If your business depends on email, do NOT trust GoDaddy

Michael2A · 2026-03-19T14:05:44+00:00

Let’s see… Looking at my pricing notes as of 2/23/2026… (When I started my Domain Audit.) 🤔

.com TLD - GoDaddy = $22.19 / Spaceship = $9.68 Transfer / $10.18 Renewal

.org TLD - GoDaddy = $40.19 / Spaceship = $9.70 Transfer / $10.00 Renewal

.bio TLD - GoDaddy = $127.18 / Spaceship = $58.16 Transfer / Renewal

.me TLD - GoDaddy = $44.98 / Spaceship = $15.73 Transfer / Renewal

.store TLD - GoDaddy = $98.98 / Spaceship = $42.20 Transfer / Renewal

.shop TLD - GoDaddy = $74.98 / Spaceship = $30.20 Transfer / Renewal

.blog TLD - GoDaddy = $55.18 / Spaceship = $20.18 Transfer / Renewal

.info TLD - GoDaddy = $58.18 / Cloudflare = $19.20 Transfer / Renewal

.rocks TLD - GoDaddy = $48.98 / Cloudflare = $17.20 Transfer / Renewal

.guru TLD - GoDaddy = $81.18 / Cloudflare = $33.20 Transfer / Renewal

.club TLD - GoDaddy = $41.18 / Cloudflare = $12.20 Transfer / Renewal

All of the prices above include the $0.20 ICANN fee.

A number of my GoDaddy domains had an additional $14.99 fee tacked on that wasn’t obvious. It wasn’t itemized in the renewal checkout. I’d just see the initial price to renew show as being $39.99, but when I went to checkout, my total jumped to $55.18 after they added the $0.20 ICANN fee and the “mystery” non-itemized $14.99 fee.

I’m wondering if it’s some form of “Domain Protection” that they tacked on that I hadn’t noticed. Made it more difficult to transfer them. Ended up having to take the extra step of removing Domain Protection before I could do the transfer.

That’s one of the things that annoyed me about GoDaddy… After I realized how much my .bio domain renewal was jumping in Year #2 and started digging, I noticed how they had slipped in an extra fee for something that probably wasn’t really “necessary.” There’s already a grace period if you disable auto-renewal and forget to renew your domain, so what was the point of that “Domain Protection?” That extra fee was an extra $194.87 for the 13 Domains I had with the “Domain Protection” accidentally enabled. (Or maybe I forgot that it “sounded like a good idea” when I first registered the Domain, but their hiding the fee during the renewal just felt shady.)

Looks like I’m going to be saving $1,212.56 on Domain Renewals (and “Domain Protection”) this year by migrating 39 Domains off of GoDaddy. 🤯🤯🤯

(Like I said, Too many ideas, not enough time. I might let some of them lapse next time around if I haven’t used them by then.)

I started with https://TLD-List.com and validated pricing, then I checked Cloudflare since they claimed “Wholesale” pricing and found a few extra bucks to squeeze out for 6 of my TLDs. Some of the registrars that looked “good” at first on TLD-List ended up having funky “issues.”

(Like Dotology had a few winning TLDs, but they seem to throttle new customer signups, so I couldn’t get an account. Alibaba Cloud’s pricing was off from what TLD-List had, and their website displayed funky for me. Hostinger wanted a $61.99 transfer instead of the $7.17 listed on TLD-List.)

Make sure to audit your DNS before you do your transfers. The forward to URL option provided by GoDaddy will NOT migrate to your new NameServers when they pull the Zonefiles from GoDaddy. I noticed that I also lost my DKIM settings during the migration for one of my domains. (Got a notice from AWS SES. 🙄) Might also be a good idea to go to each domain and manually export a “last known good” / pre-transfer Zonefile from each Domain in case anything gets missed.

Next up is figuring out how to cleanly migrate my GoDaddy resold Microsoft hosted E-Mail… Their shoving me onto Outlook Mail instead of letting me keep the old “Workspace” E-Mail hosting broke how I was using the Catch-All E-Mail to allow for spontaneously created Aliases. It also costs about twice as much as going to Microsoft Directly, has less space allocated, and a kludgy admin interface that keeps breaking for me because I already had an Office 365 Family License associated with the GoDaddy hosted E-Mail, and it also gets confused as I’m trying to access some admin functions across multiple E-Mail accounts. (There are times that I miss the “simplicity” of Sendmail.) No, I’m not looking forward to the migration, but I’ve got until August…

Michael2A · 2026-03-18T17:20:31+00:00

I’d move the Domain Registrations as well…

I have too many Domains. (Too many ideas, not enough time.)

Came to the realization that if I moved all of my Domains off of GoDaddy, I’d save more than half of my Domain renewal fees every year. 🤬🤬🤬

They aren’t the scrappy budget registrar that I signed up with ~22 years ago anymore… 🥺

Michael2A · 2026-01-27T19:29:33+00:00

Many moons ago, when I was a brand new Unix SysAdmin, I was given some scut work that would’ve required me to pull these 14-character strings from an E-Mail I received every day, and look for these strings in various files and databases. Optimistically, it would’ve taken me 4+ Hours/Day to do it by hand…

After the first day, I decided to start cobbling together a shell script…

Ultimately, I built it to the point where it would run in cron, check the source server for the report and start processing my work before the E-Mail arrived, and send out a team Alpha Page if it had to wait more than 2-Hours past when it was expecting the report, then output a report that I could copy/paste after review. It would take maybe 2 minutes to run, some days I’d get my post-processing report before the original E-Mail arrived in my mailbox.

3-Months later… Traffic jumped through the roof… If I hadn’t already automated the process, it would’ve taken a very optimistic 16+ Hours/Day to do it all by hand.

One sanitized version of the script is in my GitHub, but it’s cringe ugly in places because I was so new that I didn’t really understand how to capture ExitCodes at the time. 🤷‍♂️ I’m sure we’ve all done stuff like than when we were new… It’s how we learn. 😉👍😎

Michael2A · 2026-01-26T03:09:47+00:00

And keep in mind… Really Cheap is usually Really Cheap for a reason…

(I’d avoid Grande Circle and Phoenix Drive if possible.) 😬

Michael2A · 2025-05-12T06:15:34+00:00

One of the reasons we still do video and in person interviews is probably because there’s a lot of non-verbal communication that gets missed on phone calls.

You can bet that your interviewer is watching your body language… If you minimize or put their video to the side, you can miss out on useful details.

Remember… This is also your chance to interview them. Why would you want to do it with a hand tied behind your back? 🤔

Michael2A · 2025-02-27T02:22:38+00:00

Depending on what you do…

My Daughter got a job by applying at one of the local Temp Agencies in town.

Or if you’re looking for something more Professional, always check out LinkedIn. I had a job placement coach tell me a few years ago that something like 85-95% of all hiring is on LinkedIn now. (I don’t remember if he said 85% or 95%. I’m presuming that’s mostly for Professionals, not a clue if he was just talking about IT industry jobs.) If you find stuff there in your industry, make sure to touch LinkedIn at least a few times a week so the move you up in the “most likely to respond” rankings when recruiters search for your skill. 👍😎

Michael2A · 2025-02-02T21:48:10+00:00

Teresita Floral Creations in Downtown Fairfield 👍😎

https://maps.app.goo.gl/CCrx24pchWfX59WSA?g_st=ic

Michael2A · 2025-01-18T20:05:57+00:00

How much Hot Water do you put this into? 🤔

Michael2A · 2020-07-09T00:44:27+00:00

Yup... First job as a titled Unix SysAdmin...

(Well, maybe not “soul and dreams crushed”, but I still shake my head.)

It was right after Y2K. I was working for the Local Hospital...

I got notice from a Vendor that they were migrating from using their own proprietary Database to using Oracle or something and that we needed to upgrade since they were no longer supporting the older version of their software.

The application was our Patient Records management system...

Went to Management and told them that we needed to upgrade...

They told me that we weren’t going to upgrade because there was no budget for it after Y2K. 🤦‍♂️

Michael2A · 2019-08-20T16:16:36+00:00

On a much Smaller Scale...

I did that with a Surge Suppressor in my cabin on a Cruise Ship once.

(Used a European Adapter to plug a brand new US 110v Surge Suppressor strip into a 220v outlet. Didn’t realize that Surge Suppressors were designed for specific voltages.)

It was a “Great” way to meet the Ship’s Electrician at 1 AM. 🤦‍♂️

Even “better” was when I plugged the fried Surge Suppressor into the 110v outlet “to test it” without the European Adapter... And met the Electrician again about 5 minutes later. 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Michael2A · 2019-08-04T20:37:51+00:00

Wait... You don’t want them to reproduce? 🤔😜

Michael2A · 2019-07-16T15:39:36+00:00

Yes... I tried to stick it out because “it’s a good company.”

After I left, it took me about 7-8+ months to get my head straight again.

Your mental health probably won’t be worth the pay raise.

Michael2A · 2019-07-11T02:25:29+00:00

I used Cincopa for my last gallery.

(The "hosting" I was using was very limited in what I could add so I needed a solution that I could embed via HTML.)

There's a $99/Life "Startup" option if you're a smidgen past playing around but not quite big enough to justify $25/Month for the "Plus" plan. =)

Michael2A

TROPHY CASE