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.

 

[Recons.Com]

I share your frustration @Recons.Com.

We all do.

So many problems are still unresolved, and meanwhile GoDaddy's marketing push keeps ramping up.

The company's reduced engagement here suggests Sellers may be lower priority for them.

If that is true, it might mean a big blunder by them.

Just my folio is 45k names and GD will get (if I keep it there) near $1MM in 2026 from it between renewals, commissions and auction buys.

On top of that, having us, domain investors, in its reach helps it in so many ways that it is probably not directly measuring. E.g. Afternic partners will prefer other feeds if its name pool drops below certain level, the sales often results in buyers opening an account with Godaddy, our landers promote Godaddy/Afternic brand leading to more business that it doesn't attribute to us. Just my names are good for over 5 million visitors in a year. It would cost godaddy near half a million in net cost to get that kind of extra exposure to its brands.

Yet, it is sending a message along the lines of "we don't care, take your $1mm business, plus 0.5$mm in free advertising elsewhere".

 

[alcy]

If that is true, it might mean a big blunder by them.

Just my folio is 45k names and GD will get (if I keep it there) near $1MM in 2026 from it between renewals, commissions and auction buys.

On top of that, having us, domain investors, in its reach helps it in so many ways that it is probably not directly measuring. E.g. Afternic partners will prefer other feeds if its name pool drops below certain level, the sales often results in buyers opening an account with Godaddy, our landers promote Godaddy/Afternic brand leading to more business that it doesn't attribute to us. Just my names are good for over 5 million visitors in a year. It would cost godaddy near half a million in net cost to get that kind of extra exposure to its brands.

Yet, it is sending a message along the lines of "we don't care, take your $1mm business, plus 0.5$mm in free advertising elsewhere".

wow... at 1mil a year this must make u their top 5 to 10% client.

hope they make u feel good and special with favors ..dicounts.. hotel deals and a limo lol

u know.. like casinos treat their favorite whales...

 

[domainer8888]

Afternic/GD bugs are again at the peak. And when that happens, sales typically go down by 20-50% at least.

I remember a few months ago you averaged 1 sale a day. How has that changed since then?

 

[Jannes]

More generally, we mere mortals are hungry for "state of the market" news/tidbits from those with big portfolios.

 

[Recons.Com]

wow... at 1mil a year this must make u their top 5 to 10% client.

hope they make u feel good and special with favors ..dicounts.. hotel deals and a limo lol

u know.. like casinos treat their favorite whales...

Probably top 2%. I don't think they have more than 50 clients with 45k+ names that also sells via afternic landers and spends a few hundred k at their auctions. And they probably have more than 2500 clients with large folios.

Yeah, no, I don't get any special perks, except maybe having their ear from time to time to solve glitches, which I appreciate.

 

[Recons.Com]

I remember a few months ago you averaged 1 sale a day. How has that changed since then?

I am at about 1%. So you can estimate 450+ sales over next 12 months with around 3k average gross sale price. E.g. I had 19 sales in 15 days of December.

 

[Acroplex]

I'm at the bottom 0% as of June.

 

[domainer8888]

I am at about 1%. So you can estimate 450+ sales over next 12 months with around 3k average gross sale price. E.g. I had 19 sales in 15 days of December.

Happy to hear the sales are coming in despite all the issues!

 

[Recons.Com]

Happy to hear the sales are coming in despite all the issues!

Issues are typically here and there for 1-2 weeks at a time. I probably lose around 5-10% of my sales due to those. Some of it is mitigated by buyers going elsewhere to buy the same name (sedo, spaceship, atom) or afternic partners temporarily prioritizing another feed.

 

[Recons.Com]

I'm at the bottom 0% as of June.

Can you elaborate? got rid of your folio? Moved away from gd? Something else?

 

[GoDaddy]

Afternic/GD bugs are again at the peak. And when that happens, sales typically go down by 20-50% at least.

E.g.,

- When adding names from GD interface into Afternic, it shows success, but about half of the names don't get added (even with unique NS). So basically the sync is broken.

- The lease section at Afternic is broken. Clicking on anything there (next page, sorting etc.) brings to a page saying there are no leased domains.

Plus, for the inquiry lander, they have added multiple pages with stupid questions like what are you going to do with the domain, have you bought before etc. They took the dan lander and ... learned nothing. It is 101 of online commerce: each added page takes considerable chunk off the probability of selling.

The worst part, I have directly reported these and other problems and they still cannot fix or won't care to fix or the problem just comes back shortly after (like the gd interface to afternic listing sync).

Another day, another shot in the foot by Godaddy. And all these at the time when the competition is getting better and stronger. I am seriously considering moving the landers to Spaceship and taking advantage of their 5% commission. I will give GD/AN another week to sort it out and then start testing waters. I mean if 50%+ sales will come from landers + NC/SS registry pathway, it will beat the Afternic 15% mix.

e.g.60% x 5% + 40% x 25% = 13%.

Hi @Recons.Com,
We checked in with your account reps to see where these updates are for you. It looks like you were able to list your names successfully, but your rep is reviewing.

The lease section issue was identified and fixed earlier today.

On the Request Price lander: the additional steps are intentional and tied directly to how leads are qualified and worked; this was a system that originated at Uniregistry. Not every inquiry represents real buying intent, and the goal of the flow is to separate low quality leads from buyers willing to engage meaningfully. There is a lot of data that backs up the success of this lander and its friction-free, post-inquiry setup.

There are a few additional points raised earlier in the thread that we do still need to go back and review, and we’ll follow up once that's done.

 

[King]

Having to use the Custom Lander > Make Offer pathway as a workaround to mark which domains I want to self-broker has become quite cumbersome and inefficient. This approach makes it difficult to quickly see and manage the names I intend to handle personally. A dedicated lander specifically for self-brokered domains would greatly streamline the process.

 

[Optinom]

@GoDaddy

What's the difference between "The broker sent a message" and "Email sent to buyer" ?

When would "Broker send message", and when would you send "Email to buyer" ?

 

[love4ever]

@Afternic @GoDaddy

Dear afternic,

Seems you hired newly fresh graduated staff or you need to educate your current staff regarding the difference between pending sync and ownership verification !!

As below For the second time and different domain i received same answer for a pending synce domain, i already added the TXT record before listing domain and for ownership verification we usually get different notification error, and we can solve it by doing different steps without contacting customer support .

OR maybe the self verification system already broke and giving different notification!!!?

.

 

[phaethon]

I'm at the bottom 0% as of June.

Last sale on Afternic was in July. Hopefully, got action on Spaceship. Same pattern as 2024. Good first half, terrible second half, especially September - December, no sales at all.
Let's see if something changes in the remaining time.

 

[Acroplex]

Last sale on Afternic was in July. Hopefully, got action on Spaceship. Same pattern as 2024. Good first half, terrible second half, especially September - December, no sales at all.
Let's see if something changes in the remaining time.

Removed all my domains in June.

 

[Yanosh]

Removed all my domains in June.

I’m thinking of doing the same
If I may ask , how is going since you moved out?

 

[Acroplex]

I’m thinking of doing the same
If I may ask , how is going since you moved out?

I will send you a DM as this is the Afternic thread.

 

[chr0meice]

@GoDaddy we sold a 4 letter domain for over $2500 in late November. The domain was already transferred very quickly and the other party has already built an active website with it. The payment was supposed to hit on December 10th. Phone support made a bogus excuse why the payment "failed" when I called... We have sold domain before and the bank account on this account works perfectly fine. It has been over 20 days and [email protected] and [email protected] is ignoring two replies from my lawyer. Need this payment process immediately it is totally unacceptable service. Nobody helps and nobody cares.

 

[alcy]

@GoDaddy we sold a 4 letter domain for over $2500 in late November. The domain was already transferred very quickly and the other party has already built an active website with it. The payment was supposed to hit on December 10th. Phone support made a bogus excuse why the payment "failed" when I called... We have sold domain before and the bank account on this account works perfectly fine. It has been over 20 days and [email protected] and [email protected] is ignoring two replies from my lawyer. Need this payment process immediately it is totally unacceptable service. Nobody helps and nobody cares.

sadly for u a delay of 20 days and bit more is not unheard of

and luckily for all it is also not their avg.

they probably make sure to say that somewhere in their tos ... so that's what lawyers will probably get as link.

if all well on your end with payout info then u just need to put u in the unlucky spectrum... and by all means do not play lotto this xmas

gl