advice Strange Afternic situation - had 0 sales in a month (7K names)

[twiki]

Now this is quite weird and I have seen nothing like it.

I'm getting offers and sales each other day at Dan where I park my domains. So things are good there.

But on the other hand, I had zero sales in the last 30 days at Afternic with arond 7K names listed. Nothing appears wrong technically, they also show up on GD, what on earth is going on? (scratching head)

My next step is to move to offer only at Afternic cause this is what I use at Dan and see what happens.

But anyway, 7 k names, out of which 4.5 K are coms and the rest a mix of .co, net and org. I know their pricing is alright, this is also reason why I get a lot of offers at Dan (got 5 today and accepted 3).

Any tips appreciated!

 

[Windoms]

I'm pretty sure this is it because of the wild variation cycle in sales. You get no sales for 2-3 weeks then all of the sudden they start pouring.

They have huge exposure, but even larger inventory. This is the reason for the low STR. For each buyer/domain needed, there might be 5000 domains competing for the same sale.

I suspect this has only increased lately due to the pandemic. And combined with the higher threshold at buys and drop catch, it becomes an entry barrier too high for all newcomers today.

I came late to the party (just a few years ago), but I guess right now there are no seats left, even at the small corner table.

On Godaddy, you should always set country to US, the domain management page has features that arent available on international websites.

On US website, if you search for "veryhighly".
The exact match for sale .com appears first.

Followed by first section "alternative suggestions". Very sharp alternatives, very different from the ones on canadian godaddy @urlurl , seems like its a whole different algorythm that they've only deployed on US godaddy.

Then second section "all extensions". Other handreg tlds.

Then the third section
"Premium domains"
Alternative premium domains for sale.

45day cycle theory doesn't affect anything on US website @twiki , your exact match domain always shows first in .com.

 

[blogspotter]

I really don't understand this. It takes me a fraction of a second to upload my updated list at Dan. Don't see where the pain in the neck is.

Furthermore, my buyers are 95% US-based so I care little about localization. Everyone else is generally a non-payer in my case (including China, Israel etc). Germans are alright but they understand English.

Third, Sedo has only sold ONE domain for me valued 80EUR. Waste of time.

I appreciate your comment though.

I have a very small portfolio. Maybe about 200.
Now I have about 800 other junk domains that I got from promos, like .realty and 99 cent .co but have only about 200 some good domains.

I sold 2 names in November for a little over 7000 and already sold one in December for 4000
All on SEDO.
Credit where credit is due.

 

[wwwweb]

Same situation here, afteric has a constant sell stream for me, something has changed in past 30 days or so, it's a ghost town thru afternic. Other channels are selling thru at similar %, but afternic has stalled.

Uni integration?

 

[Pairadice]

Theories:
1) A lower sell thru rate at GD and higher at DAN could indicate that people are seeing your domain on GD but then they go to your landing page and make an offer, probably to save money. If they make a deal w/you on DAN, then theres no reason to buy the same domain through afternic, so that would decrease your sell thru rate on there.

2) Don't expect GD to be the main advertising for your domains.. they are just one avenue.. most important thing I would think is whether fast transfer is enabled.. end users and investors can do keyword searches to find domains, but there's no way to control how your results are showing on there. Are you expecting them to single out one person's domains and highlight only those every day, then everyone else would have the same concern about their results not showing. There's too many sellers for one person's domains to show at the top every day for every keyword.

 

[twiki]

Theories:
1) A lower sell thru rate at GD and higher at DAN could indicate that people are seeing your domain on GD but then they go to your landing page and make an offer, probably to save money. If they make a deal w/you on DAN, then theres no reason to buy the same domain through afternic, so that would decrease your sell thru rate on there.

2) Don't expect GD to be the main advertising for your domains.. they are just one avenue.. most important thing I would think is whether fast transfer is enabled.. end users and investors can do keyword searches to find domains, but there's no way to control how your results are showing on there. Are you expecting them to single out one person's domains and highlight only those every day, then everyone else would have the same concern about their results not showing. There's too many sellers for one person's domains to show at the top every day for every keyword.

This is solid advice, thank you. I am aware, but it always helps to get more clarity.

As to countering the low sell through rate, I'm gonna put BIN everywhere.

 

[Pairadice]

As to countering the low sell through rate, I'm gonna put BIN everywhere.

That and use the power of google, bing, facebook, brandable marketplaces, etc. to advertise.

GD may be promoting different domains and stuff or maybe they changed their algorithm. Namebright gained a ton of domains this year, see registrarowl.com. Prices for renewals will soon be going up. Those factors may or may not have anything to do with this. Therefore we need to adapt by becoming less dependent on any one source of advertising. At this point we can't assume that GD will promote our domains at all, they actually don't have any obligation to do so other than their fast transfer thing so that your domain will show up when people search at their registrar.

 

[twiki]

That and use the power of google, bing, facebook, brandable marketplaces, etc. to advertise.

GD may be promoting different domains and stuff or maybe they changed their algorithm. Namebright gained a ton of domains this year, see registrarowl.com. Prices for renewals will soon be going up. Those factors may or may not have anything to do with this. Therefore we need to adapt by becoming less dependent on any one source of advertising. At this point we can't assume that GD will promote our domains at all, they actually don't have any obligation to do so other than their fast transfer thing so that your domain will show up when people search at their registrar.

Yep, agreed, and I have my own plans of expanding in this line / other channels. I have long used my own landers, and I have some ideas as to how to expand things a bit.

However my greatest strength still relies in sourcing, and I'm gonna improve that constantly. If you get the best / wanted domains, perhaps with traffic, it's far easier to sell. Hard to acquire though, but again this would be the direction I'm going into. Anyway each domainer is different.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

From Canada your VeryHighly is at the top.
If there is an algorithmic change it clearly could alter things fast.
I had not realized that repricing changes ordering for awhile, good to know.
Does anyone know how traffic to Afternic has changed over last year?
Bob

 

[oldtimer]

Does anyone know how traffic to Afternic has changed over last year?
Bob

This is just a guess:

This might have something to do with the Google algorithm updates.

I have noticed that some domains have been getting indexed in Google under the different platforms that are part of the Afternic network and so some end users might have been finding the domains by clicking on the corresponding links for them in Google results and perhaps some of the updates at Google (specially the most recent ones) have changed those search results around making some of them less visible hence cutting down on some of the traffic to Afternic. (but as I already said this is just a guess)

IMO

 

[twiki]

This is just a guess:

This might have something to do with the Google algorithm updates.

I have noticed that some domains have been getting indexed in Google under the different platforms that are part of the Afternic network and so some end users might have been finding the domains by clicking on the corresponding links for them in Google results and perhaps some of the updates at Google (specially the most recent ones) have changed those search results around making some of them less visible hence cutting down on some of the traffic to Afternic. (but as I already said this is just a guess)

IMO

If this is true, it is going to have a huge impact on Afternic sales. I mean, not a momentary thing.

 

[oldtimer]

If this is true, it is going to have a huge impact on Afternic sales. I mean, not a momentary thing.

Can't say for sure, as I said it's just an educated guess, needs to be researched further.

You can google some of your domains in quotes to see who is advertising them. (do it for those with less competition so that you can see them on the first page of the search results)

IMO

 

[bmugford]

In the U.S. when I search GoDaddy for veryhighly, I see the .com with the Buy It Now at top.

Premium Domain
veryhighly.com
Call (480) 366-3343 for buying assistance
+$17.99/yr $4,799.00

I see the same.

I also see it #1 on Afternic for the same search.

I did notice on GD auctions though, when you search for a term you often find a lot of unrelated extensions first, even if it is an exact search with extension included. I assume they are registries paying GoDaddy a premium for that placement or something.

Brad

 

[twiki]

I did notice on GD auctions though, when you search for a term you often find a lot of unrelated extensions first, even if it is an exact search with extension included. I assume they are registries paying GoDaddy a premium for that placement or something.

Brad

Correct and has been reported in this thread. I also see the same, but not for every term, only the lucrative ones.

 

[bmugford]

Correct and has been reported in this thread. I also see the same, but not for every term, only the lucrative ones.

I noticed this quite a while ago. I don't think it is a recent change.

It certainly is not good for domain owners to have, what many people would consider, inferior options listed first.

It is not really good for potential end users either. It is basically offering them options they don't want first, and burying an option they are more likely to be looking for.

Brad

 

[ecomslice]

Oh this is very bad.. I have just tried searching on Godaddy and I confirm what you have noticed!

I searched for keyword VeryHighly and instead of showing the the exact match .com (my domain) on top Godaddy is showing domains in the following order:

1. veryhighly.co.uk
2. veryhigh.co.uk
3. veryhighly.club
4. trulyhighly.co.uk
5. veryhighly.tech
6. very-highly.com
7. veryhighly.live
8. veryhighly.com <-- Finally!

Really Godaddy?! instead of showing closest variations in .com GD put .tech .live & .club first! they even put the hyphenated .com version before my domain!

I don't understand why they are doing this, it seems they are more interested in selling domains for $0.9 than taking a 20% commission on 4 figure sales.

if you were curious from the Philippines it shows this . doesn't surprise me Godaddy hurts us further.

veryhighly net - 15usd
allhighly com - 12 usd
veryhighly club - 1 usd
veryhighly org - 10 usd
veryhighly tech - 5 usd
veryhighly info - 3 usd
veryhighly live - 2 usd
very-highly com - 12 usd
veryhighly co - 12 usd
highly ph -109 usd
gethighly com 12 usd
veryhighly com - yours / your price
thehighly ph - 109 usd
heyhighly com - 12 usd
veryhighly xyz 1 usd
veryhighly vip - 7 usd
etc..
etc... etc... .

yep , def not good for us or the overall domain industry. imho


NOTE : im proud today to announce I have only 2 domains with godaddy, was over 1000 just last year . YAY .

 

[oldtimer]

I noticed this quite a while ago. I don't think it is a recent change.

It certainly is not good for domain owners to have, what many people would consider, inferior options listed first.

It is not really good for potential end users either. It is basically offering them options they don't want first, and burying an option they are more likely to be looking for.

Brad

I wonder if that applies for GoDaddy's owned domain inventory too as far as showing up down the list.

This could also open the door for preferential treatment for certain people as far as their domains showing up on top of the results.

I like GoDaddy, but I can't ignore the lack of transparency in the way that they operate.

I am glad that they are updating their system, I hope that they decide to include more stats for domainers.

IMO

 

[AEProgram]

I have a very small portfolio. Maybe about 200.
Now I have about 800 other junk domains that I got from promos, like .realty and 99 cent .co but have only about 200 some good domains.

I sold 2 names in November for a little over 7000 and already sold one in December for 4000
All on SEDO.
Credit where credit is due.

Do you do paid promotion there or just a standard listing?

 

[bmugford]

This could also open the door for preferential treatment for certain people as far as their domains showing up on top of the results.

I have had the same concerns since GoDaddy entered the domainer business by buying large domain portfolios.

I have brought this concern up to various people at GoDaddy in the past and been told they don't receive preferential treatment. I don't have any info that proves different.

Brad

 

[alcy]

Now this is quite weird and I have seen nothing like it.

I'm getting offers and sales each other day at Dan where I park my domains. So things are good there.

But on the other hand, I had zero sales in the last 30 days at Afternic with arond 7K names listed. Nothing appears wrong technically, they also show up on GD, what on earth is going on? (scratching head)

My next step is to move to offer only at Afternic cause this is what I use at Dan and see what happens.

But anyway, 7 k names, out of which 4.5 K are coms and the rest a mix of .co, net and org. I know their pricing is alright, this is also reason why I get a lot of offers at Dan (got 5 today and accepted 3).

Any tips appreciated!

might be good to know what we are comparing to... what were yer avgs b4?

also I think Nov dec are slower months for domainers... on avg of course...its always about avgs.

 

[alcy]

DAN is a terrible marketplace
i have a record of failed transaction at DAN
this mean a lot of time wasted with guys who a re just browsing with no strong intent to buy

my best sales come from SEDO/Afternic at Bin, with a few negotiated sales that close in 80% of the request

it's a business where converion is a major factor,
so if you can increase your annual sales by 20-50% will you switch to another markektplace

DAN drive almost zero traffic to your domains, you get type-in traffic which is not the case of AFTERNIC/SEDO

this last 2 years my sales at AFTERNIC came from domain who have a SEDO lander, so it's not type-in traffic

he said he uses dan landers
not just dan marketplace

but even then it does not do well for many...plus above avg nonpayers for what does sell.

 

[alcy]

Pray. It always works.

now we know how u had success in domains

ttnx

 

[alcy]

there are so many bugs with the Godaddy/afternic merge

Show attachment 176165

can you check if you see something similar in your afternic account,
by the way,
when you see a "No" in Fast Transfer = Much Less visibility of your domain,
it will not be displayed in all their partners marketplaces

Afternic is unable to provide any solution to increase the visibility of your domains,
they have just too much of a big pie and they just don't care

the only solution if found was to park all my domains at SEDO, and my sales at SEDO are just fine + i know exactly how much people viewed each offers

afternic bugs always existed. in huge numbers and no fixes. it has nothing to do with gd merge

 

[alcy]

3) Something else. Too frequent edits.

I kept tweaking prices and trying discounts, different min offer etc since October. The result hasn't been good cause each time you edit a domain, it pushes the domain at the bottom of the list in GD as it resets the 45 days time span every time you do that. So it has been at the bottom most of the time.

Domains are good, cause they kept selling at Afternic the whole year. And they sell quite well at Dan. So it's neither domain or the lack of luck.

the gd cycle is 90 days.
if u list on gd
should be same if u list there via afternic

 

[alcy]

That and use the power of google, bing, facebook, brandable marketplaces, etc. to advertise.

GD may be promoting different domains and stuff or maybe they changed their algorithm. Namebright gained a ton of domains this year, see registrarowl.com. Prices for renewals will soon be going up. Those factors may or may not have anything to do with this. Therefore we need to adapt by becoming less dependent on any one source of advertising. At this point we can't assume that GD will promote our domains at all, they actually don't have any obligation to do so other than their fast transfer thing so that your domain will show up when people search at their registrar.

not sure what u are trying to say but gd auctions not sedo or afternic is where most sales happen...and our domains have best market exposure potential... of course for non useless domains with potential. goes without saying

not listing on gd..and they gd is best... is domainer suicide.. sales wise etc..

 

[oldtimer]

When I search for "Super Encrypted" in Afternic with the default .com as extension it says in the top green area "sorry no match found", but it is showing up right below at the top of the list with other domains. ( it also shows up as available for make offer if I search for "SuperEncrypted"

Super Encrypted / .com is one of my domains

IMO