GoDaddy has been bearing the brunt of much of the anti-SOPA rhetoric on the web for the past few days, leading it to withdraw its support for the legislation. The action may have come too late to save its public image, but has it also cost GoDaddy subscribers? That's the story that's going around today, with The Next Web reporting numbers from DailyChanges showing 21,054 domains transferred away yesterday.
However, on the same day that 21,054 domains transferred away, 20,034 domains transferred in. In fact, if you take a look at some of the historical data provided by DailyChanges, you can see that although transfers out of GoDaddy are slightly on the rise over the past week, taken as whole GoDaddy is still gaining more subscribers than it is losing — especially when you take new and deleted domains into account. Since December 21st, GoDaddy has had 130k new domains registered and 71k domains transferred in, compared with around 67k domains transferred out and 114k domains deleted, for a net gain of just over 20k domains. Taking just yesterday into account, GoDaddy's net change was positive 370 domains — basically nil, though a big drop compared to the net 20k domains it gained on the same date in 2010.
Obviously this doesn't consist of a full statistical analysis, but the point is that there are more factors in play here than simply tracking the number of domains transferred away from GoDaddy. However, the only statistic you really need to remember is this: DailyChanges reports that GoDaddy has over 32 million registered domains, so even if that 21,054 number of transfers was an increase, it's a drop in the bucket compared to GoDaddy's big picture.
A Reddit group is still planning a "Quit GoDaddy Day" on December 29th, so it's still entirely possible that the action could combine with the bad press to really affect the company's bottom line. However, to date, it doesn't look like GoDaddy is hurting all that much when it comes to domain registrations.
We've reached out to GoDaddy for comment and will let you know if we hear back.
Comments
I suspect GoDaddy saw a lot more ragequitting over the whole elephant hunt fiasco than they have over this (God knows why – this is about ten thousand times more important). Of course they were dead wrong to support an anti-democratic measure like SOPA, esp. as strongly as they did. Make no mistake, they were 110% behind it. That gives us have every reason to believe that even if they publicly change their stance they will still offer tacit support for similar schemes in the future. In fact, the Obama administration has consistently shown that whatever it can’t shove through the front door it will sneak through the back door in the dead of night. If this is another such example, the GoDaddy’s of the world will certainly turn a blind eye to the abuses that a “stealth SOPA” would unleash.
By Psycros on 12.24.11 9:47pm
GoDaddy probably thought they could make a ton of money reselling domains they would have had to take down or something like that.
By mehmehmehmeh on 12.24.11 9:57pm
GoDaddy had an exemption. They were going to use that to further their position as the world’s largest domain seller, plain and simple.
By Joshua Munoz on 12.25.11 1:51am
Good point well made but you failed to mention in the article that GoDaddy HASN’T changed it’s official support of SOPA yet and see’s no need to do so thinking that a simple press release will do, you also haven’t made mention to the fact that GoDaddy are EXEMPT from SOPA legislation as well. It’s good that your providing a different angle to the GoDaddy story I just feel you should include slightly more info.
By Sp4rkR4t on 12.24.11 9:51pm
Not to mention the article is basically based on nothing.
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/npj2q/godaddy_lost_21000_domains_yesterday/c3ay6yu
This comment explains it far better.
By VoxMediaUser608482 on 12.24.11 11:33pm
Oh, and, as a reminder, don’t forget about:
PROTECT IP
It’s the other version of SOPA. Don’t let IT pass either. It’s just as damaging. SOPA was designed to be crazier than Protect IP in order to distract from it. Stop BOTH.
By VoxMediaUser608482 on 12.25.11 12:38am
What about any information on who specifically withdrew from Godaddy? I didn’t follow this particular development too closely, but they can’t be happy if Wikipedia decided to withdraw, right? At the end of the day, losing for instance three huge players and gaining seven little ones would still be a net loss, right?
By moisiom on 12.24.11 10:14pm
Last I heard, the biggest names were Wikipedia, Cheezburger, and Imgur
By Apocalyptic0n3 on 12.24.11 10:19pm
Interesting, but here’s why DailyChanges doesn’t mean a thing:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/npj2q/godaddy_lost_21000_domains_yesterday/c3ay6yu
By loopyduck on 12.24.11 10:14pm
GoDaddy has not withdrawn their support of SOPA… Nilay, Josh, anyone, please call them out! You’re our only hope!
By phobium on 12.24.11 10:22pm
Yeah, only publicly have they done it. They have not sent their official withdrawal letter to Congress yet and still have not said anything about PIPA
By Apocalyptic0n3 on 12.24.11 10:26pm
Besides, even if they withdraw officially from supporting SOPA, according to the previous article, they helped draft it. I don’t see how withdrawing could help them tbh.
By fEast91 on 12.25.11 4:28am
I (started) a transfer of a domain away from GoDaddy. It takes 5 days to complete. Are these numbers initiated transfers or completed transfers?
I’m guessing the latter. Which means these numbers mean about nothing.
By boardwalk on 12.24.11 10:30pm
May have been mistaken, I think I needed to complete something else on GoDaddy’s site (what a run around to get this shit done…)
By boardwalk on 12.24.11 10:36pm
People transfer in to godaddy? Those poor poor souls.
By bmlbml on 12.24.11 10:43pm
I’ll just go ahead and say it: who was the dumb idiot who named his company GoDaddy and why?
Really. What kind of name is that? GoDaddy makes it sound like a porn website.
By SilverPanda on 12.24.11 11:57pm
So do their ads…
By Vwampage on 12.25.11 1:17am
There is really no argument which can be made that would convince me that Government regulations could be enforced fairly. There is no agency in our current government which could enforce this without using draconian tactics.
I agree piracy = theft but, this kind of legislation will destroy the Internet and it will become nothing more than a web portal to brick and mortar businesses.
The free individual expression you see today will be squashed by the corporate giants.
As far as GoDaddy….. I don’t care what they think as long as they have the hot chicks on their commercials…LOL.
By Ireadyouremail on 12.25.11 12:05am
Do something about it
Here Is a link from Mozilla to
Submit a letter to your senate
Stop SOPA
https://donate.mozilla.org/page/s/commit-to-call-pipa?source=20111123_bs
By Antisopa on 12.25.11 12:18am
too late Go Daddy, you’ve already landed on the short list of the year’s biggest #*@holes in tech:
http://littlebiggy.org/4699347
By jennifercatherinepowers on 12.25.11 1:45am
I hope Kelly has just been trolling these comments and isn’t serious.
I really really hope that’s the case.
By DougB541 on 12.26.11 11:09am