GoDaddy drops Uniregistry domain names due to price hike – Domain Name Wire

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World’s largest domain name registrar will no longer carry Uniregistry’s top level domains.

GoDaddy has stopped selling Uniregistry top level domain names after Uniregistry announced a wholesale price hike effective this coming August.

This afternoon I tried to transfer a .click domain name to GoDaddy but got an error that the domain couldn’t be transferred. .Click is a Uniregistry domain. Further searches revealed that no Uniregistry domain are available on GoDaddy.

I reached out to GoDaddy. GM of Domains Mike McLaughlin stated:

We have stopped registering or transferring Uniregistry domain names into our system. The dramatic price hike Uniregistry announced left us no choice. Until we can assess the impact on our current and potential customers, we have stopped new registrations. 

GoDaddy works to deliver a great customer experience. We now have customers who will be paying up to 3,000 percent more for their renewal. That’s an extremely poor customer experience and does not reflect well on the domain name industry in general.

GoDaddy will continue to support our current customers who have Uniregistry registered domain names.”

I’ll be curious to see if other registrars follow GoDaddy’s lead. Ultimately, it’s the registrar that has to explain to customers why their website will cost substantially more to operate when the domain renews.

Uniregistry launched many of its domain names without distribution on GoDaddy, and this probably limited the success of Uniregistry’s initial launches. The two companies didn’t sign a registry-registrar agreement until June 2014.

Uniregistry is increasing the wholesale price of its domain names by up to 30 times (but mostly about 5x) beginning in August. This price increase will apply to existing and future registrations, although Uniregistry founder Frank Schilling says that discounts will be offered. (Listen to Schilling explain the price increases in this week’s DNW podcast.)

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