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.​

 

[Deven Patel]

I think Alter can try to accept premium listing submissions of other domain extensions, such as .net, .co, .io, .ai and new gTLDs because more and more startups also opt for these extensions. It can have better traffic and sales results as well as higher quality of domain inventory than the standard listing approach.

Thanks for the suggestion! We'll certainly consider that in the future.

But again, just because a domain isn't accepted as premium doesn't mean it's not a good domain. Think of premium as the "Amazon's Choice" inventory on Amazon. Just because a product isn't accepted as "Amazon's Choice" doesn't mean it's bad quality or won't sell. Another way to think of premium is the top X% of the names we have. Since it's a limited number, we can't accept everything.

Also, both standard and premium domains receive the same benefits except that premium names get a boost in search results (i.e. we market both standard and premium names to buyers).

 

[Deven Patel]

1. Does Alter have the option to import leads and pay less the regular sales commission (e.g. like DAN - 5%)?

Not at this time. Since other marketplaces already offer that option, why not just continue using them for existing leads?

2. For standard listing, does one still need to point domain name servers to Alter's?

Yes, because we still market standard domains across the web (i.e. PPC, social media, retargeting, etc).

3. Standard listing and exclusivity, what's the current situation? I mean, can one list same domain on other marketplaces?

You can list them wherever else you like but we ask that you do not list your domains with any of our partners since we already list them there for you. As an added benefit of us listing there on your behalf, you don't have to worry about dealing with different companies, updating prices across accounts, re-verifying domains, etc.

 

[Charybdis]

I noticed that you automatically generate the keywords, categories and descriptions when adding a new domain.

All good, however I noticed that after you upgrade a domain to premium, you design a logo but then you don't create unique keywords, categories and descriptions.

You wrote unique descriptions and you manually selected the keywords before for premium domains, could you please still do it? Would be a great time saver.

The automatically generated text and keywords are not as good as doing it manually.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

So when I read on here about Alter now accepting non-premium names, I tried adding my first non-premium listing to Alter a week ago (I had a few months ago submitted about 20 something names of which 3 were accepted and are listed as premium names - I have not yet sold any of those 3).

I meant to add more non-premium last weekend, but actually only added 1. I was pleased when 6 days after listing a single domain name I got notice from an Alter rep that there was a potential client but their upper price was less than my listing price. It was a name I felt flexible on, was keen to make a sale, so accepted, and within 24 hr the client paid, name was transferred, I was paid, I cashed out to PayPal.

For now I am not disclosing name or sales price as I am not clear on Alter's policy regarding disclosure of sales? The name is a 5-letter pronounceable name I had hand registered a couple of years ago. I had earlier submitted it to SH and Alter for premium, but was not accepted. The name builds on word in language other than English.

So, so far I am really happy with Alter as a now hybrid platform. Things I liked:

• Listing was easy.
• Verification works fast and well (I now have listed another dozen or so names after my first sale).
• I like the landers. They look professional and include enough detail to help with sales.
• Idea of their lander showing well known brands with same number of letters as your name is a great idea.
• The sales process and payout worked fast and easy.
• The agent I dealt with was professional, helpful and friendly.
• The 10% commission is great for the level of service offered.
• I like the analytics they offer. I can see how many times each name gets viewed, if it gets favourited, where overall traffic to my names is coming from.

A few hints:

1. Remember to use capitalization if your name suits it.
2. Think carefully for the 3 category choices. The list of options is well thought out.
3. While the logo editor is very basic, it does allow you to change the font and colour. Do try some logo options. Note that the background colour changes according to your font colour. I did not at all like the default logo look, but after trying a bunch of fonts and colours was much happier.
4. While Alter will generate a generic description and use an algorithm to assign keywords, and sometimes these are not too bad, you can definitely improve by editing them yourself. You set a one sentence lead sentence, the keywords, and a number of ways the name could be used. This takes a few minutes, but is well worth the time.
5. Remember to take name down from other marketplaces before listing on Alter. They will quickly post it on their partner sites, with a markup to reflect the commission, but you can't keep your own say Sedo or DAN listings and list it on Alter. For names I plan to list on Alter I first take them down everywhere, and set the DNS to Alter before listing so there is a bit of propagation time for verification. Then I list on Alter.

I don't see it much yet, but even with priority system, I am a little worried if a lot of really low quality names will overwhelm the site. I hope our community will show restraint in only listing solid names on the site.

Great job, Alter. Impressed with your service and the depth you answer suggestions here.

Bob

 

[johnn]

I don’t see the option making offer from the landing page. Am missing something?

 

[Charybdis]

I don’t see the option making offer from the landing page. Am missing something?

There is no such option, but potential buyers will contact Alter via the live chat or email anyway if they want to make an offer, and Alter will forward these offers to the sellers if the offer is serious.

 

[wwwulff]

Closely looking at what you have attracted as standard listings, I'm glad that you don't mix up premium listings and standard listings and had decided to keep them separate. Most standard listings are not even worth the reg fee in my opinion. So mixing them with premium names will hurt the marketplace.

Maybe it´s only me but I can´t see the standard listings, how too see them? The lowest price I can see is $1099 and it is listed as premium

 

[Charybdis]

Maybe it´s only me but I can´t see the standard listings, how too see them? The lowest price I can see is $1099 and it is listed as premium

You need to go the last pages of the search result.

I think the min. 499 USD price is a filter itself. If you want to sell a domain for at least 499 USD, then you'd better not list crap, because no one will buy a crap domain for 499 USD or more.

And I hope that the Alter algorithm will only display the crap domains at the very end of the search results. Then the potential buyers can only find them via type-in or after they saw every other domains, at the very end of the search results.

So I think it is not an issue that the standard domains will overwhelm the site. People will only see them after the premium domains.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Maybe it´s only me but I can´t see the standard listings, how too see them? The lowest price I can see is $1099 and it is listed as premium

The standard listings are listed after the premium ones. For example, in the Alter search bar enter the word excel. It currently shows 2 premium (the first two and they have a premium badge and different style of logo) and 5 other listings. Note that while $499 is the minimum you can list at, most non-premium listings are listed for more, in many cases more than the premium listings. Alter gives priority to the premium listings, even when in this case the match to searched word is better in some of the non-premium listings.

It seems to me in most keywords the number of premium listings at this point exceed the number of non-premium, but I expect that to change.

Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I don’t see the option making offer from the landing page. Am missing something?

They do not have a make offer button, but someone can message the agent. That is what happened in my case. She contacted me after talking with the client about their price range maximum, and I agreed to a lower than listing price.

While I am a fan of landers with make offer, there is some evidence from SH that they actually reduce completed purchases. And Alter promote transparent, no hassle pricing, I guess hoping most will just Buy Now, but by individual message a negotiation process is possible.

Bob

 

[johnn]

I think they should have the making offer on the page as not all buyers are smart and can figure out by contacting them.

 

[Charybdis]

I think they should have the making offer on the page as not all buyers are smart and can figure out by contacting them.

Will it increase or decrease the conversion rate, that's the question?

right now the buyer can decide whether to buy the domain now or buy it using monthly installments. So right now the buyer should only decide between these two options, for the seller either option is perfect.

If you throw a third option into the mix, then it may confuse the potential buyer, too many choices are not good.

I think HugeDomains.com has heavily optimized landing pages, and I don't see a "make offer" option there either. On HugeDomains.com there are two big buttons: "Buy now" or "Start payment plan". But you can contact them via phone or contact form. I think this is the best.

By the way, Hugedomains.com has really good landing pages.

Maybe Alter could improve the landing pages even further with these additions:
- promo video which explains what Alter is and how to buy the domain, and answer to the frequently asked questions (but don't host it on YouTube, LOL, host it natively without the Youtube distractions)
- FAQ in list format
- add Paypal, cryptocurrency and Escrow.com payment method (in case of Escrow.com there would be a surcharge to cover the extra costs)

 

[wwwulff]

The standard listings are listed after the premium ones. For example, in the Alter search bar enter the word excel. It currently shows 2 premium (the first two and they have a premium badge and different style of logo) and 5 other listings

Thanks - I did´t know that you could only see standard listings if you searched keyword via their search bar, I searched from low to high price and found none

 

[Charybdis]

Thanks - I did´t know that you could only see standard listings if you searched keyword via their search bar, I searched from low to high price and found none

Because in all cases, premium domains will be displayed before standard domains.
If you sort the domains by price, low to high, then it will list only the premium domains first, and then when there are no more premium domains, you will be able to see the standard domains, sorted by price, low to high. You can find the first standard domain on around page 86.

 

[wwwulff]

Because in all cases, premium domains will be displayed before standard domains.
If you sort the domains by price, low to high, then it will list only the premium domains first, and then when there are no more premium domains, you will be able to see the standard domains, sorted by price, low to high. You can find the first standard domain on around page 86.

Thanks - As of today there are 4308 premium and 2404 standard listings on the site

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Just to check re exclusive terms, am I correct that while we can not list to any of your partner promotion sites - i.e.

• Sedo, DAN.com, IONOS, Namecheap, Network Solutions, Name.com, Epik, NameSilo, Hover, Dynadot, Register.com, BigRock, 101domain, SnapNames, Sav, Hexonet, Internet.bs, Moniker, Rebel, InterNetX, Dofo, WebNames, and more"

that it is allowed by Alter ToS to still have a listing on Afternic (not a partner) as long as the price there is higher than the Alter price by commission difference? For example, if I had a $2999 listed name at Alter, where commission is 10%, I could list my name at Afternic, if I wished, as long as $3299 or more? (if commission there was 20% so a 10% difference or about $300).

Thanks for clarifying when you have the chance, @Deven Patel - really appreciate you answering things on here.

Bob

 

[cillx]

Just to check re exclusive terms, am I correct that while we can not list to any of your partner promotion sites - i.e.

• Sedo, DAN.com, IONOS, Namecheap, Network Solutions, Name.com, Epik, NameSilo, Hover, Dynadot, Register.com, BigRock, 101domain, SnapNames, Sav, Hexonet, Internet.bs, Moniker, Rebel, InterNetX, Dofo, WebNames, and more"

that it is allowed by Alter ToS to still have a listing on Afternic (not a partner) as long as the price there is higher than the Alter price by commission difference? For example, if I had a $2999 listed name at Alter, where commission is 10%, I could list my name at Afternic, if I wished, as long as $3299 or more? (if commission there was 20% so a 10% difference or about $300).

Thanks for clarifying when you have the chance, @Deven Patel - really appreciate you answering things on here.

Bob

I think you can list it on Afternic for the same price of $2999 or higher. but not less. However, if a buyer decides to purchase on Afternic, you have to pay 20% commission. So price wisely.

 

[Deven Patel]

I don't see many new premium domain names published in the last few days. But I see that thousands of standard domains have been published.

Are you still busy reviewing the standard domains?

Yup, we're always reviewing them behind the scenes as they're being added. Since we don't control the quality of the names that are added you may see a lot of new premiums one day and none at all on another day. It's all random based on what sellers decide to add to the marketplace.

I noticed that you automatically generate the keywords, categories and descriptions when adding a new domain.

All good, however I noticed that after you upgrade a domain to premium, you design a logo but then you don't create unique keywords, categories and descriptions.

You wrote unique descriptions and you manually selected the keywords before for premium domains, could you please still do it? Would be a great time saver.

The automatically generated text and keywords are not as good as doing it manually.

We generally do review and edit the descriptions/keywords/ideas/categories for premium names manually. Though sometimes we like the existing ones so we leave them alone. Feel free to reach out to support if you feel something needs to be looked at again.

 

[Deven Patel]

So when I read on here about Alter now accepting non-premium names, I tried adding my first non-premium listing to Alter a week ago (I had a few months ago submitted about 20 something names of which 3 were accepted and are listed as premium names - I have not yet sold any of those 3).

I meant to add more non-premium last weekend, but actually only added 1. I was pleased when 6 days after listing a single domain name I got notice from an Alter rep that there was a potential client but their upper price was less than my listing price. It was a name I felt flexible on, was keen to make a sale, so accepted, and within 24 hr the client paid, name was transferred, I was paid, I cashed out to PayPal.

For now I am not disclosing name or sales price as I am not clear on Alter's policy regarding disclosure of sales? The name is a 5-letter pronounceable name I had hand registered a couple of years ago. I had earlier submitted it to SH and Alter for premium, but was not accepted. The name builds on word in language other than English.

So, so far I am really happy with Alter as a now hybrid platform. Things I liked:

• Listing was easy.
• Verification works fast and well (I now have listed another dozen or so names after my first sale).
• I like the landers. They look professional and include enough detail to help with sales.
• Idea of their lander showing well known brands with same number of letters as your name is a great idea.
• The sales process and payout worked fast and easy.
• The agent I dealt with was professional, helpful and friendly.
• The 10% commission is great for the level of service offered.
• I like the analytics they offer. I can see how many times each name gets viewed, if it gets favourited, where overall traffic to my names is coming from.

A few hints:

1. Remember to use capitalization if your name suits it.
2. Think carefully for the 3 category choices. The list of options is well thought out.
3. While the logo editor is very basic, it does allow you to change the font and colour. Do try some logo options. Note that the background colour changes according to your font colour. I did not at all like the default logo look, but after trying a bunch of fonts and colours was much happier.
4. While Alter will generate a generic description and use an algorithm to assign keywords, and sometimes these are not too bad, you can definitely improve by editing them yourself. You set a one sentence lead sentence, the keywords, and a number of ways the name could be used. This takes a few minutes, but is well worth the time.
5. Remember to take name down from other marketplaces before listing on Alter. They will quickly post it on their partner sites, with a markup to reflect the commission, but you can't keep your own say Sedo or DAN listings and list it on Alter. For names I plan to list on Alter I first take them down everywhere, and set the DNS to Alter before listing so there is a bit of propagation time for verification. Then I list on Alter.

I don't see it much yet, but even with priority system, I am a little worried if a lot of really low quality names will overwhelm the site. I hope our community will show restraint in only listing solid names on the site.

Great job, Alter. Impressed with your service and the depth you answer suggestions here.

Bob

Thanks so much for the very thorough review, Bob. It's much appreciated!

Regarding our policy on disclosing sales, sellers are more than welcome to talk about it just like you did but please obfuscate the actual name if possible. Buyers have asked us not to make their purchases public a number of times so it's best to respect their wishes.

Regarding low quality names overwhelming the site, we're constantly thinking about that too but we're confident that the premium vs standard differentiation will help a lot with that. Also, when we release a more advanced search functionality we'll consider ways to make the differentiation even more apparent.

Just to check re exclusive terms, am I correct that while we can not list to any of your partner promotion sites - i.e.

• Sedo, DAN.com, IONOS, Namecheap, Network Solutions, Name.com, Epik, NameSilo, Hover, Dynadot, Register.com, BigRock, 101domain, SnapNames, Sav, Hexonet, Internet.bs, Moniker, Rebel, InterNetX, Dofo, WebNames, and more"

that it is allowed by Alter ToS to still have a listing on Afternic (not a partner) as long as the price there is higher than the Alter price by commission difference? For example, if I had a $2999 listed name at Alter, where commission is 10%, I could list my name at Afternic, if I wished, as long as $3299 or more? (if commission there was 20% so a 10% difference or about $300).

Thanks for clarifying when you have the chance, @Deven Patel - really appreciate you answering things on here.

Bob

Correct. We don't impose any restrictions on where else you can list your domains. So yes, you can list with any other company that's not currently our partner (e.g. Afternic). You can also list them there at whatever price you like (though I'm not sure why you would want the prices to be that different besides maybe to compensate for the different commissions across marketplaces).

We simply ask that you don't list on sites that are already part of our network in order to protect our relationships with them (i.e. duplicate submissions take a lot of manual effort to sort out). Besides, the whole point of the partnerships is to make the seller's life easier by not having to worry about dealing with different companies, updating prices across accounts, re-verifying domains, etc.

 

[Deven Patel]

I think they should have the making offer on the page as not all buyers are smart and can figure out by contacting them.

Thanks so much for the feedback, John!

We did consider it but like @Charybdis and @Bob Hawkes pointed out, evidence suggests BIN listings convert much better. According to GoDaddy, Buy Now results in up to 5X higher sell-through compared to Make Offer (assuming the domain is priced reasonably).

Speaking from my own experience, when I was on the buy-side I used to make lists of domains I liked for my startup ideas along with their prices. Unless it was a domain I was super attached to, I wouldn't bother reaching out to owners because it would end up wasting everyone's time. Make Offer owners had very high expectations and both parties thought they were great negotiators so it was hard to ever come to a consensus. BIN listings made it super easy to rank/compare names and move forward quickly. Time and money are the two most valuable things for a new business so BINs make a ton of sense from that perspective.

Even from the seller's perspective, why not simply assign a price that you want from the start rather than wasting time shuffling through endless spam and lowball offers? You can always change the price if your thought process changes down the road. And you can invest that extra time into expanding your portfolio or spend it with your wife instead.

We also considered the hybrid option seen on some other marketplaces (BIN + Make Offer simultaneously). After discussing that idea with a number of potential buyers, almost all of them said they would always submit an offer if the option was available. Makes sense, I mean if you went to a car dealership and saw a car with a list price of $30k with an option to make an offer, why wouldn't you? On the other hand, if the option didn't exist you would STILL find a way to negotiate the price if it wasn't affordable (in our case through our various contact options).

That said, we're always open to considering all feedback especially if there's data that supports it. So if you ever come across any solid evidence of MO working well with BIN, please don't hesitate to share it with us!

 

[Deven Patel]

I noticed that a number of you had questions about how standard vs premium listings appear in search results.

Here's a perfect example of search results for the keyword "fox": https://alter.com/names?q=fox

Note that all premiums matching the keyword appear first, followed by standards that match the keyword, followed by premiums again that match other metadata, followed by standards again that match other metadata.

So in this case it's premium > standard > premium > standard. Though we'll keep refining our algorithm over time. Ultimately, our goal is to help buyers find what they're looking for while giving premiums a little extra boost.

And again, all of this only matters for the 10-20% of undecided buyers. The rest don't care as they've already made up their mind.

@wwwulff @Charybdis @Bob Hawkes

 

[domvault]

***** nothing ******

my question got answered

 

[Charybdis]

@Deven Patel
when a domain contains an animal name (let's say "fox"), then the system will automatically assign the keywords "pets" and "animal shelter" to that domain, and it will also assign the "Animals & Pets" category to the domain (in case of newly added domains), but it is almost always wrong.

If the domain is keyword + animal name, then take into account only the keyword before the animal name, because in this case the domain has nothing to do with pets or animal shelter. You can still list the name of the animal as a keyword, but don't treat it as a pet.

Suggestion for the logo generator: if the domain contains a color, then you could automatically use that color from the domain name for the logo and for the background.

This logo generator is definitely a unique feature, I have never seen this on other marketplaces. But please improve it further, I think it is definitely worth to improve that logo generator because it is such a unique feature and it surely enhances the listings.

And I found a bug:

when you try to access an Alter-listed domain with the https:// prefix, then it won't work, it just keeps loading and loading forever.

For example, copy and paste this into your browser: https://pan.com (not my domain, I wish it were! ) It just keeps loading and loading, only works with the http:// prefix. In the end you will get the ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT error.

It is a problem, why? Because existing backlinks might point to domains using the https prefix, and in that case you won't capture the incoming traffic via those backlinks if the backlink points to the https version.

And check this: https://blog.chromium.org/2021/03/a-safer-default-for-navigation-https.html

Chromium-based browsers (Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge etc.) will load the sites using https by default, then they fallback to http if that doesn't work. I think it slows down your site, because when I enter "pan.com" into my web browser, then Chrome will try to access the https version first, but that won't work, then it should fall back to http, so it slows down the whole connection.

Anyway, the best would be to fix it, you should maximize the type-in traffic.

 

[Deven Patel]

when a domain contains an animal name (let's say "fox"), then the system will automatically assign the keywords "pets" and "animal shelter" to that domain, and it will also assign the "Animals & Pets" category to the domain (in case of newly added domains), but it is almost always wrong.

If the domain is keyword + animal name, then take into account only the keyword before the animal name, because in this case the domain has nothing to do with pets or animal shelter. You can still list the name of the animal as a keyword, but don't treat it as a pet.

Suggestion for the logo generator: if the domain contains a color, then you could automatically use that color from the domain name for the logo and for the background.

This logo generator is definitely a unique feature, I have never seen this on other marketplaces. But please improve it further, I think it is definitely worth to improve that logo generator because it is such a unique feature and it surely enhances the listings.

And I found a bug:

when you try to access an Alter-listed domain with the https:// prefix, then it won't work, it just keeps loading and loading forever.

For example, copy and paste this into your browser: https://pan.com (not my domain, I wish it were! ) It just keeps loading and loading, only works with the http:// prefix. In the end you will get the ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT error.

It is a problem, why? Because existing backlinks might point to domains using the https prefix, and in that case you won't capture the incoming traffic via those backlinks if the backlink points to the https version.

And check this: https://blog.chromium.org/2021/03/a-safer-default-for-navigation-https.html

Chromium-based browsers (Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge etc.) will load the sites using https by default, then they fallback to http if that doesn't work. I think it slows down your site, because when I enter "pan.com" into my web browser, then Chrome will try to access the https version first, but that won't work, then it should fall back to http, so it slows down the whole connection.

Anyway, the best would be to fix it, you should maximize the type-in traffic.

Thanks for the feedback!

Regarding keywords/logos, those are great points and we'll certainly improve them. However, there will always be exceptions so it's best to manually review the listings when possible.

Regarding https redirects, it's more of a feature than a bug. Technically speaking, it's complicated to implement so we haven't had a chance to work on it yet. It's on our roadmap though.

Edit: HTTPS redirects have been implemented.

 

[Deven Patel]

Quick announcement everyone.. we just added bulk verification to our marketplace.

Moving forward, all you have to do is set your domains' nameservers to NS1.ALTER.COM and NS2.ALTER.COM before adding them to your Alter account. They will be automatically verified and listed!

Please note that in some rare cases you may still be asked to manually verify the domain using a different set of nameservers if it was already listed on our marketplace by another owner in the past.