Missing domain names in my GoDaddy account

[anunt]

I have about 90 domain names at GoDaddy.

I login my GoDaddy account today and see only 66 domain names in there.

Where are my domain names???

I’ve have listed all 90 domains at Afternic.

So I chat with GoDaddy support manager and he is saying my domain names are in Afternic account.

I told him Afternic is a marketplace, not a registrar. Godaddy should have all my domain names.

He said you can transfer them out of Afternic and into your godaddy account.

I said I have listed ALL 90 domains at Afternic. Why are 66 domains in my GoDaddy account?

I said if you were correct, my GoDaddy account should show zero domains.

And this was a Godaddy support chat manager. First I chat with a normal person at GoDaddy support and he didn’t know crap so then asked for a supervisor or manager.

So does anyone here know why all my domain names are not showing up in my GoDaddy account?

Thank you for your help.

 

[markfromslo]

This may be what's happening:

https://domainnamewire.com/2023/10/10/why-your-on-hold-domains-disappear-from-your-godaddy-account/

Yes, that happens all the time, but unless he's sold 23 names at once it's something else. I believe this this happens when someone simply puts the name in a shopping cart, and if so there would be no notice that there is a sale. It take up to about a week for it to come back.

It's odd that two dozen of names would go into this status at the same time; maybe someone who knows your portfolio is messing with you and put all those names into a shopping cart (at Godaddy or one of it's partners).

 

[markfromslo]

At some point up the chain, GoDaddy has decent support. Their first line support is awful from my experience.

Brad

If you can get your own representative, they are great. I get a response in minutes from mine.

 

[markfromslo]

Hi @anunt
Your domains are indeed in a premium hold - this simply means that one or more customers has added your domain names to their cart and were in the checkout process. These names do not leave your account while they’re in a premium hold, but they are no longer visible to you because of the pending transaction.

Usually, you wouldn’t see this, since domains tend to be purchased immediately once they are in the cart.

We’re working with our team to understand more about the specific circumstances around the multiple domains being in a premium hold, and we’ll let you know more as soon as we can.

This happens to me all the time, and ultimately I'm happy that I got the same. BUT...you really need to change your system so that it emails a notice that a name is put on a hold due to being in a shopping cart. Because without that, how are we to know if a name is stolen or on hold?

Adding this email is of course an easy thing for any entry level dev to accomplish in no time. But apparently it's too difficult for the Godaddy devs.

 

[markfromslo]

Let's set aside the problem with domains disappearing from your account for a second.

I could see this happening with one domain, however a couple dozen out of 90 domains? That's seems highly unlikely.

Now back to the fundamental problem. Domains should not be disappearing from your account in the first place, for any length of time.

Even if that was the case, there should be some indication in your account of which domains are in this hold.

Domains disappearing even for a short period of time is as issue on multiple fronts.

Brad

Yes, they could be still in the account with an asterisk that they are on hold and you cannot do anything with them until the hold is over. This would solve what is probably thousands of freakouts a year. VERY SIMPLE.

It's one of those "customer first" ideas that are never imagined at Godaddy because they are too busy figuring out how to add upsells.

 

[CTUXSF]

My final take on this is to look at the incentives. Every corp loves the highest profitability and repeatable and thus lowest effort income.

(I can’t post links but these numbers come from GD’s own site.)

In 2023:

• GD made $4.25B
• $2.8B from “core” which includes domains and hosting. Domains not broken out separately. Annual growth was 0.4%.
• $1.4B from “apps and commerce”. It grew 11%, nearly 30x of “core”.

Where would you put your investment in the coming year?

Also, over the last two years to Feb 2024, $2.6B was spent on share buybacks, at an annual average of $1.3B, 25% of revenue, pretty much equal to net income of $1.4B.

With the activist investor pressure, where will that investment go?

Will be interesting to see what the lawsuit against GD surfaces

 

[markfromslo]

Why do I still work with GoDaddy and GoDaddy's MLS system (Afternic)? Market share and reach. GoDaddy is not even close to the best registrar from a technical standpoint. They sell names. People know them. So, to various levels, we as sellers adapt and tolerate to our own pain tolerance.

Bingo! Me too. It might make me feel good to leave, but the network brings sales. Unfortunate situation.

 

[Future Sensors]

Bingo! Me too. It might make me feel good to leave, but the network brings sales. Unfortunate situation.

Thanks. Here's my POV on working with GoDaddy/Afternic.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/in...ore-domain-sales.1332052/page-28#post-9233478

 

[SpareDomains]

I get that some people love Afternic MLS but you don't need your domains at GoDaddy to use Afternic. Probably better off somewhere that taps into both Afternic/Sedo MLS networks without all the bugs. I'm 100% DynaDot and most of my sales happen direct from the sales lander for 25+ years now with the buyer paying all the Escrow fees.

Even though most sales are direct my domains are still listed at Efty.com, DynaDot Market, Atom, Atom White Label, Sedo MLS, Afternic MLS, Dan etc... as extra distribution can't hurt but as of 2024 I wouldn't recommend anyone keep their domains at GoDaddy or Sav if they value good sleep.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/why-you-cant-trust-godaddy-brokers.1302295/

https://www.namepros.com/threads/sav-lock-70-domain-issues-warning.1331229/

https://www.namepros.com/threads/nameservers-changed-issues-on-sav-com.1331172/

 

[CraigD]

For price reasons alone, it has been wise to do so for a while, even if GoDaddy wants to convince you that their "Discount Domain Club" membership is the solution (they're very aggressive at selling this). With other registrars such as Porkbun, such an expensive subscription is not even necessary to be able to register cheap domains.

With the current rapid accumulation of frustration, technical issues and changed business focus at Afternic and GoDaddy, it is now time for domain investors with larger portfolios in particular to reorient themselves.

A few years ago, I started a huge migration myself for all my (then) 10k+ gtld and newgtld domains and have never regretted it for a moment. I had been a loyal and very profitable GoDaddy customer from the very beginning, also on the registrar side. You hear similar experiences from other domain investors who have been loyal GoDaddy customers since the very beginning and are leaving.

In the annual Favorite Registrar Poll on this forum, GoDaddy scores worse every year.

The number of negative experiences now far exceeds the number of positive ones. For that you only have to read a few recent threads about Afternic/GoDaddy on this forum.

Totally agree here.

I've been a loyal GD customer for close to 17-years, but have been slowly moving 400-odd names out over the last 12-months as they come up for renewal.

My main reason for doing this was the rise in Discount Domain Club fees. Why should I pay a membership fee when I can avoid it and still pay less for renewals elsewhere?

The other reason was a number of frustrating bugs in the system that I had dealt with over a couple of years, and the realisation that the underlying architecture is FUBAR.

When I heard about the GD-Afternic system merger, I felt vindicated that I made the correct decision to get out.

As for tech. support, just recently I contacted GD support concerning removing a domain listing from Afternic that I didn't list, and was asked to jump through hoops verifying domain ownership. Seriously? The name is in my GD account. Of course I'm the owner!


My advice is to get out while you can.

 

[GoDaddy]

Good morning everyone,
Thanks for the back and forth over the weekend. We want to clarify that domain names do not leave the registrant's account. When a domain is added to the cart, it is temporarily not visible in the account view to ensure the sale can process smoothly. However, it is not transferred out of the registrant's account.

Typically, the GoDaddy checkout process is completed within minutes, so this temporary change in visibility is usually not noticeable. If a cart is abandoned, the domain will quickly become visible again in the registrant's account.

In Anunt's case, this situation is indeed unusual, and our engineering team is actively reviewing what happened. To reassure everyone, none of Anunt's domain names would have left his account during this process.

Thank you for your understanding and patience as we look into this matter.

 

[Future Sensors]

Thanks for finally looking into this matter @GoDaddy, and also for your additional clarification.

As you know, DNW wrote an article about the same issue earlier (2023). Other members had reported the issue to GoDaddy as well. It's unfortunate that no action took place earlier to resolve this issue permanently. But if it gets resolved, we can move on.

The DNW article mentioned that the domains are moved out of the GoDaddy account into a "special account". That info appeared to come from a GoDaddy rep explaining the process. It's not something I came up with myself. See here.

I'd like to thank this community once again for providing more details.

 

[alcy]

Good morning everyone,
Thanks for the back and forth over the weekend. We want to clarify that domain names do not leave the registrant's account. When a domain is added to the cart, it is temporarily not visible in the account view to ensure the sale can process smoothly. However, it is not transferred out of the registrant's account.

Typically, the GoDaddy checkout process is completed within minutes, so this temporary change in visibility is usually not noticeable. If a cart is abandoned, the domain will quickly become visible again in the registrant's account.

In Anunt's case, this situation is indeed unusual, and our engineering team is actively reviewing what happened. To reassure everyone, none of Anunt's domain names would have left his account during this process.

Thank you for your understanding and patience as we look into this matter.

I think u missed everyone feedback which is that the person who sees domains missing has no clue why. and that is the awful inconsiderate part of what u do. because truly a weak heart can get from this a heart failure from your processes that make names vanish. whether it's for 10seconds or a day. a heart failure takes 1 second. do what is right and change this instantly. ty

 

[markfromslo]

Good morning everyone,
Thanks for the back and forth over the weekend. We want to clarify that domain names do not leave the registrant's account. When a domain is added to the cart, it is temporarily not visible in the account view to ensure the sale can process smoothly. However, it is not transferred out of the registrant's account.

Typically, the GoDaddy checkout process is completed within minutes, so this temporary change in visibility is usually not noticeable. If a cart is abandoned, the domain will quickly become visible again in the registrant's account.

In Anunt's case, this situation is indeed unusual, and our engineering team is actively reviewing what happened. To reassure everyone, none of Anunt's domain names would have left his account during this process.

Thank you for your understanding and patience as we look into this matter.

Since the names are still in the account, but simply being filtered from the view, it seems like a simple matter for a software developer to change it to still show in the account with a note that it's on hold. Please explain why Godaddy would not make this change.

 

[Future Sensors]

Since the names are still in the account, but simply being filtered from the view

Despite GoDaddy now stating this, that's not what the GoDaddy rep told DNW in 2023. The domains did really move out of the GoDaddy account into a special account.

As an outsider, the customer, all this is very difficult to assess, especially now that the domains are not visible in the account and whois privacy is used. Ownership cannot be verified. It is important to avoid situations like those that occurred at Epik.com.

As long as a domain sale has not been fully completed and the domain has only been added (somewhere) to a shopping cart, the domain should never be removed from the customer account at GoDaddy.

Fortunately, GoDaddy is now seriously looking into this, to hopefully resolve it.

 

[DomainNature]

If you people want to check the domains you registered you can check how I did in this topic, It's not hard to do it even digitally and compare what is missing, most important is to have the emails and inside the registrar invoices of registered domains. If you have related questions, you can ask them in that topic.
Currently I manage more than 1900 of domains.

 

[Scott615]

I had this happen with just one domain at GoDaddy out of around 250, but it was one I really liked. It took about three different phone calls to support to figure out that the one domain had somehow mysteriously got moved into another GoDaddy account that I had zero knowledge of. Even the registrar showed up different in the "who-is" registry like GoDaddy Offshore or something weird like that (totally paraphrasing, but definitely different than just regular GoDaddy). After tech support understood the issue, I got it moved back over to my original account, but no explanation as to how or why this happened. It was not listed for sale at the time. They had to set me up with a temporary password just to gain access to this account I knew nothing about. And I've kept that account number and password just in case I may need it again, but most of my domains are currently being migrated away from GD.

 

[Future Sensors]

Even the registrar showed up different in the "who-is" registry like GoDaddy Offshore or something weird like that

Was it this one?

 

[Sutruk]

Good morning everyone,
Thanks for the back and forth over the weekend. We want to clarify that domain names do not leave the registrant's account. When a domain is added to the cart, it is temporarily not visible in the account view to ensure the sale can process smoothly. However, it is not transferred out of the registrant's account.

Typically, the GoDaddy checkout process is completed within minutes, so this temporary change in visibility is usually not noticeable. If a cart is abandoned, the domain will quickly become visible again in the registrant's account.

In Anunt's case, this situation is indeed unusual, and our engineering team is actively reviewing what happened. To reassure everyone, none of Anunt's domain names would have left his account during this process.

Thank you for your understanding and patience as we look into this matter.

Does this shit happen with all domains listed at Afternic? Or only with those confirmed for Fast Transfer?

Because if it happens to any domain listed at Afternic, giving the lack of ownership confirmation to list any domain at Afternic, this shit could be quite worrying.

Just imagine anyone adding another person's domains for sale at Afternic (due to the total lack of domain ownership confirmation) and then adding them to a shopping cart, and so making them disappear from the owner's account.

Even if the domain "just becomes invisible in the owner's account" (in other words, it disappears as hell from the owner's account, wherever it goes or whatever it happens to it).

 

[Future Sensors]

Does this shit happens with all domains listed at Afternic? Or only with those confirmed for Fast Transfer?

Because if it happens to any domain listed at Afternic, giving the lack of ownership confirmation to list any domain at Afternic, this shit could be quite worrying.

Just imagine anyone adding another person's domains for sale at Afternic (due to the total lack of domain ownership confirmation) and then adding them to a shopping cart, and so making them disappear from the owner's account.

Even if the domain "just becomes invisible in the owner's account" (in other words, it disappears as hell from the owner's account, wherever it goes or whatever it happens to it).

Exactly, that's my worry as well.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/mi...y-godaddy-account.1333022/page-4#post-9237175

 

[Rich]

If so, this could also be a great way to keep closeouts temporarily locked up until they drop to a lower price.

I've only recently got back into buying closeouts but this makes sense as I no longer go through checkout process just to get an email I didn't win the name (could also be that owner can't renew domains past a certain date). On more than one occasion I've added domains to GoDaddy watch list, tried waiting to buy at 20 or 40 just to see them disappear (no longer available to purchase), then reappear at 5 or 11 dollars. Bought MoreIntegrity.com on the cheap yesterday, perhaps I can sell it back to them.

 

[411domains]

Good morning everyone,
Thanks for the back and forth over the weekend. We want to clarify that domain names do not leave the registrant's account. When a domain is added to the cart, it is temporarily not visible in the account view to ensure the sale can process smoothly. However, it is not transferred out of the registrant's account.

Typically, the GoDaddy checkout process is completed within minutes, so this temporary change in visibility is usually not noticeable. If a cart is abandoned, the domain will quickly become visible again in the registrant's account.

In Anunt's case, this situation is indeed unusual, and our engineering team is actively reviewing what happened. To reassure everyone, none of Anunt's domain names would have left his account during this process.

Thank you for your understanding and patience as we look into this matter.

@GoDaddy - I wouldn't say this is unusual. I'm quite certain it happens more often than it's reported.

I also had a handful of names go missing from my Godaddy account in June.

I never saw a single cart hold for any of them. That's unusual.

Fortunately, I was able to narrow them down from spreadsheet backups.

Aside from them missing, everything else appeared to be fine, so a cart hold was only the logical conclusion I could come to.

I tested the theory using one of my workarounds for releasing cart holds and sure enough, they re-appeared in my Godaddy account.

Also in June I had nearly $1/2M in cart holds that failed to complete. That's unusual as well.

One of them went back on hold shortly after being released.
A DomainBuy broker lead was created.
Then an Afternic broker lead was created.
Then the sale finally happened via Fast Transfer.
That's very unusual.

I believe I mentioned this in another post somewhere, but they've be "experimenting" with an Express Checkout for Fast Transfer names in the Godaddy path.

I supsect this has/had something to do with these issues, but I could be wrong.

 

[markfromslo]

Question: When someone puts one of my names in a cart from an Afternic partner, or Afternic/Godaddy themselves, the name shows up in Afternic's dashboard under "Hold." My question is, if I see a name is missing from Godaddy (due to a pending sale), can I just check the Afternic dashboard to see if it's there? Will a missing Godaddy name ALWAYS be shown under Hold in Afternic? Like 100% of the time?

 

[Future Sensors]

Question: When someone puts one of my names in a cart from an Afternic partner, or Afternic/Godaddy themselves, the name shows up in Afternic's dashboard under "Hold." My question is, if I see a name is missing from Godaddy (due to a pending sale), can I just check the Afternic dashboard to see if it's there? Will a missing Godaddy name ALWAYS be shown under Hold in Afternic? Like 100% of the time?

Great question. But, if there's one (1) website that consistently displays information unreliably, it's the Afternic dashboard. It's well documented on NamePros. Therefore, I would recommend against using this info for checking which domains are missing in your GoDaddy registrar account. I do recommend that you maintain a master list of all your domains offline, regardless of the registrar(s) you're using.

 

[markfromslo]

Great question. But, if there's one (1) website that consistently displays information unreliably, it's the Afternic dashboard. It's well documented on NamePros. Therefore, I would recommend against using this info for checking which domains are missing in your GoDaddy registrar account. I do recommend that you maintain a master list of all your domains offline, regardless of the registrar(s) you're using.

Yup, got all 6,000 in an Airtable database. Plus, I have every purchase email archived in gmail.

 

[Sutruk]

Exactly, that's my worry as well.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/mi...y-godaddy-account.1333022/page-4#post-9237175

It seems that @GoDaddy has not seen our concern in this matter yet.

Let's see if they can finally answer to our question, by asking them again...

We want to clarify that domain names do not leave the registrant's account. When a domain is added to the cart, it is temporarily not visible in the account view to ensure the sale can process smoothly. However, it is not transferred out of the registrant's account.

@GoDaddy Could you let us know, humble domainers of Namepros, if this "issue" happens with all domains listed at Afternic? Or only with those confirmed for Fast Transfer?