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Deven Patel

Founder, Alter.comEstablished Member
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Hi all,

I wanted to introduce a new premium domain marketplace we just launched called Alter. I would love to hear your thoughts! As the world’s largest community of domainers, your feedback would be invaluable.

Let me introduce myself. Although I’m new to NamePros, I’ve been around the block. I’ve been buying and selling domains for my own startup ideas for over 20 years. As a serial entrepreneur, I founded a number of startups across various industries like marketing, web hosting, social networking, blogging, and SaaS. This experience has helped me understand how indispensable a brand name is to a business.

Most new entrepreneurs don’t think twice about their company name. Our goal is to change that! A brand name literally has the power to make or break their business. This is more true today than ever before now that there are countless alternatives to every product or service imaginable. Sure, every business may have their own world-changing differentiator but from the outside they all look the same at which point the main differentiator ends up becoming their brand name. In a world full of distractions, we no longer have the attention span to thoroughly research what we buy so we rely on our emotions. This is why large businesses like Apple and Amazon spend billions on their “brand” alone because they understand that customer perception is everything.

Anyway, I noticed that most marketplaces that exist today are focused more on the seller rather than the buyer. Our goal is to reverse the equation and prioritize buyers because I think they are the key to success in any industry. The domain industry is no exception. Without buyers, there’s no money. This is why we’ve made it our mission to help entrepreneurs succeed!

And what’s with the 30-35% commission rate most of these marketplaces are charging? Unless they’re doing more work than a human broker, I don’t think anything over the industry average of 15-20% is warranted. We’re changing that. Alter has one of the lowest rates in the industry, an all-inclusive 10% commission fee when a name sells. There are no other fees or restrictions.

What do you think? Are we on the right track or barking up the wrong tree?

Deven
This was a promoted post.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
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@Deven Patel I just noticed that another name https://alter.com/names/nutrogy.com has exactly the same logo symbol as my name https://alter.com/names/nexiny.com I was wondering is that allowed?

Nice catch! It's taken care of now. We updated the logo for Nutrogy and have sent a warning to the designer responsible.

I've been wondering this for some time. How do you keep track of all these logos, and be sure a logo is not identical to other logos on Alter (or elsewhere on the net). Thanks for your question, @NameWell

Unfortunately, there's no easy way to solve this problem without dedicating additional resources to it. For now, these are rare occurrences so it's best to tackle them on a case by case basis.

There will always be people trying to game the system. The dark side of humanity I suppose. In fact, over the last few months I've come across so many more types of people trying to exploit loopholes than I had originally anticipated. I'm beginning to see why our competitors charge so much commission. Inefficiencies add a lot of unnecessary cost.
 
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How does GoDaddy register approved names we delay to register? I only use their evaluation after I've registered a name (and that's for EMDs) not before I reg it.

I know GD track names when you visit their sites for search and register the good names you search (some will call this stealing), but is it also possible they are doing it for Brandable names?

This is the second Brandable name I delay (just 2-3 days also. I love to reg in bulk. Like 5 or more at a go) in registering but found in GoDaddy when I searched for it?

Have they infiltrated who.is or there is a backdoor in the Brandable market from where they see names accepted, weigh them and reg them? Or this is just a coincidence?
 
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I'm not so much for conspiracy theories, so I go with this one

this is just a coincidence?

If the name is good enough others will find it, so the best advice would be don´t wait to register it, if you want it
 
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I'm not so much for conspiracy theories, so I go with this one



If the name is good enough, then others will find it, so the best advice would be don´t wait to register it, if you want it
Yeah. That's what I used to do until I started doing bulk registration. It doesn't go beyond 4 days still.

The first was mild but this one hit me hard. They've already parked it. Is it from a random person? I honestly doubt it. It's possible GoDaddy is doing something other registrars have to take a look at.

Find a good name taken in multiple extensions, do a GoDaddy evaluation. Now check the name in a week. There is possibility that the mind behind such methods of business just can't stop there.
 
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There is an old thread about this issue here at NamePros and it is full of all sorts of more or less crazy conspiracy theories, but no smoking guns and I have personally checked lots of names without them being registered by GD - That names are registered with GD is probably not very suspicious as long as they by far are the world's largest registrar.
 
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You remember the topic or link to the thread? Thanks.
 
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I tried to find it but without success, maybe someone else can find the link (I´m sure there is more than one for it is an old recurring discussion) - This is a thread about Alter so let's stick to topics related to them
 
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I submitted 25 domains 2 days ago, and today 23 got rejected. It was a bit weird, as there were a couple of very nice names as well, but that's okay. Then I submitted 2 domains and both of them got rejected in 2 and 5 minutes. That's more than weird. I guess the people who are checking the submitted domains worked pretty fast today. Or maybe there's some issue at Alter and all domains get rejected automatically?
 
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I submitted 25 domains 2 days ago, and today 23 got rejected. It was a bit weird, as there were a couple of very nice names as well, but that's okay. Then I submitted 2 domains and both of them got rejected in 2 and 5 minutes. That's more than weird. I guess the people who are checking the submitted domains worked pretty fast today. Or maybe there's some issue at Alter and all domains get rejected automatically?
In my first submission like month ago, I got more than 80% of my names approved. After that 100% is rejected... mostly highly appraised names from other marketplaces with obvious value.
Maybe they have periods of rejecting all names or something like that. I really do like Alter marketplace concept but this is not so motivating.
I also experienced express rejections.
 
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I submitted 25 domains 2 days ago, and today 23 got rejected. It was a bit weird, as there were a couple of very nice names as well, but that's okay. Then I submitted 2 domains and both of them got rejected in 2 and 5 minutes. That's more than weird. I guess the people who are checking the submitted domains worked pretty fast today. Or maybe there's some issue at Alter and all domains get rejected automatically?

I submitted 25 domains yesterday and today I got 3 approved, the rest was rejected -- It´s a low accept rate, but they probably did´t like the rest and I appreciate the pace
 
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In the meantime 1 domain got accepted and 1 rejected, so it seems there's no problem, just my names sucked :)
 
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I have 29 accepted names from 69 submissions.
But the strange thing is that all accepted names were in the first submissions. Then 100% recent rejections.
Probably weird coincidence, nothing wrong with that. Brandables are definitely very subjective thing.
 
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Shortly I Start Using Alter Summitted About 25 Domains 6 of them Accepted Specially 5L Domains
 
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I guess then Alter's taste has altered :D I'm not sure what the real explanation is, but my best guess is that in the past they wanted to increase the inventory to a certain level (this doesn't mean they accepted junk names, but they accepted most good names), but now as they gained more experience on what sells, they narrowed down the types of names they accept.

Anyway, has anyone here sold any names on Alter? I only have a few names there (28, average listing time is just 3 months) to already have one.
 
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How does GoDaddy register approved names we delay to register? I only use their evaluation after I've registered a name (and that's for EMDs) not before I reg it.

I know GD track names when you visit their sites for search and register the good names you search (some will call this stealing), but is it also possible they are doing it for Brandable names?

This is the second Brandable name I delay (just 2-3 days also. I love to reg in bulk. Like 5 or more at a go) in registering but found in GoDaddy when I searched for it?

Have they infiltrated who.is or there is a backdoor in the Brandable market from where they see names accepted, weigh them and reg them? Or this is just a coincidence?

Nothing's impossible but this sounds like a coincidence. A large company like GoDaddy isn't going to risk damaging its reputation over something that's relatively small like this. Anyway, let's keep this thread focused. :)

I submitted 25 domains 2 days ago, and today 23 got rejected. It was a bit weird, as there were a couple of very nice names as well, but that's okay.

In my first submission like month ago, I got more than 80% of my names approved. After that 100% is rejected... mostly highly appraised names from other marketplaces with obvious value.
Maybe they have periods of rejecting all names or something like that. I really do like Alter marketplace concept but this is not so motivating.
I also experienced express rejections.

I submitted 25 domains yesterday and today I got 3 approved, the rest was rejected -- It´s a low accept rate, but they probably did´t like the rest and I appreciate the pace

I guess then Alter's taste has altered :D I'm not sure what the real explanation is, but my best guess is that in the past they wanted to increase the inventory to a certain level (this doesn't mean they accepted junk names, but they accepted most good names), but now as they gained more experience on what sells, they narrowed down the types of names they accept.

Our criteria does change slightly based on past sales and size of our inventory but for the most part it's still the same. What we do see however is that the quality of the names being submitted by a single seller declines over time (most sellers probably submit their best names first).

Anyway, we are humans after all and are prone to miss a few good names from time to time so if any of you feel strongly about a name that should have been accepted, please feel free to reach out to support. You can do this by simply replying to the email notification you receive with a few words on why you think the name's valuable. We would be happy to take another look. :)

Anyway, has anyone here sold any names on Alter? I only have a few names there (28, average listing time is just 3 months) to already have one.

I lost track but people have reported various sales on this thread. You just have to search through it.

Then I submitted 2 domains and both of them got rejected in 2 and 5 minutes. That's more than weird. I guess the people who are checking the submitted domains worked pretty fast today. Or maybe there's some issue at Alter and all domains get rejected automatically?

This happens when we're reviewing names at the same time as new submissions arrive. Because of our 25 domain submission limit, sellers often submit new names as soon as they receive email notifications for their existing submissions. This occurs when we're just about to finish reviewing the initial batch so the new submissions are now at the top of the queue and get reviewed much quicker. Basically, it's just a coincidence. :)
 
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Nothing's impossible but this sounds like a coincidence. A large company like GoDaddy isn't going to risk damaging its reputation over something that's relatively small like this. Anyway, let's keep this thread focused. :)









Our criteria does change slightly based on past sales and size of our inventory but for the most part it's still the same. What we do see however is that the quality of the names being submitted by a single seller declines over time (most sellers probably submit their best names first).

Anyway, we are humans after all and are prone to miss a few good names from time to time so if any of you feel strongly about a name that should have been accepted, please feel free to reach out to support. You can do this by simply replying to the email notification you receive with a few words on why you think the name's valuable. We would be happy to take another look. :)



I lost track but people have reported various sales on this thread. You just have to search through it.



This happens when we're reviewing names at the same time as new submissions arrive. Because of our 25 domain submission limit, sellers often submit new names as soon as they receive email notifications for their existing submissions. This occurs when we're just about to finish reviewing the initial batch so the new submissions are now at the top of the queue and get reviewed much quicker. Basically, it's just a coincidence. :)
Thank you very much for your detailed reply :) I'm very optimistic about Alter, and I'll keep submitting domains. I hope the platform is slowly turning into a strong competitor of the "giants", Brandbucket and Squadhelp :) By the way, are you planning to start a newsletter for sellers? Or there's already one and I don't know about it? :)
 
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Thank you very much for your detailed reply :) I'm very optimistic about Alter, and I'll keep submitting domains. I hope the platform is slowly turning into a strong competitor of the "giants", Brandbucket and Squadhelp :) By the way, are you planning to start a newsletter for sellers? Or there's already one and I don't know about it? :)

Thanks for the compliments and support!

Although we don't have a newsletter per se, we do send out important announcements via email when necessary. Our thought process is that people receive too many emails already, we don't want to add to the clutter unless we have something important to share. :)
 
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My first sale on Alter.com
Transaction went smoothly.
All payments received.
 

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My first sale on Alter.com
Transaction went smoothly.
All payments received.

Congrats and thanks for sharing!

Congrats - Nice to see a sale from Alter - Hopefully more will follow soon

We're doing everything we can to get more sales and appreciate your continued support. Also, not sure if you're aware but there are a bunch of other sales mentioned in this thread already. :)
 
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