Glitch added random characters to URLs, resulting in 404 errors.
GoDaddy has fixed a domain name forwarding technical issue that led to 404 (not found) errors for some users.
Customers reported that a random string of numbers was being added to their domain names. For example, if you typed in DNW.com, it might forward to DNW.com/mdxoz. Because that doesn’t exist, it would result in a 404 error. (This is an example only. DNW.com was not impacted.)
Users reported that the random strings were added only some of the time.
Rich Merdinger, VP of Domains at GoDaddy, provided this statement to DNW:
Recently, a small number of customers using domain forwarding experienced service interruptions. We found that mitigation security gear used to protect our customers would interrupt the forwarding request. We have worked with the security gear vendor to come up with a solution that enables domain forwarding while still protecting our customers.
The wording suggests that it was some sort of third-party DDoS mitigation technology that was adding the random characters.
John Napoletano says
Funny I emailed GoDaddy support a week or two ago about the issue after it appeared in my GWT account, random chars uncrawlable by Google. GoDaddy Support said they didn’t know when a fix would be done but were aware of the issue. I thought it was a blowoff so I started researching other registrars for a possible move. Glad they fixed it! Curious though, any other registrars having that same issue?
John Napoletano says
It’s not fixed.
Shshs djd says
Why did you say it’s been fixed? Annoying
bunan says
Andreww Allemann, today is 24th, November 2018, and i had just ended chat session with Godaddy Support team about this glitch, even the staff transferred me to their supervisor (idk if its spv or just another support guy). As i am a new customer here i tell you my exprience with this support team.
I bought their domain, forward it to my wordpress blog, and intermittently the destination URL cannot be found because it is added with random letters automatically. So if anyone said that this problem is solved, its a big lie, cause i still found this issue. And you know what i get when i contacted support team?
The first time they say its propagation issue (It was obvious to me that they dont know this glitch or pretended to not know, i guess the second). The next time they said they didnt experience the same issue at their side, then i was being transferred to his supervisor, he said he didn’t have the issue on his side too, so he cant help me further, he said maybe there is a problem at wordpress side and so on, seriously dude??? I captured the chat if you need to see it, i can send it to you.
He doesnt want to acknowledge my issue, because he cannot simulate the same thing at his side, despice the fact that i’ve sent the screenshot i captured when i found the glitch. I said many times that this is random thing but it still happened, i was getting upset and said its a shame godaddy and their team pretended to act like this big elephant issue is not their thing and blame the hosting company, worse is they pretended in front of customer as if there was nothing wrong. I should’ve known better that the cheap thing come with another price to pay. I mean, i was speechless to be honest.
So whoever this Merdinger man and what ever he said last year, you need to confirm again his statement and i think you need to rewrite your writing. If you google it there are discussion about this issue months after you post this. IT HAS NOT BEEN SOLVED.