5 ms·

Why do startups still use GoDaddy? Are they that strapped for cash?

JoshTriplett 14y ago
GoDaddy still has a lot of mindshare, while far fewer people have actually heard the horror stories. And at least some of the people who hear the horror stories will figure it won't happen to them, or that it only happens to people doing something wrong, the same way they figure a PayPal horror story won't happen to them.
- ljd 14y ago
  It's hard to believe that those crazy stories will happen to you and I know I didn't expect GoDaddy to burn me when I used them in 2009 for the red balloon DARPA challenge. I had been out ranking the official DARPA site for weeks on every major search engine for almost every conceivable term. I was #1 and they were #2. I didn't have major university funding or anything like that. My strategy was to be the site that was most accessible to balloon spotters and allowed them to send GPS coordinates from JavaScript geography functions to me from mobile phones. Then I was going to use a clustering algorithm to determine the balloon locations and send the center point of the top 10 clusters to DARPA. All was well until the night leading up to the competition, DARPA told GoDaddy to takedown and mark my site as spam so that they would take the number one spot on search engines (I contacted them and they just openly admitted to doing this but that's a different story). GoDaddy took down my site and when I spoke to them about it they said they will do a take down for any reason from any US agency. I asked them if the CA DMV requested a takedown, would they comply and they said, "well I guess so." I didn't get angry, I just accepted that every business is entitled to operate in whatever way they want. I just vote with my business. No more business for GoDaddy.
MichaelApproved 14y ago
If you're referring to their domains, GoDaddy's pricing is competitive with the industry. More than pricing, I thought using GoDaddy was frowned upon after the whole SOPA fiasco. I'm surprised so many have decided to use them.
- evolve2k 14y ago
  Especially considering YC's public stated strong position against SOPA supporters and that they would not be welcome to demo days etc, this surprises me that these values haven't flowed through to this round especially since the round was not far from the whole SOPA debacle.
- stock_toaster 14y ago
  I am more surprised that startups are using them as a web host.

GoDaddy still has a lot of mindshare, while far fewer people have actually heard the horror stories. And at least some of the people who hear the horror stories will figure it won't happen to them, or that it only happens to people doing something wrong, the same way they figure a PayPal horror story won't happen to them.

ljd 14y ago
It's hard to believe that those crazy stories will happen to you and I know I didn't expect GoDaddy to burn me when I used them in 2009 for the red balloon DARPA challenge. I had been out ranking the official DARPA site for weeks on every major search engine for almost every conceivable term. I was #1 and they were #2. I didn't have major university funding or anything like that. My strategy was to be the site that was most accessible to balloon spotters and allowed them to send GPS coordinates from JavaScript geography functions to me from mobile phones. Then I was going to use a clustering algorithm to determine the balloon locations and send the center point of the top 10 clusters to DARPA. All was well until the night leading up to the competition, DARPA told GoDaddy to takedown and mark my site as spam so that they would take the number one spot on search engines (I contacted them and they just openly admitted to doing this but that's a different story). GoDaddy took down my site and when I spoke to them about it they said they will do a take down for any reason from any US agency. I asked them if the CA DMV requested a takedown, would they comply and they said, "well I guess so." I didn't get angry, I just accepted that every business is entitled to operate in whatever way they want. I just vote with my business. No more business for GoDaddy.

MichaelApproved 14y ago

If you're referring to their domains, GoDaddy's pricing is competitive with the industry. More than pricing, I thought using GoDaddy was frowned upon after the whole SOPA fiasco. I'm surprised so many have decided to use them.

evolve2k 14y ago
Especially considering YC's public stated strong position against SOPA supporters and that they would not be welcome to demo days etc, this surprises me that these values haven't flowed through to this round especially since the round was not far from the whole SOPA debacle.
stock_toaster 14y ago
I am more surprised that startups are using them as a web host.