What is going on with GoDaddy Auctions!

wwwweb said:

it has to be a very big player, and only one comes to mind.

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The only one that comes to my mind is Huge Domains, but I would be really surprised if that was Huge making all those early, automated (and dumb) bids.

wwwweb said:

But shouldn't everyone play by the same rules... Where did all those bids go?

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I would normally agree, except in this case I kind of a feel like an exception was justified because GD itself played a key role in the trouble, having rolled out this radically different appraisal system (which BTW is horrifically off in its values) without giving any heads up.

Nat Hunt said:

The only one that comes to my mind is Huge Domains, but I would be really surprised if that was Huge making all those early, automated (and dumb) bids.



I would normally agree, except in this case I kind of a feel like an exception was justified because GD itself played a key role in the trouble, having rolled out this radically different appraisal system (which BTW is horrifically off in its values) without giving any heads up.

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That is the risk and reward with automation.

Nobody should be holding anyone's hand, you place a bid, or set a computer to place a bid, you are agreeing to the same TOS, and rules we all bid by.

If your program goes insane, and bids on stuff you don't want, doesn't mean you get a mulligan.

But presumably their program didn't go insane. You might say GoDaddy's valuations went insane.

BTW who was the big player who refused to honor that 4L sale?

Nat Hunt said:

But presumably their program didn't go insane. You might say GoDaddy's valuations went insane.

BTW who was the big player who refused to honor that 4L sale?

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It was HD

Honestly .. the bid retractions are not a big deal (IF DONE WITH CLEAR AND FAIR NOTICE TO EVERYONE WELL BEFORE THE AUCTION ENDING) .. in fact I'd agree that because it was changes instigated by GoDaddy that all bids where they were the only bidder get voided affects and hurts nobody but GoDaddy.

In the cases where others bid .. the 2nd bidders should be contacted and given the choice of:

A- Having their bid applied but $5 cheaper to remove all "phantom" bids effects.
or
B- Removing their own bid as well effectively resetting the auction
(or would further reduce the amount by another $5 if more people were in the auction that wanted to keep their bids)

I think the larger issues is the lack of accountability .. they really need to post something at the top of each auction page .. and send out an email .. clearly explaining everything and what happened .. and what exactly they did to fix it.

Also .. considering how deceptively horrendous those valuations are and completely useless to those of us with a little sanity .. I'd be the first in line to hope they add an option to remove them from our searches ...

More importantly .. they really do need to explain their metrics .. they can hide behind their fine print and disclaimers all they want .. but as the sellers, they do owe it to us to some basic transparency ...


At the end of the day however .. these horrible metrics actually help domainers who buy domains based on our own judgement as it focuses other domainers' capital, time and attention on domains we don't want. That being said .. it really feels wrong .. and you have to eventually wonder what other legal yet unethical practices they'd be willing to implement that eventually will hurt us?

I've already lost thousands of dollars because of incorrect and misleading expiration dates of expiring domains at GD auctions .. again .. just given the run-around.


the worst part about it is that everyone I've talked to at GoDaddy is so nice .. lol .. but their policies and website systems are not .. maybe that's why they needed such nice people in customer service and sales reps!? lol

My two cents.

I've seen GoDaddy expired auctions Being showcased on Namebio and domaining etc etc?

And other sites.

Could it be they are simply doing a full court press for the auctions as far as exposure?

I am back in the office thanks for your patience. I looked into what happened. It was a customer using the API set up to bid automatically on certain things. Since we did not tell anyone in advance we were changing things on the auction no one knew to update their bidding strategy and we did cancel those bids. We did not think it was fair since the customers did not know. If anyone who thought they were outbid now wins the auction and does not want the domain please contact me directly and I will help you out. This is the first step in part of a larger test, thanks everyone for the feedback.

Joe Styler said:

I am back in the office thanks for your patience. I looked into what happened. It was a customer using the API set up to bid automatically on certain things. Since we did not tell anyone in advance we were changing things on the auction no one knew to update their bidding strategy and we did cancel those bids. We did not think it was fair since the customers did not know. If anyone who thought they were outbid now wins the auction and does not want the domain please contact me directly and I will help you out. This is the first step in part of a larger test, thanks everyone for the feedback.

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Boom!!! It's like I'm inside the mind of Godaddy! Lol

ikehook said:

Boom!!! It's like I'm inside the mind of Godaddy! Lol

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HEY! I said it first! lol .. BOOMBOOM

Ategy.com said:

These bids are possibly the result of an automated bidding bot of one of the more equipped domainers out there who didn't see this coming. Doesn't make much sense with the early bids though .. probably just poorly programmed.

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ikehook said:

... Ategy is correct ...

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ikehook said:

Ok I'm 90% sure this is what is happening...
Someone has their Api set up to auto bid on names with a certain valuation, but it's the old traffic valuation numbers. lol. It could have been for tracking purposes only, but now there's lot's of bids on stupid names

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@Joe Styler ... I don't think the issue here is actually what happened and the subsequent actions by GoDaddy (Something for the most part I think was indeed actually done fairly from what little I know), as myself, @ikehook, @wwwweb, @Nat Hunt and possibly a couple of others pointed out that it was likely HugeDomain's (or other big player's) API that got taken by surprise unprepared.


I think the bigger problem is lack of transparency and communication. Wasn't really the brightest idea to roll something like this out when their #1 auctions guy (you) was away at a conference.

More importantly .. the moment GoDaddy tinkered with the retracting a significant number of bids there should have been both emails sent to auction users as well as a small notice put up at the top of every auction page (like is done when a service outage is scheduled).

There are already quite a few bugs, unclear instructions/communications, incorrect pricing, and just outright inefficiencies on GD auctions and non-auction platforms. The auction platform itself is serious business for both buyers and sellers .. and so if even the illusion of broken integrity is given then that has serious effects both directly in the short term where people can't figure out what is going on .. as well in the long term where people would be less inclined to use a competitive auction system where it seems certain players are favoured (as clearly many people could think is the case here with HugeDomains' API). Whether that is true or not is irrelevant .. that offer you posted above "If anyone who thought they were outbid now wins the auction and does not want the domain please contact me directly and I will help you out." should have been posted front and center and offered to everyone along with an explanation as to what actually happened.


Same holds true for the actual valuation metrics. GoDaddy may legally be protected by the fine print saying your evaluations shouldn't be used. But legalities aside, if you look at them ethically and morally it's a pretty big fail. They really are so bad in some cases that it calls into question the entire valuation system. Maybe it helps us domainers in the short term when an end users sees a completely junk domain valuated at $1008 as it makes even our worst domains look like they are worth $5000 by comparison .. but I fear that in the longer term it actually reinforces the "Cyber-Squatter" argument that the industry is trying to paint a picture that we expect end-users to pay thousands of dollars even for junk domains. Obviously this topic is much deeper and I could go on and explain it much better .. but I'm pretty sure you get my point .. clarity, transparency and communication need to be taken more seriously. It has always been a problem with GoDaddy .. those things certainly can't be easy within a huge monster with many departments like GoDaddy, but it needs to be taken more seriously in general. Back to the valuations specifically .. which I'm not expecting the exact formula (although it would certainly be nice and prove GoDaddy's commitment to transparency/disclosure) but I think at least the basic ingredients should be public information just as is the case in the food industry.


That being said .. at the end of the day .. if nothing is fixed then I guess it's better for me as a buyer .. lol .. but I'm just about to put a bunch of domains up for sale (coincidentally any day now), and it concerns me that end users will not understand the value of my domains when placed into context with many of the utterly horrible valuations that we have seen the past week or so.


OK .. rant over .. lol .. I'm only pointing these things out because I really want things to be better ... I'm far from being among the biggest clients .. but with x,xxx domains I feel I probably represent a good number of domainers large and small. GoDaddy dominated in the end because you have the largest pool of domains available .. but just imagine if you domainated not simply because you're the largest, but instead because you were the largest AND offered your users the best possible experience. With the size and resources at GD's disposal, there is no reason I don't see why that couldn't be a reality if GoDaddy really was serious about it.

You will see more info on the valuation in the future. For now this is only some tests we are running with it, but we plan on talking more about it and the data behind it. Also right now we are only showing the values on expired domains, which means if you list your domains for sale there will be no valuation assigned to them. Thanks for the feedback. The more communication we have the better for sure. Normally I am around to answer things it was just bad timing with the domaining europe conference keeping me pretty busy day and night until I got back to the States. The conference was very good in case anyone is wondering if they should go to the next one.

Joe Styler said:

The more communication we have the better for sure.

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Then I will voice my opinion

The term "valuation" is misleading, and unethical.

A "valuation" is a legitimate estimation of the true value of an asset.

Godaddy's "valuation" is "what it *could* fetch from an end user".

But, since the vast majority of domains will never sell to an end-user, the value of the asset must be discounted accordingly. If one makes simple assumptions, the conclusion is that most domains have a valuation (as in real market value) in the $0 - $40 range. So no, Godaddy is not selling $1,500 assets for $20 or $200....It's just that Godaddy enjoys having a huge number showing next to the current bid price.

Ategy.com said:

The auction platform itself is serious business for both buyers and sellers .. and so if even the illusion of broken integrity is given then that has serious effects both directly in the short term where people can't figure out what is going on .. as well in the long term where people would be less inclined to use a competitive auction system where it seems certain players are favoured (as clearly many people could think is the case here with HugeDomains' API).

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Strange things are taking place at GD auctions from time to time, but there is usually no clear way for regular buyers to know when you're bidding and something is off, because there is no transparency at present. Somebody was allowed to cancel thousands of bids, as if it was no big deal. But it is a big deal. A regular seller can't cancel any bids. And these bids did not exist in a vacuum. They affected other regular bidders. And if regular buyers do not honor their bids, they are booted off the platform. I understand that GoDaddy may give some big spenders special privileges (just like big sellers play by different rules than regular sellers over at Afternic), but that makes it even more important to introduce transparency measures to protect us regular sellers who are affected by these big buyer's behaviors, as they have different bidding rights and systems provided to them.

The introduction of bidding handles would help a lot in this regards. NameJet, SnapNames, DropCatch, and Pheenix use them. GoDaddy should too. Is it really that technically difficult for the largest registrar in the world, in 2017, to peg bids to bidding handles? Spotting suspicious bidding patterns or activity is possible when that entity's bidding is connected to a fixed handle. But when all we see is "bidder 1" and "bidder 2" etc., it's impossible to discern anything at all. I have seen bidding handles being requested here at NP countless time, but why can't these be introduced? What kinds of bidding activity needs to be hidden at GD Auctions? When all of the other major bidding platforms today, NameJet, SnapNames, DropCatch, and Pheenix, are transparent enough to show who you're bidding against, why can't GoDaddy do the same?

Joe Styler said:

You will see more info on the valuation in the future. For now this is only some tests we are running with it, but we plan on talking more about it and the data behind it.

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Do you genuinely not think this is the type of communication and information disclosure that should be shared front and center and in detail with absolutely everyone who sees such valuations BEFORE (or at least AS) they are implemented. ESPECIALLY if they are only "some tests"?

Anyhow .. I'm smart enough to completely ignore these valuations (would be nice if I had the option of removing them .. lol), and quite frankly they probably do more good for me than bad as it takes away attention from some of the other domains I actually am interested in! lol

But it's stuff like that which send a very loud message to end users that GoDaddy does not care about transparency .. and to be honest .. I'm not quite sure how GoDaddy doesn't see this rather glaring fact?

It's likely one of those cases where there is a genuine to make a better product for customers, but the people involved are so close to the product during development, that they sometimes end up missing some important points and/or the bigger picture. I have no doubt in my mind that GoDaddy is genuinely trying to make improvements with nothing but the best of intentions .. but the unintended results make it seam otherwise.

Valuations should never be presented without at least some basic information on how they were made. ESPECIALLY if they are a test/beta that quite obviously is far from being accurate.

Arca said:

Somebody was allowed to cancel thousands of bids, as if it was no big deal. But it is a big deal.

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I agree with a lot of your points .. but honestly .. as long as they cancelled the bids within the specific parameters I mentioned above .. I don't think it really matters that they cancelled the bids. They implemented the changes rather poorly and it's not unreasonable for them to fix things considering it was mostly their fault.

HOWEVER ...

I do have a huge issue however with the way it was done and their excuses after the fact here as opposed to what you'd expect from a company that values their integrity .. which would have been to actively and aggressively notify everybody who visited the platform.

It comes across as very disingenuinuous when they offer to repair the damage for us after the fact when they've already been caught with their pants down. An auction house that manipulates bids (even for good reason as I think the case is here) without full and equal disclosure to everybody in an extremely timely manner has a communications breakdown issue and much more importantly leaves the door open for people to very fairly and understandably question their overall integrity of said company.

On multiple occasions I've had to contact my rep because I was double charged or wrongly billed for something ... and the response was always "oh .. they were already planning on getting to that soon". I'm not sure what it's like in the states, but where I live in Canada (more specifically Quebec) there are serious consumer protection laws in place for situations like that.

Joe Styler said:

We did not think it was fair since the customers did not know. If anyone who thought they were outbid now wins the auction and does not want the domain please contact me directly and I will help you out.

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Seriously @Joe Styler .. this is a great offer and the correct solution .. but don't you think it would be more appropriate to offer this clearly and openly to everyone on the GoDaddy platform itself where all this actually happened ... instead of a tiny thread in a relatively obscure sub-forum on a site GoDaddy officially has no affiliation at all with.

The way it is now it just feels like you're trying to quietly appease those who noticed instead of actually being committed to transparency, integrity and actually doing the right thing from the start the next time something like this happens.


At the end of the day I guess it makes no difference .. GoDaddy has the domains we want .. so we don't have much of a choice but to put up with the bugs, incorrect billings and lack of transparency ... I'm still a customer .. lol

The ironic part is that I'm pretty confident there is no deliberate evil conspiracies going on .. all my real conversations with real people at GoDaddy always leaves me with a confident feeling that the person I talked to really cares about my products and me as a customer. My big issue is pretty much with the buggy platform, bureaucracy, wrong/incomplete information/pricing/communication etc etc


Anyhow Joe .. sorry for the rant .. but I'm just saying it exactly how it really is .. glad you had a good trip!