While the admeter for Super Bowl 46 shows Doritos and Bud Light performed well, the one-time king of salacious Super Bowl commercials may have seen their time come to an end. That’s right, both of GoDaddy’s commercials for this year’s big game rank near (or at) the bottom according to viewers.

Apparently, the days of Candice Michelle wooing people with her “wardrobe malfuction” are over. As you can see:

Their second goes by “The Cloud,” and, well, “underwhelming” is a good word:

Does GoDaddy’s failure with their latest round of Super Bowl commercials mean this is the end of trying to create sexual tension between viewers and Danica Patrick is at an end or is there still room for titillation, as long as the quality of the commercial lives up to the hype? Or is this a simple case of GoDaddy backlash?

Standard GoDaddy ad fare.

This one also features Patrick, along with the Pussycat Dolls:

I’m still waiting on one with GoDaddy girls slaughtering an elephant, but it doesn’t look like we’ll see that this Super Bowl.

At least one of them is on YouTube, but it is still unlisted. It can be viewed, but only by those who have a link to it. Hat tip to Laura Stampler for providing one.

The ad is for .co domains.

Here it is:

The past year has been a rather controversial one the company – even more so than usual – thanks to the killing of an elephant and SOPA flip flopping.

It will be interesting to see how the company’s reputation evolves throughout this year.

GoDaddy, on and off again supporter of SOPA, joined the other sites participating in the blackout today. The only issue is, where is it?

Can you see the blackout? I couldn’t see it at first. Then you can see at the very bottom left, in a cute little corner, a black box that says, “Go Daddy & many other Internet leaders oppose SOPA & PIPA.

Clicking on the link takes you to a support page with a brief explanation of their opposition that apparently only started when everybody else complained about it.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was with the U.S. House Judiciary Committee when an uproar erupted on the Internet. An overwhelming majority of the Internet community voiced strong opposition to SOPA legislation. Go Daddy joined to oppose SOPA.

On Jan. 16, U.S. Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) stopped action on SOPA.

Companion legislation, known as PIPA, is still up for debate in the U.S. Senate. Go Daddy opposes current PIPA legislation, as do many other major technology companies and users.

Do you think Go Daddy has done enough to voice their opposition to SOPA? Or is it just the “me too” mentality to avoid losing more domains?

As of now, thanks to the ByeDaddy search engine, a list of the top 100 searched domains still with GoDaddy reveals Wikipedia.org in the top spot, as well as a host — pun intended — of other sites you wouldn’t expect to frequent a SOPA-supporting company with such direct ties to the Internet. Sites like XKCD.com, UrbanDictionary, WordPress, Penny Arcade, TV Tropes, and Groveshark are just a few of the companies paying GoDaddy for their registrar service.

Perhaps the thinking is GoDaddy’s immunity from SOPA-related shutdowns will trickle down to domains that registered with GoDaddy. As for Wikipedia, apparently, they still plan on leaving GoDaddy, but they are taking their time in regards to picking a new domain registration service. A tweet from Jimmy Wales reveals as much:

Apparently, Namecheap’s promotional move didn’t appeal to the Wikipedia masters very much at all. With that in mind, here’s the top 100 sites still with GoDaddy’s service, courtesy of the ByeDaddy’s metrics:

wikipedia.org
xkcd.com
myeg.net
quantic-destiny.com
ronpaul2012.com
digg.com
mmo-champion.com
cynicalbrit.com
stackoverflow.com
urbandictionary.com
github.com
wordpress.org
wordpress.com
sc2ranks.com
rootzwiki.com
wikipedia.com
twit.tv
respawn.com
oceanmarketinginc.com
tvtropes.org
penny-arcade.com
icanhascheezburger.com
revision3.com
nasl.tv
theverge.com
youjizz.com
wellplayed.org
solomid.net
curse.com
geekosystem.com
hfboards.com
worldofwarcraft.com
mashable.com
37signals.com
giantbomb.com
gravatar.org
neogaf.com
blip.tv
swtor.com
craveonline.com
kevinrose.com
xkcd.org
grooveshark.com
wikibooks.org
wikia.com
mspaintadventures.com
foursquare.com
destructoid.com
barackobama.com
memebase.com
buzzfeed.com
wikimedia.org
explosm.net
cheezburger.com
wowhead.com
stackexchange.com
thenoisecast.com
ronpaulforums.com
openbsd.org
livejournal.com
katterhenry.net
arenajunkies.com
wocserver.org
teevox.com
nexon.net
kde.org
esfiworld.com
airbnb.com
yogscast.com
oink.com
soundcloud.com
quickmeme.com
kpopchan.com
icefilms.info
firedoglake.com
fanfiction.net
failblog.com
colonyofgamers.com
codsm.org
codinghorror.com
wimp.com
shoemoney.com
serverfault.com
riaa.org
nicholasforneris.com
miniclip.com
lockergnome.com
lazygamer.net
jrmracing.com
feld.com
break.com
starcraft2.com
pof.com
lesther.info
interviewstreet.com
endoftheinter.net
boardgamegeek.com
blazemore.net
archlinuxarm.org
wingsupply.com

Did GoDaddy’s SOPA reversal change minds of these site owners or are they simply taking their time, like Wikipedia?

Lead image courtesy of Natalie Dee.

According to WebHostingInfo, GoDaddy did see a very slight loss of total domains across the month of December, including high profile sites like Wikipedia and Imgur, their global market shares actually increased steadily as the month went on. While the gains were slight, it was more than enough to offset the defections of domain owners from GoDaddy. Yes, there was a minor dip in their market share for the first of December but that was way before GoDaddy started getting all that negative press for their SOPA support so it can hardly even be considered noteworthy to this context.

Looking at the weekly data of global market shares is like reading an abbreviated version of domain owners’ thought bubbles:

November 28, 2011 – “GoDaddy. Internets. So full now.”

December 5, 2011 – “Burp.”

December 12, 2011 – “Feel better now.”

December 19, 2011 – “Yawn. Nap maybe? Mm’hmm.”

December 26, 2011 (SOPA press starts to pick up steam) – “Oh. SOPA? Soup on. Coupon! Space look pretty tonight.”

January 2, 2012 – “Hangovers such super something something. GoDaddy? Mmm, yes, have some.”

Seriously, for every defector that saddled up with new domain registration services someone either transferred their domain to GoDaddy or else just registered a new domain with them. While GoDaddy lost a sizable amount of domains after the great SOPA revelation of Christmas weekend, the loss was entirely offset by the total amount of domains gained after the news of their SOPA support broke.

In the end, what does any of this mean? Well, for one, GoDaddy’s global market shares grew a little despite all the SOPAness of last month meaning the number of people registering domains outside of the U.S. might be considerable enough that GoDaddy doesn’t need to worry about any losses States-side. The second conclusion you can draw from this data, and perhaps more disheartening, is that there’s plenty of people registering domains in the U.S. that simply don’t give a toss about GoDaddy’s politics. Supposing the second conclusion is valid, don’t expect any volte-faces from GoDaddy the next time they find themselves in possession of an unfavorable opinion – they’re not going to lose. So rather than quickly change their mind so as to appease the unsettled masses, expect the domain registrar to lean back, prop their feet up on the desk and casually reply, “Do you see care anywhere on my face?”

Because you likely won’t.

If not for GoDaddy’s waffling on the SOPA/PIPA issue, something that’s discussed at an ad nauseam level across the Internet, the boycott that fizzled wouldn’t have happened. Hype about the GoDaddy boycott was spurred on by the company’s competitors, with Namecheap being the foremost. In order to capitalize on GoDaddy’s PR blunder, Namecheap went on an anti-SOPA promotional tirade, creating a MoveYourDomain Day, where, for every domain transfer, Namecheap donated $1 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to help the EFF’s fight against SOPA.

After 25,000 transfers, Namecheap upped the donation to $2 a transfer, and have, as of this writing, raised $61872 for the EFF.

That said, reports indicate that, despite Namecheap’s relatively successful promotion, the GoDaddy boycott largely fell flat. As indicated, there were some high profile losses for GoDaddy, but according to TechDirt’s research, on the day the boycott/MoveYourDomain Day was supposed to take place (12/29), GoDaddy gaining more domains than they lost:

Looking at the results from DailyChanges shows that GoDaddy actually had a strongly positive day, netting 20,748 more domains at the end of the day than the beginning. On transfers alone, there were nearly double the number of transfers in as out…

While the boycott may have fallen flat, at least for GoDaddy abandonment, the initial backlash was strong enough to make GoDaddy reconsider their stances on the protection acts. Was this a convenient change of heart for the “risque” domain registrar? Perhaps, but once GoDaddy started losing customers, it quickly changed its course.

The question is, was it for marketing purposes — as in, please don’t leave us — or did GoDaddy actually sit down and reconsider their position on the protection acts? I know where I’d place my wager. What about you? Lets us know what you think.

What we have here is a domain registrar — Namecheap — taking a stand against SOPA, but at the same time, they are trying to attract sites and companies that have abandoned GoDaddy in the wake of their pro-SOPA stance, something GoDaddy has backed off from. Because some (many?) view GoDaddy’s recently-discovered anti-SOPA position as backtracking for the sake of saving their business, the fallout has presented Namecheap with an opportunity to increase their business.

In order to do so, Namecheap is telling anyone who will listen about their anti-SOPA position. In fact, one of the current coupon codes for the service is “SOPASucks,” which demonstrates the company’s outspoken stance on the infamous protection act making its way through the houses of government. To further entice those wanting to leave SOPA-friendly domain registrars, Namecheap has created the “MoveYourDomain Day” movement, and for every domain transferred, Namecheap will donate one dollar to Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the watchdog groups opposing SOPA.

Namecheap has even created a page to promote MoveYourDomain Day, which takes place on Thursday, December 29th. Here, the Namecheap CEO polishes the anti-SOPA bow with the following call to arms:

While we at Namecheap firmly believe in intellectual property rights, SOPA is like detonating a nuclear bomb on the internet when only a surgical strike is necessary. This legislation has the potential to harm the way everyone uses the Internet and to undermine the system itself. At Namecheap, we believe having a free and open Internet is the only option that will continue the legacy of innovation and openess that stands for everything we all value in our modern society.

As you can see, Namecheap’s stance on SOPA is like that of most opponents: we respect intellectual property, but we don’t want it protected by a law like SOPA. It should be noted that Namecheap takes the high road and does not mention their competitor by name, but one wonders that, without GoDaddy’s mishandling of their SOPA mess, would Namecheap be so aggressive with their MoveYourDomain approach?

Naturally, the EFF supports Namecheap’s position and welcome their support with open arms:

Shari Steele, Executive Director of EFF stated

EFF is pleased to support Namecheap’s efforts to bring attention to the proposed SOPA legislation and its consequences for Internet users worldwide. With the funds donated from the MoveYourDomainDay effort, EFF will continue to defend your right to free expression in the digital world.

With that in mind, is this an example of a timely marketing response, especially when your chief competitor is one suffering? One company’s failure, at least in the mind of their ship-abandoning customers, is another company’s potential windfall.

While Wikipedia represents perhaps the most famous of the sites willing to leave GoDaddy’s service, another popular service, Imgur.com, is in the process of moving its domain away from GoDaddy’s index. While Imgur’s popularity is not on Wikipedia’s scale, seeing how it’s the image hosting service of choice for Reddit members, its popularity has grown exponentially over the last year.

Now, it appears as if GoDaddy’s previous SOPA support will cost them another popular domain:

As pointed out by Gameranx, and other bloggers who fear SOPA’s impact, SOPA poses a direct threat to the kind of content Imgur features, which explains their desire to move. Yes, GoDaddy backtracked, but clearly, some doubt the sincerity of GoDaddy’s new, anti-SOPA stance.

Not for one ex-GoDaddy customer, who detailed his exchange with one of their customer service representatives on Google+. Chris Heald’s post not only documents why he left, SOPA support, but he also details the surprising level of defeat GoDaddy’s customer service staff must be feeling as they try and woo back previous customers.

The first thing that stood out to me, besides the legitimate reason Heald has for moving his 60-plus domains to one of GoDaddy’s competitors. Heald believes GoDaddy essentially blew the criticism off. That is, until the mass exodus began:

The rep was quite sincere in his apology to me, asked if there was anything they could do to win me back. He had a “We support IP protections, and now realize that support of SOPA is too broad” song-and-dance routine that probably came in from a PR memo today. I told him “no thanks”, and that was that. I’m impressed by the customer service hustle, but it shows that this little incident really spooked them.

I think that the backlash against their support was a lot more swift and severe than they’d anticipated. Their initially glib “lol, whatever” response was replaced by “oh god, please stop punching us in the quarterly financial report!” real fast.

Considering the amount of turnover GoDaddy experienced, the backtracking shouldn’t be surprising, even with the existence of GoDaddy CEO tweets like the following:

To many ex-GoDaddy customers, this is a “too little, too late” reaction from a company that seems more concerned about winning their customers back than they do about taking a stand against SOPA. As for Heald, he sees GoDaddy’s backtracking as a win for consumers:

GoDaddy capitulating is a huge win, because it’s the first stone to come out of the wall. Now that GoDaddy has demonstrated that they were taking too much damage to continue with their support of SOPA, it empowers people to exert similar pressure on other companies, and it demonstrates to those companies that there are enough angry people out there that you need to listen up and pay attention.

Heald also points out the ones at GoDaddy who will truly suffer for the SOPA backlash will be the customer service reps who have to call ex-customers in an effort to win them back:

I feel really bad for the customer service reps that have to do damage control on this. You know that they’re going to be pulling overtime this Christmas weekend because their bosses screwed up.

Who knows? Maybe GoDaddy pays double time during Holiday hours…