Godaddy can suck my left nut!

[kenblack]

Story short. I have a domain running WPMU with over 100 subs.. generates great traffic, but I was forgetful and never watched the domain expiration.

The domain was nearing time to get renewed and today the domain and all subs refused to resolve so I took a look in my godaddy account and low and behold, it's been removed, and cannot even renew it if I wanted to. I did a 'dig' and it's still under my name, but 'renewed' for another 5 years.. It has been expired for 1 week according to dig (based on when I registered it).

Sad part, I looked under godaddy's auctions and I found it, but for $50,000 bucks!!! WTF!

I have many domains with godaddy and love their service, but this pisses me off. I will continue to use their service but be warned and keep on top of your domain renewals!

 

[thetraveller]

Sad story man.. someone from gdaddy grabbed the domain or what ?

 

[kenblack]

It was a great domain with a short, catchy name. It expired and they jumped on it without delay. Alexia was somewhere in the 1,000 mark for the primary domain, and very low for many of the subs. PR6 on most subs too, not to mention tops in the SERPs.. it's going to take for ever to build up to these levels again. Sure I can just plug in a new domain, and all the subs are running again, but the backlinks, PR, and SERPs are gone..

Oh well.. I'm just a little upset but will survive.

 

[catchme]

what was the domain?

 

[kenblack]

Sorry, it still has my private (real) information in the whois.

 

[EzBreezy]

I don't know how that is possible unless it's been months since you left it to expire. When the domain expires it has to go through changes before it goes to a auction/firesale/backorders. Those changes take at least a month after expiration.

Have you tried contacting GD? If so, what did they say? Is your the email that is associated with that domain current, because they send out 3-4 emails to warn you to renew. If it is current and you don't have those emails, then you may have a case.

Also if since it has only been a week, you should be able to get that domain back.

I'm just talking from my experience working there. I used to get calls like this from people all the time, but unlike you, they didn't take action until WAY after the domain had been expired and close to deletion. Call Customer service and escalated it if need be.

(and yes, I am/was a GD fangirl. It's been awhile since I worked there so I'm trying to get it out of my system.)

 

[gregstereo]

That sucks, but it is a good lesson to stay on top of your renewals. Registrars do send reminder notices as domains are approaching expiration.

You might be able to redeem the name but you need to move fast. If you're interested in pursuing that, call GD right away - make up whatever you need to about why you overlooked the renewal notices, or how your "partner" who handles a lot of the "tech stuff" farked up or whatever, really your main goal is to social engineer sympathy from the rep you're dealing with - bottom line, you might be able to claim it back under redemption. That could cost $80USD but that's pretty cheap compared to the worth of it based on the stats you list above.

 

[dmt1101]

You should still be able to get it , oh yea my god dont mess with liberalz...ohnoe,

 

[coachw1]

Yeah, they should've been emailing you notifications like a crazy mad spammer to renew.

If they didn't then you have some legal grounds to stand on IMO

 

[frontman]

what a story..
I can't believe godaddy can be so mean
any chance to sue them?

 

[ryodimas]

Another sad story about godaddy, except .info domain I won't buy domains from them. Because in my connection, the site is too "sophisticated"...

 

[richjerkoff]

I started off my hosting and domain registrations with godaddy but I soon realised that they are devious as hell and will scoop up the best domains as soon as your back is turned. I just don't like the way they do business.

 

[gregstereo]

Okay look guys, I offered a bit of advice to the OP, but I also gotta say this - EVERY registrar - including those evil liberal whores @ GD - send you a lot of notices about names that are approaching expiration. If you have a legit email addr on your whois, or if you have whois privacy and check the privacy mailbox/forward addr periodically, I guaran-fucking-tee you WILL get notices from your registrar well before your name actually expires. They want your renewal $$ - it's one of the biggest struggles for a lot of registrars, keeping their renewal rate reasonably high.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to complain about GD, but their constant notifications about renewing (90-60-30-5 days out and then some) isn't one of them.

 

[Kickflip]

Okay look guys, I offered a bit of advice to the OP, but I also gotta say this - EVERY registrar - including those evil liberal whores @ GD - send you a lot of notices about names that are approaching expiration. If you have a legit email addr on your whois, or if you have whois privacy and check the privacy mailbox/forward addr periodically, I guaran-fucking-tee you WILL get notices from your registrar well before your name actually expires. They want your renewal $$ - it's one of the biggest struggles for a lot of registrars, keeping their renewal rate reasonably high.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to complain about GD, but their constant notifications about renewing (90-60-30-5 days out and then some) isn't one of them.

Gotta say I agree with this. Godaddy always sends me notices about renewals and any updates/changes to my site.

 

[EzBreezy]

Yea, that's why I find the whole thing odd. Even if its been a week, you can still retrieve it. The longer you wait, the more expensive it will be. At a week, it may still be renewal cost. But after a while, you can expect to pay $80 or so for it.

 

[kenblack]

I looked through my emails, and I did get an email (1) one month ago, saying it was expiring soon.. Nothing more than that. I read it, and had it in the back of my mind to renew as I had 3 weeks left. They have not sent me any more emails regarding the domain expiry. I think they keep an eye on successful sites and snag onto them when all possible, then auction them, or post them as a premium domain for big $$$.

I've called GD, but they forward me to a voice mail box regarding the issue, so who knows if and when they will get back to me.

 

[Couch Monkey Media]

This is something that godaddy does a lot of. If you have a domain and hosting with them and you are getting a good amount of traffic. When it comes time to renew it you better make sure you do it a few weeks before hand. If not you will see that you lost your domain.

If you keep checking back you will see that one of godaddy sub companies picked up your domain. And they way the can go ahead and put it in the auction is the auction is for 30 days. they own the auction and the domain name now. So no issue for them to move the domain to a new owner if someone buys it at that price.

Depending on who you are using for your domain you can have your account info updated with in a few hours.

I use namecheap now. Used to use godaddy till i had the same thing happen. Will never use them again. i will not even build a site for a customer that is using godaddy. They can move it or I wont do the site for them.


BRady

 

[kenblack]

I will still use godaddy because IMO their DNS management is awesome. I don't use any of their other services such as hosting. All I can hope is my domain gets returned to me, but I doubt it as it was a week expired before they removed it.

I will look at namecheap and see how they are.

 

[tonlilaz]

you guys should really switch to Fabulous. a domain can expire today and i can wait about a month to renew and still be ok. not only that, but i decide to let the name drop, they'll try to sell the name on my behalf and split the profit

Story short. I have a domain running WPMU with over 100 subs.. generates great traffic, but I was forgetful and never watched the domain expiration.

The domain was nearing time to get renewed and today the domain and all subs refused to resolve so I took a look in my godaddy account and low and behold, it's been removed, and cannot even renew it if I wanted to. I did a 'dig' and it's still under my name, but 'renewed' for another 5 years.. It has been expired for 1 week according to dig (based on when I registered it).

Sad part, I looked under godaddy's auctions and I found it, but for $50,000 bucks!!! WTF!

I have many domains with godaddy and love their service, but this pisses me off. I will continue to use their service but be warned and keep on top of your domain renewals!

 

[BozoClown]

Godaddy is extremely savvy when it comes to pulling fast ones.

I know someone a while ago who almost got hit with the same thing. They sent out plenty of notifications for a .info renewal (bought at discount about $1.99, renewed at full price). All these notifications hit the in-box.

Yet at around the same time, his very successful .com domain was coming up for renewal, they sent him a notification a month in advance and it went to the junk box.

Luckily he decided to make sure the .info was not set to auto-renew and he found that his .com was expiring that same day.