GoDaddy fixes domain forwarding glitch

Glitch added random characters to URLs, resulting in 404 errors.

GoDaddy has fixed a domain name forwarding technical issue that led to 404 (not found) errors for some users.

Clients noted that a random string of numbers was being added to their domain names. For example, if you typed in DNW.com, it might forward to DNW.com/mdxoz. Since that doesn’t exist, it would result in a 404 error. (This is an example only. DNW.com was not impacted.)

Users noted that the random strings were added only some of the time.

Rich Merdinger, VP of Domains at GoDaddy, provided this statement to DNW:

Recently, a modest number of clients using domain forwarding experienced service interruptions. We found that mitigation security gear used to protect our clients would interrupt the forwarding request. We have worked with the security gear vendor to come up with a solution that enables domain forwarding while still protecting our clients.

The wording suggests that it was some sort of third-party DDoS mitigation technology that was adding the random characters.