Go Daddy – An Interview with CTO David Koopman
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the easiest way to get started with a word press blog. In said post, I said a few things about GoDaddy that were not 100% true (and have since been rescinded). As a great company should, GoDaddy is always out protecting their online reputation and found our post and politely corrected me. Now, as a blogger always looking for content, I used this mistake and turned it into a new post. I reached out to Luke Hintze, GoDaddy PR, and he hooked me up with an interview with their Chief Technology Officer David Koopman. So enjoy getting to know a little more about GoDaddy and their offerings from one of their most senior employees. In addition to a ton of great information, David was nice enough to hook the TechSavvyAgent community up with a discount to GoDaddy as well. Look for the code at the end of the interview! Enjoy!
Everyone knows Go Daddy as the place to buy domain names. Outside of some great marketing, why should I buy my domain names from Go Daddy. Go Daddy, the world’s largest provider of Web hosting, domain name registrations and net new SSL certificates, considers domain names to be like 21st century real estate. A good domain name can be as important as a good location for your business. As more and more transactions are taking place online, getting a good domain name from a trusted source like Go Daddy is more important than ever. In addition to domain names, Go Daddy has everything our customers need to establish, maintain and evolve their online presence and we offer free world-class 24/7 customer support for all Go Daddy services. Our customers can rely on network stability, thanks to Go Daddy’s 24/7 Network Operations Center and award-winning 24/7 Security Operations Center.
On the topic of Domain Names, how much does a domain name play into the eventual SEO of a website. Example: www.agentname.com vs. www.homesforsaleinyourcity.com - Keywords in a domain name, such as “Real Estate” or “Los Angeles,” will enhance the search engine optimization (SEO) value of your site. Having a catchy domain name makes it easier for people to remember, so it is important to keep that factor in mind as well. Keywords in the domain aren’t the only factor for search engine optimization – GoDaddy.com is the first result when searching for “Domain Names.” A great way to learn about SEO and drive traffic to a website is through the use of Go Daddy’s Search Engine Visibility product. Search Engine Visibility will help you improve your site for better search engine results and will help you submit your site to search engines.
What products does Go Daddy have today that real estate agents should know about? Go Daddy provides a wide range of products and services to meet all of our customers’ needs. I think a real estate agent would be interested in our Website Tonight product, an easy to use website builder that requires no coding experience, to quickly create a website – they can also use our Dream Design team to build the site. If a real estate agent is interested in using WordPress, Go Daddy offers a simple install on our 4GH web hosting services with our WordPress Hosting plans. The setup process takes minutes and WordPress is installed automatically, letting them get right to work on their blog. These products are ideal for a real estate agent’s site, whether it is a photo gallery of available properties or simply a profile page with contact information. One Go Daddy customer would register a domain name for the address of the home he was selling – each site had pictures and purchasing information for the property. Once the site is built, real estate agents can drive visitors to their page with Go Daddy’s Search Engine Visibility product and can track those visitors with Go Daddy’s Site Analytics service, a traffic monitoring and analysis tool. Real Estate Agents shouldn’t forget to put their website URL on their business cards and distribute it through flyers or handouts, as well.
Are there any new and exciting products on the roadmap agents should look forward to? Go Daddy has many exciting new features and product releases coming – watch the Go Daddy website and our News Release page for upcoming announcements.
What are the advantages of hosting a website with Go Daddy vs. anyone else? There is an increasing level of expectation for excellence in security, performance and ease of use. Under a shared hosting model, if a Web server experiences issues, it affects everyone on the server. Go Daddy has launched a revolutionary new hosting platform called 4th Generation Hosting (4GH). Boasting dynamic defense, traffic and server management, 4GH is easy to use and is priced the same as traditional shared hosting plans. Go Daddy has world-class data centers located worldwide. All Go Daddy systems are monitored by our 24/7 Network Operations team and protected from threats by our award-winning 24/7 Security Operations team. Go Daddy also works hard to keep the Internet safe, and has a 24/7 Abuse department that works to address violations and other concerns. Go Daddy takes online safety seriously, not only inside its network but across the Internet as a whole. Go Daddy is an industry leader in the fight against spam, phishing, fraud and other abuses that threaten the online experience and has a full time presence in Washington D.C. to influence legislation in these areas. Between the breadth and value of our product line, world-class 24/7 customer care and network reliability and security, there are many reasons to choose Go Daddy.
We noticed you have an email service, what are the advantages to Go Daddy email over Gmail or the like? A real estate agent will want to look professional with an email address that matches their company domain name. Go Daddy email plans make this simple by allowing you to create the email address under your domain name in a matter of minutes. Go Daddy offers solutions for real estate agents that use Microsoft Exchange, as well. Go Daddy offers a variety of email services and currently hosts more than 10 million email accounts under our network. Go Daddy email plans are protected from outages and use advanced storage systems. As mentioned before, Go Daddy’s entire network is monitored by our 24/7 Network Operations Team and our 24/7 Security Operations team.Go Daddy also has an incredibly feature rich Web-Based Email client, as well as POP3 or IMAP functions and SSL protection.
Most real estate agents use the web as a way to drive leads, what type of back end do you have to manage sign ups, and do your services integrate with other programs like iContact or MailChimp? Without a service to manage your email campaigns, you can send 10 or more emails to your leads, but you won’t have an easy way to track them. Go Daddy’s Express Email Marketing product addresses this issue – it allows you to keep track of your contacts and create customized email campaigns. For example, if you send out monthly newsletters with property information, you can easily put photos and content in your message, send it to specific mailing lists that you create, and track who is opening the newsletter all from the Express Email Marketing interface. Email Express Marketing makes it easy for recipients to subscribe or unsubscribe from the mailing as well, letting you focus on the content, not the administrative side, of the campaign. If any questions arise during the process, Go Daddy’s free 24/7 Customer Care is ready to assist.
Tell us about your tech support. What can a client of Go Daddy expect when looking for support? Go Daddy has U.S.-based, 24/7 Customer Care operations that does not outsource a single job. Customers may call us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Go Daddy’s highly trained, courteous support staff is waiting to take your call. We also maintain Go Daddy Community, boasting a variety of forums and blogs, where customers are able to get help and support from Community members and Go Daddy staff.
How do your analytics stack up against a free analytics service like Google Analytics? Go Daddy’s Site Analytics provides customers with a website overview, as well as a variety of reports to help customers understand website visitors. Site Analytics can especially help in two major areas – marketing and website health. Go Daddy is known for its 24/7 world-class Customer Care Center – you can call or email with any questions about Site Analytics. Site Analytics also provides real-time reporting, letting you view how many visitors you have at any given moment. Another unique Go Daddy Site Analytics feature is the Site Overlay Report. The Site Overlay shows where your visitors are clicking and offers two different views – a heat map, which displays the location of your visitor’s clicks, and a pin point report, which displays which links were clicked on your site. One customer had a single image on the header of their website. Using Go Daddy’s heat map feature within the Site Overlay Report, they found visitors were clicking the image frequently. By modifying the image to link to their most important page, the customer drove more traffic into the site.
If an agent is currently hosted somewhere else, can they switch to Go Daddy? If yes, how difficult will the switch be and is it worth it? Of course they can switch to GoDaddy.com! I would encourage you to call Go Daddy’s 24/7 world-class Customer Care Center and speak with a representative about your particular case. The switch may be easier than you think, and our highly trained Customer Care agents can guide you through the process.
As a special thank you to all of the readers of Tech Savvy Agent, Go Daddy would like to extend a coupon code. Use code “TESAV10″ to receive 10% your total order at check out!
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[...] Go Daddy – An Interview with CTO David Koopman A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the easiest way to get started with a word press blog. In said post, I said a few things about GoDaddy that were not 100% true (and have since been rescinded). As a great company should, GoDaddy is always out protecting their online reputation and found our [...] [...]
Thanks for sharing this post. We always hear “dont” use GoDaddy.com, but can never find a good reason why. We’ve used their services and they rock! And, since there is an added discount…we will for sure take advantage. Aloha!
topproducer websites are all dark…right now…does anyone know what is going on? temp or other…
My WordPress real estate blog is hosted using the 4th Generation Hosting platform. Originally it wasn’t but they were able to switch it over (btw, great customer service experience)to the 4GH server which solved a speed problem.
I like the speed & uptime of the 4GH and have recommended it to others looking at WP hosting options. Yes, they have a fan!
After reading this post I found godaddy is better than fatcow. I am presently hosted there. I will move to godaddy now as mostly my microsites are WP based.
I really like Tech Savvy Agent’s website but this is borderline heresy and, frankly, has made me lose some respect. I wonder if you guys got paid to host this advert. All these special things GoDaddy claims it does is FLUFF! They are actually, in my opinion, the worst provider out there, followed not even closely by Network Solutions.
GoDaddy treats its customers like numbers. I’ve seen this as friends of mine have had problems. If anything comes up that requires any type of assistance, they’ll say “$150 please!” – even if it’s something REALLY menial. They are money hungry. They are overpriced for the quality of service they give. A friend of mine forgot to pay his bill and all of a sudden, his business website was down, and GoDaddy demanded $150 to restore it. He switched hosting providers.
And please! $5 per domain for hosting? Other providers now offer flat fee hosting for unlimited domains AND better support.
I’ve worked with specialized WordPress plugins that work on nearly every host except for GoDaddy. Their tech support is not interested in working with you as a developer. Their web hosting is not particularly fast either. Their tech support is menial, mediocre. Try comparing their support to an EIG web host provider and you’ll see there’s not much to brag about on either side. Live support from companies like Media Temple blow GoDaddy away.
Not to mention, GoDaddy puts out the most sexually explicit commercials during football games. It’s telling that their marketing is focused so heavily on sex. Their reputation amongst developers is extremely low, so they have to rely on these other tactics. Their CEO also got caught up in a scandal for killing an elephant and having Africans slice it up wearing GoDaddy hats. Seriously… GoDaddy?
As a web developer, I do not work with customers hosting on GoDaddy. I offer cheap web hosting migration to help them, but GoDaddy and Network Solutions are two hosts which I do everything in my power to avoid.
AVOID GoDaddy.
Also, do not go with Network Solutions – their web hosting is poor.
And, if you can, avoid any web hosting companies that are owned by Endurance International Group (EIG) like FatCow, Bluehost, etc. – Google this.
I also would not use their domain name checker to check if domain names are available. Your good ideas might get bought out from under you by the company you are putting your trust in.
Garrett:
Thanks for your comments.
First: Please understand that our target audience is NOT developers like yourself. If it were, our content would be much different. We do our best to show our readers all of their options for all skill levels.
Second: We were not paid for this article. The coupon code is for our readers benefit and it is not tied to an affiliate program of any sort. If you do a quick search on our blog you will see our reviews of other hosting platforms as well.
Third: GoDaddy’s advertising campaigns are none of our concern, nor were they a part of this interview. If these upset or offend you, I’m not sure this is the best platform to voice that concern.
Again, thank you for reading and sharing. I hope you will continue to do so in the future. Some of our posts will continue to review and interview companies with products and services. Please be aware that these are just for our readers information and we hope everyone will do their own continued research before making any purchasing decisions.
Greg
Hi Garrett. This is Steve the co-founder of Tech Savvy and I just wanted to thank you for being a reader of TSA and for your feedback.
I have never been paid a single cent from anything related to this website. This article stemmed from an anti “Go Daddy” post we did earlier http://techsavvyagent.com/text/the-how-hurdle-getting-started-with-hosting-your-wordpress-blog/ and they responded to us in a professional and courteous manner.
They offered to answer our questions and gave us time to communicate with their CTO. As Greg mentioned, we like to cover all bases here at Tech Savvy and did not want to pass up the opportunity. Just because you or I don’t agree with their advertising (I don’t… or at least my wife tells me I don’t
doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and educate ourselves about their offerings.
I honestly do appreciate your feedback, color the time it took to post your response. When it comes down to it, everyone has to do their own research and reading positive and negative statements helps us find the truth.
I do not like Go daddy, it is not user friendly, in my opinion.
[...] Tech Savvy Agent’s Go Daddy – An Interview with CTO David Koopman. [...]
I left Godaddy about a year ago and switched my hosting over to DreamHost. I still have domains registered with GD but I’m gradually pushing them all over to DH as they are set to expire. Only thing I miss is being able to get a person on the phone for support.