Technical Difficulties

I recently discovered a very DISTURBING problem with my GoDaddy account. There is absolutely no way for me to know how many customer contacts I have missed out on due to GoDaddy's development team. They REALLY bungled my account.

To my customers I sincerely apologize. If you have tried to contact us without results, the following copy of the email I sent to GoDaddy's CEO and Founder, Bob Parsons should explain it all.

However, to put it in a nutshell, GoDaddy changed the web site I.D. numbers on both "Photos Transferred to DVD" and "Your Precious Memories Online Video Albums" which REALLY has caused problems.

Again, to my valued customers, I sincerely apologize.

To: president@godaddy.com

Dear Bob,

I have discovered a GoDaddy Developer issue you need to be VERY aware of. Who knows how much business I have lost over this one.

Today, 10/16/2006 I spent well over an hour on the phone with tech. support (first line, then upper management [Derek]) over this. It’s got to be bad for GoDaddy’s business and needs to be brought to the attention of your development team.

I was editing another one of my websites (not hosted on GoDaddy) when the thought hit me, “Hey, I haven’t received a contact via my Website Tonight generated contact forms nor from my uploaded ‘Online Order Forms’” in a LONG time. So I decided to contact myself. Guess what? I didn’t receive it! Four ways to contact me via GoDaddy and NONE OF THEM WORKED!

I opened Website Tonight, launched one of my accounts and clicked on “Build Web Pages.” Next, I navigated to my “Contact Us” page and click on “Advanced Edit” in the contact form area. After that, once the “Advanced Edit” page opened, I clicked “OK.” Following that I clicked “Publish Web Site” and then “Publish Updates.” Then I used the contact form again to try to contact myself. Guess what? IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fortunately I save a back-up copy of all my web sites to my hard drive for just such emergencies (no, GoDaddy doesn’t have a monopoly on all of my websites). After examining the source code of the newly published “Contact Us” page vs. my backup copy, the only difference in the HTML code was the “…&websiteid=…” web site id number.

I called technical support. The first guy I talked to (didn’t get a customer survey form him either) all but, called me a liar (or a idiot, I haven’t made my mind up about that one). He said something to effect of “we don’t arbitrarily change your website id.” After an exhaustive conversation, he followed that up with something to the effect of “the website id will not cause you not to receive email from your “Contact Form.”

Finally he transferred me to Derek (upper management). After an exhaustive conversation with Derek, I was able to get him to understand that the “websiteid=…” number had EVERYTHING to do with it.

I gave Derek permission to restore my websites (http://yourpreciousmemoriesonline.com/ and http://photos-transfered-to-dvd.com/) to their earliest states on record and to log onto my email to see if he received email from their prior states. He declined. However, (and besides the point) I KNEW IT WOULN’T WORK BECAUSE I TRIED IT!

Bob, GoDaddy does not have a monopoly on all of my websites. I reach over 40,000 people per day. I OWN the top 6 positions for the search term “Photos Transferred to DVD” (out of over 165,000) listings on MSN. I FULLY intend to post this email on all of my blogs for my viewers simply because, I know this “oversight in development” has cost me business. I hope you get it fixed soon.

By the way, I have canceled my “auto renewal” options with GoDaddy and intend to expire my affiliate account with GoDaddy on Commission Junction by the end of this week.
Fix it. Who knows how many of your customers are losing business and don’t even know it (let alone, why).

Tim Woodard,
tim@photos-transfered-to-dvd.com
tim@yourpreciousmemoriesonline.com