GoDaddy Expands Business Reach with Domain Acquisition

Australia's popular domain registrar GoDaddy expanded this month after buying a majority of the domain name minnow Worldwide Media's 70,000 domain name portfolio. For an undisclosed price, the acquisition saw Godaddy take over the domain management, enabling the Worldwide Media clients to have access to Godaddy's attractive pricing and control panel for ongoing renewals.

A statement from Godaddy said: “The aftermarket consists of people that are really holding onto the names and catching the highest value possible. That’s not conducive to a small business who is just getting up and running, We’re getting these names from investors and pricing them and putting them out to the network to make them available for prices not available before.”

The aquiistion of Worldwide Media's portfolio this month comes after the April aquistion of the domain portfolio business of Marchex, the Seattle-based mobile advertising company, for a reported $28.1 million in cash for some 200,000 domains. GoDaddy Senior Vice President and General Manager Mike McLaughlin stated GoDaddy views this acquisition as a "unique opportunity to acquire a large group of high-quality names and make them available to businesses worldwide". Adding to this, McLaughlin continued stating  “These names have not been generally available to the public, and this means we’re able to bring more visibility and liquidity into the market for businesses everywhere. This is not a new direction for us, we have no plans to acquire additional domain names or expiring names.”

As with both acquisitions, the goal has been to on GoDaddy’s market maker strategy to combine the primary and secondary domain name markets. Small Business Web Designs' commitment to Godaddy comes at a time where we've transferred some 250+ domains to the platform from other registrars in the past few weeks, citing the superior benefits of the business versus other operators.