If the headline got you reading this, guess the GoDaddy advertising model works and that may be why it was bought late Friday for $2.25 billion. The world’s largest domain registry was bought by a group of private equity firms.
GoDaddy.com used racy ads during the Superbowl – including ones that were not allowed to run on TV – to brand themselves and become the leading domain seller and website hosting company. They have shown exceptional growth over the past few years, sales rose by 25% to $947 million between 2009 and 2010. 2011 predictions were for sales of well over a billion dollars.
“What these guys see is a company with a lot more potential internationally and more potential to make partnerships and acquisitions,” Bob Parsons, the company’s chief executive and founder, told the LA Times. “They’ll help us finance and they’ll help us recruit talent.”
With the push of local in the search space, many small businesses are now buying domains and creating websites; and this is a global phenomenon.
“The purchase, which includes assumption of the company’s debt, was announced Friday afternoon by Go Daddy and the group of firms, made up of KKR & Co., Silver Lake Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures,” the LA Timnes reported.
The success of the advertising in previous years shows the company had a good read on who was buying domains, with the economy changing one will have to wait and see if that changes or if the company can adjust their message as needed. Either way, stories seem to indicate that the current company employees will be staying on.