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Comment by christophilus | Hacker News Reader

GoDaddy is the Oracle of web hosting companies. I don’t understand their popularity, yet it seems to be going strong. Why is that? (Serious question, not rhetorical.)

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Advertising. I remember seeing tons of not-quite-porn ads from them even during superbowls.

They stopped those fall 2013.

That's quite specific. Do you know what the impetus for them to stop was?

New management I think?

New CEO (Blake Irving)

He did a Reddit AMA after starting: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/23v7f3/hi_im_blake_ir...

I remember it being surprisingly good!

So, long after those ads had made them a household name?

I was get YouTube video ads for them everyday not long ago.

Are they profitable?

$139.8 million net income in 2017.

Cheap .net packages, shitton of advertisement, constant discounts and offers, and more importantly they own the domain market.A lot of people buy domains from them and it doesn't take long to host something on that domain, so why not stick with them. Long story short, the power of convenience.

Although I have mixed feelings, I've switched all my domains to Google... the one down side to Google's domain management is there's no way to bulk edit contact information (when you move).

It's about as simple as it gets to add services, but Google's DNS is included (as opposed to GoDaddy's, which is slower) and I don't get pressured multiple times and have to click less obvious links to not choose other services. Privacy is included at cost, for TLDs that support the option.

What happens if you are locked out of your Google account? This can happen for some silly reasons and some times without recourse. Will you lose your domains, effectively ruining your business?

I have to say, google domains is about the only case where I have had responsiveness from google support. And it is a concern to me... I think that if google does such a thing it would be easy enough to demonstrate real damages in a lawsuit against google.

Sure you could probably win a lawsuit. However what about the lost business you will incur until the lawsuit is done and Google decides to follow the court order?

See the part about "real damages." In a case, as such you could demonstrate the impact and estimate ongoing damages as a result of googles (in)action. Given the offset in size and likely irresponsible nature the amount google would have to pay would include your damages, lawyer fees as well as additional punitive damages. This is how common law is supposed to work.

NOTE: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.

I was talking to my roommate, a non tech person, and asked her where she she got her domain, out of interest. She said GoDaddy. I let her know about their shittiness, but normal non I.T. people don't know enough to care.

It’s name recognition. Whenever I have to help a company, friend, or family that doesn’t really know “tech”, their domain is, without fail, hosted by GoDaddy.

I would guess it's their marketing that helps. They're one of the few with prime-time TV commercials.

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