GoDaddy support for SOPA aftermath - daily domain transfer impact graph | Hacker News Reader

GoDaddy support for SOPA aftermath - daily domain transfer impact graph

entaroadun.github.com

64 pointszeratul53 comments

I have no idea what this graph is trying to tell me. Less Javascript, more actual information, please.

Is very clear to me, just hover your mouse, my only issue is i think the graph could be bigger, but i think the graphic is very communicative

It's clear once you interact with it, roll all over it, and thoroughly investigate it - all behaviours that get in the way of doing what it SHOULD be doing: showing me the data.

I don't have a mouse. How do I hover on a touch screen?

Tapping various parts does show and hide numbers, but I have no way of telling if those are the numbers that hovering gives.

Agreed. Not an effective visualization. A bar graph would be much better.

You've got to bear in mind that this is domains moved off GoDaddy's nameservers, and I imagine a large percentage of transfered domains would already have non-godaddy nameservers.

Exactly. This data is somewhere between uninformative to downright deceptive if we're trying to get a handle on how many domains were actually moved to different registrars. As a proxy, dns servers seems somewhat poor to me.

Agreed, this sort of thing harms any sort of boycott by making things look ineffective or perhaps less effective.

I know that for the 40 or so domains I transferred off of Godaddy none of them used Godaddy's nameservers. Indeed it's ill advised to use your registrars nameservers.

I would encourage you to take this analysis down less it get picked up by conventional media.

I agree - Namecheap reported over 32,000 domains transferred to them on the 29th Dec (http://www.namecheap.com/moveyourdomainday.aspx), but this isn't reflected in the chart. Since those are just numbers from one registrar, I'd expect the overall number of transfers out to be higher.

This is a poor visualization, so I put the data into a google spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApJroHQ6ZaKXdEJ...

Note the multiple tabs

The source data is here: http://entaroadun.github.com/dns_raphael_vis/impact.js

Here is my shitty python script to convert that json to csv for g.docs https://www.dropbox.com/s/tq821nglmijt11n

This graph is about daily domain changes. Maybe if you looked here, it would help (the four values in the four tab headings): http://www.dailychanges.com/domaincontrol.com/

I'm experimenting and leaning new ways to visualize the data. I think there are better ways of doing it than a bar graphs or line plots. Well, it seems it did not work that well. GitHub uses similar visualization technique, though. Maybe next time I get it right. Here is my inspiration:

http://raphaeljs.com/github/impact.html

EDIT: Initially I wanted to do Sankey diagram but that came out way too complicated and there wasn't a good way to show new and deleted domains.

Stacked graphs are hard to compare to eachother. Eye-balling the height of middle veins of data is especially hard. Comparing a line graph is easier because the height you're estimated is the difference between values, and you already know which is absolutely larger.

Two specific problems with your visualization are the margin between the veins and the fact that you scroll horizontally.

This data is very much like tracking the active users on a service, with new, churned, retained, and resurrected users. I'm very familiar with that topic and think your visualization is bad for this data.

One problem I have with the graph is that the height of the sections of data for each day does not have a clear meaning.

For instance, look at Dec 23 and Dec 24: the top orange section drops from 31k to 29k, but the visualization shows a thicker orange height on the 24th than the 23rd. In fact, the entire graph is significantly higher on the 24th, but it is not clear what this means either.

I've updated the graph according to your suggestion.

Before every variable was normalized according to its own min/max, now there is a global min/max. Thank you all for the suggestions.

Thank you for that. It's crazy that GoDaddy gets ~25k new domains each day.

On an unrelated note: if you view multiple tabs, the back button in your browser will take you back through every tab you viewed. This is super annoying.

You have to look at the broader context.... the transfers-out are totally within the noise. See http://mishanski.org/random/godaddy_exodus/

I don't think the data is meaningful at all.

I moved about 40 domains on the 29th. None of them will show up in that data.

Either I was using them, so I was already using a nameserver other than domain control, or I was not using them, so I don't care what the nameserver settings are and I let the new registrar copy them across. Those domains still show up on domaincontrol.com, but are no longer registered through GoDaddy.

It's possible that porting to different registrars has different side effects, but at least for my domains ported to name.com this data will show no change. I'm not surprised then that the data shows no statistically important change.

The graph is drawn or labeled incorrectly. For example, compare the 5 rightmost numbers in orange to the width of the line.

It'd be helpful to see the year-over-year data. Does GoDaddy usually get a spike of new domains at new years?

Either way, tell everyone you know, “GoDaddy is a terrible business.” elaborate if necessary.

Meaningless without proper historical context (last year's numbers).

All-in-all, to me it looks like GoDaddy has slightly benefited from the negative press, as far as overall domain registrations go.

Go figure!

But it kind of makes sense considering that the domain business is the "I don't give a fuck as long as I save $1" type of market headspace.

I don't think the "I don't give a fuck as long as I save $1" mindset is limited to just the domain business. In America, look at the proliferation of Walmart and Winco (just to name a couple). Their service is crap and everything they sell is of low quality. However, they are still in business because _many_ only care about saving a few bucks.

I know it's cool to hate on walmart and all, but the people are nice to me, and my Mr. Coffee Keurig machine that I purchased from them appears to be the exact same model that's on Amazon, and I got it for less than Amazon. Go figure.

One thing I do not buy from Walmart, however, are fresh fruits, veggies and meats. Better quality comes from different sources.

Actually, Walmart has improved their produce offering over the last few years. They now source their fruits and vegetables from some of the same farms as Whole Foods (at least, their organics).

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/03/the-grea...

After two rough days, they consistently keep on getting twice as many transfers in than out.

Storm in a tea cup...

However, when you look at how many of those are GoDaddy transferring in their own domains from their other properties, it becomes an actual loss.

If NameCheap is to be trusted, they had like 80K come in the week before, and another 36K come in with their anti-SOPA coupon code.

Also, you are ignoring the long-term effects of this - most geeks will no longer touch them with a 10 foot pole. They lost some major customers. This is going to actually hurt them.

> most geeks will no longer touch them with a 10 foot pole

A great many geeks wouldn't have done anyway though, so that might bit be a significant long-term change.

What I meant by the 10 foot pole part is now, when asked by people about getting a domain, more people than before will actively go against GoDaddy. By itself not a huge change, but with everything else I think they actually got hurt long term

I am still getting emails from my domains that were brought transferred out during the last week in December. I assume that this count is based off of when the domain is actually transferred out as opposed to the date that the process is initiated.

Not a good visualization. And it lacks some context too.

Three points (1) tons of bulk-registered names are NOT hosted on GD's nameservers (2) People complained that transfers were slow and cancelled some of them. (in the background, GD refused to do transfers or delayed it for days, gambling that people would get frustrated and blame the new registar). (3) bulk-registered names (think of hundreds of marketers with 1000+ domains each) are usually split over numerous fake names to minimize their footprint and prevent wholesale site copying. GD allows fake name purchases. After the transfers started, GD began a policy of requiring a scanned drivers' licence for transfers. They also seize domains for themselves and resell them. So... many CAN'T transfer their domains out yet.

Cheers!

The point was not to put GD out of business, it was to show that the internet is serious in its opposition to SOPA and their supporters. Media outlets have picked up and reported on this, and GD has changed their stance. Mission Accomplished XD

Yea but this shows, there is no impact to their business... Unless I am missing something and we need some more data prior to the fact to compare.

Supposedly changed their stance. Anyone can make a blog post and say they no longer support it, or request to be taken off the public list of supporters. Honestly do you think they truly did change their stance? Or is it just a scramble to fix their public image in regards to SOPA?

I personally believe if they first supported it, they'll always support it. No turning back. One simply doesn't just not support SOPA anymore.

How am I supposed to read this? This makes no sense. Figure out the point you want to make with the graph, and make sure it conveys that quickly and easily.

Pretty sure the graph proportions are off and misleading.

Didn't they run an ad campaign soon after that? One thing is for sure, I won't be recommending Godaddy to anyone ever again. There are probably quite a few people who think the same way, too, and I doubt there will be many new articles on domain hosting anymore where they will recommend Godaddy. They will probably recommend one of their competitors now.

I still don't understand why people recommended them in the first place.

This graphs show there is a pike in a single day for domain transfer outs. But seems like it would not impact GoDaddy business.

Three days actually. You can scroll the graph to the right.

oh sorry. But this graph is mostly misleading than. Look at 24/25/26 Dec. numbers and heights are not consistent.

Thanks!

It would also be nice to see a summary, or at least put new+in above zero, and deleted+out below it.

Hey, everyone who participated in the boycott should check out http://www.boycott-godaddy.com and add the number of domains they moved.

I'm hoping to see I can get a somewhat accurate total that way.

I fear that the colours chosen for each of the categories is a little misleading.

ok so ... almost no impact then. well, I guess people really do not care then.

It had a big impact; only on a very small subset of the human race :)

Appears like it made a dent for a small period of time, then back to business as usual.

Also, as other state, this is an over-designed graph. There are much simpler ways to get this data across.

For all of those folks who want to get better at visualization, the canonical text is http://amzn.com/0961392142 (Tufte)

Very useful. Thanks.

There are so many books on data visualization it's hard to judge just from the reviews which are the canonical textbooks. So far I was just recommended this book: http://book.flowingdata.com/

Doesn't have 29th on there? That was the official move date

I'm not crazy about this site either, they seem to have selected the dates they graphed very carefully:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3407428

I agree with many other comments though, this is a poor metric for measuring how many people left GoDaddy.

Seems weird that the transferred in and new domains spiked right along with transferred out. Is this graph accurate?

Not really. A lot of people could have moved their domains off of one of the go daddy parking services which use different go daddy name servers than domaincontrol. This particular method of determining transfers in and out is completely flawed.

How many non-US customers use GoDaddy? I wonder how many people outside the US know or care about SOPA.

I believe a lot of the tech-entrepreneur community knows and cares about it.

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