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GoDaddy files patent applicaton for “recommending domains from free text”

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

Domain registrar wants to patent ways to suggest domains based on various non-search data.

Image from GoDaddy Patent application for patent search showing user interface

GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) has filed U.S. Patent and Trademark application number 16/235333 (pdf) for “recommending domains from free text”.

The application describes a way to generate domain name suggestions based on data and free text rather than a user searching for keywords.

From the application:

The disclosed embodiments automatically recommend domain names by making use of data provided by the users: 1) during creation, by the user, of a web hosting or other account; and/or 2) mining and making use of the relevant data within the content of files within the repository. The creation of a hosting account may include collecting user input from the user, using a graphical user interface (GUI) and one or more GUI components displayed on a client computer. This user input may include the user’s name, email address, physical address (including street address, city, county, state, country, etc.), username, title for the repository or collection of files (e.g., a website title), description of the repository or collection (e.g., a website description), any other sentence of notes associated with the repository, a business category associated with the user’s business, etc.

Once the user hosting account is established, the user may upload the files to the repository, or otherwise transfer the files through the network for storage. The disclosed system may then use the provided user input, and/or content within the provided files, to automatically identify the main concept from a collection of identified keyword within the rich amount of text contents, while eliminating other irrelevant concepts. These irrelevant concepts may include, as non-limiting examples, stop words, grammatically incorrect phrases, and terms or phrases common to all websites (e.g., “about us”).

Thus, the disclosed system determines how to generate meaningful domain name recommendations based on relevant concepts, which also remove irrelevant keywords or phrases, thereby providing one or more domain names that are shorter and easier for the user to remember.

GoDaddy has a number of domain search and discovery patents, including one that uses image data.

The application was filed on December 28, 2020 and the USPTO published it last week.

Namecheap revenue continues its surge in Q2

by — Domain Registrars 4 Comments

Year-over-year revenue grows 38% in Q2.

Picture of stock chart with the words earnings report

Domain name registrar Namecheap generated $49 million in revenue during Q2 2020, the company reported to Domain Name Wire. That’s up almost 38% over the same period last year and up 7.6% quarter-over-quarter. First-half revenue was $94.8 million, up $22.1 million, or 30%, over H1 2019.

The company had a net increase of 565,000 domains under management and now has 11.3 million DUMs.

Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall said he anticipates that the company will surpass 12 million domains under management in Q4 of this year.

During the second quarter, Namecheap added over 308,000 new customers, a 93% increase over the same period last year. Year-to-date, Namecheap has added 528,000 new customers, up 58% from the same period last year.

“In these uncertain times, we are proud to be able to continue to operate at full capacity, offering our industry leading 24/7 customer support, while being able to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our entire workforce, who all continue working from home,” said Kirkendall.

GoDaddy plans layoffs and is closing Austin offices

by — Domain Registrars 14 Comments

Company struggles with outbound sales and social media products.

GoDaddy logo showing the heart-shaped design

GoDaddy’s (NYSE: GDDY) revenue is topping expectations, but the company is laying off employees and restructuring its business because Covid-19 is impacting part of its business.

The company expects Q2 revenue to top its previous $790 million guidance by approximately 1%.

The restructuring is due to significant challenges with outbound sales efforts and its GoDaddy Social product, which is facing severe headwinds as its customers remain closed or in crisis mode.

814 employees — about 10% of its workforce — will be impacted, but many of them will be offered new roles.

The biggest impact will be in Austin, where the company plans to close both offices. GoDaddy entered the city with its acquisition of Main Street Hub, a do-it-for-me social service. The Main Street product is a higher ticket item than GoDaddy’s self-service tools. GoDaddy makes social media posts on behalf of companies. Many of those small businesses are now closed or significantly cutting back expenses.

331 sales employees in GoDaddy social will be let go. Additionally, the company is reducing the size of its Social Fulfillment and Customer Success teams by 120 team members.

GoDaddy is also shifting its sales efforts to a single office in Gilbert, Arizona. This will impact 134 salespeople in Iowa, who will be offered relocation to Arizona. Some will be offered the opportunity to move into inbound sales in Iowa.

The company is offering a generous exit package to those leaving the company. They will no longer work effective today but will be paid through September 1. They will then get at least four weeks of severance, and people who have worked at GoDaddy for three years or more will get additional severance. GoDaddy will pay healthcare costs through the end of the year for the impacted employees.

GoDaddy is taking a $15 million pre-tax restructuring charge for the payment of severance and related benefit costs and has determined that certain lease assets with a book value of approximately $58 million are impaired.

GoDaddy’s domain privacy email buries the lede

by — Domain Registrars 2 Comments

GoDaddy customers are unlikely to understand their options.

Screenshot of GoDaddy whois privacy email

 

GoDaddy has begun sending emails to customers about changes to domain privacy.

As I wrote about on June 8, the company has started redacting personal information from Whois records. This means the Domains by Proxy service is no longer necessary for most people.

GoDaddy will give customers who pay $10 a year for this service a pro-rated refund or upgrade them to an enhanced domain protection service.

Here’s the email:

(Subject) Important: Upgraded protection coming to your domains.

We’re upgrading the protection for your domains to something even better, and at no additional cost to you.

We care about your privacy and the protection of your domains, so we’ll soon be upgrading them from Private Registration to Full Domain Privacy & Protection. It will include these features to protect your domains and private information:

  • Protects against active threats like domain hijackers and malicious transfers.
  • Safeguards you from honest mistakes like accidental transfer or expired credit cards.*
  • Prevents spam with private email forwarding.

The following domains are scheduled to be upgraded:

(redacted)

The best part? You don’t need to take any action at all. We’re going to take care of the upgrade for you.

Sincerely,

GoDaddy Domains Team

P.S. If you’d prefer not to upgrade, please click here to cancel your Private Registration add-on product by July 16, 2020. A refund will be issued for the remaining term of your current products.

* The expiration protection feature requires that your domains be set to automatically renew. Click here to learn more.

At best, this email buries the lede. At worst, it completely omits it. And that is that the product customers originally paid for is no longer necessary at all. If all they care about is keeping their information out of Whois then they should ask for a refund.

It’s not surprising that GoDaddy is trying push people to the new service. Whois Privacy likely generates over $100 million in profit for the company annually. That’s a big deal for a company that skirts around the GAPP profitability line.

GoDaddy warns customers about theft with 3 new levels of domain privacy

by — Domain Registrars 17 Comments

GoDaddy’s new cross-sell warns about domain theft.

GoDaddy privacy options during checkout

GoDaddy warns customers about domain theft in its new checkout cross-sell.

Last week I wrote about how GoDaddy is now redacting most personal information in Whois records. People who paid for Whois Privacy now have the option of getting an improved “Full Domain Privacy” product or a pro-rated refund.

But it looks like there’s more to GoDaddy’s (NYSE: GDDY) privacy changes. The company has introduced three levels of privacy and changed some of the details of the Full product.

Basic Privacy Protection is what comes standard now. GoDaddy redacts your personal name, phone number and email address from Whois records.

Full Domain & Privacy Protection redacts your remaining information including Organization name and state/province and country.  It also adds a forwarding email address like Domains by Proxy did. Customers also get protection from accidental domain expiration and hijacking.

Ultimate Domain & Privacy Protection adds malware scans and blacklist checks. Last week, the malware scans were included in the Full service.

GoDaddy customers are no longer warned about spam when they check out. Now, GoDaddy warns them that there are 170,000 domain theft attempts a year (see picture).

While Basic is free, Full costs $10/year and Ultimate is $15/year.

One thing to keep an eye on is what happens to the expired domain market. If lots of GoDaddy customers convert to Full, their domains won’t expire when they usually would. It’s not clear how long registrants have to renew in case of an invalid credit card, but I suspect GoDaddy adds one year to the registration.



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