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.

 

[Lanrewaju]

Such a shame how the community is being treated!

 

[Future Sensors]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1839398115792875594

 

[Future Sensors]

Afternic tweeted: “We hear you, and we’re currently working closely with the GoDaddy team to identify improvements.”

This response raises an important question: why weren’t these performance issues identified and addressed proactively by Afternic? Regular system checks and performance monitoring should be standard practices to ensure a smooth user experience. It seems that the domain investor community ALWAYS has to bring these issues to Afternic’s attention before any action is taken.

It would be beneficial for Afternic to implement more robust internal monitoring and testing processes to identify and resolve issues before they impact users. This would ensure a more seamless and efficient experience for everyone involved.

 

[bmugford]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1839495643364012242

 

[Optimal Names]

 

[NicTraders]

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.

Good move Bob. I am having trouble seeing any reason to stay with Afternic. I have no landers with them. And I’ve opted out of Migration from Dan. Now just need to decide where to take my landers.

 

[NicTraders]

Afternic tweeted: “We hear you, and we’re currently working closely with the GoDaddy team to identify improvements.”

This response raises an important question: why weren’t these performance issues identified and addressed proactively by Afternic? Regular system checks and performance monitoring should be standard practices to ensure a smooth user experience. It seems that the domain investor community ALWAYS has to bring these issues to Afternic’s attention before any action is taken.

It would be beneficial for Afternic to implement more robust internal monitoring and testing processes to identify and resolve issues before they impact users. This would ensure a more seamless and efficient experience for everyone involved.

Just on this page alone, there are 3 huge issues - this one about load time, domains constantly in review, and the lander loading issue Bob spoke about. I find it utterly unbelievable that GD/AN is not all over these sorts of things. Instead, there is complete radio silence from them on this forum, and the only response anyone seems to get elsewhere is 'we're trying to find the problem' (or they claim there isn't a problem). I can't fathom that this is how their business operates.

 

[bmugford]

Good move Bob. I am having trouble seeing any reason to stay with Afternic. I have no landers with them. And I’ve opted out of Migration from Dan. Now just need to decide where to take my landers.

I just don't see @GoDaddy having the broker capacity to pay proper attention to all these extra leads, especially if my examples are the kind of service we are getting now.

I have the time and ability to handle my own leads, most of which come from the landers.

I got a message from the broker asking if I had a price in mind. I said I would consider serious offers, then got that response back.

I have sold many domains via GoDaddy brokers.

Some are great while others seem like low effort copy and paste operations.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

I have sold many domains via GoDaddy brokers.

Some are great while others seem like low effort copy and paste operations.

The experience is wildly different based on the @GoDaddy broker. That is not a good thing.

Brad

 

[silentg]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1839352903385125266

 

[DN_Hunter]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1839398115792875594

I also received a ton of pricerequest emails from Afternic this evening. Did they run a conversion or software upgrade that went wrong?

 

[Kyle Tully]

Did they _______ that went wrong?

Almost always.

 

[silentg]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1839578611793187023

 

[jiy k]

.

 

[jiy k]

@Afternic Dan allowed to list .in & .co.in cctld's why not afternic. That would be a setback for investors, investing in these cctld's. Thanks.

 

[GoDaddy]

@GoDaddy @Afternic @DAN.COM

I'm going to keep asking this until I get a reply:

On October 16 when Dan is decommissioned, will the Dan.com nameservers be merged with the Afternic.com nameservers so that Dan customers with large portfolios won't have to manually change the nameservers on thousands of domains on order to point to Afternic landers?

This question is NOT answered in the Migration FAQ and someone should update this document with a firm and simple Yes/No answer on nameservers and take out the totally off-topic crap about which Afternic lander looks the best.

Thank you.

Hi @DomainRecap
Once you’ve migrated, your Dan.com landers will automatically switch to Afternic landers without needing to change nameservers. However, for the best long-term results, we recommend switching to Afternic nameservers. This is detailed in Dan’s Migration FAQs, but I’m happy to clarify further if needed.

The custom lander needs some kind of contact bubble like the Dan landers... a phone number at least, something so they can or at least know they can talk with someone. Would be useful for example when you have a bin but are willing to negotiate, I own a lot of plural and singular pairs so having them contact a broker who can then message me to work out a deal would be great.

Hi @King
We’ve previously tested this on the Buy it Now lander, allowing potential buyers to directly contact the brokerage team. If it's ultimately shown to increase sell-through rates, we’ll fully integrate it.

The same goes for the Custom Lander. With the core Dan design in place, we’re ready to test various iterations and features aimed at improving your sell-through rate. One area we'll definitely explore is contact options.

@GoDaddy

James, I hope you are doing fine. Not sure why Godaddy has disappeared from the forum at the time when the bugs and questions are piling up.

What is the deal with "Get it" like in the post above. Why not just buy now? Is it only for non-boost to further suppress their sales and force into boost?

What is forcing GD/Afternic to barge through with the boost even after it is obvious that it doesn't deliver any value to sellers (unless their base performance is suppressed artificially) and has had a very negative reception? Whose pet project is it that no one can deliver the simple message to him that it is not working and will contribute to the loss of the monopoly position of Afternic?

I have worked in large corporations for 20+ years and know that when a project like this is pushed through regardless of any numbers, data and rationale, it is usually internal politics and someone is making a case for himself with disregard to anything else.

Thanks @Recons.Com. In the GoDaddy purchase path, "Buy it Now," I believe, is used for most Fast Transfer TLDs, where the name is opted in to Fast Transfer, so the customer can receive the name in their account almost immediately. "Get it" usually refers to aftermarket purchases that go through the TA process.

All .finance domains "including mine" on the Afternic network cannot be added to GoDaddy's cart using the Afternic landing pages and produce the following error "Error occurred processing link":

Show attachment 263552

- If a domain is pointed to Afternic using the "Custom Lander" landing page, here's what happens:
1- If the domain has BIN only, it cannot be added to GoDaddy's cart.
2- If the domain has BIN and LTO, it cannot be added to GoDaddy's cart if the buyer decides to pay the full price but can be added through LTO only.

- If a domain is pointed to Afternic using the "Buy It Now (BIN)" landing page, here's what happens:
Since the "Buy It Now (BIN)" landing page provides BIN price only it cannot be added to GoDaddy's cart.

@GoDaddy Others and I reported the same issue last week and today I found out it affects all .finance domains "including mine" on the Afternic network. Please fix it ASAP.

Thanks for sharing your experience, @Maged Khatab. This issue has been resolved, and .finance names are now heading to the GoDaddy Cart correctly.

Hi Afternic team,

Thank you for opening this feedback thread. Unfortunately, my experience with Afternic has raised significant concerns that I feel need to be addressed.

I sold my domain for $4,600 in August, and more than a month later, I still haven’t received my payment. Despite having correct banking details and providing all necessary information, Afternic has failed to process the payment, citing payment failures on September 18 and again on September 23. What’s even more concerning is that I wasn’t notified of these failures and had to follow up multiple times just to learn what went wrong.

At this point, I am forced to question whether this is an issue of incompetence or if there’s something more serious at play, such as potential insolvency. For a platform of Afternic’s size and reputation, failing to process an ACH transfer to Bank of America—a major U.S. bank—is deeply troubling. Given the amount of time that has passed and the lack of transparency, these issues seriously undermine trust in the platform.

I understand this thread isn’t for direct support, but the handling of my transaction reflects broader concerns about Afternic’s ability to manage basic financial processes. I urge the Afternic team to take these issues seriously, improve communication, and resolve payment delays promptly.
Has anyone else experienced similar issues? Would love to hear from others in the community.

Best regards,

Fernando Almiñana

Hi @falminana,

Thanks for your message. I believe I know the domain you’re referring to, as you reached out to the support team as well. If that's not the case, please feel free to DM us.

It seems the payment processor for Afternic flagged the payment details as incorrect. We’re committed to getting your funds to you as soon as possible. The support leadership team is already on it, but feel free to DM us with any updates or feedback once this is resolved.

Same domain. Same test.
28 seconds. Pathetic.

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

Hi Brad,
Our domain investor team is indeed working on this alongside other GoDaddy departments.

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

Thanks for your feedback, Bob. If you have any specific examples (I know that you've moved some names away), please DM us. We can forward them to the Afternic team.

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

Hi Bob,

The review process is twofold. First, it monitors for status changes, such as Whois changes, expiration, or deletions. This ensures expired names in your portfolio are removed from the general system.

The second aspect is compliance. Domains that fail trademark checks, for example, are put into review for manual inspection by the support team.

Names going into review may be briefly more noticeable for sellers. Alan Shiflett mentioned in an ICA discussion in August that we’re updating Afternic’s 'pipes'. This work is nearly complete, and we’ll share more soon. Moving to this new system will allow us to start building tools for sellers to clear domains from review in some cases.

@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.

Hi @silentg,
We have upcoming changes to the TA system, incorporating some of Dan’s automation into the Afternic TA process. We’ll share more details soon, and we’d love to get your feedback once it’s released.

 

[DomainRecap]

Hi @DomainRecap
Once you’ve migrated, your Dan.com landers will automatically switch to Afternic landers without needing to change nameservers. However, for the best long-term results, we recommend switching to Afternic nameservers. This is detailed in Dan’s Migration FAQs, but I’m happy to clarify further if needed.

I did not see this clearly outlined anywhere in the Dan Migration FAQ and I would love you to clarify further. @GoDaddy

My scenario:

I have my domains listed at both Dan and Afternic
I have opted out of migration
I use NS1.DAN.COM and NS2.DAN.COM as my nameservers
I have chosen my default Afternic Lander

When Dan shuts down, my domains should then resolve to Afternic landers right?

And as for the "for the best long-term results, we recommend switching to Afternic nameservers" I assume this means that the domain Dan.com could be sold or otherwise divested in the future, therefore Afternic nameservers are recommended.

Also, I noticed the Afternic Custom Lander has some weird outcomes when choosing Make Offer, Make Offer + BIN, etc. options, and I was wondering if there are plans to streamline this to allow all these pricing options to appear on the Custom Lander.

For example, if I choose "Make Offer + BIN" as my lander option, then all my BINs will use the Custom Lander, while my Make Offer listings are shunted to the Request Price Lander. I'd like both types of pricing to be on the Custom Lander to provide some consistency.

And will the Customer Lander ever support Make Offer? It shows up as an option but it doesn't work and shunts everything over to the Request Price lander.

Thank you.

 

[Zsolt Bikadi]

If there is no LTO, the text above buy it now ("Pay the full price to make it yours!") becomes very odd, like saying if you are stupid enough, buy this domain for full price.

But the basic issue with the landing page is that the domains are redirected to godaddy.com and all search ranking and traffic are lost when setting Afternic nameservers. I could not believe that there is no one with decision power there with some SEO expertise who can check the organic traffic at Dan, the organic traffic at Afternic and draw a conclusion what to do and what don't. Maybe half of the domain buyers will try to buy the domain via Google search, they won't find these domains anymore.

According to Semrush, Dan's search traffic is around 1M/month, Afternic organic traffic is 30k.

 

[Future Sensors]

If there is no LTO, the text above buy it now ("Pay the full price to make it yours!") becomes very odd, like saying if you are stupid enough, buy this domain for full price.

Agree. Already reported here, but Afternic still didn't fix.

 

[D Haynes]

Hi @DomainRecap
Once you’ve migrated, your Dan.com landers will automatically switch to Afternic landers without needing to change nameservers. However, for the best long-term results, we recommend switching to Afternic nameservers. This is detailed in Dan’s Migration FAQs, but I’m happy to clarify further if needed.


Hi @King
We’ve previously tested this on the Buy it Now lander, allowing potential buyers to directly contact the brokerage team. If it's ultimately shown to increase sell-through rates, we’ll fully integrate it.

The same goes for the Custom Lander. With the core Dan design in place, we’re ready to test various iterations and features aimed at improving your sell-through rate. One area we'll definitely explore is contact options.


Thanks @Recons.Com. In the GoDaddy purchase path, "Buy it Now," I believe, is used for most Fast Transfer TLDs, where the name is opted in to Fast Transfer, so the customer can receive the name in their account almost immediately. "Get it" usually refers to aftermarket purchases that go through the TA process.


Thanks for sharing your experience, @Maged Khatab. This issue has been resolved, and .finance names are now heading to the GoDaddy Cart correctly.


Hi @falminana,

Thanks for your message. I believe I know the domain you’re referring to, as you reached out to the support team as well. If that's not the case, please feel free to DM us.

It seems the payment processor for Afternic flagged the payment details as incorrect. We’re committed to getting your funds to you as soon as possible. The support leadership team is already on it, but feel free to DM us with any updates or feedback once this is resolved.


Hi Brad,
Our domain investor team is indeed working on this alongside other GoDaddy departments.


Thanks for your feedback, Bob. If you have any specific examples (I know that you've moved some names away), please DM us. We can forward them to the Afternic team.


Hi Bob,

The review process is twofold. First, it monitors for status changes, such as Whois changes, expiration, or deletions. This ensures expired names in your portfolio are removed from the general system.

The second aspect is compliance. Domains that fail trademark checks, for example, are put into review for manual inspection by the support team.

Names going into review may be briefly more noticeable for sellers. Alan Shiflett mentioned in an ICA discussion in August that we’re updating Afternic’s 'pipes'. This work is nearly complete, and we’ll share more soon. Moving to this new system will allow us to start building tools for sellers to clear domains from review in some cases.



Hi @silentg,
We have upcoming changes to the TA system, incorporating some of Dan’s automation into the Afternic TA process. We’ll share more details soon, and we’d love to get your feedback once it’s released.

A couple of times you've mentioned taking bits of the Dan design and automation in your answers. Are you able to elaborate on why you didn't take all of Dan's design, features and system (Dan.com) and call it Afternic? Seems like that was the better option to many.