Afternic - Official Thread

[GoDaddy]

Hello NamePros!
By popular demand, we have launched a dedicated feedback thread for Afternic, the GoDaddy-owned domain name marketplace.

We have created this thread as a way for you to tell us what works, what doesn't work, and what features you'd like to see at Afternic (please be constructive with your feedback). We're looking forward to hearing from the domain investment community to help us shape the future of Afternic.

We will also be sharing Afternic product updates in this thread.

Please note that this thread is not meant for support. Please email our support team at [email protected] for assistance.

 

[Maged Khatab]

Today I tried to bulk update my portfolio using a spreadsheet and I noticed the following:

- It was quicker as it took almost half the time to update my portfolio.
- Bulk CamelCasing update is now working by using the spreadsheet.

Thank you @GoDaddy Please keep working on fixing and improving things.

 

[Future Sensors]

I'm so proud today of the direction Afternic is going.

Thanks for sharing this with us @Maged Khatab.

 

[Name2go]

I am bulk checking Nameservers from time to time.

A few of my profitable Cashparking names, setup in my Afternic account with Nameservers ns1/2.afternic.com, show the Nameserver settings ns1/2.namefind.com. Is this okay @GoDaddy ?

And BTW, instead of parking pages with ads, these names are responding either as blank pages with the well-known scheme https:// sld.tld/ lander or as BIN pages.

 

[davidc1]

Today I tried to bulk update my portfolio using a spreadsheet and I noticed the following:

- It was quicker as it took almost half the time to update my portfolio.
- Bulk CamelCasing update is now working by using the spreadsheet.

Thank you @GoDaddy Please keep working on fixing and improving things.

yes that's quicker here, but what would better is to redirect to cart within less than 30 seconds...

 

[Sufyaan]

I'm stuck in afternic almost 25 domains that i recently purchased not solving in afternic, all the domains i have added afternic txt record and also updated nameserver but these all landing pages showing only one line of word "GET THIS DOMAIN" in Black box.

I have selected custom lander page. I have sent many emails to afternic but nothing solving, where i go to list domains? and i know most of the buyers on afternic, looks like Godaddy killing domaining.

 

[Future Sensors]

A few of my profitable Cashparking names, setup in my Afternic account with Nameservers ns1/2.afternic.com, show the Nameserver settings ns1/2.namefind.com. Is this okay @GoDaddy ?

This is a "lame delegation" issue with Afternic's ns1 and ns2 nameservers, and has been reported extensively. Those nameservers only respond authoritatively for Godaddy's own NameFind portfolio domains, but not for Afternic domains. It's just another longstanding issue that remains unresolved.

As a perfect workaround, use ns5 and ns6 instead. These nameservers don't have that issue. All six Afternic nameservers respond with the exact same A record and IP addresses. You can select the right lander (cashparking in your case) from your Afternic dashboard.

 

[DN_Hunter]

Today I tried to bulk update my portfolio using a spreadsheet and I noticed the following:

- It was quicker as it took almost half the time to update my portfolio.
- Bulk CamelCasing update is now working by using the spreadsheet.

Thank you @GoDaddy Please keep working on fixing and improving things.

Just tried this with a bulk file containing about 800 names. I also CamelCased a few of the names.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the bulk file get processed in under 2 minutes (might have been even faster -- I wasn't prepared for how fast it happened)! And the 5 random names I added the CamelCasing were updated for the lander page. That is a major boost in bulk-file update performance! Thank You!

NOTE: I did not receive the message in my inbox that "Your bulk upload request is complete" -- I haven't seen one of those since about Oct 24th. Not a big concern for me -- just wanted to point that out in case there's something from preventing that message from being delivered.

 

[DomainRecap]

- Bulk CamelCasing update is now working by using the spreadsheet.

Whoa! Please let me now the exact procedure for this.

Nevermind, I just downloaded the Afternic Template and it's not going to work for me, as it requires the Minimum Offer field be populated, which I've been slowly updating on Afternic all weekend.

So it looks like Manual for me.

 

[Future Sensors]

Whoa! Please let me now the exact procedure for this.

Just use the normal CSV upload procedure for this. If your CSV contains domains in CamelCase format, casing of these domains will be updated.

 

[DomainRecap]

Just use the normal CSV upload procedure for this. If your CSV contains domains in CamelCase format, casing of these domains will be updated.

Yep, but I've been editing and updating prices on Afternic all weekend and don't have a file that properly lines up with CamelCase, as it's all old data from Dan at my old prices, complete with delisted/sold domains.

I could do a hack and slash in Excel and match up the columns from 3 data files, but I'll leave that for a bit later.

I just wish you could upload a file with the "Domain Name" field in CamelCase and leave everything else blank. That's what I initially thought this was, that we got access to the broker's "CamelCase Updater".

But alas...

 

[Future Sensors]

I could do a hack and slash in Excel and match up the columns from 3 data files, but I'll leave that for a bit later.

It's called the Afternic Effect: A phenomenon where Sellers find themselves becoming intimately attached to their domain listings as they navigate and compensate for the platform’s bugs and incomplete features. By putting in the extra effort to manually handle tasks that should be automated or straightforward, Sellers end up with a heightened sense of ownership and investment in their listings—whether they want to or not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect

 

[End Game]

I moved my domains from Dan to Afternic a month ago.

Someone said when you check Lead Center, also click on the more link.

When I checked the lead center, nothing showed. Then I clicked the "more" link and
this shows in this order over the past two days....

"Lead created"

"Status updated to Qualifying - Attempting to engage with the buyer"

"Email sent to buyer"

"Email sent to buyer"

"Buyer call logged"

Hoping this is a positive and bid comes thru.

 

[GoDaddy]

Never used Afternic intentionally before. It was always due to GoDaddy acquiring Uniregistry and Dan that I got to experience the woes of being on the Afternic platform as a seller. As a buyer, I was less concerned about the lack of bells and whistles and I did use Afternic for that purpose without any issues.

That being said, after deciding to give Afternic a test run for 30 days, I have to say I am not yet disappointed. The transfer of domains from Dan went through without any major issues, although I had to hand-verify with DNS settings a dozen domains.

In the two weeks or so since, I've had approximately 10 leads and one sale. The latter is important because it came from the now defunct Dan.com! I will address this fun incident separately but for now I have to say a couple of things about Afternic support.

Emailing support is a slow process; the first reply email will affirm what my issue is. It's like telling your parents "I have a toothache" and instead of taking you to the dentist they reply "from my understanding your tooth hurts, am I correct?" Past that point, ticket resolution might take 3-4 days.

In the case of a recent incident that involved 3 issues one of which was an ongoing sale, I decided to use the online chat at Afternic. After punching in my info and a brief "hello" I waited the better part of an hour before a reply came. Humorously, I said that perhaps I caught them on a lunch break. Once back, the customer rep was able to address my issues, after I verified myself - which is important. Vivi addressed my issues in real time and offered solutions and feedback. I did not feel that I was just a customer in line, as she spent a good 20 minutes resolving the issues on the spot for me. I highly commend her for the way she interacted with me and it wasn't hand-holding or patronizing. Of course, I let her do her job and at the end things were resolved faster than via an email.

Regarding Transaction Assurance they have improved a lot as well and it seems that a Dan "bot" runs in the background checking for domain transfer completion. Either that, or someone was working at 10pm confirming my actions to transfer out a domain!

Overall, I am going to display more patience and from my interactions with domain brokers at GoDaddy I am hopeful that the platform will improve more. E.g. where are the Dan filters to nail down different TLDs in one's portfolio?

Good work, Afternic.

Thanks for the feedback on this, Theo, we're glad the support team has helped you out! You'll be noticing more automation being added to the TA process as we continue bringing in more of Dan's TA infrastructure to Afternic.

Hello Afternic, Im facing problem to adding my few domains in my afternic account, when ever i try to add domains then error come and these domains can't be listed, why even these domains were listed in my afternic account but due to some reasons i removed these and try to re add after 2 days but now last from 7 days these are not listed, i have contacted support many time and they saying everytime use different browser clear cache and new incognito window etc.

But the reality is i have try to add these domains via different laptops, mobiles and even i have changed my interent provider but the same erro" These domains can't be listed" So that mean i can't add these domains in my afternic account so added these domains in my sedo account.

Support looks very uneducated everytime they told me Clear cache, new ignito window and i have told them everytime but i don't know, why they say same words again and again.

I read your thread , so i posted my problem here may be you can help me out to solve my this problem.

Hi @TheDomainsCollector, please feel free to DM us with more information and we'll connect with the support team to see what happened.

Did anyone else notice that when you use the Custom Lander with just a BIN (and no Make Offer or Lease) the prompt reads as such:

Pay the full $X,000 now to make it yours!

The "full"? What other part of the BIN would they pay?

That prompt is taken from the BIN + Make Offer/Lease to Own Lander scenario, where one option is to make an offer or take a lease, and the secondary option is to pay the "Full" amount right now.

Without either of those options present, this "full" part doesn't look or sound right.

Using the same "Call to Action" of a Lease to Own listing doesn't really make sense in a pure BIN listing and although I like the design of the Custom Lander better, I'm thinking the BIN lander might be better.

Hi @DomainRecap
As @Future Sensors said, this has been raised before and shared for consideration with the lander team. Let me check in with them.

Today I tried to bulk update my portfolio using a spreadsheet and I noticed the following:

- It was quicker as it took almost half the time to update my portfolio.
- Bulk CamelCasing update is now working by using the spreadsheet.

Thank you @GoDaddy Please keep working on fixing and improving things.

Hi @Maged Khatab
Well spotted! Yes, last week our Afternic team worked to switch the bulk upload system over to our new "pipes," resulting in much faster upload speed. We plan on adding a couple more features to bulk uploads, which have been requested throughout this thread.

One of those, as you spotted, is bulk CamelCasing. We'll add instructions for other readers on how to use it in a post below.

I moved my domains from Dan to Afternic a month ago.

Someone said when you check Lead Center, also click on the more link.

When I checked the lead center, nothing showed. Then I clicked the "more" link and
this shows in this order over the past two days....

"Lead created"

"Status updated to Qualifying - Attempting to engage with the buyer"

"Email sent to buyer"

"Email sent to buyer"

"Buyer call logged"

Hoping this is a positive and bid comes thru.

Hi @End Game
The most important tab from the Lead Center is the Needs Attention tab, but yes, check the All tab for a record of all inbound leads. Our brokerage team, including a core of former Uniregistry brokers, work tirelessly to move your sales from leads to sales, so best of luck with these active leads.

 

[GoDaddy]

Bulk CamelCasing is here! Thanks to @Future Sensors, @bmugford, @love4ever and more for requesting the feature.

Now, you can add CamelCasing to your domain name listings through Afternic's CSV file. Here's how:

1. If you haven't already, grab a copy of Afternic's portfolio management spreadsheet
2. Add your domain names. CamelCasing is supported in the Domain Name (REQUIRED) column. Important - if you just want to update your CamelCasing, you can leave all other columns of the spreadsheet blank.
3. Save your file as a CSV, and head to afternic.com/domains/add
4. Click "Upload a File" and add your CSV file
5. Make sure you've selected "Update" radio button option
6. Click "Add Domains"
7. Your CamelCasing domains will be active in your portfolio!

Here's a handy walkthrough video describing this process.

 

[DomainRecap]

Bulk CamelCasing is here!

1. Add your domain names. CamelCasing is supported in the Domain Name (REQUIRED) column. Important - if you just want to update your CamelCasing, you can leave all other columns of the spreadsheet blank.

This is quite interesting for me personally, as the Afternic spreadsheet states that the Minimum Price is REQUIRED for each domain, and from that, I thought a "Domain Names-only" import would error out.

If not, and a single column of CamelCase names is fine to update existing Afternic listings, then I'm in business!!

 

[NorthernDomains]

Hoping this is a positive and bid comes thru.

Prepare for disappointment. Many of those leads are dead ends, and the brokers can only do so much.

 

[Garet]

CSV Upload Experience

I decided to do a CSV upload today to get CamelCasing in place for all of my names. I am pleased to report that this worked as far as I can tell.

My first upload, though, seemed to stall out very early in the process. My active listings stalled out at 7. I was not comfortable waiting too long with almost all of my listings gone to see if it might progress. I debated whether to contact my rep right away or try another upload. I uploaded the exact same file and, thankfully, it uploaded quickly and completely.

It seems that all of my names at Dynadot needed to be opted in again for Fast Transfer. That's not a big problem but I'd not had that happen before. GoDaddy Fast Transfer requests are coming in now too.

My default lander setting is BIN. With the upload, ALL of my names are now set to BIN. The names that had been using Cashparking or Custom are all now using BIN. I've not had that happen before either. Uploads did not impact lander settings for me before today -- at least not that I'd noticed. I have names that do OK parking so I need to figure out the most efficient way to identify those and reset their landers.

And, as one would expect, I had names move to In Review that had been fine before.

As always with Afternic/GoDaddy, be happy with improvements but cautious with trusting implementations and anything new and unproven.

 

[bmugford]

So, I reached an agreement with a third party on a domain sale.

I tried to go via Afternic with the "Create Checkout Link" option.

It creates a Dan.com link for the buyer to check out. It does load the transaction.

I just want to make sure this is still a valid way to close transactions @GoDaddy.

Brad

 

[End Game]

Prepare for disappointment. Many of those leads are dead ends, and the brokers can only do so much.

I'm prepared. Hoping for an offer, but always the next one. Thanks

 

[GoDaddy]

This is quite interesting for me personally, as the Afternic spreadsheet states that the Minimum Price is REQUIRED for each domain, and from that, I thought a "Domain Names-only" import would error out.

If not, and a single column of CamelCase names is fine to update existing Afternic listings, then I'm in business!!

Hi @DomainRecap
That's correct. Any fields/columns you leave blank will not be updated. For example, you can update CamelCasing on 1,000 names, and update the floor price on just two of them by entering your new floor price. Any fields that are blank will not be updated.

So yes - a single column of CamelCase names will work for you!

So, I reached an agreement with a third party on a domain sale.

I tried to go via Afternic with the "Create Checkout Link" option.

It creates a Dan.com link for the buyer to check out. It does load the transaction.

I just want to make sure this is still a valid way to close transactions @GoDaddy.

Brad

Thanks, Brad. It's still a valid way to close a transaction - Afternic's team will be handling the TA process for you. We will be switching over to GoDaddy URLs later in the year.