I have just bought a domain name for my father, and wanted to map it to a blog on my Typepad account. Gosh, what a hard job that was!!! I was a little “rusty” and unsure on what exactly to do so contacted GoDaddy:
– I got FOUR emails in a row that ignored what I had asked and gave me a standard response from the manual,
– I eventually spoke to a support guy who was UNBELIEVABLE unhelpful,
– I had a further FOUR emails that either ignored my question(s) or contradicted earlier information that I had been given.
Typically there response was they didn’t offer support on setting up DNS changes, and that I would have to contact Typepad. I explained that my problem was with GoDaddy, as;
– they had said you couldn’t forward domains from them to Typepad (but I had so you can),
– that when I entered the information from Typepad into my GoDaddy DNS Manager I got an error message and I wanted GoDaddy to help me understand that.
During the phone call I asked the guy to check that he couldn’t advise me and he went away for TEN minutes, and then came back to tell me that there was NO ONE at GoDaddy who knew ANYTHING about Typepad and I would have to talk to Typepad.
To put this into context:
– I understand the concept of domain forwarding and domain mapping,
– I have set up domain mapping to my Typepad account before for a domain that I purchased from Pairnic with no problems at all, so I know how to do it,
– I was only seeking two bits of clarification a) is it an option to forward the domain that I had just bought to my Typepad blog address and mask the name so that it only showed the new domain name URL, and b) if I made the DNS CNAME changes (which at one point GoDaddy asked me why Typepad had said I should do that) how would I know that the changes had gone through so that I could activate the change in Typepad and republish the blog.
AFTER 7 hours I eventually got clarification that I couldn’t use the domain forwarding option and mask the name – although the cynic in me does wonder if I should believe this but as the score is now 2-1 in favor of this advice from GoDaddy I am going to believe them. I THINK I have the CNAME set up correctly, but I have to wait up to 48 hours to find out AND GoDaddy are still refusing to say if what I am telling them I have done should work or not’
I went to GoDaddy as I had heard nothing but good stuff about them, and they support nearly every podcast that I listen to BUT I wish I hadn’t. This has to have been one of the most disappointing and frustrating support experiences of my life since back in the 1980’s when pretty much every support call resulted in a “you have to talk to the PC Manufacturer/Microsoft/Software Provider” basically anybody but the actual help desk that you were actually talking to. At one stage during my telephone conversation with GoDaddy I was told “I know nothing about Microsoft” which was moderately interesting but a) wasn’t something I had asked about and b) had nothing to do with my problem, not least as I am using a PowerBook. I think this was the single thing that gave me the 1980’s help desk “flash back”
I used to mange a large Customer Services Division for a UK IT company and I understand as well as anybody the processes and “rules” that need to be adhered to. I also understand TOTALLY the concept of flexibility, and I can say hand on heart that GoDaddy have left a really bad taste in my mouth, and given the large number of options that exist for me regarding future domain names, they are not a company that I will be revisiting.