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.

 

[Future Sensors]

Bulk LTO customization seems to have disappeared as of today.

 

[Mister Funsky]

Bulk LTO customization seems to have disappeared as of today.

Maybe this means the big rollout is coming sooner than later.

I've been biting my tongue while waiting on the new Godaddy/Dan/Afternic. They have been working/coding on it for a while...I have high expectations.

 

[phaethon]

Since the ns1/ns2 Afternic nameservers have "lame delegations" for all customer parked domains

I have experienced it recently, I set NS to NS1/NS2 and I got old Buy domains and Bodis pages for 5-6 names. Is there any way to fix this?

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Thanks for making the .bot extension listable on Afternic. I just confirmed it works.
(it is still not possible to list the recent Google extensions like .meme and .ing, though)

 

[411domains]

@GoDaddy - So...in addition to everything coming out of review being "Registrar Not Eligible," we also have to deal with everything that gets approved for Fast Transfer immediately going into review and then rinse & repeat?

What's the deal???

Note: The classic version had nowhere near half the problems we do now in the "Upgraded Afternic Experience."

 

[Maged Khatab]

Bulk LTO customization seems to have disappeared as of today.



Show attachment 258377

@GoDaddy Same here. It's a bit tedious to update LTO for every single domain now. Please fix this ASAP and it would be great if we could have the ability to set a default number of months for LTO like in Dan.com or have an LTO Bulk update option for the entire portfolio.

Thank you!

 

[Future Sensors]

I have experienced it recently, I set NS to NS1/NS2 and I got old Buy domains and Bodis pages for 5-6 names. Is there any way to fix this?

This appears to be something unrelated. Previously you could set the lander using the NS selection, but nowadays you can only set the lander type from the dashboard. Legacy choices based on NS were initially kept for people who were used to setting up the lander purely based on NS. All Afternic name servers continue to be supported and all provide the same A record(s) for your lander.

https://blog.afternic.com/lander-selection-redefining-your-use-of-afternic-landing-pages/

(Note that Afternic advises to set ns1/ns2 in their blog post, while I am recommending to set ns3/ns4, or ns5/ns6, because of the incorrectly configured ns1/ns2 nameservers, until GoDaddy gets this fixed. Make sure to set the correct lander type in your dashboard for all your domains.)

You also mention Bodis, which seems to indicate DNS caching for a short period of time.

Afternic's incorrectly configured ns1/ns2 nameservers that I described above involves 'lame delegation'. These ns1/ns2 nameservers return 'NS namefind.com' for each customer domain, while ns3/4 and ns5/ns6 correctly return the corresponding Afternic.com name server sets.

example.com. 3600 IN NS ns1.namefind.com.
example.com. 3600 IN NS ns2.namefind.com.

example.com. 3600 IN NS ns3.afternic.com.
example.com. 3600 IN NS ns4.afternic.com.

example.com. 3600 IN NS ns5.afternic.com.
example.com. 3600 IN NS ns6.afternic.com.

As mentioned, GoDaddy Premier Hub (Beta) is also complaining about the incorrectly configured Afternic ns1/ns2 name servers, as follows:

Domains with DNS Issues

DNS issues refer to a situation where one or more of your domain's authoritative DNS servers are not correctly configured or are not responding properly. This can lead to issues in resolving your domain name to its corresponding IP address, potentially making your website inaccessible to users.

As per GoDaddy Premier Hub:

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Can you please respond to the information @Future Sensors posts in the preceding post @Afternic @James Iles. Thanks in advance.

It seems critical given that the advice has been to use ns1, ns2 for some time.

Thank you,

Bob

PS to @Future Sensors - I tried many of my Afternic landers, and they all seem to work properly and are responsive. I currently use the ns1/2 on most of them, with BIN lander type checked. Is it only certain TLDs or certain regions or something else that lead to Lame Delegation problems?

PS --- see answer with more information from @Future Sensors below clearly providing background on potential problems.

 

[Future Sensors]

it would be great if we could have the ability to set a default number of months for LTO

Agreed. A default LTO that can be set in Settings would be extremely useful. When the price of a domain is adjusted, the system automatically follows the default LTO settings.

The ability to set not one, but several LTO periods, per price level would be the best solution, as a LTO for lower-priced domains will be very different than for higher-priced domains. Some marketplaces (like Atom, and formerly Alter) already work this way.

For example:

I remember that at Alter, the values in both columns could be adjusted. You could therefore define the LTO periods very accurately, as well as to which price levels you wanted them to apply. In addition to fixed values from pulldown menus, consider an option to enter the exact amounts where you want the thresholds to fall.

 

[Future Sensors]

Furthermore, note that the lame ns1/ns2 name servers prevent ns1/ns2 from being set for certain TLDs such as .de, as these registries perform a strict DNS pre-delegation check (a workaround is setting NS3/NS4 and NS5/NS6 there).

The DNS pre-delegation checks by DENIC are described in this document.

Because of the lame delegation issues at Afternic's ns1/ns2 nameservers, it is not possible to set these nameservers for .de domains, and other TLDs. GoDaddy the registrar (and other registrars) will complain, because they get an error code from DENIC Registry, saying: "This is the error we received: Command failed".

A workaround is setting Afternic's ns3/ns4 or ns5/ns6 nameservers. All these nameservers return the exact same A record(s) for the Afternic lander. You only have to make sure that you set your desired lander in the Afternic dashboard.

Note that the lame delegation issues have adverse impacts not only on .de domains, but on all (customer) domains using ns1/ns2 nameservers from Afternic, as described in this explanation from Akamai. Only for the GoDaddy owned NameFind portfolio domains, the ns1/ns2 configuration is correct.

 

[411domains]

Bulk LTO customization seems to have disappeared as of today.



Show attachment 258377

@Future Sensors - Maybe it's just me, but you can't even set the LTO on one domain without going into domain details.

Minor oversight #24,955,867,543,685,746,373 for the GD/AFT team.

Ever since they began tweaking the Godaddy purchase paths to re-introduce the "Express Checkout," there has been a significant uptick in issues.

 

[Future Sensors]

@Future Sensors - Maybe it's just me, but you can't even set the LTO on one domain without going into domain details.

I think your first screenshot is still the Bulk Edit function, even while you only selected just 1 domain. Is that correct? If yes, it's identical to what I reported. The option to change LTO in bulk has gone from that window, and should return.

As for your second screenshot, which appears after clicking 'on' or 'off' in the LTO column (or going to domain details, and Edit), it's (indeed) still possible to enable or disable LTO settings per individual domain name. But it's pretty cumbersome without the Bulk LTO option.

cc @GoDaddy

 

[Maged Khatab]

Agreed. A default LTO that can be set in Settings would be extremely useful. When the price of a domain is adjusted, the system automatically follows the default LTO settings.

The ability to set not one, but several LTO periods, per price level would be the best solution, as an LTO for lower-priced domains will be very different than for higher-priced domains. Some marketplaces (like Atom, and formerly Alter) already work this way.

For example:

Show attachment 258449

I remember that at Alter, the values in both columns could be adjusted. You could therefore define the LTO periods very accurately, as well as to which price levels you wanted them to apply. In addition to fixed values from pulldown menus, consider an option to enter the exact amounts where you want the thresholds to fall.

Alter was definitely the best when it comes to managing LTO in Bulk for different pricing tiers.

Another option already implemented in Domain.io and might also be useful is adding 2 columns in the spreadsheet we use to update the portfolio. The first column could be "Allow Installments" which accepts 0 and 1 values to enable or disable LTO and the second column could be "Max Installments" which accepts a maximum number of 60 months for the LTO period.

@GoDaddy I hope these options or some of them come to Afternic soon for better portfolio management.

Thank you!

 

[Alex270]

I transferred 25 domains from one registrar to another (Sav) five days ago. Before that, I deleted the domains from Afternic because, from my experience, they would get stuck at Afternic if you don't do that.

The next day, I added the domains back to Afternic, and one of them got stuck "In Review". I waited a day, and it was reviewed, but its Fast Transfer status indicated that I'm not with an eligible Fast Transfer partner, although Sav is.

I deleted the domain again, and once more, it got stuck "In Review". I contacted Afternic: they responded quickly, approved the domain, and this time the Fast Transfer status was "Opt-in", so I did that in Sav.

Today, my domain is again "In Review".

 

[phaethon]

Another issue I experienced using AN parking was webpages with ads only or sale lander only, not both. I contacted support and they told me to send ownership screenshots, because the domains were parked with them in the past and needed ownership verification.
Well, I did it for about 150 names, but the problem wasn't solved for most of the names..so I gave up and switched to NS3 for those 'problematic' names.

@Future Sensors not sure if it was a Bodis old lander, but it looked like the Bodis enquiry form or was it an Afternic old enquiry form? No idea

 

[Future Sensors]

I transferred 25 domains from one registrar to another (Sav) five days ago. Before that, I deleted the domains from Afternic because, from my experience, they would get stuck at Afternic if you don't do that.

The next day, I added the domains back to Afternic, and one of them got stuck "In Review". I waited a day, and it was reviewed, but its Fast Transfer status indicated that I'm not with an eligible Fast Transfer partner, although Sav is.

I deleted the domain again, and once more, it got stuck "In Review". I contacted Afternic: they responded quickly, approved the domain, and this time the Fast Transfer status was "Opt-in", so I did that in Sav.

Today, my domain is again "In Review".

It is strange that Afternic is unable to resolve this, despite the many reports.

Do you also see the "Registrar Not Eligible" status with some domains?

 

[Future Sensors]

PS to @Future Sensors - I tried many of my Afternic landers, and they all seem to work properly and are responsive. I currently use the ns1/2 on most of them, with BIN lander type checked. Is it only certain TLDs or certain regions or something else that lead to Lame Delegation problems?

As you well know, just because 'DNS works' with a quick test doesn't mean it works for everyone in all scenarios. This mainly causes unexpected problems that you may not notice yourself.

No, it's not specific to certain TLDs or regions.

These are nameservers that should be authoritative for more than 1.2 million customer domain names (numbers for ns1/ns2 only, NameFind domains not included). GoDaddy itself reports that the ns1/ns2 Afternic servers are not configured properly. Pre-delegation tests done by some registries fail when ns1/ns2 are submitted as nameservers.

What actually surprises me the most is that through the Neustar Registry acquisition, GoDaddy has all the knowledge in-house to properly configure their own nameservers. GoDaddy's Premium / Bullet Proof DNS Hosting services are sold commercially, and GoDaddy claims to be an authority in this regard.

Why can't the ns1/ns2 Afternic nameservers be properly configured?

https://dnsviz.net/

https://blog.apnic.net/2021/03/16/the-prevalence-persistence-perils-of-lame-nameservers/

https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~gakiwate/papers/unresolved_issues-imc20.pdf

 

[Alex270]

It is strange that Afternic is unable to resolve this, despite the many reports.

Do you also see the "Registrar Not Eligible" status with some domains?

Yes. That's why I had to delete the domain and re-add it, because after they've reviewed it for the first time, the Fast Transfer status would not change from "Registrar Not Eligible" to "Opt-in" even if I waited a day for that to happen.

And after yesterday I thought they solved the problem but today I had the big surprise to see my domain again with the "In Review" status, for the third time in a few days. And it is still like that, even if I contacted Afternic in the morning. Probably they don't work today. I'm like in an infinite loop.

 

[Future Sensors]

I'm like in an infinite loop.

You're not the only one.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

As you well know, just because 'DNS works' with a quick test doesn't mean it works for everyone in all scenarios. This mainly causes unexpected problems that you may not notice yourself.

No, it's not specific to certain TLDs or regions.

Thank you so much for the detailed response and in particular for the linked papers that I have now read. I hope we will soon hear a response from Afternic. Thank you for drawing this to our attention.

I won't take this topic off track, given in the Afternic official thread, but is there a NamePros discussion on lame delegation in general? The information in the linked paper, about how prevalent it is, how it happens, and the potential security issues, deserves a wider discussion, and one not linked to one provider.

Thank you again,

Bob