How The Website GoDaddy Uses Big Data

So, you’ve just created a website and now want to purchase a domain. First thing you do is Google “domain registrar”. One of the top three that appear on the page include GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain registrar. Have you ever wondered how powerhouse companies like GoDaddy use big data? It starts with ingesting 13 terabytes of new, uncompressed data every single day. This data includes everything from website traffic to managing the servers, the usage of metrics, and even statistics from e-commerce conducted by their customers.

Think about it: 13 terabytes. Here’s a way to help you visualize 12 terabytes:

Sharon Graves, a systems administrator at the company, notes that all the data is collected so that: “GoDaddy product managers and business users can leverage data to create a better customer experience and find and design the product that will meet their needs by identifying trends and anticipating issues.” GoDaddy used to take a different approach in the past with how they read all the data. Before switching over to mainly using the program Tableau, they would gather and put them into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. It has been through using Tableau that the company has ultimately been able to not only better organize their data and information, but process it much quicker, more efficient, and present it in a way slightly better formatted than in Excel.

Tableau

It was no doubt that using Tableau was an ultimate game-changer for GoDaddy. With such a large client base, the company knew it was imperative to keep their customers happy. The way in which they could do so was by providing their customers with access to their Tableau so that they would now be able to see how the meaningful, actual analysis was conducted. Graves stated that “by putting data in our end users’ hands, they then had the ability to pull together their own base-level reporting. These individuals were closest to the products/application changes and could quickly identify where something may need adjustment.”

Monitoring Data

GoDaddy knew from the start the importance of monitoring data closely. Through doing this, they were better able to pinpoint issues, such as when customers would add products to a cart but then end up abandoning it without finishing the purchase. This led them to discover that the way the web page was designed and formatted played a role in the experience of the customer on the site. The analytics helped to show where exactly was the drop-off point that people were leaving the page without finishing the purchase. By addressing issue, they could steadily increase conversion rates as well as redesign the site so the structured flowed better. Monitoring the data meant that any changes to the traffic on the website could now be tracked as to where and why it occurred. Whether the increase in traffic came from another site or an issue with the network, GoDaddy was now able to present their customers with the data to explain.

Big data ultimately can create a further business value for a company. GoDaddy has learned this and “the company continues to look for new ways to leverage big data and analytics capabilities” (http://bit.ly/2oIh420). The analytics has greatly helped in a way so that now customers of GoDaddy are now able to come up their own way to monitor metrics streams such as their number of orders, revenues, traffic, etc. For GoDaddy customers, it goes deeper than knowing the ‘how’ of big data working, but it is knowing the why. Why the traffic to the site increased, where did customers come from that landed them on their site (whether it was through Google or seeing an advertisement on a third-party site), and even when did they bounce off the page.

Read the article by Information Management here: https://www.information-management.com/news/how-godaddy-powers-its-team-with-big-data-analytics