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Tutorial: How to register and purchase a domain using GoDaddy API

by — Domain Registrars 7 Comments

Alvin Brown provides a tutorial on how to use GoDaddy’s API to register and purchase domains.

Today’s tutorial aims to help many domain investors with a desire to harness the power of technology to streamline the registration and purchasing of domains using GoDaddy’s API.

Instead of using GoDaddy’s web interface and having to perform many time-consuming clicks at risk of losing out on hand registering domains, this tutorial will be the foundation for what could become an automated purchasing script (with a bit of elbow grease and database integration).

Script automation and database integration won’t be covered in this tutorial, but you can likely search the web for a few simple tutorials on automating PHP and MySQL database integration. [Read more…]

GoDaddy looking for president of domain registrar & investor business

by — Domain Registrars 9 Comments

GoDaddy seeks executive to take over for Kevin Doerr.

GoDaddy logoGoDaddy is looking for a new person to lead its domain name business.

The President, Domain Registrar & Investor Business, will oversee GoDaddy’s largest business segment. GoDaddy confirmed to me that Kevin Doerr, who was SVP of Domains for the company, has left and this position is his replacement.

The role oversees all of the company’s domain name business, including the aftermarket. Responsibilities include:

  • Define and execute strategy to grow our Domains Registrar and Investor business and strengthen GoDaddy’s leadership position in Domains and Naming
  • Manage P&L to deliver short term results AND long term growth trajectory
  • Ensure security, performance, availability and quality for GoDaddy’s DNS infrastructure, a core component of the global internet infrastructure
  • Deliver continuous cadence of customer-centric product innovation
  • Lead a distributed team consisting of engineering, product management and sales
  • Build GoDaddy’s reputation and engagement in key Domain’s policy forums and act as GoDaddy’s primary public face to Domain Name Industry
  • Identify attractive opportunities for M&A
  • Collaborate with internal and external partners to create solutions that globally scale and meet our rapidly growing business needs

Prior experience in domain names is not required, and GoDaddy has historically hired people for its senior roles that don’t come from the domain name business. However, there are several people in the domain industry that are probably qualified for this role. This might also be an opportunity to hire from within.

The position will be located in Seattle, Sunnyvale or Phoenix/Scottsdale.

 

GoDaddy to host NamesCon auction with ROTD, submissions now open

by — Domain Sales 2 Comments

Submissions open for January’s domain name auction, which will take place on GoDaddy’s auction platform.

Hands holding bid cards in auction

The annual live domain name auction at January’s NamesCon will be hosted on GoDaddy’s platform rather than NameJet. Right of the Dot (ROTD) is organizing the auction as in past years.

This year’s auction will include names such as laptop.com, arcades.com, offices.com, lasers.com, and calories.com.

Anyone can submit domain names for inclusion in the auction through ROTD’s website.

There will be about 120 names in a live auction that takes place on January 30, 2020 in Austin. A further 500 names will be included in an online auction that ends February 14.

As usual, there will be pre-bidding. Potential buyers can start placing bids on December 1.

.Com Winners & Losers: Dynadot surges

by — Domain Registrars 3 Comments

Dynadot returned to the top 10; Chinese registrar Chengdu West plummets.

Image of man running up column chart with words "Top 10 Registrars"

ICANN has published the latest official data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) about the .com namespace. This registrar-by-registrar report covers July 2019.

There was a shakeup in the top ten registrars for monthly .com volume. Chengdu West fell out of the top 10. Dynadot surged back in to spot #6. NameSilo dropped a lot but still remained in top 10.

Here’s how registrars did in terms of new .com registrations:

1. GoDaddy.com* (NYSE: GDDY) 854,643 (844,698 in June)
2. Xin Net Technology Corporation 321,742 (254,177)
3. Tucows** (NASDAQ:TCX) 194,581 (188,913)
4. NameCheap Inc. 161,790 (148,553)
5. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) 134,583 (118,274)
6. Dynadot 131,601 (n/a)
7. Endurance+ (NASDAQ: EIGI) 129,559 (117,245)
8. Alibaba (HiChina) 126,586 (158,341)
9. NameSilo (CSE:URL) 89,027 (149,951)
10. GMO 66,323 (n/a)

Here’s the leaderboard of the top registrars in terms of total .com registrations as of the end of July 2019.

1. GoDaddy* 51,022,025 (51,012,237 in June)
2. Tucows** 13,192,663 (13,265,609)
3. Endurance+ 6,896,718 (6,928,107)
4. Web.com++ 6,599,516 (6,638,229)
5. Alibaba 6,232,572 (6,250,554)
6. United Internet^ 5,550,220 (5,558,557)
7. Namecheap 4,915,798 (4,855,101)
8. Xin Net Technology Corporation 4,469,021 (4,201,902)
9. Google 2,662,532 (2,580,499)
10. GMO 2,104,444 (2,081,293)

Many domain companies have multiple accreditations and I’ve tried to capture the largest ones. See the notes below.

* Includes GoDaddy, Wild West Domains and 123 Reg
** Includes Tucows, Enom, Ascio and EPAG
+ Includes PDR, Domain.com, FastDomain and Bigrock. There are other Endurance registrars, but these are the biggest.
++ Includes Network Solutions and Register.com
^ Includes 1&1, PSI, Cronon, United-Domains, Arsys and world4you

GoDaddy reports Q3 earnings; Website builder has 1 million paid users

by — Domain Registrars 2 Comments

Website builder hits key milestone as revenue continues upward climb.

GoDaddy logo

GoDaddy reported third quarter 2019 earnings this afternoon.

Total revenue was $760.5 million, up 11.9% year over year, or 13.3% on a constant currency basis. The revenue number hit the midpoint of GoDaddy’s forecast for the quarter.

Domains revenue was $345.3 million, up 11.6% year over year. Revenue from the domains segment was $334.4 million in the second quarter.

The company also announced that its Websites + Marketing platform now has over one million paid users. The company reinvigorated the product with a new brand in September.

For comparison, Wix had 4.3 million paid users at the end of Q2 this year.

I’ve used the updated Websites + Marketing platform and believe it is well positioned for growth. Of all of the major website builder platforms (Wix, Weebly, Squarespace), GoDaddy’s is by far the easiest to use and set up a website quickly.

GoDaddy narrowed its revenue forecast for the year to $2.98 billion to $2.99 billion from $2.97 billion to $3.00 billion.