I have the unfortunate experience to have a lot of domains hosted in GoDaddy.
There are many reasons I don’t really like using them, but the fact remains I have a lot of domains there.
But I have seen one thing they do that I want to warn everyone about – beware of GoDaddy scamming your domain.
Here’s What Happens
Let’s say you have a domain registered in GoDaddy, and want to set up a blog in Blogger. Cool – Blogger gives you instructions on how to change the C record and the A record to make it work.
So this is what I did. And when I looked at my site an hour later, it looked like this, which was good:
Everything cool. The blog worked, the domain seemed ok and the instructions from Blogger seemed to do the trick.
So I thought, anyway.
What I found a few weeks later when I was getting ready to return to this site was pretty shocking.
You see, I wanted to go to the site but I forgot to type in the www. Simple mistake. And usually, if I am setting up a site in normal situations (not using Blogger), I set both the www and non-www to work seamlessly.
But no – I saw this – and if you don’t know what this is, it is a PPC page. This means it is something GoDaddy set up to run on my domain.
What it does, is display ads that other people pay to have displayed on certain keywords. The domain I had concerned small business money, so look at how it matches the subject matter.
Needless to say, I was pretty shocked. This was not a parked domain mind you – it was live. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but figured it must have been my fault somewhere in the settings – I was not terribly used to Blogger, so I could have missed something.
Nope.
The GoDaddy Sham Deepens
There was something wrong with the canonical set-up, but I had it set up correctly, as you can see to the left here. Blogger makes it so you can correct any canonical errors – meaning, the www and non-www versions of the site would be the same.
This made me more concerned. If I had this set up correctly, and my A and C records were properly set up, why was this happening?
I looked at the source code and found: 
Now I realize most people don’t read code, so this means that GoDaddy placed an AdWord campaign directly on my domain, targeting relevant keywords in a broad match manner. Since my domain was about business money, the ads were about business money-so my competitors can suddenly get clicks from MY DOMAIN. GoDaddy gets paid for every click.
Keep in mind too – I bought “myDomain.com” not the www version. GoDaddy was using the domain I bought and set up as my blog.
The GoDaddy Response (or Lack Thereof)
So by now, I am pissed. I write an email to my rep – and I have an executive rep over there because I have so many domains. I kinda feel sorry for him really – he is new to my account, and this was really our second interaction.
But since I was mad, I write the email and let it sit for 4 days. I had all the same images I have here – just not blurred out – and basically, but very directly, asked for an explanation.
I send it, and wait for my response. And wait. And wait.
A week later, I re-forward my original complaint and demand a response.
Finally get a one-line email saying I need to go into the account and delete the C and A record settings and forward the domain to the www to make it work. My original complaint asked about whether or not I now needed to check my other 100+ live sites to make sure this is not happening everywhere – crickets.
Every bit of my complaint ignored – handled by this one-line response. Pathetic.
Why This is So Shady
The reason this chaps me so much, is not for my own situation but what it represents. GoDaddy is a huge registrar…and they do more aggressive advertising than any other. So they’ll attract people who know nothing about the web, but want to get started.
I know what I am doing more than a lot of business owners would, and still did not catch this canonical error. By the time I did, this scam had been running for months. When I looked for help, I was ignored. I had to demand a fix.
GoDaddy was paid for my domain. They then hijacked it, and profited further by sending potential leads I might have received to my competitors.
Shameless.
It makes you wonder how many sites are unassumingly being compromised and swallowed by GoDaddy’s greed?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I wish you’d included a screenshot of your DNS (A/CNAME) records because reading this it really sounds like you got those wrong. If you checked and you’re sure those were right, a screenshot would help the reader believe that.
Ahh, I wish I had it too, to help make the case stronger. You’ll have to trust me, I set them up correctly in GoDaddy.
But I learned in this, that though Blogger has specific steps to follow to use GoDaddy, GoDaddy’s own practices prevented them from working.
The workaround they offered worked – but it was thru domain forwarding, not resetting the A/C records.
Do also know this: after it was brought to GoDaddy’s attention, it took over a week, and my constant reminders to resolve it.
And that is another, more irritating point here I think – they seem to care about customers when customers are paying, and only then.
If I call or email, and say I want to buy something, they are on it in minutes. The one time I have needed help (after more than 4 years being a model client for them), they avoid me like the plague.
Sorry if I melt my own credibility by lacking that screenshot, but even if I proved I was a dork in setting up the site wrong, it wouldn’t make me feel like GoDaddy is any more trustworthy!
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like GoDaddy either.
The one time I helped somebody who insisted on using it to setup a site, there were like 5-10 different “upsell” ads before it let me get just the services I wanted. I was just thinking about it and couldn’t think of any way it could work like you said unless GoDaddy was just completely ignoring your specified DNS records, which would be incredibly egregious.
Oh man, don’t get me started on the upsells…that’s a whole ‘nother piss off for sure! And the absolute WORST aspect of GoDaddy, to me – you need to know how to navigate their cart to avoid accidentally letting them upsell you into oblivion.
But again, I have dealt with them for years…I know how to get through it all with only what i want. I have set up hundreds of sites using GoDaddy.
I was infuriated, because they were ignoring my DNS records…which were properly set, according to the specs in Blogger. GoDaddy later said this won’t work…I want to know why. They gave me a URL redirect to make it work, which it did, so pragmatism rules.
But yes, they ignored my DNS and then used my non-canonical domain to target a PPC campaign’s landing page content. They used my own domain to advertise my competition, after my site was live.
On a parked domain, I know they will advertise. This was an active domain, and they loopholed a PPC page onto my active domain. I will have a tough time seeing this any other way, having seen it.
I don’t think they made a nickel, and the money in this specific case is not an issue. It is the premise – a “trusted” host, abusing webmaster negligence or incompetence or a loophole in a trusting, proven customer’s account. GoDaddy sucks it as a host…I learned that years ago trying to work a client’s site into action, so I don’t host there. Lots of my clients do, so I am in there, like it or not.
As a registrar, I could usually tap dance around the unbelievable upsell landmines to take advantage of their price points.
But GoDaddy sucks.
They simply don’t care at all about you, your site, or anything beyond selling something else.
It simply doesn’t have to be that way.
But I appreciate the banter, and appreciate your skepticism.
Good point! Even if it was misconfigured by you (I’m not saying that it definitely was or wasn’t), they shouldn’t be sending it off to an ad page.