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]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1839083473027366931

 

[Future Sensors]

Keep in mind that Afternic's parent company offers web hosting and e-commerce solutions to small businesses. Why can't they make something as simple as adding a domain to the shopping cart go smoothly?

 

[bmugford]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1839083473027366931

Same domain. Same test.
28 seconds. Pathetic.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1839343707742724122

 

[Altetra]

I discovered something which I not like, if you set BIN and enable LTO, you must also check the Lander Settings section and make sure that Custom Lander is selected and under (Select below which options you want to offer your buyers) must select Buy it Now + Lease to Own + Make Offer, else there is no sync, it can have only Request Price lander and the BIN, LTO and MO that you set is not visible to the buyer, it does not set it automatically like on Dan.
Now I must go and do this to each domain!
The other thing I not see a link there to view how the lander display to end users.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I would urge people to check that their Afternic landers are operational. For names not in review, and with the name status "Listed" when you go to lander you are sometimes greeted with the empty 'white screen of death' "The domain is registered, but may still be available." For names pointed to Afternic, I have selected mainly Custom Landers so not sure if it is only with those, or with all Afternic landers. I also don't know if the problem is only for those who opted out of Boost.

The problem is the lander can work one day and be switched to this the next day. It is not reasonable for investors to check all of their names each day.

It seems (see this week's NamePros Blog post) that about 50% of sales come from the lander. We really can't afford that 50% opportunity cost, for whatever purpose, intentional or not, that Afternic are breaking landers.

As my small statement to the world, starting yesterday, every time I discover it for one of my names I have switched the nameservers to point somewhere other than Afternic, and I will not be going back ever for that name.

That is, I am saying to you @Afternic that it is my small role in providing consequences. I hope at some point soon Afternic will announce that they have found the bug, and that landers are now all working properly, and will stably stay so. But until then, I still use your landers for many of my names, but each time you break one, that one name is lost to you forever in terms of my pointing the name to your system.

Thanks for listening, and hopefully getting someone to take action. The people at GoDaddy are exceptional. But one needs a system that works most of the time without needing to ask a person to correct it for individual cases. I do realize that the Dan migration may be part of the problem things are worse than normal lately.

-Bob

 

[Altetra]

Another annoying thing is if you are not active, then you begin browsing to do changes, it seems you must log in again. It's weird that you can still browse the account.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Rant Part 2 - The Random In Review Status

After you fix the random white screen of death lander issue, could you please fix the random in review thing. I know, I sound like a broken record. I don't need to hear why a name in general goes into review (change registrar, last 30 days of registration, possible TM issue, possible offending language, etc.) I understand that.

I just need you to either provide transparency in why a name is in review, or stop the review process. Your (soon former) division Dan and your major competitor Sedo seemed to manage just fine without sending names into random review.

A week and a bit ago a name long listed at Afternic went into review (one of about a dozen that day, thankfully not any new since then). I left it for over a week to see if it would go out of review. But no. So I deleted he name and added it again and, like magic, no review now. Does that make sense?

If anyone wants to DM me I will share the name. But just to show how ridiculous this is, here is a little bit about the name :

• The name had been listed at Afternic for years
• It is a .net name that has been continously (only part of time by me) registered since 1999
• I have the name renewed in advance to 2028
• It is registered at one of your FT partners Dynadot
• There was no change in registrar recently.
• In fact, no changes at all this month, last month I changed nameservers so that the Afternic lander would be used, the last update in the Whois.
• Thee was no significant price change.
• The name is a dictionary term, i.e. not a brandable, just a straight word. Term is so common that there is a Wikipedia page (it is a biological term).
• There are no active TM with only that term, anywhere in the world, as far as I could determine. The last one abandoned in 2006 (there are multiple word ones of course).
• There are 34 companies (OpenCorporates) with the term used in the name somewhere, or also known as, but that is true for most dictionary words. There is no single dominant company.

So why exactly do names like this randomly go into review?

Anyway, as part of my consequences theme, I have now changed the nameservers to point to Sedo, and this particular name will not go back pointing to Afternic (I do still have it listed there, since just deleting and relisting almost always cures the in review status). If you find a buyer somewhere on your network, I am fine you will have the commission, even the extra 10%. But I am not going to send traffic to you from the name. My tiny contribution to consequences.

I honestly hope this will get fixed promptly, since when Afternic sells tons of names, it is good for GoDaddy and good for sellers. Afternic has been an incredibly positive part of the domain community. GoDaddy/Afternic have fine people, many of them truly outstanding. But really, someone needs to prioritize getting things like lack of meaningful search, various glitches like the landers going to the message noted just above, and putting names into random review for no reason.

Thank you sincerely for listening to the rants. And hopefully getting someone to do something. Bob out.

-Bob

 

[Recons.Com]

More bad news:

a name went into "on hold" at Afternic and stayed there for 24 hours. After that, it went back to the inventory without a sale. Within few hours, the name sold via Sedo/Namecheap.

This must be sign that a buyer didn't manage to complete his transaction via Afternic. Luckily, this particular one was eager enough to keep looking elsewhere. But, most buyers are already having cold feet paying $xxxx for a domain and need any excuse to give up or go with an alternative.

Afternic/Godaddy inability to fix bugs and propensity to create new ones daily is really hurting business for all.

And it is also a very bad sign when a company stops reacting to feedback and communicating on forums. The only GD/Afternic "response" lately that I have seen are some awkward Domain Academy promo's in the Rob Monster style, except without sermons to go along with them.

 

[DomainRecap]

I hope at some point soon Afternic will announce that they have found the bug

The problem here is that Afternic is the bug.

 

[End User King]

Sorry, but I had to. This pretty much sums up the average end user experience at Afternic.

 

[tonyk2000]

As for slow landing pages (DAN style, GD hosted), the reasons may be the following:

Source: Pagespeed by Google -

https://pagespeed.web.dev/analysis?url=https://reef.co/

(I performed the test for mentioned reef dot co a few minutes ago).

So, it appears that DAN landers were migrated to Godaddy-hosted system and improved by GoDaddy (fonts, logos, etc) without sufficient testing. It is unfortunate.

 

[silentg]

@GoDaddy - I'd like to suggest that we handle domain sales in a more streamlined way, similar to how Dan used to handle them. Instead of asking the buyer if they would accept a push, allow domain push directly to your holding account. This would speed up the transaction process and make it more efficient.

 

[NameGroove]

As for slow landing pages (DAN style, GD hosted), the reasons may be the following:
Show attachment 263655Show attachment 263656Show attachment 263657
Source: Pagespeed by Google -

https://pagespeed.web.dev/analysis?url=https://reef.co/

(I performed the test for mentioned reef dot co a few minutes ago).

So, it appears that DAN landers were migrated to Godaddy-hosted system and improved by GoDaddy (fonts, logos, etc) without sufficient testing. It is unfortunate.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1839368344828596452

 

[King]

@Recons.Com Same for the past hour. Error 403. I suggest referring to Godaddy & Afternic as GoBuggy & Bugternic from now on. Afterglitch is also an option.

You can summarize it with GoCrappy

 

[AEProgram]

Personally I think "fast transfer" is a bit of a nonsense. You can sell a domain anywhere and have the deal done within hours if you use a good registrar.

Main reason for fast transfer is so domainers don't back out. Without fast transfer, a lot more sales would fall apart when the domainer decides they wanted more after the buyer paid. You won't really understand the importance of fast transfer until you help people sell their names or anything for that matter. It is very common that if you broker a name and the owner says they want 30k, if you come back with a buyer for 30k they will regret just asking 30k and sometimes try to back out of selling it. Yes, it happens ALL THE TIME! Most brokers that actually generate sales will not broker anything if the name is not in their account.

Even with fast transfer, when a domain sale happens, some domainers swear they had the name listed for more.

Talk to real estate agents, if not for iron clad contracts, a lot of deals that do not involve lower offers, have home owners trying to back out, they think because someone offered the asking they could have gotten more.

 

[Jannes]

 

[D Haynes]

Main reason for fast transfer is so domainers don't back out. Without fast transfer, a lot more sales would fall apart when the domainer decides they wanted more after the buyer paid. You won't really understand the importance of fast transfer until you help people sell their names or anything for that matter. It is very common that if you broker a name and the owner says they want 30k, if you come back with a buyer for 30k they will regret just asking 30k and sometimes try to back out of selling it. Yes, it happens ALL THE TIME! Most brokers that actually generate sales will not broker anything if the name is not in their account.

Even with fast transfer, when a domain sale happens, some domainers swear they had the name listed for more.

Talk to real estate agents, if not for iron clad contracts, a lot of deals that do not involve lower offers, have home owners trying to back out, they think because someone offered the asking they could have gotten more.

Thanks that makes sense from a broker/marketplace point of view although that's not how it's sold to the average investor. To us it's sold as "let us take care of it and get paid fast" when the reality is you can do it faster yourself a lot of the time.

 

[Altetra]

Is it possible to auction a domain from Afternic account or it must be at Godaddy registered?

 

[Altetra]

I discovered something which I not like, if you set BIN and enable LTO, you must also check the Lander Settings section and make sure that Custom Lander is selected and under (Select below which options you want to offer your buyers) must select Buy it Now + Lease to Own + Make Offer, else there is no sync, it can have only Request Price lander and the BIN, LTO and MO that you set is not visible to the buyer, it does not set it automatically like on Dan.
Now I must go and do this to each domain!
The other thing I not see a link there to view how the lander display to end users.

This issue is related only if, a domain does not have price, you go edit and add BIN and enable LTO but forget to check Lander settings, that is why it must be done at once after adding BIN and enabling LTO else the page will display what is selected by default.

 

[End User King]

Come on GoDaddy get it together. Our sales are suffering because we trusted you would be a good custodian of Dan but you scrapped it.