Domain consultant and researcher Jamie Zoch recently noticed that GoDaddy’s NameFind brand became the registrant of a sizable number of domain names, prompting speculation that GoDaddy had acquired another portfolio of domains.
The domain names that NameFind took possession of, according to Jamie, were previously registered to “Quality Hosting,” or “Cayman Web.”
Namefind took in nearly 40K domains yesterday. Most from “Quality Hosting” and “Cayman Web”. I’m not sure if these were part of Frank Schillings portfolio? These nearly 40K domains only appear to be up to the letter B in the alphabet.
— Jamie Zoch (@DotWeekly) January 12, 2021
Jamie detected around 40,000 domain names being transferred to GoDaddy’s NameFind portfolio, but that may not be the final tally. Regardless, this is a significant acquisition from the industry’s biggest player.
GoDaddy’s Paul Nicks confirmed to me in an email that GoDaddy had indeed purchased another portfolio, however, the exact portfolio size, past ownership details, and purchase price are not being disclosed.
As GoDaddy is a publicly-listed company, the price may be revealed in a future SEC filing.
GoDaddy has made a number of strategic domain portfolio acquisitions in the past including approximately 200,000 domain names from Marchex for a reported $281 million in cash. More recently, the company paid less than $200 million to buy Frank Schilling‘s Uniregistry business along with Frank’s domain portfolio.
What does GoDaddy’s NameFind division do with the domain names it acquires? They sell them, of course! The company sells tens of names per week from the portfolio. Many of these sales are detected by the aforementioned Jamie Zoch and published to his Twitter account.