No reliable way to get daily auction lists from you

namecatch said 2 years, 8 months ago:

Hi,

My name is Erdinc. I’m running the website http://www.namecatch.com which is a platform for all expired domains from all major sites.

Naturally I want to add your domains to my database too. This is a free website. I’m redirecting users to Godaddy so they can buy the expiring domain from you. I don’t even get any commission from you for doing so.

However, I have trouble getting data from you.

1. The API:
On this page it mentions an Auction API :

https://auctions.godaddy.com/trpTools.aspx?ci=21018

It says “For more information, contact Go Daddy Auctions Support at 480-505-8892″

When I called this number I talked to somebody who didn’t know anything about an API. I had to explain that there is such an API while the person was there isn’t. He didn’t know what an API is and that you have an API. Can you give a different phone number to reach the correct person about the Auctions API?

2. Emails:
You can create a custom search and selecet email me the results. However with this way I can not get your entire auction lists because it is limited to 20.000 results.

3. RSS:
You update your RSS feeds with 24 hours delay if you are in a good mood. Today is 21 September 2010 and you haven’t updated your RSS in 3 days.

What are other websites doing?
They provide simple txt files containing the auction lists. Usually these text files are zipped.

Can you please stop spending all your energy into fancy and weird features that nobody wants like the Geomap and start making you data available to others so others can take the data and do something better with it?

Can you also please provide an email address and phone number for the auctions department? I’m so tired talking to your customer service department.

namecatch said 2 years, 8 months ago:

I forgot the FTP:

4. Your FTP thing doesn’t work. How are we supposed to access the FTP?

On this page there is a link to FTP. When you press on the link nothing happens:

https://auctions.godaddy.com/trpTools.aspx?ci=21018

Baillee said 2 years, 8 months ago:

Hi Erdinc,

First, I wanted to provide my sincerest apologies if you received less than satisfactory support from our Support Team. All of our customer support representatives should be aware of the services we offer. Furthermore, you may reach our Auctions department by emailing auctions@GoDaddy.com.

To address your questions, for a list of our Auctions, you can download a .CSV file, which we find most efficient. When you do a bulk search, you will be presented with this image:

https://img5.wsimg.com/dna/4/hp/icon_export.gif

If you click on that image, you can download the .CSV file, which will have a limit of 40,000 listings.

Furthermore, thank you for bringing the issue with our RSS feed to our attention. This should be updated every 24 hours, but we are currently aware of an issue that it is not updating properly. We do have our most skilled technicians working tirelessly to resolve this, and the RSS should be updating properly again as soon as possible.

I hope this information was useful, please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you!

- Baillee

namecatch said 2 years, 8 months ago:

“for a list of our Auctions, you can download a .CSV file”

This method doesn’t work. You have to be a registered user and open the Godaddy website manually to do this.

I’m trying to run a cron job that will run a PHP script to get the data from you automatically every day or multiple times a day. Those links that I can for the CSV don’t work on the server.

I’m not trying to download the list manually for my personal use. I’m trying to get your data into my SQL database automatically on a continuous basis.

Can you please have a look at these two pages to see what other sites are doing and what you are not doing:

You can download here zipped txt files:

https://www.snapnames.com/download.jsp

You can download here txt files:

http://www.namejet.com/Pages/Downloads.aspx

Do you have any idea how frustrating your website is?

There is absolutely no way to get updated data from you.

Baillee said 2 years, 8 months ago:

@NameCatch

I’m sorry for any misunderstanding in this matter. If you find that our methods of retrieving auctions do not suit your needs, I highly recommend sending any improvement ideas to Suggestions@GoDaddy.com so that we may review them individually for future updates.

Best of luck!

- Baillee

namecatch said 2 years, 8 months ago:

“If you find that our methods of retrieving auctions do not suit your needs …”

You don’t have one method that works and instead fixing it you are suggesting me to send an email to some department where nobody will understand or even read the email.

1. The FTP link on this page doesn’t work:

https://auctions.godaddy.com/trpTools.aspx?ci=21018

There is no information on how we are supposed to access the FTP. You didn’t say anything about this issue. How are we supposed to access FTP?

2. On this page it says call this number for API access: https://auctions.godaddy.com/trpTools.aspx?ci=21018
But when we call the people who answer don’t know anything about API. How are we supposed to access to the API? You didn’t give any information about this subject either.

3. You don’t have any URL where your auction lists can be downloaded. You mentioned the CS download which doesn’t work for two reason: Firstly you need to be logged in to the site, secondly there is 40.000 limit.
How are we supposed to download your auction lists?

Why don’t you try solving the problems instead posting some generic answer? Is this the best you can do?

Baillee said 2 years, 8 months ago:

@NameCatch

Hi. If you would like access to the FTP for Go Daddy Auctions, you will need to contact Auctions@GoDaddy.com directly. This email will get you in touch with our Auctions Department directly. The phone number listed on the page for the Auctions API, will connect you with our Support Representatives which should be able to answer any questions you may have. Otherwise, please direct all questions to Auctions@GoDaddy.com. Lastly, we don’t have a direct URL to download our Auctions listings, but if you contact Auctions@GoDaddy.com, they will be able to provide you with the information for the FTP, which will allow you to download the listings.

I hope this information is useful.

- Baillee

namecatch said 2 years, 8 months ago:

OK, thanks. I have sent an email to Auctions@GoDaddy.com for FTP access. Let’s see if anybody will answer.

Do you know that I’m not impressed with what you guys are doing. You are trying to do everything yourself and that’s not possible. A better approach would be make your data accessible and let others create new features with that data.

On my website I have these features which you don’t have on Godaddy:
1. word pattern sorting like CVCV, VCVC (c:consonant, V: Vowel)
2. Dictionary domain sorting in many languages
3. Bulk search (search 10.000 exact matches at once or 50 contains)
4. Free domain monitor and email notifications with much higher limits than Godaddy.

As you can see people can create much cooler features if you just make your data accessible.

Anyway, thank you for trying to help. Generally I’m not impressed Godaddy because Godaddy is trying to solve the wrong problem. Nobody needs features like Geomap. Just make your data accessible and people can do something useful with it.

Anyway thanks for your patience.
Erdinc

Baillee said 2 years, 8 months ago:

Hi Erdinc,

I’m happy to hear you’ve reached out to our Auctions team, as they are better suited to answer your questions directly. I’m sorry that our current functionality doesn’t meet your expectations, and I have forwarded a list of your suggestions to our development teams for consideration. I appreciate your patience through this, and please let us know if we can do anything else for you.

Thank you!

- Baillee

thatguy1 said 2 years, 5 months ago:

Dear Godaddy,

I’m writing out of sheer frustration at your absolutely dire standard of support and I hope you’ll publish and address this cry for help.

Like the other user who originally posted this, I am less than impressed with your exceptionally poor customer service.

Having spent $52 in phone costs calling from the UK, here is the problem I have summarised.

On this page it mentions an Auction API :

https://auctions.godaddy.com/trpTools.aspx

It says “For more information, contact Go Daddy Auctions Support at 480-505-8892″

On contacting the above number I’m on hold for 8 minutes. I first speak to an operative (who is very polite but knows absolutely nothing about the API). I have to give him the URL, spelt out slowly just so he gets the jist of what I’m calling for. He goes on to tell me the auction department doesnt take phone calls – only email. I point out I emailed two weeks ago and received no reply hence why I’m calling.

After six minutes of restating my problem (also questioning why you ask people to call if the department doesnt take calls) he attempts to contact the auction department and several minutes later advises he has someone on the line ready to talk to me. Im put on hold for a further five minutes, only to be put through to another customer service rep who has no idea why I’m calling.

This rep is less polite; he refuses to attempt to contact the Auctions dept and claims they only accept email but cannot tell me what to do if they do not reply to email. He then continues to tell me he has no idea what an API is.

Having read the original posters comments, would something not register to either

a) stop telling people to call when your guys have no idea why they are calling or

b) train your people so they can actually help?

I’m very dissappointed with your service after previously singing and blogging your praises. I appreciate API business probably isny important to you, but I hope you fix this mess quickly, for your own sake and for others that have to endure this truly frustrating experience.

Thanks for listening.

Baillee said 2 years, 5 months ago:

@thatguy1

Thank you for taking the time to provide your honest feedback on this matter. We strive for world-class customer service, and sincerely apologize if this is not the experience you had. I will be sure to forward this along appropriately for review. If you have specific questions that we could address for you through this Forum, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Thanks!

- Baillee

thatguy1 said 2 years, 5 months ago:

Baillee,

Thanks for your reply.

I appreciate you “strive for world-class customer service” but your actions as a company arent making that clear. I dont mean this as an attack on you or Godaddy, but you could start with listening to what people have to say here, and solve their problem rather than offer carbon copy customer support responses.

For example, a “world-class customer support team” would have spoke to someone in the right department to offer a solution to the OPs problem rather than simply telling him to “email Suggestions@GoDaddy.com“.

Here are my specific questions that I would like an answer to.

1) Your Website advises us to call a general number for information implementing the API, however none of the staff who answer know how to handle the call. a) Do you have a more suitable number and b) if not are you going to update your website so others dont have the same issue?

2) I have emailed auctions support almost a week ago but received no reply. Can you advise what I should do in this situation.

3) Alternatively, a solution to all these problems, can you tell me a url where I can find integration instructions for the Goddady Auctions API?

If you want to be “world class”, then asking the right people in your organisation until you find the answer to question 3), and emailing me or posting a link will be the best way to demonstrate it.

Thanks

thatguy1 said 2 years, 5 months ago:

Hi Bailey,

Just checking if you had a chance to answer my questions above?

Baillee said 2 years, 5 months ago:

@thatguy1

Thank you for your response. Our Auctions department can be reached through our Customer Service Representatives at the number listed Monday through Friday from 7:30 AM to 5 PM and Saturday and Sunday from 8 AM to 4 PM Arizona time. Outside of these, we recommend emailing Auctions@GoDaddy.com for a direct response from our Auctions department.

Please understand, any tickets that are submitted are responded to in the order that we receive them. Furthermore, it is possible that your request requires an escalation and review by a higher level department. If that is the case, the time for a response will be extended accordingly.

Furthermore, we are unable to communicate specific information about our Auctions API through our Community Forum. For information on the API, you will need to email Auctions@GoDaddy.com for review.

Lastly, please keep in mind that can use the FTP on our Auctions site to receive the listings. This can by found by visiting Auctions.GoDaddy.com, and selecting ‘FTP Site’ under tools.

Thank you!

- Baillee

namecatch said 2 years, 5 months ago:

No, the FTP doesn’t work. It keeps asking for a password but I have no idea what that password is. I tried my login password and it doesn’t work.

Only once I have seen the FTP work without asking me a password. I have tried more than 10 times. It seems to work randomly when it suits.

Even when the FTP worked the lists that I could download were 1 day old.