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.

 

[bmugford]

To be honest, I feel that dealing with Afternic is shaving years off my life, and I'm not kidding. I'm not a depressive person by nature, but lately I find myself getting up in a bad mood with aches and pains I didn't know I had. And I experience a combination of trepidation and resignation when checking my email and clicking on the Afternic Dashboard.

It's like a horror movie where you're caught in a nightmare where nothing ever changes.

Like that Twilight Zone episode where William Shatner is trapped in the town where his car never gets fixed (probably Afternic mechanics) and all the other residents keep asking the Devil Fortune Teller machines if they can finally leave today. No!

Oh great and benevolent Afternic, will my Dashboard receive an update today? Will payments from last week finally be approved? Will I ever get paid?

No!

If things become much more of a pain in the ass, I am about ready to just throw in the towel.

It seems like nothing works properly and things take way too long to resolve.

I have a pending sale. What's the status? I have no idea.

I have a pending LTO. What's the status? I have no idea.

I have a domain randomly listed "on hold". Why? I have no idea.

What happened to the list of domains I tried to add to my account? I have no idea.

Brad

 

[DomainRecap]

I have a pending sale. What's the status? I have no idea.
I have a pending LTO. What's the status? I have no idea.
I have a domain randomly listed "on hold". Why? I have no idea.

Afternic, where "I have no idea" is a state of mind.

I had asked my Afternic broker for an update on my "Waiting for funds to clear" sales, and he just responded that he has no idea, as has no access to payment status info.

The blind leading the blind.

 

[GoDaddy]

@GoDaddy, It's not just me. This issue affects all recent Afternic listings from the past week or two.

I no longer have anything listed with Afternic, but I have no doubt once NamePros members here start checking their recently added names and landers, they'll begin chiming in and we'll be able narrow down an exact date when the sync began to fail.

In the meantime, it's being investigated.

Thanks, @411domains. Our team identified and resolved an issue with our synchronization system. It is continuing to process a high volume of domain names through the Dan migration, which may temporarily slow down subsequent changes made to listings.

I have Request Price lander for all my domains.
Just noticed that all newly added domains to my portfolio got Custom Lander instead.

Hi @Yanosh,
Check your default lander settings through https://www.afternic.com/account/lander

Asked Afternic to turn off Fast Transfer on all my domains which have it - the migration from Dan wrongly turned it on on xxx domains. I asked them to turn off Fast Transfer on all domains two weeks ago and they still have not done it. Another reason to keep moving listings off Afternic.

Afternic Fast Transfer has risks and almost no benefits, despite them misleadingly telling you it will reach more buyers, and few sales happen via the wider network anyway (except Namecheap) according to a research result mentioned on here by @Bob Hawkes which I can't seem to find.

As someone pointed out on here, the real purpose of Fast Transfer is to lock in the sale price for the benefit of Afternic - once a domain leaves your account it is almost impossible to argue about, or correct, the price. I have found Afternic failing to carry out my price changes, which is my main reason for not trusting Fast Transfer, as well as the risk of a rogue seller or Afternic bug getting a domain out of my account.

Afternic ordinary listings reach a long list of registrars given at https://help.afternic.com/s/article/Afternic-Partners - the only ones you miss if not enabling Fast Transfer are the following subset who might account for at best under 1% of sales, hardly justifying the risk of enabling Fast Transfer:

Hi @carob,
Please feel free to DM us with your username and additional information, and we'd be happy to check in on your request. A 2 week wait isn't what we want to hear.

Regarding Fast Transfer, based on GoDaddy data from January through November 2023, Afternic's Fast Transfer network achieved an average of 85 million searches per month, versus the standard network's 30 million searches per month.

I don't get what is supposed to happen here.

I am testing out Afternic with a subset of my domains (all at one registrar) and I set the BIN, but it then requires me to set the Minimum Offer ('Min Offer must be greater than $20') so I choose the same Buy-it-Now dollar amount, but when I test the BIN or Custom landers and click "next" it boots me to the Request Price lander.

Is this Afternic acting up or is it because I had to type in a Make Offer amount? Am I setting the BIN properly because usually there is a place to disable the Make Offer, but this system is so archaic that I'm not sure what is going on.

Basically, how do you set a BIN on Afternic without a Make Offer? Or do you even need to and this is yet another Afternic bug?

Hi @DomainRecap
Could you DM us your username? This is a result of our synchronization issue. While it will resolve itself very soon, we'd like to connect with you to ensure our team can look at this.

I got some offers on Bodis, if I come to an agreement, I want to import my lead to Afternic but I not see how, did they removed this feature or it must be added as a domain then configure how to sell it?

Head to afternic.com/domains and find the "Actions" column. From there, click on the ellipsis (...) next to your domain name, and click "Create Checkout Link." Enter your terms, and send the link to your buyer! You'll have seven days before your link expires.

The process of fixing my Afternic listings is still ongoing.

Last night I uploaded a file with some priced domains into my Afternic account.
They were ones listed on Dan, but not on Afternic for whatever reason.

I received a confirmation that it was processing in the background (or something like that).
As of around 10 hours later, nothing has happened.

It's like it just disappeared into the ether.

The process of doing pretty much anything on Afternic is frustrating. @GoDaddy

Brad

Hi @bmugford
We'll connect with your account manager to see what's happening here.

 

[411domains]

The process of fixing my Afternic listings is still ongoing.

Last night I uploaded a file with some priced domains into my Afternic account.
They were ones listed on Dan, but not on Afternic for whatever reason.

I received a confirmation that it was processing in the background (or something like that).
As of around 10 hours later, nothing has happened.

It's like it just disappeared into the ether.

The process of doing pretty much anything on Afternic is frustrating. @GoDaddy

Brad

@bmugford , this was the very first of many issues I noticed when I discovered the massive sync failure.

 

[411domains]

Hi @bmugford
We'll connect with your account manager to see what's happening here.

@GoDaddy, As I mentioned to @bmugford, this was the very first of many issues I noticed when I discovered the sync failure.

 

[411domains]

@GoDaddy /Afternic

Riddle me this.

If these domains were added on 10/28/2024, why does the "Date Added" column show otherwise?

Note: I've been asking this question since I first noticed it during the June/July product updates that f'ed with our portfolios.

If the system can't even figure out when a domain is added, how the hell do you expect anyone to trust it?

 

[411domains]

The process of fixing my Afternic listings is still ongoing.

Last night I uploaded a file with some priced domains into my Afternic account.
They were ones listed on Dan, but not on Afternic for whatever reason.

I received a confirmation that it was processing in the background (or something like that).
As of around 10 hours later, nothing has happened.

It's like it just disappeared into the ether.

The process of doing pretty much anything on Afternic is frustrating. @GoDaddy

Brad

@bmugford , I can confirm that uploads are now reaching their destination and processing accordingly.

 

[411domains]

Thanks, @411domains. Our team identified and resolved an issue with our synchronization system. It is continuing to process a high volume of domain names through the Dan migration, which may temporarily slow down subsequent changes made to listings.

@GoDaddy, I can confirm that everything is now syncing back up.

I imagine this will "boost" sales for many.

 

[NicTraders]

Regarding Fast Transfer, based on GoDaddy data from January through November 2023, Afternic's Fast Transfer network achieved an average of 85 million searches per month, versus the standard network's 30 million searches per month.

Those are pretty old stats. How about some numbers for 2024?

 

[NicTraders]

this is yet another Afternic bug

Wash your mouth out with soap. I believe Afternic does not view these anomalies as bugs, but rather as 'features'.

 

[Joe drake]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1847070146927775984

This is a 2nd post on Twitter about higher commission getting charged

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

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.

Flash ,ON DomainNameWire dnw.com Top Domainer in India ,says he opted out of BOOST afternic on first day.

 

[carob]

Regarding Fast Transfer, based on GoDaddy data from January through November 2023, Afternic's Fast Transfer network achieved an average of 85 million searches per month, versus the standard network's 30 million searches per month.

Those are pretty old stats. How about some numbers for 2024?

Re stats:

As per https://help.afternic.com/s/article/Afternic-Partners list of participating registrars in the network, just 14 registrars will only display Fast-Transfer enabled names, whereas another 44 registrars will show all domains listed for sale at Afternic, with or without Fast-Transfer enabled on those domains.

So what exactly do those search stats given above by GoDaddy mean? Even the wording is not clear, it might simply refer to searches done on the Godaddy website alone - could they even get stats from other registrars?

85/35 could simply reflect the ratio of existing listings of FT-enabled names listed vs non-FT-enabled names. Do we know what % of listings on Afternic have FT enabled?

Wouldn't one expect a search ratio of 14/44 ie .32 - here you would see only 1/4 of the registrars on the network returning search results which only included FT domains. The other 44 registrars return search results for any name listed on Afternic, regardless of FT status.

I won't use FT and see it as risky, but I also do not welcome Afternic's approach of claiming huge, unspecified and unsupported benefits of FT. The situation should be clearer so people can make an informed choice.

 

[BigTree]

I never met more disgusting company than Afternic

 

[GoDaddy]

@GoDaddy, I can confirm that everything is now syncing back up.

I imagine this will "boost" sales for many.

Thanks for confirming the fix is working for you!

Those are pretty old stats. How about some numbers for 2024?

We'll continue to revisit these stats in future. 2023's search data was analyzed as it immediately preceded the launch of the new Afternic.com website.

As per https://help.afternic.com/s/article/Afternic-Partners list of participating registrars in the network, just 14 registrars will only display Fast-Transfer enabled names, whereas another 44 registrars will show all domains listed for sale at Afternic, with or without Fast-Transfer enabled on those domains.

So what exactly do those search stats given above by GoDaddy mean? Even the wording is not clear, it might simply refer to searches done on the Godaddy website alone - could they even get stats from other registrars?

85/35 could simply reflect the ratio of existing listings of FT-enabled names listed vs non-FT-enabled names. Do we know what % of listings on Afternic have FT enabled?

Wouldn't one expect a search ratio of 14/44 ie .32 - here you would see only 1/4 of the registrars on the network returning search results which only included FT domains. The other 44 registrars return search results for any name listed on Afternic, regardless of FT status.

I won't use FT and see it as risky, but I also do not welcome Afternic's approach of claiming huge, unspecified and unsupported benefits of FT. The situation should be clearer so people can make an informed choice.

Hi @carob
The list you refer to doesn't include partners and resellers of some brands, which expands the network further. The 85 million search figure includes searches across all of Afternic's Premium Network. We're unable to share specifics around the number of domains in Fast Transfer, but ultimately Fast Transfer domains do get wider exposure, along with lower transaction management times for you.

What would you like to see us implement to help you see Fast Transfer as less "risky"?

 

[davidc1]

Thanks for confirming the fix is working for you!


We'll continue to revisit these stats in future. 2023's search data was analyzed as it immediately preceded the launch of the new Afternic.com website.


Hi @carob
The list you refer to doesn't include partners and resellers of some brands, which expands the network further. The 85 million search figure includes searches across all of Afternic's Premium Network. We're unable to share specifics around the number of domains in Fast Transfer, but ultimately Fast Transfer domains do get wider exposure, along with lower transaction management times for you.

What would you like to see us implement to help you see Fast Transfer as less "risky"?

@GoDaddy
impossible to add FT for years, whereas it works before.
My acc. manager tells me that afternic is not in touch with networksolutions to solve the problem. I have to sort out myself !

 

[freety85]

@GoDaddy , I propose exploring the feasibility of a lead broker selection in the Afternic system. This would allow us to designate specific brokers as primary contacts for our incoming leads. In the event of their unavailability, leads could be automatically routed to other qualified brokers. Thanks

 

[freety85]

also any update on this topic please from dev team? This was raised in August already.

@GoDaddy please ask dev team to fix this.

Custom lander : not supported extensions like .fi, .ae, .ml etc when you click on the buy now button it gives you an error :

Show attachment 260849
On the other hand when the Afternic listed not supported extensions searched at Godaddy reg path it shows as unavailable.

Show attachment 260850
This way you will have hard time to facilitate Afternic purchases on these extensions, the current only solution is to use price request lander so the broker can make buyers go through the checkout process. Thanks

I believe this is not related to the fact the extension is not supported at GD, since if you add the very same names as LTO, it checks out just fine....

This is for an .ml name actually

Therefore I am wondering why the cart does not resolve the same way for the full BIN price and gives checkout error?

Thanks for further escalating this topic for resolution

 

[Bob Hawkes]

few sales happen via the wider network anyway (except Namecheap) according to a research result mentioned on here by @Bob Hawkes which I can't seem to find.

Sorry for delay in responding. I believe the article mentioned is:

What is the path for most domain name sales? Data and insights from Nikul at Hypernames
https://www.namepros.com/blog/what-...nd-insights-from-nikul-at-hypernames.1335812/

Broadly speaking, it finds about half come directly from lander, the other half made up roughly 30% GoDaddy, 10% Namecheap and 10% all of the other network partners combined.

Keep in mind the data is from one portfolio, which is more concentrated in high quality names in top tier alternative extensions than most portfolios. Also, it is from a number of years, so any changes this year in GoDaddy search would not yet influence the data much. Also, from pre-Boost era.

-Bob

 

[carob]

What would you like to see us implement to help you see Fast Transfer as less "risky"?

Simple. Kill Afternic and revive Dan.com.

 

[bmugford]

If things become much more of a pain in the ass, I am about ready to just throw in the towel.

It seems like nothing works properly and things take way too long to resolve.

I have a pending sale. What's the status? I have no idea.

I have a pending LTO. What's the status? I have no idea.

I have a domain randomly listed "on hold". Why? I have no idea.

What happened to the list of domains I tried to add to my account? I have no idea.

Brad

I still have not updated all my listings, but in the meantime both "on hold" domains turned into sales.
The LTO deal is now in progress also.

@GoDaddy almost got me with the 20%, because the secondary account was auto opted-in to "Boost". I was able to catch that in time.

The LTO domain had nothing to do with "Boost" promotion. It wasn't even priced.

Brad