What would happen if GoDaddy went bust?

Need reassurance :)

[1Lit]

One by one we are transferring all our domain names to GoDaddy.com. Up until now our policy was to spread the risk by using several different registrars.

I know there are procedures to ensure that if a registrar goes bust another registrar will pick up their accounts. Is this procedure efficiently set up? There's no chance of us losing our domains or having them offline for months is there?

Just need reassurance because if we have all our domain names with GoDaddy and they close down without any proper contingency plans for the transfer of our domain names we'll lose EVERYTHING.

I know it's extremely unlikely to happen, but bigger web companies than Godaddy have had to shut up shop for one reason or another over the last few years...

Thanks :)

[thewebboy]

I wouldn't worry about GoDaddy, there doing great, millions of domains and tons of customers.

[cabbie]

Excuse me if I give Godaddy a bad wrap here but i see it as oppurtunity to put the boot in here.
I have (or had) an account with godaddy as well as its sister registrar wildwestdomains.com. A hundred domains and they just went and did some sort of "upgrade" and left me unable to access my account.In fact they denied I had an account.They didnot reply to my email and I had to make two long international calls from Oz to get a response.No apologies,they just figured people would get in touch with them when they couldn't access their accounts.
Godaddy has become very slow and complicated to buy a domain from now compared to other registrars I use and they would be the last people I transfer my domains to.And I am reseller for them!

There THAT feels better.
Now saying all that they probably are unlikely to go broke.

[1Lit]

Sorry to hear about your experiences cabbie. Sounds quite stressful. They are unlikely to go broke, yes, but, as we have seen recently with the way Google is treating its Adsense publishers, sooner or later all big companies start to make catastrophic mistakes that shoot themselves in the foot... and then the slide to oblivion begins.

There's no guarantee GoDaddy will be around forever.

[havarian]

I still think the q. havent been answered and it is highly relevant, wheteher u use godaddy or other registrant, anybody who knows?

[cabbie]

As far as "what happens to your domain if your registar goes bust" I dont think there will be a problem as the main registrar responsible for the tld (e.g.veritas for .com and .net)will either pass your name on to another of its resellers to manage for you (because thats all basically Godaddy is.)
And if the controlling registrar goes bust then there is ICANN to fall back on to.

And if they go bust then there is the USA gov. to rely on.

And if they go bust then theres the United Nations.

And if they go bust then its every man for himself.

Hang On The U.N. is broke.Maybe you should be worried.:)

[1Lit]

:)

Thanks Cabbie.

I know my concerns may sound a bit OTT, but we have seen so many internet heavyweights close down their operations over the last few years that one can never be too pessimistic in this industry. Imagine if one's registrar WAS to go bust (has it ever happened to any major registrar?). As a pure-play dot.com, our entire business is dependent on them.

Anyway, Cabbie, thanks for the reassurance.

[cabbie]

Actually Veritas itself is in danger of going under if they lose the sex.com case