
Startups should not use GoDaddy. Ever - justnearme
http://pinolio.tumblr.com
======
DanielBMarkham
I moved away from GoDaddy a couple of years ago. Now I have a few expiring
domains left on there.

Last week I got a notice they were going to charge me for a renewal, which I
did not want. So I called the support guy. Twenty or so minutes later, he sent
me to a link to fill out a form where all would be taken care of.

Except it wasn't. Just like my previous few encounters with GoDaddy, when I
went to the link I learned some obscure detail about my contract with them
prevented me from getting what I wanted -- yet allowed them to charge me in
full. I'm not going to go into details. It's a perfectly reasonable request on
their part. The problem is they have created this monster of add-on services
and items, all with little footnotes and gotchas. And it's all geared to
extract more money from me.

Last time I had a domain going to expire that I wanted to keep, I went to
transfer it over to my new domain guys. The domain was expiring in a month,
but I had to complete a GoDaddy form online to make it happen (sound
familiar?). The only way to complete the form online was to check a checkbox.
The checkbox said that once I checked it I couldn't transfer the domain for
another 90 days. Fuckers got me again.

I could tell you a few more like that. It's always some finely-detailed
bullshit that ends up with you paying them more. Last week they got me for
around 180 bucks.

So now I plan on using the domain I couldn't cancel. I go to the DNS settings.
Looks like the new DNS manager is overly complicated and impossibly to use
easily. The "adventure" continues.

I swear I hate those bastards. I consider myself a nice enough person, and I
have been disappointed by online services in the past -- no big deal. Some
online companies "get it" and some not-so-much. But GoDaddy has crossed a line
with me somewhere. I'm not sure if it's the used-car-salesmen experience I get
checking out or the policies that exist seemingly to endlessly screw me over
in various and sundry ways, but it's just a really, really, really bad service
in my opinion.

Did I mention I didn't like it so much?

~~~
jamesbritt
Counter anecdote: I've quite a few domains on GoDaddy. I've transfered a few
over the years, both to and from GoDaddy, and while the steps where not
explained clearly I never had an issue where I was prevented from controlling
my domains.

I also used their DNS service for the first time last month and found it
pretty straightforward. Maybe I wasn't trying to do something that would have
been complex (I didn't set up mail, for example, or any wild-card entries),
but it wasn't to "impossible to easily use."

YMMV and all that.

I could easily live without the day-glo rampage of add-ons whenever I try to
register a new domain, but I've gotten used to it.

I've tried some other registrars (names eluded) me that were purportedly
better/cheaper but found _their_ UIs annoying and troublesome in other ways.
Maybe it's a case of "the devil you know ...", but I don't find GoDaddy to be
the Great Satan some make it out to be.

~~~
joelhaus
I share both your criticism and praise, but would add that GoDaddy allowed me
to do bulk contact editing which (along with pricing) was the reason I
switched to them c. 3 years ago.

Margins may be low, but the domain registrar market seems ripe for disruption.
Are there any interesting upstarts in this space?

~~~
jeffbozek
I'm taking a stab at simple registrations and management with Coffee & Domains
(<https://www.coffeeanddomains.com>).

The goal was to make a domain name registration and management system I'd like
to use. That means no upselling and no charging for standard services like
whois privacy, url forwarding, and email forwarding.

I also made it easy to set your domain names to not auto-renew and to transfer
away your name.

There is also no magical price change the second year or hidden fees that show
up at the end of the purchasing process.

~~~
iaskwhy
Sorry for asking this under such a nice idea but what happens to those who
have domains with a company that goes out of business?

~~~
jeffbozek
I'm actually a reseller of Key-Systems. If I go out of business you'll still
have access to all of your domains and be able to manage them through Key-
Systems and RrpProxy.net (<http://key-systems.net/>). They also run Domain
Discount 24 (<http://dd24.com/>) and are a fairly large registrar.

~~~
iaskwhy
Thank you for being so clear (and open) about it, makes me want to try it and
maybe transfer everything there.

I have a quick repair only. If you see your site with Chrome on Windows 7,
there's something about the text that doesn't feel right, it looks too thin to
be readable at some sizes. For example, the navigation on the bottom left or
(even worse) the text inside the inputs of the login form. It's because of
Myriad Pro, not sure if you feel like changing it for some more usual typeface
like Arial.

~~~
jeffbozek
Thanks for the feedback. I'll fire up Parallels and do some tweaking on the
font type. I do all my work on a Mac so I typically just test with IE on
Windows and test the other browsers on OS X.

------
pieter
I agree with GoDaddy being horrible, but this really isn't just their fault.
Certificate revocation does exactly what it says. It's a technical term that
everyone using SSL should know and understand the implications of. Their offer
of creating a new certificate for you for $15 actually sounds pretty decent.

And, you don't have backups of all your data and domains? While running your
sites on a shared host? This really sounds like something that was bound to
happen to you. Be glad you got it fixed and I hope you learned your lesson.

~~~
wvenable
Backups don't matter in this case. What is he going to do with backups?

~~~
dholowiski
His sites were down for "days". If he had backups he could have restored the
sites to a different server.

~~~
wvenable
Yes, but isn't the problem related to the domains not the hosting?

------
larrik
I swore off GoDaddy years ago when I was setting up a website for a friend. It
took an entire night to FTP up about 100k worth of files to his account. His
website was extremely slow as well, so it wasn't just me.

We're talking about a website that got maybe dozens of hits per day.

He was a _paying customer!!!!_ I've never had such a bad host, even from free
ones.

Also, I absentmindedly signed myself up for their WHOIS privacy protection.
Holy crap was that a mistake! I can't cancel it because it's actually offered
by another company Domains By Proxy, but they won't let me log in because the
account was magically setup using some bogus credentials and information which
they got from the ether or something. So I can't even migrate that account
away without sending them a driver's license, and THAT's assuming they have my
correct name on file (which is a real possibility that they don't, since
nothing else seems accurate). GoDaddy is no help, I have to call
DomainsByProxy (which is GoDaddy, btw). DomainsByProxy is no help either,
unless I send them a scan of my driver's license.

It pisses me off so much I just haven't been able to bring myself to do it.
It's cheaper just to keep paying. Yuck.

~~~
buddydvd
I noticed transferring a domain to different Godaddy account immediately
cancels that domain's privacy-protection service. You can probably try that
first before transferring your domain out of Godaddy.

~~~
larrik
I will definitely look into that one.

~~~
larrik
It totally worked. I have to wait 60 days before transferring it out, but I
don't mind that at all.

Thank you!

------
KaeseEs
No one should use GoDaddy, ever; there are many other registrars in their
price range that don't share their onerous practices with regards to transfer,
takedown, security and privacy and which have much better customer service.

~~~
GoGlobal
which 1?

~~~
lucisferre
I like Namecheap personally

~~~
akkartik
How long have you been using it?

~~~
mikeleeorg
I'll chime in. I've been using them since 2007. For me, they're nice and
straight-forward. They don't offer any bulk discounts (NN% off for 5 years,
etc), but they do occasionally hold sales.

They also raised their rates a few times. When I first joined, they were
$8.88/mo. Then they went to $9.29/mo, then $9.69/mo, and now $10.16/mo.
Arguably, this may be one of their downsides, but I've never minded. I believe
other registrars were also raising their rates around the same time too.
(NOTE: prices include the ICANN fee.)

~~~
ohashi
You realize VeriSign increases the registry fee 7% each year. NameCheap from
my calculation is actually eating into their own margin each year slightly.

I used to use them back in around 2004, love the company, owner is wonderful.
Only reason I don't use them is I got a much better deal at Fabulous.com which
is designed for large portfolios. I still recommend them to basically anyone
looking for a registrar that isn't holding 100 domains or more.

~~~
mikeleeorg
Ah, I didn't know that. Good to know. Although, I didn't see an increase each
year. Just the few times I listed.

In any case, I highly recommend NameCheap as well.

------
pewpew
Be incompetent, blame others, profit. Host your site on a shared hosting, with
another 1000 users, blame godaddy when it goes down. Don't understand ssl,
blame godaddy when you make mistakes.

GoDaddy are freaking excellent! for domains that is. All other services are
crap, and if you bothered to actually check your facts, read some reviews, you
would know that.

~~~
robryan
One of the only reasonable posts in this thread, sounds like it was more like
the users fault than godaddy. I would agree for the kind of low tech shared
hosting they provide but I have set some VPS servers up on godaddy that have
worked quiet well. As long as you don't need their support and build from
scratch without a plex/cpanel type setup they have been fine.

------
geekfactor
_It turns out GoDaddy only issues the certificate to the domain attached to
the hosting (which is somewhat of a stupid association, really, because it
shouldn’t matter what domain you use as long as you’re accessing your content
via a correct route)._

If hosting with GoDaddy was the first mistake, this assumption was the second.
The whole point of an SSL certificate is to say that the server you are
talking to is a server that is authorized to speak on behalf of domain xyz
and, as such, they are generally tied to one or more domains.

~~~
latortuga
I don't know exactly how GoDaddy works but on my namecheap account, I can
issue purchased SSL certificates to any of the domains I have registered
there. I assume I may even be able to issue them to domains I do not have
registered there (though I have not tried and may be wrong) because they have
a verification process.

~~~
webfuel
Regardless of where your domain is registered, you can indeed get an SSL cert
from Namecheap. I bought a Comodo PositiveSSL for $9/y and couldn't be
happier. When I ran into some issues installing it on a Mac mini server, their
CS was responsive and friendly.

------
dasil003
_No one_ should ever use GoDaddy for any reason. I thought that was geek 101
by now.

Also, incidentally, you never host a startup on shared hosting. If a day or
two of downtime is a big deal than you gotta go VPS at a minimum.

~~~
mtogo
That's not true. For low traffic sites, NFSN and Webfaction are more than
capable.

~~~
_delirium
Yeah, I'd be surprised if a typical DIY VPS webserver can beat
nearlyfreespeech.net's uptimes and resilience to burst traffic.

~~~
davidandgoliath
Doubtful. Largely in part due to the average 'vps' user not managing things
properly -- or knowing how much they need to scale, etc.

Entities that have been doing it for years have things optimized quite a bit
to handle the spikes. I suspect the average shared hosting kicks the ass of
the average VPS -- particularly in the IO department.

~~~
dasil003
Are you guys serious? No doubt there is good shared hosting, but most of it is
oversold to shit. "Average shared hosting" is a race to the bottom.

The reason I say VPS is because that way you have guaranteed resources and the
ability to debug and fix problems yourself. I guess if you know the right
shared host you can get some good value there, but it still seems like a
terrible risk to me due to undisclosed limits, or vulnerability to neighbors
traffic spikes. When I said "startup" I thought it was implicit that it would
not be expected to be a low traffic site, at least not for long.

------
d2
OK kids, here's what you need to know. There are three levels of your
relationship with Godaddy:

Level 1: You're in balls deep. You register your domains with GoDaddy, use
their DNS servers and host your shit on their servers. You also get your SSL
certs from them. That's what the OP was doing.

Level 2: You're in up to the balls, but that's where it stops. You register
with them, host your DNS with them but your website lives on another providers
servers and you get your SSL elsewhere.

Level 3: You wearing a condom and don't give them their own key or underwear
drawer. In other words, you register your domain with GoDaddy but you host the
DNS somewhere else like DNSMadeEasy which costs, but is reliable. You also
host your site somewhere else like Linode for example. And your SSL cert is
something that costs more but is reliable. I have an EV cert from Verisign
which costs but you get better conversions.

Level 3 is the only place you want to be. Pay them the bare minimum,
immediately delegate the DNS hosting to a reliable rock solid provider that
doesn't black-list DNS servers and use that provider to point your A record to
whatever web host you're using. You get cheap domains and the only time you
have to wade through GD's cluster fuck interface is when you change DNS
providers or want to register another domain.

My primary domain did over 27 million DNS requests last month via DNS Made
Easy with a 12 hour TTL and it's been registered with godaddy for over 4 years
now with no problems at all.

~~~
soult
I would still be worried about the domain.

If my DNS provider messes up, I change to a new one and I am back within 72
hours (at most). If the mail provider messes up, I change to a new one and I
am back within X hours (where X is the TTL set for the domain). If my webhost
messes up, I am back within X hours (because I of course make offsite
backups), etc.

The only part where one needs a 100% reliable business partner is domain
registration. And after hearing all the horror stories about Godaddy, I would
not trust them, not even if I was wearing your methaphorical condom.

------
nicpottier
Does this really even need to be said here? A single visit to GoDaddy and
their insane upselling strategies should be enough to disuade anyone that they
are in it for anything but ripping you off.

namecheap.com has been quite pleasant so far. I used joker.com for years
before that without complaint as well. Plenty of reasonable options out there.

~~~
sneak
Another vote for joker.com. I use them because they are not based in the US,
but in Germany, which may result in a smidgeon more sanity when it comes to
yanking delegations without court rulings. Maybe.

Also, they are nerds and pgp sign all of their outgoing emails.

~~~
MostAwesomeDude
I could have sworn that Joker was hosted in Switzerland, which is the big
factor in my recommendation of them to people worried about government
interference in domain handling and DNS. Maybe I'm wrong on that, though.

------
scelerat
I could have predicted this thread would turn into a PTSD support group for
GoDaddy survivors.

I have my horrible stories too (all from freelancing days); suffice to say I
learned a couple of things:

    
    
      * Cheap hosting almost never is. 
      * GoDaddys support is designed to minimize their costs, not yours. 
      * if their support cannot help you with a problem they will try to upsell you on a plan they claim *will* fix the problem.
    

Dealing with them on a handful of occasions ranks among the most painful
experiences I've had in 15 years of building stuff on the web.

------
jeremydavid
Has anyone here used Nearly Free Speech (www.nearlyfreespeech.net)? I have
finally started to make my migration away from GoDaddy (I have been planning
this for years), and NFS seems pretty good.

I can't seem to find any horror stories about them... but I rarely see them
brought up in discussions about registrars. Am I missing something?

~~~
kijin
I've been using NFS.N for over three years now. I have a number of small sites
and domains with them. The sites cost pennies a month, the feature set is
staggering, and the domain registration process makes Gandi and Namecheap look
clunky in comparison. They're also painstakingly honest. They recently
corrected a billing error of $56 over three years over their entire client
base. [1] My only complaint with them is the lack of SSL, but that's what a
VPS is for.

In fact, I like NFS.N so much I made a simple webmail app to interface with
their e-mail forwarding service. It's highly experimental though. [2]

[1] [http://blog.nearlyfreespeech.net/2011/04/07/a-small-
billing-...](http://blog.nearlyfreespeech.net/2011/04/07/a-small-billing-
error-corrected/) [2] <http://www.github.com/kijin/nearlyfreemail>

~~~
jeremydavid
Cheers for that! Thank you for reinforcing my decision. I may just move the
rest of my domains over there this week.

------
andrewl
Paul Graham says "I use EasyDNS. They're expensive, but reliable and never do
anything evil."

Source: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=150565>

Note that that comment was posted over three years ago. Does anybody have any
more recent experience with them?

~~~
jbhelms
DNS wasn't really the problem here, it was the hosting and setting up a ssl
cert. I use GoDaddy for my DNS stuff and have never had any problem with them
for that. Most of the horror stories come from people hosting with them.

~~~
stonemetal
They also provide registration and SSL.

~~~
jbhelms
Actually, after posting this I found an article that said that GoDaddy is
selectively denying DNS requests, so they are now being crappy with DNS as
well. I guess I need to move to a new registrar and DNS host.

------
rickdale
I can't believe people are still bitching about GoDaddy shared hosting. I feel
like a quote from Richard Pryor is in store: "Boy, it's 1975 you betta get
your shit together!"

My point is that if you were smart enough to use GoDaddy shared hosting then
you probably weren't smart enough at the time to have a VPS. Take what you
have learned from GoDaddy and learn some more stuff and then sign up for a VPS
or build a server. GoDaddy can be a good start for those just jumping into
webdev and hosting, but after you have the equivalent of a yellow belt, its
time to move on.

------
athst
GoDaddy is the worst company ever. Earlier this year I finally took the step
to transfer all of my domains to a different company, and I haven't looked
back. Instead of transitioning slowly over time, I just decided to pay the
money and transfer everything - it felt a lot better to just be free of them.
Imagine a company so awful your customers are willing to pay extra to not be a
customer!

One painful part of the transfer experience is that their "DomainsByProxy"
service is entirely separate, even though it is sold alongside their domains
as an add-on. My problem was that I had originally signed up with it years and
years ago, and they do not keep your email or password in sync with your
GoDaddy account. So I couldn't "release" the domains from DBP to be
transferred without going through this crazy process of sending in forms and a
copy of my drivers license to reset the account info. It was awful.

------
nyellin
Please fix the link. It goes the blog's homepage which makes it difficult to
find the article later.

------
sjs382
I cant stand GoDaddy's hosting product. Their interface is awful, they're
constantly upselling you, and changes via their Control Panel never happen
instantly.

I have a lot of clients who came to me using GoDaddy and continue to use
GoDaddy. So I interact with GoDaddy in some form every day.

But GoDaddy really shines in one area: their support. They're professional,
they don't treat me or my clients like idiots, they don't bullshit me, and
they're always quick to resolve issues.

(Personally, I prefer name.com and prgmr.com)

------
rshigeta
I've seen a lot of issues raised about godaddy recently, but any suggestions
for domain registry that work better?

~~~
mtogo
Here's the list that i post every time someone asks this. There are plenty of
other ones, but these are the "tried and true" top list.

    
    
      * Gandi.net
    
      * Namecheap
    
      * Name.com (Some very sleazy practices, see child)
    
      * Moniker

~~~
jackowayed
Name.com is pretty evil too. They opt you in to a "service" that displays ads
from your domain (where they keep the revenue, of course), and _say that you
are responsible for ensuring that the content is legal_

See [http://nathanhammond.com/namedotcom-another-unscrupulous-
reg...](http://nathanhammond.com/namedotcom-another-unscrupulous-registrar)

~~~
stchangg
I just bought a domain from Name.com yesterday (in an effort to escape from
GoDaddy) and I'm surprised at how nasty their interface is. These big
registrars really try to make their users suffer.

------
mikeleeorg
I know two non-techie people (one a friend, one an acquaintance) who've used
GoDaddy and gotten confused by all of the upsells and promos. My friend ended
up purchasing a few extra services by accident and had a hard time trying to
cancel them. The acquaintance was much less cognizant and ended up paying
hundreds a month unknowingly.

I've also used them too, because a cofounder had registered our domain name
with them. In Aug 2010, I noticed that GoDaddy had been charging us for an
extra service we never purchased. I know this because none of us had logged
into the GoDaddy account in a while. Fortunately, I'm really anal with
accounting records and noticed the discrepancy in our bill.

After several emails and attempts to get this charge removed, I tweeted this
issue with @GoDaddy included in it. THAT got an immediate response.
Eventually, the charges were removed and we got a refund.

Moral of the story: Don't recommend GoDaddy to your non-techie friends, and
consider avoiding it yourself. But if you must use them and have a problem,
tweet about it to get a quick resolution.

------
larrys
One of the reasons godaddy is successful is that they are the registrar of
referral for people (web designers, programmers, ISP's) that have customers
that need domain registration or renewal. When an end user has a domain they
need or one up for renewal godaddy is the registrar that is suggested to them
by their "tech guy".

This is similar to how Microsoft gained power in a way. They were supported by
a huge network of people that made money off of Microsoft. Additionally
traditional tech guys want to appear smart and love (even if they don't make
any commission) telling people they can get their domain registered cheaply at
godaddy. "Wow I'm overpaying" says the customer.

What many people don't realize is that all registrars pay exactly the same
price for a domain. Any registrar charging less than a certain amount (say
below or near cost) is making it up elsewhere. In the case of godaddy it is by
selling you things that you don't need that have no value.

One and only one example of this is "privacy protection". This is like a FUD
from Microsoft.

Many godaddy domains have privacy protection that have no need for privacy and
in fact privacy, because they are an operating business, with a business
address, is the opposite of what they should be using. While having privacy is
of benefit in some cases (to criticize your employer as only one example) it
is almost always safer to have a real address in the whois records if you can
do that.

This of course isn't limited to godaddy. Register.com is the registrar for
Fred Wilson's avc.com. Avc.com has privacy protection even though Fred has a
business address that he could use and has a public email address.

Domain Name: avc.com Created on..............: 2008-07-18 Expires
on..............: 2019-04-30

Registrant: Domain Discreet ATTN: avc.com Rua Dr. Brito Camara, n 20, 1
Funchal, Madeira 9000-039 PT

~~~
skcin7
The example of the "privacy protection" reminds me when I was a n00b (I still
kinda am), but like 3 years ago I wanted a domain that was taken so I paid
~$15 for them for domain backordering.... LOL. I didn't really know what it
was at the time (stupid me) but now I feel so incredibly stupid for basically
giving away $15 and getting duped for my money.

~~~
larrys
I wouldn't say it was stupid actually. Stupid is something that you do that
most people don't do. Many of the godaddy services seem legit on first glance.
That's why they sell so well. The marketing language they use is good. There
are cases where someone might actually stand a chance of back ordering a
domain. But when godaddy collects $15 for a domain that there is no way they
are going to get for someone (like a 3 letter name as only one example) that's
taking advantage of what someone doesn't know.

If you want to backorder a domain use pool.com. Last I checked they don't
charge anything for a backorder.

------
derobert
See also a previous post, "Alternatives to GoDaddy" at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2753471>

------
mtogo
This article is spot on. I can't fathom why anyone would put themselves
through Godaddy, especially a startup. I feel like you're asking for trouble
though if you use Godaddy's _hosting_ , which has a reputation for being
absolutely horrible.

------
akmiller
Is it really a problem if I simply use them as a registrar? I have many
domains there but that's all I use them for is to simply register my domain. I
have liked them for that because they are cheap (if you avoid all the up-sells
which is easy enough) and their prices have stayed fairly consistent over the
last several years.

I moved to them from Yahoo. Yahoo always allowed you to register a domain for
a cheap price of 9.00 but then the renewals were 34.95...a bit of bait and
switch if you ask me. Anyhow, I've been happy with simply using GoDaddy as a
registrar but after reading this thread I'm wondering if I should switch??

------
mbesto
Which is amazing considering how much GoDaddy is used for YC companies:
<http://jpf.github.com/domain-profiler/ycombinator.html?2011>

------
thisisnotme
I am stunned that anyone would ever use them in the first place. After going
through domain registration with them, and being appalled at the amount of up-
sale, I decided they aren't the company I would want to trust with anything.

I have been using dreamhost for years, and they make registration management
painfully simple (and honest).

Also GoDaddy had an issue years back where they were apparently scooping up
domains that people didn't finish checkout with and then selling them at a
higher price.

------
mille562
I have used GoDaddy for their DNS services and have been very happy with their
customer service. No issues so far after ~2 years. I may research other DNS
though, comments of how easily they shut people down makes me nervous.

Note to Pinolio: I may have missed it, but I did not find a link to your
service on your blog.

------
damoncali
I've been using GoDaddy for years. Never had a problem. I dont' use their
hosting, though.

~~~
dpcan
Exactly what I came here to say. I don't use their hosting because I've tried
it and it's painfully slow and I have had it go down intermittently for a
number of clients who I know use it still.

I've had to talk with their support several times for little issues too, and
I've actually had excellent interactions. Again, not for hosting however.

I use their SSL certificates as well, and it's a very easy process that I've
never had a problem with.

I don't know why HN is the dumping ground for bad GoDaddy experiences. There
are review sites for this. I've had miserable customer service experiences
with countless companies, but I'm not posting them here, and they certainly
wouldn't get voted to the top.

------
TomGullen
GoDaddy is so bad. My heart sinks whenever a client asks me to login and
change some setting for them. They've managed to turn the entire process of
every function on their site into a purist up-selling unusable monstrosity
that confuses customers to such a degree they feel they need to pay more and
more money.

If you want a good Domain host try <http://www.webwiz.co.uk>, the guy who runs
it is very good and prompt at support, domains are a fair price and the
interface is super easy to use. I have no affiliation to WebWiz but since
moving all my domains over there it's been a lot easier.

------
dendory
I used GoDaddy when I first started, years ago, but quickly moved away from
them. Been with Dreamhost for years now and it's been very good. Adding SSL
can't be simpler, they even streamline the process, allowing you to buy the
cert directly in the panel (or import your own from a third party), assign a
static IP, and everything works inside an hour. Anyways, just wanted to share
my experience.

------
migrantgeek
Seems like everyone agrees that GoDaddy is terrible. What's strange to me is
the interface has always sucked and gets worse as they've grown. You'd think
with the revenues they see, they could get some good designers to make it much
more usable.

I like Enom myself. The API works really well, prices are good, and the UI is
clean and usable. I've been much happier since moving all of my domains over.

~~~
BenSS
Nicer user interface doesn't always equate into more revenue. Sometimes it's
even counterproductive (sales pages w. misspellings/mistakes can convert
better!).

------
joehewitt
Are any of the big registrars trustworthy? I'm trying to consolidate all of my
domains on Namecheap right now. I transferred one domain from Dyndns and they
did the transfer within a few hours (nice!). Then I went to transfer another
from Network Solutions and four days later I am still waiting. Do they think
I'll change my mind if they refuse to release the domain for a week?

------
onedognight
All the complaints here about GoDaddy have nothing to do with the one reason
to use them, paying the _least_ for a domain with free DNS. If you pay them
anything else then you have just nullified this advantage as they can make
back the few dollars you saved on the domain by charging you more for things
like hosting and SSL (free at startcom).

~~~
ericabiz
It's only cheaper if your time is worth nothing. Digging through pages of
upsells takes time. I prefer using a registrar where I don't have to do that.
(I use both Namecheap and eNom.)

~~~
jzcoder
All the upsell checkboxes are defaulted off. I don't understand what the
problem is clicking through a couple of pages without checking anything. I've
done it dozens of times with no problems.

------
fatalerrorx3
I hated using GoDaddy when doing development work for clients...I would never
choose to use it for myself just based on my previous experience with them. I
prefer self hosting on a fresh Ubuntu Server install on highspeed residential
cable from a server I built myself..there's something satisfying about
learning about all aspects of web development

------
jeromeparadis
My first rule is use a registrar to register domains. Never host your site or
DNS at the registrar. My second rule is do not host your DNS where you host
your site. It makes it easier to switch providers without downtime. With these
rules, I use GoDaddy to register domains and never had any problems. For DNS,
DNS Made Easy is cheap and reliable.

------
fialk
You can buy one service from GoDaddy and they'll give you a second service
free for a year, then auto-renew that second unnecessary service. You can't
cancel easily via e-mail and you can't cancel over the telephone. You have to
log in and face an endless amount of confusion and upselling.

* This was for Domain Auto-Registration which includes GoDaddy Auctions.

------
alwillis
I couldn't agree more. I've seen firsthand people using Go Daddy to check out
a possible domain only to have Go Daddy squatting on it the next day. He was
able to get a few of them back, but it such a hassle.

This was a couple of years ago; I can't imagine how much worse things are now.

------
rcavezza
GoDaddy has the best customer service if you pick up the phone and give them a
call. They're not like Google - they have a phone number listed and people are
always available to pick up the phone - 24/7 if I'm not mistaken.

------
DenisM
Since this seems to be "my most/least favorite name service company" I
recommend DynDNS. They're expensive, but they work very well in my experience.
You can set very short TTLs, which obviates the need for static IPs.

------
rumblestrut
As of this post, it appears to be working.

And I have to say, it's impressive. Those are some good-looking bookmarks.
That's probably the oddest maintenance I'd ever think to write, but in this
case, it's true!

------
jinushaun
Just had GoDaddy conveniently renew three expiring domain names for me for TWO
years. These were domain names I didn't want any more. Thanks.

~~~
djb_hackernews
I think you are being totally unfair.

If they auto renewed, then YOU set them up to auto renew.

If they auto renewed, this means you let them keep your billing information on
file.

They spam me once every week to remind me that my auto renew domains are going
to auto renew.

And my own personal anecdote, right before one of my domains auto-renewed I
got a polite call from a CSR making sure that I was aware the domain was going
to auto renew.

------
espadagroup
I was on a deluxe account at Godaddy, tried upgrading to a VPS, had a horrible
experience and now I am a happy customer of PHPFog.

------
josscrowcroft
If this doesn't convince you to leave GoDaddy, just remember that the owner
and founder takes summer holidays shooting elephants.

------
userhasaname
Where does he explain how and when the hosting died? He jumps from SSL
revocation to hosting downtime.

------
Birejji
Dynadot is the way to go

------
bennesvig
Does this only apply to hosting or registering domains as well?

~~~
trustfundbaby
I'm not a fan but I'll admit they're pretty good with domains.

------
skilesare
I remember when GoDaddy was the David to NetSol's Goliath.

------
kermitthehermit
Nobody should use GoDaddy, not only startups.

------
myprasanna
likealittle.com suffered with them too. They are pretty darn evil, they ask
for a ransom to let you move your site.

------
mcantelon
GoDaddy: not even once.

------
drivebyacct2
Why is this news?! I can't count the number of times this has come up on HN,
let alone reddit, let alone random prominent blogs, let alone from other big
names that have had problems with GoDaddy suspending service, locking them out
of their control panels and/or siding with law enforcement and acting before
asking. Stop using GoDaddy. It's trivial to find other registrars, and not
hard to find better ones.

(Examples of better registrars: Gandi, name.com)

Honestly, not a reassuring way to advertise your new company. There first
intro blob admits that they knew this was a risk. "Yeah, we knew people have
problems with this, but we were lazy and didn't bother taking the 30 minutes
to transfer our domains elsewhere."

~~~
pornel
> Why is this news?! I can't count the number of times this has come up

And yet GoDaddy is still in business and doing great.

~~~
jbhelms
You can't get past the cheapness of some people. $5 a month for hosting is
very attractive to someone looking to bootstrap off of savings.

~~~
drivebyacct2
You can get much better supported, more feature-full (and also more
"unlimited" and oversold) hosting for $5 or less from people less scummy and
likely to shut off your box or domain than GoDaddy.

Seriously, is DNS so hard that typing in the nameservers of your shared
hosting provider or DECENT VPS provider is so unthinkable? Or is it
registering for a second account? I simply do, not, understand.

------
leon_
When I was doing web stuff back in 2003 the common opinion on webmaster forums
was that one should never ever use GoDaddy. (There were cases of stolen
domains, etc.)

Maybe they changed now - maybe not. But I'm not going to find it out.

------
timjahn
Don't. Ever. Use. GoDaddy.

Ever.

~~~
GoGlobal
y?

------
pavel_lishin
> It’s a good thing I don’t drink, because the blur of Saturday and Sunday
> spent on the phone could have really been dealt with better with a couple of
> stiff drinks to ease the pain.

What.

