GoDaddy.com Topped Super Bowl Advertisers Online

GoDaddy.com, which managed to get its racy ad approved by ABC censors only days before the Super Bowl, saw the largest surge in Web traffic among advertisers during the national football championship, a Web metrics firm says.

Owned by domain registrar Go Daddy Software Inc. of Scottsdale, Ariz., the site's traffic during the game spiked more than 1,500 percent, compared to the average of the four previous Sundays, achieving 439,000 unique visitors for the day, ComScore Networks reported this week.

Coming in second was annual favorite among Super Bowl watchers, Budweiser.com, which saw its traffic increase more than 500 percent on game day. Pepsi's pairing with pop star P. Diddy and actor Jackie Chan drove a nearly 300 percent increase traffic to its site. Cadillac's Escalade ad, driven by the car's use as a "trophy" for the Steeler's MVP, saw a traffic increase of more than 250 percent.

The risqu theme used by GoDaddy.com sent site traffic soaring 991 percent following the first airing of the ad, which once again featured a breaking strap on the tight-fitting top of busty model Candice Michelle. When aired again during the second half of the game, traffic to GoDaddy.com increased a staggering 1,148 percent.

The approved ad was the 14th submitted by Go Daddy, which paid $2.4 million to air it on the Super Bowl, which was broadcast Feb. 5 in Detroit.

Last year's ad gained an inordinate amount of attention after the Fox network cancelled a second showing, because of complaints from NFL executives. A USA Today poll ranked the Go Daddy commercial as the fourth most liked and disliked ads of 2005.

Privately held Go Daddy manages 11.6 million domains, according to the company.