Hint: it’s all in the shopping cart.
GoDaddy (NYSE:GDDY) managed to rack up 56,000 extra years of .com registrations in June.
How? “Using this one simple trick!”
GoDaddy’s shopping cart defaults to a five-year registration period when you place a domain name in your cart. Most people switch this back to just one year, but some don’t. Whether they merely overlook this or decide it makes sense to register the domain name for five years, about 3.5% of new .com registrations at GoDaddy each month are for five years.
In June, for example, .com registry reports show that 3.48% of GoDaddy’s new .com registrations were for five years. Across all registrars, only 1.66% of new .com registrations had five-year terms.
GoDaddy had 26,750 five-year .com registrations in June. If it would have hit the registrar average, it would have had only 12,750. So that’s a difference of 56,000 registration years in one month, mostly by defaulting to a five-year registration period.
In May, 3.51% of GoDaddy’s new .com registrations were for five years compared to 1.71% for all registrars.
You can throw a few wrinkles in this by pointing out that a lot of one-year registrations in the overall data are drop catches and not consumer registrations. But no other major registrars come close to GoDaddy on 5-year volume.
Josh says
As an experienced domainer I have never been fooled by 2 years let alone 5, yikes! Wonder if the trend err trick will carry over to other rars.
Adam says
This is one of the reasons I don’t use Godaddy.
MichaelBlend says
Andrew, where did you find this data? Thanks
Andrew Allemann says
Verisigns monthly report to ICANN
DK says
As digital marketer, this is great insight. This is a huge number, nice glimpse into psychology.
xD says
you’re retarded
Alan Dodd says
I wonder what the opportunity cost of those irritated customers is?
TM says
I hate go Daddy because you are kept fund and you fool us and continue as nothing wrong happen shame on you. I rather stay on my Kipi at least when they expereince problem they never change logo they try to rectify an error. I will be real fool if i can join you.
DnVre says
My renewals seem to have gone back to 2 years, I was sure I had set this at 1 Year, is there a setting to change the 5 year Default I wonder?
Donny says
Enom just charged me 49 for a renewal so GD not so bad. Just forgot to transfer out but they offer no value of GD whatsoever.
Jake says
It used to be 2 years as default, and they also used to try to pump you to add on whois privacy, and web hosting as well. Mind as well ask if you want fries with that purchase. It’s extremely annoying to constantly swap it back down to one year, and I’d go to another registrar if I had more than a dozen domains. I only use GoDaddy for their low price, that is all they have going for them these days.