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.

 

[love4ever]

One question GD - Dynadot is now asking me to approve FT for the names I own. yet they already show as approved FT (On) in Afternic. Should I accept/approve again at Dyna?

I got same email from Dynadot asking to approve FT for some domains that already their FT was on .
So i approved them again , I recognized that 70% of this domains listed at atom .
I just saved my self the headache to dig why and how and avoid back & forth with godaddy/afternic .



.

 

[NicTraders]

Afternic CS isn't sure what is going on.

Never a truer word was spoken.

 

[DN_Hunter]

FT is on for those 4 names. Not sure how to turn it off (just for those 4). Although I'm somewhat less concerned now that @GoDaddy responded and said it was an internal mistake.

One question GD - Dynadot is now asking me to approve FT for the names I own. yet they already show as approved FT (On) in Afternic. Should I accept/approve again at Dyna?

The only way I've been able to turn off FT is to delete the name from my Afternic account. Then add it back if I wanted it listed without FT. I'm not sure why Dynadot is asking to approve FT for a name that's already turned on in Afternic.

 

[Jeff_Libert]

Nothing is loading. Not a single domain. They ALL just hang.

The only thing I'm seeing on Chrome is either a Circle with an "!" inside it or a Triangle with a "!" inside it, followed by the words "Not secure" and the domain name.

When I click on the "!" in URL bar it triggers the following message:

"Your connection to this site it not secure. You should not enter any sensitive information on this site....(followed by a bit more "advice")

The ONLY thing that then loads is the classic "This site can't be reached" followed by "domain.com took too long to respond".

Lost sales. Lost parking revenue.

Dear Afternic: Is this fixable and, if so, when will it be fixed OR is this Google et al's final assault on domains that don't load websites, that is, parked or aftermarket domains? Sadly, this wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Future Sensors]

.(followed by a bit more "advice")

This part is the most interesting. Is the error related to SSL?

Can you share the exact error message?

 

[Jeff_Libert]

Without digging in to it I'm inclined to think of it as a SSL issue. From what little I know (I do run my own VPS's / dev sites / install LetsEncrypt / Etc) there are only so many ways - maaaaybe 1, if that, since I last checked - for hoisting multiple domains onto a single SSL certificate.

I can't recall if any Afternic NS1 / NS2 pointed domains ever displayed evidence of being SSL secured.

I'm hopeful but, based on 25+ years of experience in this business, I sense the "easy money" . . cough . . may be coming to an end and this may be a final blow if there's no simple tech fix. (If there was / is why are we sitting here typing away?)

 

[Future Sensors]

Without digging in to it I'm inclined to think of it as a SSL issue.

Likely the same issue as reported by @Dane and other members, but not fixed yet.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/afternic-official-thread.1295231/page-307#post-9460409

 

[Future Sensors]

I can't recall if any Afternic NS1 / NS2 pointed domains ever displayed evidence of being SSL secured.

All active Afternic landers get a TLS certificate on the base domain (https on the base domain, before the redirect to godaddy.com).

 

[Jeff_Libert]

As best I can tell no one needs to DM Afternic / GoDaddy because a) the SSL related fail appears widespread; and, b) Afternic / GoDaddy tech center could not help but notice something is amiss. So....having said that, I'm holding in a chat queue to secure an update on this issue

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

My reference domain BostonFall.com owned by joe joe( big things coming to afternic in 2021)
His domain loading super fast.

 

[bmugford]

I received 15 of those same Afternic opt ins from the same email address. All of them appear to be for names that I did own but have sold or dropped.

EDIT to add: It looks like all of them are currently registered at Dynadot.

Same here. I received about 10 emails.

I no longer own any of the domains and none are listed in my account.

Brad

 

[Future Sensors]

I can't recall if any Afternic NS1 / NS2 pointed domains ever displayed evidence of being SSL secured.

You can check whether there's a (correct) TLS cert on your domain using this command:

$ openssl s_client -servername yourdomain.com -connect 99.83.161.153:443 < /dev/null | openssl x509 -text

 

[love4ever]

Dear @Afternic

For ''Boosted Accounts'' Are you tracking the brokers and watching if they really doing their best of sending targeted email marketing to potential buyers ??
Because it doesn't sound they did when we look at our lead center activities !!!!

.

 

[MarkedMarket]

Same here. I received about 10 emails.

I no longer own any of the domains and none are listed in my account.

Brad

This was their answer to someone who asked the same question on X:

Afternic @afternic September 24, 2025

Hi Morgan, thanks for flagging this. The email was sent from our test environment, and our team is reviewing to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

View original Load full embed

 

[Future Sensors]

153.161.83.99.in-addr.arpa. 173 IN PTR a2b7bf3398455f345.awsglobalaccelerator.com.

Afternic's landers are currently being served through AWS Global Accelerator, which means the TLS handshake is handled at Amazon’s edge before traffic is routed to GoDaddy's backend. When people see certificate errors on those landers, it usually isn't because Global Accelerator itself is broken, but because of how it has been configured.

The accelerator by default presents a certificate for "*.awsglobalaccelerator.com", which is fine if you're connecting directly to that domain, but not if you’re visiting an Afternic customer domain like "sellerdomain.com". In that case, the browser expects a certificate valid for Seller's domain, and if the wrong one is presented, you'll get a mismatch warning.

This can happen if the custom certificate for Afternic Seller domains hasn't been properly attached to the listener, or if the Server Name Indication (SNI) isn't being passed correctly so that the accelerator falls back to its default AWS certificate. Another possibility is that the ACM certificate for Afternic expired or wasn't renewed because DNS validation records weren't maintained.

Because Global Accelerator routes traffic to the nearest AWS edge location, it's also possible that only some regions are affected if a particular edge has a stale or mis‑deployed certificate. That would explain why some users report no problems while others consistently see TLS errors. In short, the issue isn't with AWS itself but with how Afternic's configuration is set up on top of it. The fix would be for GoDaddy to ensure the correct Afternic certificates are deployed to all Global Accelerator endpoints, that SNI routing is working as intended, and that the certificate chain is complete and valid everywhere.

@GoDaddy FIX!

 

[Future Sensors]

I'm trying to improve it for people who prefer to leave their landers at Afternic. I've lost faith in them.

 

[Jeff_Libert]

I just chatted with Julia in eastern Europe who reported no problem triggering landers for a selection of my #### domains. So, the issue appears localized. I sent here a screenshot of an example domain. She advised she will be reporting the issue to GoD / Anic tech team and will report back to me.

 

[Future Sensors]

I doubt first‑line support has the context or expertise to grasp the bigger picture here, let alone debug it effectively. This TLS cert issue clearly requires deeper technical knowledge from the team responsible for configuring AWS Global Accelerator. Unfortunately, that team seems unreachable, and @GoDaddy doesn't appear to be escalating matters to them despite repeated complaints from multiple sellers.

 

[silentg]

E-mail Alan:

 

[Future Sensors]

Ah, the Boost guy.