[Website] GoDaddy Saga Part 3
The website transfer from GoDaddy to HostGator still isn’t over. There’s light at the end of the tunnel – and I don’t think it’s an oncoming train – but it’s not OVER. At the end of last week, I finally got the DomainsByProxy privacy lock cleared – after getting the GoDaddy Office of the President involved and pitching a stink on Twitter and Facebook, but that wasn’t the end of it.
I initiated the DNS transfer to HostGator within minutes and was told that once I got a confirmation email from WHOIS to do the transfer it would be 5-7 days (this on a Friday before a US Holiday Monday). Okay… so I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting. No email. So today (Thursday), I emailed HostGator to let them know that I hadn’t received anything. They promptly told me that the email was sent to an email address I haven’t had in 2-4 years. That I had to go BACK to GoDaddy and change all the info on the DNS registration.
You see, GoDaddy endeavors to make transfers as difficult as possible, it seems. If you buy into their services, you can pay for everything – DNS registration, DomainsbyProxy, and web hosting with one single account. They’re more than happy to take credit card information from the “master account” information — HOWEVER — what they don’t tell you is that IF YOU MOVE, change email addresses, phone numbers, and/or your name – you have to MANUALLY change that information in about three places: Master Account, DNS REGISTRATION (there’s a TEENY TINY LINE at the very, very bottom of the screen for contact information – you have to look pretty hard for it, and make sure you “select all” or whatever), and DomainsbyProxy – which has different log in information than the GoDaddy account. If you’re using DomainsbyProxy you have to remember to do all of this almost BEFORE it happens in case you have to prove your identity with a valid, government-issued, photo ID.
Then hopefully you haven’t wasted TWO weeks on this merry-go-round, because whatever authorization code you may have gotten from GoDaddy will either be expired or invalid, and you’ll have to go through the process of having THAT emailed back to you, sending it on to HostGator (or wherever) AGAIN, and going through the automated process of authorizing the transfer — AGAIN. Which I’ve done AGAIN today. And now it will be 3 – 7 days before the transfer is finally complete – I hope, unless there’s yet another hoop I haven’t been informed about — which there probably is.
I still long for the day I can email the GoDaddy Office of the President and tell him that I am QUIT of his company. I went with them to begin with because I wanted an anonymous company to complain about when things went wrong (not one owned by a friend), but this was beyond the pale. I hope HostGator does a better job at communicating with customers – their support folk have been good to deal with for the most part. But I’ve also learned from this experience, and now know what questions to ask – and to not procrastinate in any future transfers.
Learn from me – if you do decide to change web host companies and where your domain name is parked – don’t wait till your contract is up – do it a month out, even if it makes the budget tight. You do NOT want to be doing this while things are expiring. It’s too much hassle.