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.

 

[DrJacoby]

Visits stats definitely broken.

That's just standard GoDaddy best practices.

 

[Recons.Com]

That's just standard GoDaddy best practices.

The GD stat is completely accurate. What they mean to say is "at least" next to that number. I have checked with about 100 of my names and it is 100% correct. All of them had at least 0 visits in the period.

 

[kesen]

We found a serious problem. Your system has been unstable.
The domain name I added recently on afternic is synchronized to the godaddy.com search, but it is not synchronized at all in the namecheap.com or aliyun.com domain name market. This may be why the sales volume has dropped sharply now. If you ask me to provide an example, please check ElevenBit.com and Bakarra.com. The problem is that we have thousands of domain names. Godaddy need us to check them one by one?

 

[kesen]

Another problem is that your batch selection function is not available. When we click on the login page to change the current 3,500 domain names, nothing happens. However, if I only select 100 to modify, the operation is valid. Is the batch function just for show?

 

[Gabriel360]

Another problem is that your batch selection function is not available. When we click on the login page to change the current 3,500 domain names, nothing happens. However, if I only select 100 to modify, the operation is valid. Is the batch function just for show?

I reported this about 2 weeks ago when I was trying to bulk-update my landing pages. But this is GoDaddy, so I'm not surprised to learn that they haven't fixed it yet.

Similarly, I changed my default landing page setting in the general account settings so that new domain additions would automatically reflect that lander but Afternic still uses the old Lander as the default. So I have to manually change the Lander for each new addition at the point of adding them.

It's frustrating but, again, this is GoDaddy where every bug is just a feature you don't have to pay for...yet.

 

[Chris Co]

We found a serious problem. Your system has been unstable.
The domain name I added recently on afternic is synchronized to the godaddy.com search, but it is not synchronized at all in the namecheap.com or aliyun.com domain name market. This may be why the sales volume has dropped sharply now. If you ask me to provide an example, please check ElevenBit.com and Bakarra.com. The problem is that we have thousands of domain names. Godaddy need us to check them one by one?

Thanks for mentioning this. I tried a few of my names outside of GoDaddy to see if fast transfer was working. Some names would come up as premium, others would simply say taken with no option to purchase, and yet they are all showing as FT active on afternic.

This is pretty bad.

 

[kesen]

I reported this about 2 weeks ago when I was trying to bulk-update my landing pages. But this is GoDaddy, so I'm not surprised to learn that they haven't fixed it yet.

Similarly, I changed my default landing page setting in the general account settings so that new domain additions would automatically reflect that lander but Afternic still uses the old Lander as the default. So I have to manually change the Lander for each new addition at the point of adding them.

It's frustrating but, again, this is GoDaddy where every bug is just a feature you don't have to pay for...yet.

Yes, they have many many problems all the time. In the past few years, we didn’t dare to change the domain name casually because we were worried that problems would affect sales.

 

[kesen]

Thanks for mentioning this. I tried a few of my names outside of GoDaddy to see if fast transfer was working. Some names would come up as premium, others would simply say taken with no option to purchase, and yet they are all showing as FT active on afternic.

This is pretty bad.

Yes, our domains synchronized to Godaddy Search is normal, but can not find in other place, like Namecheap, Aliyun(Biggest in China). Hope they can fix this problems.

 

[Future Sensors]

@kesen Is Aliyun (Alibaba Cloud) part of the Afternic Partner Network? It's not listed in the overview at https://help.afternic.com/s/article/Afternic-Partners

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

This is what GoDaddy wants you to believe. But it's majorly amplified. Google-indexed domains aren't there for show, even if you don't gain PPC revenue from them. I already explained the ramifications.

Another reason why Atom seems to have been creeping up Afternic in recent months. My prediction: it will be the next GD acquisition.

Atom is too big a whale to swallow. The ship has sailed.

More likely Brandbucket will be absorbed into the Gd family and be rebranded as 'Godaddy brandables' in order to compete with Atom.

 

[Future Sensors]

GoDaddy Search now shows a "personalized headline" that's based on the search query (domain redacted, but obviously related to coffee).

 

[Future Sensors]

@GoDaddy This may increase the risk of UDRP.

 

[NameGroove]

Atom is too big a whale to swallow. The ship has sailed.

More likely Brandbucket will be absorbed into the Gd family and be rebranded as 'Godaddy brandables' in order to compete with Atom.

That would actually be good news. Even GD running BB would be an improvement. At the very least names would be back on Afternic providing an approx 25% lift to sales. Nothing BB could or will do will match that sort of sales lift.

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

That would actually be good news. Even GD running BB would be an improvement. At the very least names would be back on Afternic providing an approx 25% lift to sales. Nothing BB could or will do will match that sort of sales lift.

So one Gd acquisition that almost everyone would welcome lol

 

[Future Sensors]

The generated slogan is different each time for the same domain.

 

[Jannes]

 

[Gabriel360]

So one Gd acquisition that almost everyone would welcome lol

GD doing something that'll benefit domain investors?

Definitely not gonna happen.

 

[GoDaddy]

I have been noticing an issue the past few weeks where my afternic listed domains will have a lower price even though the price is correct in afternic domain manager. I keep getting compliance notifications from Atom that the domains are not priced correctly in Afternic, but when I check they are priced correct.

When I search on Godaddy, the domains are NOT priced the same as in my afternic account. For instance, I have domains priced $3299 but when I search on Godaddy the price is $3099. I have tried resubmitting the listings but nothing.

This is a problem because when the buyer goes to checkout it will show the lower price and not the correct price. The buyer should not be able to purchase a domain with a different price than what's in the account.

What is going on? Why does it take so long for the price to update in the system? It should be instant.

Hi @enterscope,
Thanks for highlighting this. It sounds like, in this instance, these domain prices haven't synced fully. Could you DM 2-3 specific domain examples showing this issue? This will help our team investigate why your price changes aren't fully propagated.

Show attachment 277147

@GoDaddy has this "Domain Insights" box that is (sometimes) displayed for exact matches at GoDaddy ever been conversion tested? This must hurt most domains, especially since the "Visits:" is just completely wrong. I checked for a domain that has afternic nameservers and displays 1037 visits there.

Show attachment 277148

For the love of god please remove this again or make it optional in the Afternic dashboard.

Hi @domainer8888,
GoDaddy research showed visitors were asking for more information to assist their aftermarket buying decisions. We put this to the test with a structured experiment throughout October by using Domain Insights, inspired by Auctions, as an added data point on GoDaddy Search.

Our hypothesis was that by adding data insights like GoDaddy Auctions, we'd increase the conversion rate of aftermarket domains through GoDaddy search. Through a statistically significant experiment, we did increase the conversion rate.

Interestingly, we did tested two versions. 1: hide "zero" values, and 2: display "zero" values. Both increased conversions for aftermarket names, but displaying "zero" values performed the best, with the biggest increase in conversion rates in this statistically significant experiment.

 

[Future Sensors]

Hi @domainer8888,
GoDaddy research showed visitors were asking for more information to assist their aftermarket buying decisions. We put this to the test with a structured experiment throughout October by using Domain Insights, inspired by Auctions, as an added data point on GoDaddy Search.

Our hypothesis was that by adding data insights like GoDaddy Auctions, we'd increase the conversion rate of aftermarket domains through GoDaddy search. Through a statistically significant experiment, we did increase the conversion rate.

Interestingly, we did tested two versions. 1: hide "zero" values, and 2: display "zero" values. Both increased conversions for aftermarket names, but displaying "zero" values performed the best, with the biggest increase in conversion rates in this statistically significant experiment.

A similar comment applies here:

GoDaddy has no insight into "visitor" stats if the lander does not point to Afternic. Furthermore, these statistics do not add anything to non-domainers: the small business owners that GoDaddy is -or should be- targeting.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/afternic-official-thread.1295231/page-275#post-9402336

 

[Jannes]

How is "estimated monthly site traffic" calculated? Apparently lander visits have nothing to do with that number (usually 0).