Let’s be honest. For domain name investors, GoDaddy’s current domain management platform is far from perfect. It’s difficult to perform some of the basic tasks in bulk and it’s all just a bit outdated
However, behind the scenes, GoDaddy’s developers have been busy redeveloping the domain management dashboard, adding various features, and refining the design. I’ve been testing the new portfolio manager for the past couple of weeks, and it’s certainly an improvement over the old site, and a dashboard I’d happily use daily.
Here is a side-by-side comparison of the two iterations of GoDaddy’s domain management dashboard, with the current version on the left and the new beta version on the right.
Immediately, it’s obvious that the page has been redesigned in a manner similar to Afternic’s beta account manager, offering a clean and simple design that feels comfortable from the second it loads. Here are some of the highlights of the new portfolio manager that I’ve noticed.
Table of Contents
Customization
One of the elements that I noticed in GoDaddy’s new portfolio manager is the ability to customize your layout. While the current version does allow you to choose the columns that are displayed, the customization doesn’t go far beyond that.
Alongside the ability to choose the displayed columns, GoDaddy’s beta platform allows you to drag and drop those columns into an order that makes sense for you. This individualization is something I’ve appreciated, along with the auto-save feature that remembers your customization settings.
Shortcuts
The beta dashboard feels immediately quicker when performing any tasks, but the GoDaddy engineers have gone a step further to help speed up the user experience. Above the domain panel, there are a series of buttons, pictured above.
These buttons, when clicked, give handy binary options to help with domain management. The “auto-renew” button, for example, offers just two options, on and off, as does the “lock” button.
The old system has buttons above the domain panel, too, as pictured above. The contrast between old and new here is stark!
Folders & Filters
Did you know that folders are a feature in the current version of GoDaddy’s dashboard? I didn’t. GoDaddy’s beta portfolio manager brings folders to the forefront and I can see myself using them regularly.
In the top right-hand corner of GoDaddy’s beta dashboard, there’s a dedicated folders icon that allows you to create folders. It also allows you to view domains that have been assigned to one or more folders.
For users with thousands of domain names, the simplicity and availability of the folder system could help to nicely segment a portfolio and provide an efficient means of quickly managing a portion of a portfolio.
A practical use of the folder system would be to administer domain names registered in a $0.99 sale. I know many investors that have taken advantage of $0.99 sales to register hundreds or thousands of domain names with the intention of dropping those domains after a year, assuming they haven’t sold.
Popping these promo-registered domains in one folder allows you to separate these speculative names from the rest of your portfolio and gives you the ability to change nameservers or remove the auto-renewal settings in bulk. Hopefully, this might cut down on accidental domain name renewals!
Actions Bar
The Afternic beta platform saw the introduction of the actions bar, a black bar that pops up along the bottom of the screen when one or more domain is selected. That bar has also been introduced into the GoDaddy beta domain management dashboard.
Selecting one or more domain names activates the actions bar, offering some quick prompts for common actions such as switching on/off auto-renewal, changing nameservers, and assigning folders. The bar scales with your browser size.
I like the actions bar that GoDaddy has introduced here and at Afternic, but I hope that GoDaddy might introduce customization for the actions bar in the same way that it has allowed customization of columns.
That might be more difficult to achieve though, as the actions bar smartly shows actions that are relevant to domains you’ve selected.
Future Versions
The new dashboard does scale for mobile and is functional on mobile devices, but I’d love to see a specific mobile version of the dashboard that allows you to do basic domain admin on the move. As I’ve said above, I’d also like to see customization of the actions bar, but both of these features might be technically challenging.
Overall, the beta dashboard is a drastic improvement over the current domain manager. There are additions that I’d like to see added throughout the beta program, I’m impressed with the work GoDaddy has done so far.
If you’re interested in knowing more about the beta portfolio manager, GoDaddy has uploaded this video to YouTube:
Disclosure: GoDaddy is a sponsor of JamesNames.com. However, I wasn’t paid or asked to write this article.