Alter.com Marketplace

[Deven Patel]

Hi all,

I wanted to introduce a new premium domain marketplace we just launched called Alter. I would love to hear your thoughts! As the world’s largest community of domainers, your feedback would be invaluable.

Let me introduce myself. Although I’m new to NamePros, I’ve been around the block. I’ve been buying and selling domains for my own startup ideas for over 20 years. As a serial entrepreneur, I founded a number of startups across various industries like marketing, web hosting, social networking, blogging, and SaaS. This experience has helped me understand how indispensable a brand name is to a business.

Most new entrepreneurs don’t think twice about their company name. Our goal is to change that! A brand name literally has the power to make or break their business. This is more true today than ever before now that there are countless alternatives to every product or service imaginable. Sure, every business may have their own world-changing differentiator but from the outside they all look the same at which point the main differentiator ends up becoming their brand name. In a world full of distractions, we no longer have the attention span to thoroughly research what we buy so we rely on our emotions. This is why large businesses like Apple and Amazon spend billions on their “brand” alone because they understand that customer perception is everything.

Anyway, I noticed that most marketplaces that exist today are focused more on the seller rather than the buyer. Our goal is to reverse the equation and prioritize buyers because I think they are the key to success in any industry. The domain industry is no exception. Without buyers, there’s no money. This is why we’ve made it our mission to help entrepreneurs succeed!

And what’s with the 30-35% commission rate most of these marketplaces are charging? Unless they’re doing more work than a human broker, I don’t think anything over the industry average of 15-20% is warranted. We’re changing that. Alter has one of the lowest rates in the industry, an all-inclusive 10% commission fee when a name sells. There are no other fees or restrictions.

What do you think? Are we on the right track or barking up the wrong tree?

Deven

This was a promoted post.​

 

[sellian]

Hi Deven, can I ask you why you choose to show the age of domains? I am not sure if this is a good idea as it adds complexity for the buyer who only needs a great name. Thanks!

 

[sellian]

“Older domain names generally rank better in search engines like Google and Bing because they have higher SEO potential.“ Is this also true for old brandable domains that have never been developed as websites?

 

[LUP]

@Deven Patel
can you publish domains that have been sold?

 

[Sammy Jakes]

@Deven Patel
Kindly work more on the description of names on your marketplace. 95% of my names have the description of "Perfect for business ideas like a blog, a SaaS and more" even when the name clearly doesn't fit into blogging and SaaS.

 

[etruscan]

Hi Deven, can I ask you why you choose to show the age of domains? I am not sure if this is a good idea as it adds complexity for the buyer who only needs a great name. Thanks!

Agree 100%

 

[Deven Patel]

@Deven Patel
can you publish domains that have been sold?

Thanks for the feedback! We'll certainly consider it.

 

[Deven Patel]

Hi Deven, can I ask you why you choose to show the age of domains? I am not sure if this is a good idea as it adds complexity for the buyer who only needs a great name. Thanks!

Thanks for sharing your perspective! There are a couple interesting articles about this:

• https://seo-hacker.com/in-seo-domain-age-matters/
• https://www.ecreativeim.com/blog/index.php/2011/02/17/is-domain-age-important-for-google-rankings/

I remember this was a tough decision for us too when we decided to add it to the landing pages because we understand that visitor experience (UX) is a huge deal. It's always better to keep things short and simple especially in a day and age when visitor attention spans have drastically dropped (we have ~7 seconds to grab their attention before they bounce).

But after weighing the pros and cons, we decided to keep it for two primary benefits:

1. It helps rank the landing pages better. Generally, the more unique information there is on a page, the better it ranks. This means more potential buyers for your domains through search engines.
2. It provides an indicator for buyers to determine domain quality. Since there's no solid consensus on what age is good or bad, quality domains would automatically get an added boost as they would naturally be older. This is also why we label the age as "GOOD" right above the description even if the domain is a couple months old.

That said, we're constantly talking to buyers so if we do notice a negative impact with them then we'll certainly consider removing it in the future. Ultimately, our goal is to sell domains just like you.

 

[Deven Patel]

@Deven Patel
Kindly work more on the description of names on your marketplace. 95% of my names have the description of "Perfect for business ideas like a blog, a SaaS and more" even when the name clearly doesn't fit into blogging and SaaS.

Yup, we're working on it! That second part of the description you referenced is automatically created with some AI using business ideas that are available in our database. Once we add more ideas, that description will automatically adapt.

 

[Joe N]

Thanks for sharing your perspective! There are a couple interesting articles about this:

• https://seo-hacker.com/in-seo-domain-age-matters/
• https://www.ecreativeim.com/blog/index.php/2011/02/17/is-domain-age-important-for-google-rankings/

I remember this was a tough decision for us too when we decided to add it to the landing pages because we understand that visitor experience (UX) is a huge deal. It's always better to keep things short and simple especially in a day and age when visitor attention spans have drastically dropped (we have ~7 seconds to grab their attention before they bounce).

But after weighing the pros and cons, we decided to keep it for two primary benefits:

1. It helps rank the landing pages better. Generally, the more unique information there is on a page, the better it ranks. This means more potential buyers for your domains through search engines.
2. It provides an indicator for buyers to determine domain quality. Since there's no solid consensus on what age is good or bad, quality domains would automatically get an added boost as they would naturally be older. This is also why we label the age as "GOOD" right above the description even if the domain is a couple months old.

That said, we're constantly talking to buyers so if we do notice a negative impact with them then we'll certainly consider removing it in the future. Ultimately, our goal is to sell domains just like you.

Recently submitted my first round of names. I'm waiting on 15 listings. The site looks good, and I appreciate the quick turnaround of reviews, and the great job you're doing with feedback here.

I like the idea of showing the age and the accompanying info if the domain is at least a few years old. However, I would prefer if this space were dynamic, and showed entirely different info if the domain is "young".

Right now buyers are getting conflicting messages when they see that aged domains are a good thing, and also that a two month old domain is considered to have a "good" age. I see your point about the "good" definition being subjective, but I think even non-domainers will know that a six month old name cannot possibly be considered aged.

 

[sellian]

Recently submitted my first round of names. I'm waiting on 15 listings. The site looks good, and I appreciate the quick turnaround of reviews, and the great job you're doing with feedback here.

I like the idea of showing the age and the accompanying info if the domain is at least a few years old. However, I would prefer if this space were dynamic, and showed entirely different info if the domain is "young".

Right now buyers are getting conflicting messages when they see that aged domains are a good thing, and also that a two month old domain is considered to have a "good" age. I see your point about the "good" definition being subjective, but I think even non-domainers will know that a six month old name cannot possibly be considered aged.

Agree!

 

[Deven Patel]

Regarding the domain age, I really appreciate the feedback everyone!

After thinking it through again, we decided to show the age dynamically. Moving forward the domain age information will only be shown if the domain is older than a year.

@sellian @Joe Nichols

 

[sellian]

Regarding the domain age, I really appreciate the feedback everyone!

After thinking it through again, we decided to show the age dynamically. Moving forward the domain age information will only be shown if the domain is older than a year.

@sellian @Joe Nichols

That's amazing Deven!!

 

[sg08]

My domain still pending listing since last week. Is this normal?

 

[Sammy Jakes]

My domain still pending listing since last week. Is this normal?

The review process is now slow. My domains are pending approval for over 5 days now. @Deven Patel

 

[Deven Patel]

@sg08 @Sammy Jakes

It seems like you guys are both referring to two different things.

Domain Review: This is the first step of the process where sellers can submit their names for consideration into our marketplace. If accepted, our team will professionally appraise them and ask you for approval and verification to continue with their marketplace listings. This process takes about 24-72 hours on average but could take longer during peak times like now. Remember, there's no downside here for sellers because they're allowed to do whatever they want with their names in the meantime.

Domain Listing: Once you decide to move forward by verifying your domains, we'll create professional logos and descriptions for them before finally listing them on our marketplace. This process takes another 24-72 hours on average but could take longer because the design process goes through rigorous review to ensure that logos are top quality. If they aren't, our designers are asked to revise them repeatedly until they are. This is why you'll notice some names get published quicker than others (some logos need more revisions).

In either case, please be patient. We'll get to your domains as soon as we can.

 

[Sammy Jakes]

Yeah. I understand. Kudos for the work done so far @Deven Patel. Please don't forget to share some of your sales report as promised earlier. This will help boost confidence in your market place

 

[Deven Patel]

A small but significant update everyone!

We noticed that some of you were selling domains that were already accepted on Alter to other users who then wanted to re-list them on our marketplace. This process was cumbersome because you had to contact us to expedite the review process for these names which normally took a few days.

We just released a feature where domains already accepted in the past will automatically be re-accepted when the acquiring user submits them. And once they're re-verified, they will also automatically be listed on our marketplace instantly.

Thanks again for your continued patience and support!

 

[LUP]

@Deven Patel pm sent

 

[GoodKindName]

Submitted a few names, some are a accepted
Approved are the best of what I got which is a good sign, great job!

So far like the experience

A few things to improve if you don't mind:

- Automatic nameservers check would help, or at least one button to verify all names, because the way it is now is not convenient

- Maybe allowing sellers some price flexibility is a good idea, 30 - 50% at least (BB & SH allow that)

- How about payment plans? They help closing a lot of deals that wouldn't happen otherwise

- Did you consider adding crypto payouts? A lot of Dan users would consider you a top alternative really (of course if payment plans are added)

 

[sellian]

I am starting to gather a significant number of views on my portfolio but still not a single shortlist. Has any seller had any shortlists yet?