Is Go Daddy Bidding Against Your Backorders?

[radioz]

I had a PENDING DELETE name on backorder at Go Daddy this week that Go Daddy's 'Go Canada' Domains caught. Usually that would become yours automatically via Go Daddy's MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE backorder backorder system. When the auction was over I go a notice that the domain's status had changed and then got this:

Dear Jonathan Hall,

The domain name(s) you have backordered is now listed for auction at auctions.godaddy.com:

(MyBackorderedName).COM
Because you had an existing backorder on the domain(s), you may wish to place a bid. If you are the successful bidder, your backorder from the expired names list will be applied to your purchase and will cover the cost of a one year registration. You will only pay the amount of your bid.

If you need any further assistance or technical support, call us any time at (480) 505-8877 or email us at support@godaddy.com.

Thanks as always for being a Go Daddy customer.

Sincerely,
GoDaddy.com, Inc.

After several support questions that got a variety of answers, I got this:

Dear Jon Hall,

Thank you for your reply. There has been a recent modification in the way backorders are handled. Godaddy now allows for multiple backorders on a single domain. When Go Daddy captures a domain name that expired from another registrar, we list it for private auction and invite backorder holders from Go Daddy to participate in the auction. This is the case regarding the domain (MyBackorderedName).COM. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Please let us know if we can assist you in any other way.

Regards,
Scott P.
Advanced Technical Support

My backorder currently says 'Attempting Capture' and recommends that I leave the domain on backorder through 5/14. There is no way to bid on this name via the front page of TDNAM.COM (auctions.GoDaddy.COM) and there was never a way to request domain name that was in the PENDING DELETE stage there.

My guess is that Go Daddy is now catching domains for themselves (or for people inside Go Daddy) and is bidding against you for whatever they feel the domain is worth. Go Daddy has, to my knowledge made no announcement of a change in policy. You would think that people who spend five figures with you yearly would get a little respect no to mention that everyone else should too. It now seems to be 'buyer beware' at Go Daddy. If they catch a name that you ordered on at MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE basis and they think that it is a decent name, they will bid against you!

Way to go 'Daddy'! I guess that Bob Parsons is working hard everyday to build a better product. That is a paraphrased comment attributed to him in a continuing 'Great Domain Sayings' post here on DNF.

Anyone else have this happen? Any public comment from anyone at Go Daddy so we all know what's going on??!!

[EG.domains]

Yes, I don't think they made announcement about this change. I knew about it from here :


http://domainnamewire.com/2009/04/10...ckorder-rules/

[meganerd]

They're not catching it for themselves.

They are catching it as normal and allowing people to bid war for them instead of giving it to the first successful person.

Go....Daddy. <- GoDaddy feasting on our vulnerabilities. Look forward to more in the future.

[draggar]

Don't all drop-catch services do this? Its one major cash cow for them. Have another registrar register a domain, pay them, say, $20 for it, then they (drop catcher) gets paid $x,xxx to let you have access to it.

[meganerd]

Originally Posted by draggar

Don't all drop-catch services do this? Its one major cash cow for them. Have another registrar register a domain, pay them, say, $20 for it, then they (drop catcher) gets paid $x,xxx to let you have access to it.

Now they do, yes, when they discovered how much $$$ they were losing on simple renewals.

[draggar]

I had one a few weeks ago - put in my $60 fee and next thing I know - it's on auction and over $1500. :(

[bigboydog_0]

it happened to me just about 2 mo ago , i had rent2own.com in spanish , i had it backordered and someone from the uk sent me an email saying if i wanted to buy it i would have to pay him 250.00 , the funny thing is that he did not know what the domain meant.. i knew what it meant so i dished out the payment quickly....the crazy thing is that i had it backordered with godaddy and before it dropped i got the email saying if i wanted it..... from now on i will not backorder nothing from godaddy and by the way they dont refuned the 18.99 for the backorder if you dont get it. enough said

[james2002]

Too bad. Godaddy is also after money . They broke their policy now.

[radioz]

The problem is two fold:

1) They didn't exactly publicize this to their customers which means an unpleasant surprise and a loss of potential order as well. A bad idea from an perspective.

2) How do you even put in a backorder against someone who has the backorder lock. When you check a backorder at Go Daddy, you still get a big fat 'X' if a backorder is in place and I see nowhere to enter a new name into backorder at TDNAM.

Go Daddy may, indeed go to the SnapNames model but they should stop charging anything up front for backorders. Without noting this before hand, this is particularly disengenuous with regard to existing users. Their system is not ready for this. They should remodel before implementing this method. They have every right to make this change but this is a perfect model of how NOT to change things!

I just tried to enter a backorder for a good .BIZ name (yes, there are some) and Go Daddy returned this:

No updates were made.

You cannot backorder this domain at this time.
(WonderName).BIZ

So-o-o-o-o guys at Go Daddy, just HOW do you enter a competing bid???!! Does Adam Dicker even know how? Or is he the only one that does know?

BTW - You rarely catch anything resembling the best names. If I have to pay $28.49 month to buy appx. $10 backorders or $18.95 to buy regular backorders, I am definitely going to solve this by no longer using your service after my current backorders end. That will save me $300 a year plus about $3,000 in backorder fees (I have used you a lot). Perhaps I'll just buy a couple of really good names at Name Jet or Snap Names instead. That isn't a threat; its just good business sense!

[mulligan]

I'd rather stick blunt toothpicks into my eyeballs than deal with Bob, in any shape, manner or form.

EDIT: That should read 'eyeball' rather than 'eyeballs' .. I did the left one about 6 months ago when talking to support.

[radioz]

I'd rather stick blunt toothpicks into my eyeballs than deal with Bob, in any shape, manner or form.

Unfortunately, I would agree. In the early days they weren't too bad.

Who is a good registrar that offers similar prices and who is, at least amongst registrars, relatively decent? I've got 2,400+ domains to move somewhere else over a years time if someone is out there.

I do realize that thanks to ICANN, most registrars are more interested in selling their ill gotten expired domains that they never spent a penny on rather than acting as a registrar but, alas, I may stupidly let something decent expire, at least. I've done it before!

[LLLL.COM]

Godaddy tried to cheat their customers once again. This is bad business. They were not warned that the rules will be changed only from informal sources, we learned about it. If Parsons think that they will get more money, they are wrong, many people will use other services of interception, ten times more reliable than Godaddy. A service of intercepting domain Godaddy fully shit.
We would like to receive an official explanation from them. But now we get only a lot of advertising spam-messages.

[radioz]

We would like to receive an official explanation from them. But now we get only a lot of advertising spam-messages.

That is an awful problem with them. They could at least fix that one. It certainly doesn't explain going from $7.99 to $14.99 for .BIZ (and later .US) registrations for the heck of it. That is simply a bad way to do business. The could raise .COM renewals to $200, I suppose and get a good, quick inventory for TDNAM too! Darn, Go Dady marketing and the girls are already partying with Dogbert over that one. Tails are a-waggin!

By the way, Go Daddy made an extra $5 one me and I bought the name in question. I also found how you can tell how many backorders were in place for a name. You will get the 'Sorry we didn't get the name notice with several repeats of the name that they didn't get. That is likely the number of backorders. There is another hint most of what they catch had no multiple backorders (surprise!).

Here is my list from today:

We're sorry, but the following domain name(s) that you backordered was not captured successfully:

HYDROCOM.COM
HYDROCOM.COM
HYDROCOM.COM
WISHLAND.COM
WISHLAND.COM
WISHLAND.COM
FIRESTORMNETWORKS.COM
FIRESTORMNETWORKS.COM
SHARLA.COM
SHARLA.COM
SHARLA.COM
SHARLA.COM
SHARLA.COM
SHARLA.COM

Hint #2: If the name is really any good, you should backorder it elsewhere for free. If you really want the name, Go Daddy does on very rare occasion grab a pretty good name, so you might want to add them. The old days of Go Daddy 'hail mary' backorders are useless now and that is what I actually bought them for.

Another thing interesting is that if you check a name on Go Daddy's front page, you will get a big 'X' on the name if there is even one backorder leading the average person to thing that there is no way to place a backorder. This is really a badly thought out, very NOT ready for prime time system. I could be wrong but I doubt that they have made more than a few hundred off of this stupid (thus far) scheme while creating more ill will than value.

[theinvestor]

I have a question...

So is any name registered with GoDaddy guaranteed to drop with them ?

[Doc Com]

Originally Posted by theinvestor

I have a question...

So is any name registered with GoDaddy guaranteed to drop with them ?

Sure, it will drop...

right into their system.

Everything described in this post had happened to me.

I was very successful capturing drops through their backorder system using their own generated lists of dropping domains.

Now it seems no matter what I attempt to backorder I get one of these messages that everyone is posting.

As someone pointed out, there was no notice given about the change in their service. Quite amazing when you consider you have to pay a fee (a paltry $4,95) to be able to bid on TDnam. But it seems a change in TOS is a change in TOS, whether it was GD or TD.

I think what may be happening is GD/TDnam are running the name through auction FIRST before awarding it as a back order.

From a business perspective, it makes sense to me.

GD/TDnam are so in tune to the domain craze. So why give the name to someone for $18.95 when throwing it in an auction potentially being 10 times that amount - or 100 times.

There have been some big ticket sales off of these names that hit the TDnam list.

[Raider]

Before the auction craze, the term "Backorder" meant the first person to place the backorder would be awarded the domain... But for a long time, Auctioneers like Namejet and Pool have redefined the term, It now means; "Reserve your spot in our auction and well award the domain to the highest bidder".

As for Godaddy, they were the long hold out... Most of us knew it was only a matter of time before they followed suit.

[ezimedia]

Hi

Well don't use them... and just monitor the domain names that have bids on them... not hard to do..

Tom

[dvdrip]

Do you need to buy a backorder to be included in the auction?
What happens to all the current backorders?
Can I use them all to pay for one name at the auction?

[Go Daddy]

First of all, sincere apologies for not getting to this thread until now. No excuses, it was just overlooked. In the future, feel free to PM "Go Daddy" when there are threads or issues where you feel we can help provide more information.

There is a new backorder system that was put into place in late April / early May. All backorders placed before the change are in affect unchanged (if someone placed a backorder on "DOMAINNAME.COM" before the change, only one backorder will be allowed for that name), therefore you may see some names that will not allow you to place a backorder.

Going forward, customers who have placed a backorder on the same name will have the opportunity to bid on the name at a private auction (only for backorder holders). As always, the backorders can be re-assigned if you did not successfully win the auction or capture the backordered name.

If you have more questions about the new backorder system, you can PM "Go Daddy" or call and we'll answer all of your questions.

[JMJ]

You might want to inform your customer support (and your customers) about this. I never received any information on my personal account or our business account(s). I don't see the information anywhere on your site. Maybe hidden in fine print somewhere? When my recent backorder goes into this mysterious auction I spend an hour of my time with customer support trying to figure out what the hell is going on. When assured by them it is mine and I should receive it in a few days I let it go only to find another thread like this days later (just now). I will be a very unhappy camper if I end up bidding on this name against this mysterious bidder(s). I'm only showing 1 bid and I assume that would be mine. If that is the case then why isn't it already mine? If there are other bidders lurking around then why aren't their bids showing up so I know what competition I have? Reading on another forum it appears that bidders on your reseller site are excluded from the auctions. While that's not the case with me it seems that is competing with your resellers.