bought by a private equity
firm, so the owner cashed out via that rather than an IPO.

~~~
ohashi
Bob Parsons is still the largest single share holder I believe. KKR, Silver
Lake bought in for 2.25B.

Not sure on actual infrastructure size vs other companies since they are
focused on small business market rather than being an infrastructure provider.

~~~
Osiris
Based on a five year time line from KKR/Silver Lake, I would expect an IPO
within 2-3 years. This recent change in leadership, direction, and
acquisitions is evidence of the push toward IPO.

~~~
ohashi
Maybe this time around it will actually happen. They tried to IPO in 2006 as
well. I am guessing at this size there aren't many potential buyers
considering their revenue was 1.3B last year. I think their growth might have
slowed down a bit, not sure how/if that would affect a potential IPO.

I've got some gaps in years I could find data for:

2003 39M

2004 73M

2005 140M

2006

2007

2008 500M

2009 750M

2010

2011 1.14B

2012 1.3B

~~~
Osiris
Growth has been around 15% this year, but it's expected to get up to 20% as
various new marketing and internationalization strategies take place.

------
rkuykendall-com
Can someone explain how this affect my searching for, purchasing, managing,
and renewing domains on NameCheap?

I just didn't see it in the article, so I'm having trouble placing it in
context.

~~~
ohashi
It doesn't. But NameCheap is a drop in the bucket from an industry
perspective. Take a look [http://www.webhosting.info/registrars/top-
registrars/global/](http://www.webhosting.info/registrars/top-
registrars/global/)

They have 32% of the market. WildWest is also GoDaddy (another 3% market). So
They have 35% of the market. The next biggest (Enom) has 8% and really that's
a split between them and NameCheap (NC had 3M in 2012).

GoDaddy is much bigger than anyone else on the consumer side. A lot of those
competitors are focused on domain holders/resellers (Tucows, Enom,
ResellerClub, Moniker).

Now they are going after the other side of the domain business. And they just
secured the missing channel which comes with technology and distribution.

It won't affect consumers that much (my prediction), but it just positioned
GoDaddy to dominate all the key aspects of the domain market.

~~~
duskwuff
I'm pretty sure that site's numbers are wrong. Try digging into the details on
any registrar - the "gain/loss report" for GoDaddy, for example, says that
they're registering and transferring in exactly -2560 domains every single
week. (This is separate from the transfers out and deletions, so it should
NEVER be negative.) Other registrars have similarly "quirky" numbers.

~~~
hncommenter13
Can you potentially point me to a reliable source for this type of number (or
tell me how to calculate it myself, assuming I can get the zone file from
Verisign)?

I had similar issues with the data, and I tried emailing these guys to find
out more about their methodology. Didn't get a response.

Are they crawling DNS for every domain that has changed info (or is new, or
drops) from the prior zone file? How would one recreate this data,
hypothetically?

EDIT: I'm aware of the ICANN delayed data (as the site below uses), but I am
hoping for a more up-to-date source.

------
Osiris
News travels fast. We just got the email from the CEO today about the
acquisition. However, I don't work in the domains group, so I don't have much
additional information to share.

------
jc123
FWIW godaddy management is being run by ex-Microsoft people. CEO Irving was a
VP at MS number of years ago.

------
rhizome
Assuming facts not in evidence, etc., I don't see any indication that Afternic
is "the domain market." Looking at the author's Tweets, on the other hand,
illustrates their depth of knowledge quite effectively.

~~~
ohashi
I am not making the argument that afternic is the entire domain market. I do
believe it was/is the missing piece for GoDaddy owning both the consumer and
secondary marketplaces and it will allow them to be the only company to put
them together. Afternic's DLS system and the agreements with pretty much all
the relevant registrars just made them a one stop shop for everyone on both
sides of the domain market. With other parts of the business contracting and
becoming irrelevant. They just pretty much sealed all the gaps I can imagine
for the next few years. It also places them quite well for new gTLD
introduction which should see a flurry of speculation and buying.

~~~
rhizome
_I am not making the argument that afternic is the entire domain market._

Your title is.

~~~
ohashi
We'll have to agree to disagree on how it was meant then. They bought the DLS
system which turned them into the dominant player on both sides of the market
today by a large margin. They own the market now.

~~~
rhizome
I'm not talking about how it was meant, I'm talking about the actual words. As
a reader, "the Domain Name Market" is a singular term that refers to the
entire sector of business and economy concerned with domain names. Amazon is
the "dominant player" in online retail, but they do not own it, and someone
who somehow acquired Amazon could never be said to have bought the online
retail market unless you were writing clickbait.

