Update: GoDaddy WHOIS verification and GoDaddy phishing email scam.

It’s been a fun-filled week of many activities, both on professional and personal levels. I’ve accomplished much, yet I have a ways to go with my personal projects as well as customer projects.

However, a good portion of this week has been spent keeping a watchful eye on the GoDaddy WHOIS verification and GoDaddy phishing email scam.

If you’re in the dark and confused as to what I’m referencing, I encourage you to read our post on the ICANN verification process and how your business can and will be impacted by it should you ignore it.

That said, I’m glad to report that my domain auto-renewals seem to be back to normal.  Also, I have not received a fake or phishing GoDaddy verification email.

But I’m not sure we’re yet out of the woods on this. I’m still going to log in each morning until I feel at ease that all is well with the GoDaddy domain auto-renewal system.

As for the WHOIS verification process, a little more information is coming to light about how to successfully update and verify domains with the “Pending WHOIS verification” status.

Change your email address if you don’t receive a verification email.

As of late, I had a handful of domains with different email addresses with a status listed as “Pending WHOIS verification.”

With each domain, I tried going into the Domain Settings and clicking the Resend button in the Manage Nameservers section.

And guess what happened? NOTHING, I never received the GoDaddy verification email, although I was alerted that the email had been sent.

The original email addresses on file for the domains span from hotmail.com to gmail.com to yahoo.com and a few GoDaddy-sponsored email addresses. I clicked the resend button each time and checked each email address’ spam box.

Frustrated, I tried again multiple times with each domain and never received the verification email from GoDaddy to any of the email addresses. Now this is where things get interesting.

I didn’t find domain verification success until I began to update the contact information, mainly the email address with a different email address.

Once I updated the email address to the new one and submitted the changes, I waited roughly 15 minutes. After 15 minutes had passed, I performed the process of resending the verification email address, and what do you know, I received the verification email.

I verified to ensure the verification email was legit and from GoDaddy. After clicking the link and waiting for 15 minutes, my domains’ status was updated and set to Active.

Atlas, I’m home free from this verification process for at least one year without losing a domain.

Keep your contact information updated to stay in compliance with ICANN, or else…

Unlike some domain owners, I’m fortunate not to have lost one domain throughout this monumental fiasco.

I feel for the business owners who do not have a clue about the verification process and may lose their domain due to inaction and ineffective communication on GoDaddy’s behalf.

GoDaddy can improve its verification process both in email communications and its internal system for managing this process to limit the risk of phishing scams, losing domains, and service disruptions due to domains being dropped.

One lesson to take from this is to consistently check your account, whether daily, weekly, or monthly.

In addition, keep your contact information up to date. If you don’t, you’re only asking for the costly lesson of a lifetime in losing your domain.