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NameCheap Overtakes Go Daddy In Google
- Tim-Boss 14y agoI'm very happy to report that in the UK GoDaddy don't even appear on the first page of results! https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=domain+name&pws=0 https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=domain+name&pws=0
- abuark 14y agoI am looking for alternatives to "Go Daddy". What choices do I have other than "NameCheap" ? Thanks!
- gst 14y agoThere are dozens of choices - just don't follow the Lemmings that think they need to get the "largest" provider.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- rb2k_ 14y agoI personally use https://www.inwx.de/en https://www.inwx.de/en They have an API, provide nameservers, are comparatively cheap (at least for the TLDs I own) and have a nice minimalistic interface targeted at professional users
- pooyak 14y agoJust a few days ago, I was about to move to namecheap but then I find out their interface was a little too simple. It was missing more advanced features that even godaddy has like import/export zones. Looking for other suggestions too.
- noahc 14y agoIs there a reason you don't want to go with NameCheap? All around they seem to be quality. I've used them for 2 or 3 years now and they are great.
- chaz 14y agoI like Gandi.net. A bit more expensive at $15.50 for a .com, but it includes DNS, SSL, web redirection, and email (nice for setting up forwarding addresses).
- molsongolden 14y agoI've registered a couple of domains with Name.com and it's been pretty painless and easy to do what I need.
- mbesto 14y agoI migrated all of my domains over to NameCheap 1. Easy to use interface. Very straightforward. So much better than GoDaddy's mess. 2. Prices are negligible. 3. What else do I need from a registrar? Bonus - Their CEO doesn't kill elephants. Highly recommend!
- Teapot 14y agoEven those without domains to move can also do something useful, Convert any links to GoDaddy that you may have to plaintext. This also boosts your remaining links :D While at it, convert all links you may have to crummy places to plaintext.
- jaredsohn 14y agoThis topic has come up a few times: Four months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3383817 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3383817 Nine months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2753471 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2753471 A year and a half ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1766439 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1766439
- jjcm 14y agoName.com is my personal favorite. Simple, clear, and not a lot of handholding.
- djbender 14y agohover.com is incredible. They aren't cheap but their interface and support is worth it to me.
- ZanderEarth32 14y agoI just transferred all my domains from GoDaddy a few weeks ago and Hover made it simple, got it all done within a few hours. Had some trouble with a subdomain and a custom landing page and Hover's support was very helpful in helping me rectify the issue.
- cowholio4 14y agoI am a big fan of http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net
- corford 14y agoI've been using www.dyn.com for years and would happily recommend them. Not the cheapest but they are a lovely company to deal with (and are probably one of the most hardcore DNS providers in the world - Twitter offloads their DNS to them for example).
- dude_abides 14y agoI have been using nearlyfreespeech.net for several years now, and it has been just about perfect for my needs. If your site will have low traffic, or if you want just registration and DNS, then I would highly recommend NearlyFreeSpeech
- garrett_smith 14y agoI predict the SEO circle jerk will out them soon for begging, borrowing and or buying links. Way to blow up their spot.
- chrisguitarguy 14y agoIt's not going to matter. Godaddy already has about 100x the external links that NameCheap does (according to SEOmoz[1] and Majestic SEO[2]). If NameCheap moved up, it was for reasons other than external links. 1. http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/comparisons?site=www.godaddy.com&comparisons%5B0%5D=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.namecheap.com http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/comparisons?site=www.godaddy... 2. https://www.majesticseo.com/reports/compare-domain-backlink-history?d0=namecheap.com&d1=godaddy.com&d2=&d3=&d4=&type=1&ctype=1&entries=12&IndexDataSource=H https://www.majesticseo.com/reports/compare-domain-backlink-...
- Osiris 14y agoGoDaddy also has north of 50 million domains registered versus 3 million for Namecheap. If I understand correctly, GoDaddy doesn't make any (or very little) of domain sales, it's the other services like hosting, email, etc that generate the revenue.
- joelrunyon 14y agoHow much GoDaddy charges for domains has little to do with their SEO ranking. They do use it as a loss-leader because most people starting a new site search for domain names over hosting when starting out.
- chrisguitarguy 14y agoNameCheap overtook Go Daddy for the author. Search results change based on location, your preferences, search patterns, and just about everything else. One search does not a ranking change make.
- joelrunyon 14y agoIf you log out or search in Incognito Mode (basically stripping out that personalization data), NameCheap does show up first for the term "domain name."
- streptomycin 14y agoI tried that, and Wikipedia was #1 for me, which is probably a better result than any particular registrar.
- joelrunyon 14y agoSorry, I meant #1 as far as actual domain name registrars go. Namecheap was #2 and GoDaddy was #3. I think the author was referring to the fact that while Wikipedia has always been #1, GoDaddy & NameCheap had switched spots.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- tjoff 14y agoAgain, depends. For me NameCheap comes up at 7th place in incognito mode. GoDaddy isn't on the first page but are on top for the advertised results. EDIT: I'm in Sweden (Europe)
- maxmcd 14y agoAre you in the united states?
- chimeracoder 14y ago
- bizodo 14y agoNow some of the aggregators need to send traffic to them also I.e. leandomainsearch.com and domaintyper.com which I love promote godaddy.
- jorgem 14y agoI send traffic to Godaddy too, even though I use NameCheap. The reason? If you're trying to make a commission for referrals, then Godaddy still whoops NameCheap. Far more domain buyers will use Godaddy, so more chance for commission.
- tocomment 14y agoYou should stop doing that because they supported SOPA. Don't sell out.
- kijin 14y agoActually, GP's site (HotNameList) seems to offer a choice between GoDaddy and NameCheap when you click "Buy".
- rhizome 14y agoWith GoDaddy listed furthest to the left, which is the #1 spot in L-R languages..
- jorgem 14y agoTrue. But, I have other statistics to shed light on this: Plenty of people get domain ideas from my site, but then don't click on my BUY link. I can determine this because I see multiple domains get registered on the same day as I list them by the same person -- highly unlikely otherwise. So based on approx 20,000 listings that have been registered, around 40% of those registrations go to Goddady. But for the vast majority of those registration, I didn't get a referral. Or even a click. So, people use Godaddy a lot more than any other registrar. And I put it on the left. Based on usage pattern mentioned above, I don't think it's because it's on the left. Trust me, the site is truly just a hobby. :) Except that every once in a while, I make a bunch of money when I buy a domain myself that the site finds, and resell it. I get to see the daily listings before anyone else, so ... I do feel a little bit bad about that, though.
- nextparadigms 14y agoI figured this will affect GoDaddy in the long term much more than it did in the short term, when people said "after all the fuss, it seems GoDaddy didn't lose that many users". The point was that people wrote a ton of negative articles about GoDaddy then, and since that day forward virtually no one will recommend GoDaddy anymore, and instead will (probably) recommend NameCheap or someone else. I would expect the GoDaddy exodus to continue in the next few years.
- vaksel 14y agoyes...but all those stories would have boosted GoDaddy by quite a bit in rankings in Google My guess is that this change is temporary and that someone at GoDaddy is calling their Google rep...and we'll see a fix shortly. GoDaddy actually uses Adwords(and they rank #1...so they spend the most)...NameCheap doesn't appear to be(at least for the domain name search term). And they have a valid claim for being the biggest domain registrar...so Google loses nothing by playing the game and getting them to rank higher
- OstiaAntica 14y agoGoogle is not permitted to allow the AdWord spend influence their search results.
- brokentone 14y agoIs not permitted, or does not? Serious question
- jaredmck 14y agoThey do not allow the AdWords spending to directly influence search results. There's likely some higher-order effects which could influence the results, though.
- OstiaAntica 14y agoI think US anti-trust law, and various promises that Google has made to the authorities in the past as part of M & A deals, prohibit them from crossing the line.
- Kiro 14y agoGo Daddy is on 8th place for me.
- ashconnor 14y ago2nd for me even though Matt Cutts (I follow on Google+) shared GoDaddy on Blogger.
- OzzyB 14y ago1,019 people +1'd this That's what I see under the NameCheap listing, which is number 2, Wikipedia is #1, with GoDaddy at #3. The GoDaddy listing doesn't seem to have any +1s under it. Could this be the effect of Google using G+ data to influence its search results? Thus, by giving more weight to G+, plus, GoDaddy's sinking popularity "socially", equals, a drop in its rank.
- gabaix 14y ago"name" is also in the URL of namecheap. It is very hard to counter legit sites with the exact keyword match in their URL, even if you have many more quality links going to you. Try "hosting" and you'll see what I am talking about.
- nfriedly 14y agoNot knocking your point, but https://www.google.com/search?q=domain+registration&pws=0 https://www.google.com/search?q=domain+registration&pws=... also shows NameCheap above Go Daddy
- TillE 14y agoSee how it bolds "domain names", though? Google is now notorious for this; it will search for what it thinks you meant, rather than exactly what you typed. It's silently adding "name" to your query for you.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoIt's quite handy though, it looks for close synonyms where it expects they will return superior results. For instance, if I search for "how to learn Castillian", it might replace that with Spanish since that also describes what I'm looking for and will get more results.
- jrockway 14y agoIt "might", but in this case, it gives you exactly what you want.
- RegEx 14y agoTo verify search results with no personal settings, append &pws=0: https://www.google.com/search?q=domain+name&pws=0 https://www.google.com/search?q=domain+name&pws=0
- ccbean 14y agoGo Daddy was catching some flack[0] when it was discovered that they were appending their link to the bottom of web pages built with their web page builder tool called Website Tonight. I wouldn't be surprised if Google caught on and devalued a lot of their links with similar anchor text. [0] http://yoast.com/godaddy-link-building/ http://yoast.com/godaddy-link-building/
- trevin 14y agoGoogle has been testing some pretty major algorithm changes in the last 5 or so days. Everything has been extremely volatile and major SERPs are changing every few hours. Several prominent, white hat companies have even went missing in the Google's rankings for their [brand name] this week: https://plus.google.com/111294201325870406922/posts/NhssnKgfefy https://plus.google.com/111294201325870406922/posts/NhssnKgf... Not buying this as a long lasting rankings change until it sticks around for several weeks.
- ollerac 14y agoDo you have some kind of article or source to back up your first comment? I'm interested in reading it.
- trevin 14y agoDistilled, one of the more well-known and reputable SEO agencies have a good post on what they've been seeing: http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/google-updates-april-2012/ http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/google-updates-april-2012/ I also work with a larger number of sites and have seen all kinds of crazy things in a number of different industries the last few weeks. Fllow SEOs at other agencies are seeing the same fluctuations.
- noahc 14y agoI can confirm that this is happening. Usually I'll get a couple search terms on the first page that go up or down any given week. Most of the search terms I monitor have had lots of flux in the last few weeks.
- jwarzech 14y agoI actually was just in the middle of buying a domain name, decided that while I'd like to get away from GoDaddy I can't really afford to transfer all of my domain names right now and would like them all with the same register. Well at checkout for some reason the PayPal button was missing and I didn't feel like typing in my CC (I know thats pretty lazy) so I decided to check and see NameCheap's price and with private registration (which was free) it was going to be $8 cheaper than GoDaddy. Needless to say I'm going to start moving my domains over.
- kijin 14y agoCoupon code when transferring: SWITCH2NC IIRC you get 2 years of private registration for free when you transfer to NameCheap, but it won't stay free after that period. When your privacy service runs out, renewal costs around $2 per domain per year. But then again, you can use the WGSPECIAL coupon to make that 99 cents. Those two coupons always work.
- ComputerGuru 14y agoDoes NameCheap let you do (I forget what it's called) your own nameserver on your own domain for free? i.e. having registered example.com with NC, can you set up ns1.example.com to be the nameserver for example.com free of charge? Many registrars charge a fee for this (when they really shouldn't) EDIT Seriously? Downvotes? It's just a question. There WAS a company that does that, it was mentioned here on HN during the great GoDaddy exodus, but I cannot recall which.
- evoxed 14y agoI've never seen a registrar that does this, and I have five domains on Namecheap currently.
- ccbean 14y agoThey refer to it as 'private nameservers', and it should be free. http://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/207/32/how-to-create-private-nameservers http://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/...
- srhngpr 14y agoyes, they offer this ONLY if you have "a Reseller, VPS or Dedicated server" service with them. In other words, if you just use them for domain names, then chances are you don't get this. Name.com offers this service for free to domain registrations: http://www.name.com/faq/create-my-own-name-servers http://www.name.com/faq/create-my-own-name-servers EDIT: I stand corrected, please see: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3869727 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3869727
- d503 14y agoI just tried registering my own nameservers on my NameCheap-hosted domain and it does appear to work even with a plain domain subscription.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- smackfu 14y agoGoDaddy still wins for "domain names" when I'm signed out or in.
- smackfu 14y agoOf course Go Daddy still has the actual top result... the first sponsored result in the peach box. Along with Network Solutions and 1&1.
- mistercow 14y agoNot on verbatim search with personalization off. This is one of the reasons I really dislike personalized search; it makes searches irreproducible.
- endtime 14y agoWhy is that an important property of searches?
- mistercow 14y agoSometimes I like to search for things to see what kind of buzz there is about them. Other than that, there's just something unsettling and vaguely frustrating about a system that doesn't work the same way for me as it does for someone else. I can't give any examples of where there's a crucial need for short term reproducibility of searches; it's more that there are lots and lots of petty cases where it is slightly annoying.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoBecause people like easier SEO optimisation :P
- LyleK 14y agoCrud. There goes my hipster cred. Been using NameCheap for years, now they are too mainstream.
- ollerac 14y agoDon't worry: you salvaged some of it with that comment ;)
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- moe 14y agoBetween their recent multi-day nameserver outage and their lack of auto-pay and their clumsy interface I'm growing increasingly tired of namecheap...
- edzme 14y agoWhatever it is I'm for it. F u daddy.
- detay 14y agoNamecheap does not seize your expired domain and does not try to sell it back to you overpriced. Namecheap does not have a bloated disfunctional website. Namecheap does not have hidden costs. Namecheap is developer friendly, has an API and a sandbox. Namecheap does not fuck the consumer.
- arunoda 14y agoOH! What is SOPA has done to Go Daddy. Oh my
- yaix 14y agoI tried a Google search for "domain name" (in Chromium Incognito Window, to avoid any "social" stuff) on my Netbook. I don't see Wikipedia or NameCheap. I don't see any search results at all. What I see above the fold is exclusively advertisements. In the center column are huge AdWord ads including deep links. And in the right column is another stack of 160px Adword ads. Then there are some internal Google links (sign in, Why these ads?, +You, etc). That's it! Well done, Google.