GD Auctions - Not what you think. (1 Viewing)

I've been using GD Auctions for years now and almost always click on a bookmark to go the site but I recently (and mindlessly) just typed in "gd auctions" into Google instead and was surprised with what I found.

The top result (by far) and which dominates the first page of Google is in fact GDAuctions.com, which is an auction website based in Calgary that sells commercial and industrial equipment. They've apparently been in the business for 40 some-odd years but i believe they've been operating under GDLiquidators.com for the most part and only created GDAuctions.com in 2020 (registration date is April 2019 too).

Not that I think they are doing anything wrong because they've always had GD in their name (i think anyway), but something tells me they were well aware of GoDaddy/GD Auctions and knew the value of owning this domain. It's not like they will benefit from drawing domainers to their site but I'm guessing they went to town with SEO to make sure they capitalize on ranking for these keywords as they get a decent amount of monthly searches (~1K approx in Canada alone). Out of the 87 results Google displayed, GoDaddy's actual website only comes up once (ie, a blog post and not the auction site) and you need to scroll a bit to find it as it's in the 20th spot.

What do you guys think? Are they being strategic by capitalizing on searches really meant for GoDaddy? It's certainly how I came across them and the google rankings/results are essentially the same result if you search "gd appraisals". There's just one hit for Godaddy's website among the 91 results displayed (ie “Godaddy's Valuation and Appraisal Tool" page).

Wonderful post

I predict a future sale as well

Does GoDaddy ever refer to themselves as GD? Other than their GDDY stock symbol, and some backend names for certs, they tend to stick to GoDaddy from what I remember.

They don't refer to themselves as GD on an official basis but it's their acronym and (most?) often referred to as such among the domain community (in text at least). They likely don't do any seo for "GD" either, which is perhaps an opportunity that this company saw? Can't be great for the bounce rate but i can't help but wonder.

Definitely, good for them

I use GD always myself, way too lazy for typing out that whole name every time haha

I don't think they have ever promoted GD as their brand.
But who knows, they have enough juice to pay of GeneralDynamics.com for the GD.com domain name, since they own both.
After all they aspire to be the G(O)D in the space of Registrars and might do well to brand them at least close to that as GD. LOL