Atom / Atom.com - Marketplace (formerly Squadhelp)

[JudgeMind]

Hey Folks,

I've just started using squadhelp.com to list some of my brandable. So far I have 76 domains listed, there is no fee to list. I've had some decent action so far in the way of interested buyers but no sales as of yet. I've only been with them for 1 week now.

A bit of a summary review of SquadHelp:

PROS

• No Listing fee
• No Logo design fee
• Ability to submit your names to end users holding naming contests
• Ability to chat directly or send a message directly to end users.
• Stats of your marketplace domains are shown in the marketplace dashboard.
• Their customer service and support has been great, 24hr a day chat.
• Ability to increase or decrease the list price of your domains or to show a discount. You can decrease or increase the price yourself by $200. If you want to lower more, you can contact support.
• End users can shortlist your domains before they make a decision on which they want to purchase. The number of shortlists is shown in you marketplace dashboard.
• When you submit your names you get to set the price you wish to get. Because their commissions are high I recommend listing at a higher price to offset the commission costs.
• Their landing pages are fairly basic but they work. Because the marketplace is fairly new, I'm sure we will see style improvements in the future.
• One thing I really like is they accept multiple extensions. I have listed .co and .io along with .com
• Each seller gets a direct link to their marketplace portfolio, HERES MY PORTFOLIO. It is handy if your trying to p[promote your portfolio through social media.
• I like that their marketplace doesn't have tens of thousands domain listings like BB. They are fairly strict on the domains they accept to list and so this helps keep the number of domains in the marketplace down and gets your listings more exposure.

CONS

• Their commissions are very high, depending on the domain name they are usually between 30% and 35%. However, there are no listing fees, no logo design fees, so in the end their commission is very similar to brand buckets.
• Their logos are not top quality, in fact I requested to have some of my logos remade.
• I think they have a big backlog of logos to design, the wait time for logo design has been around 1 week, but your names are still listed while the logos are being designed.
• After your names are accepted you need to agree to their commission rate, at this point you also need to apply your own keywords, descriptions etc. I found this was very time consuming.

 

[bazabizo]

I submitted a domain I own s/t/o/r/k/s/y/./c/o/m to SquadHelp for review. Within hours of my domain being rejected by the SquadHelp internal team (September 30th), they registered a variation of it (storkzi) and 48 hours later the domain is now live complete with a logo on SquadHelp.com.

@GrantP I'd be interested to hear your thoughts regarding why this should be considered anything less than slimy.

zi in the end of a name is known to be relatively stronger than SY
Just my 2 cents here

 

[karmaco]

zi in the end of a name is known to be relatively stronger than SY
Just my 2 cents here

You are joking right? Zi would sixth choice with Sy being 1 or 2.

The accusation is SH bought and listed a similar name immediately after rejecting his not what spelling is preferred.

 

[E-Thunder]

You realize Squadhelp is registering these in behalf of submissions from domainers and creatives, right? For example, I can submit squadzi and get 30 percent if I allow Squadhelp to register. They get the majority of the sale proceeds.

 

[DomainBanana]

zi in the end of a name is known to be relatively stronger than SY
Just my 2 cents here

I don't know why you're debating the value of suffixes, as if it matters in the SH review process.

One day -sy could be accepted, -zi rejected.

Another day -zi could be accepted, -sy accepted.

Or, the same name could be rejected from one seller and accepted from the next, depending on which type of review it went through ('expert' / internal / bulk / combination).

Or, the same name often gets rejected and then accepted a few months later.

It's not worth trying to figure out the acceptance logic on SH because often there is no logic.

 

[scrsteven]

SH has its owned portfolio from seller submissions of available names, so yes they are a competitor to some degree. They don't hide this, so I don't have any problem with them utilizing the data they collect.

I don't know if that's what they did in this case. Or if someone who reviewed your name decided to register it or request SH to do so.
(Edited based on Grant's post below)

 

[Atom.com]

I would like to address some of the recent comments.

1. Of the 60,000+ names listed in SH marketplace, we currently have 1 name that is solely owned by SH. All other names are either owned by sellers, or are registered by SH on behalf of other sellers who receive a commission when the name sells.

2. None of the SH discovery algorithms (e.g. sorting, AI) differentiate names based on registration type or commission rates. In other words, a name does not achieve a higher ranking in the Marketplace because it is registered by SH (where SH commission is higher).

3. We price most recent hand-regs in the $1699 to $2000 price range - this pricing applies to SH owned domains as well as seller owned domains. This is not meant to undercut anyone - we just find this range to be the optimal price point for most hand-reg names. Over time, as we collect additional analytics, we do increase the pricing for several SH registered domains. Sellers also have the flexibility to make some adjustments to those prices (higher or lower) for both seller owned and SH registered domains.

submitted a domain I own s/t/o/r/k/s/y/./c/o/m to SquadHelp for review. Within hours of my domain being rejected by the SquadHelp internal team (September 30th), they registered a variation of it (storkzi) and 48 hours later the domain is now live complete with a logo on SquadHelp.com.

@GrantP I'd be interested to hear your thoughts regarding why this should be considered anything less than slimy.

I looked into this specific domain. Your domain, s/t/o/r/k/s/y/./c/o/m was submitted to SH on Sep 30, at 7:38AM CST, and was rejected on Sep 30, at 6:06pm CST.

The other domain, s/t/o/r/k/z/i.com was submitted as an unregistered domain by another seller on Sep 25 at 8:26 pm (5 days before your submission). It was approved by SH on Sep 29th at 6:07pm CST (1 day before your submission) and registered by SH on behalf of other creative on Sep 29th at 8:47pm CST. (still 1 day before your submission). This can also be verified via Whois info in case you are interested.

As a background, we get more than 200,000 unregistered domain submissions per month to SH contests (in addition to several thousand unregistered marketplace submissions). It would be unethical for us to take seller's or creative's ideas and then register our own names based on those ideas.

We understand that it can take time to build trust with a marketplace or any business for that matter. We have a 24x7 support team that can help answer any such concerns. You can certainly disagree with our approval or rejection criteria. However, please use your best judgement before implying a business may be engaging in unethical or "slimy" practices.

 

[ExDom]

I would like to ask if the Cloud Brokers Program is alive. It would be great for a broker to do outbound and get paid by SH and not by me. If SH was hiring a broker the 30% commission would be more than justified.

I have more than 100 premium and so far had zero Cloud Broker requests. I saw that six months ago SH was looking to hire Cloud Brokers but since then heard no news.

Any feedback regarding this @GrantP would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[brandstablish]

I would like to address some of the recent comments.

1. Of the 60,000+ names listed in SH marketplace, we currently have 1 name that is solely owned by SH. All other names are either owned by sellers, or are registered by SH on behalf of other sellers who receive a commission when the name sells.

2. None of the SH discovery algorithms (e.g. sorting, AI) differentiate names based on registration type or commission rates. In other words, a name does not achieve a higher ranking in the Marketplace because it is registered by SH (where SH commission is higher).

3. We price most recent hand-regs in the $1699 to $2000 price range - this pricing applies to SH owned domains as well as seller owned domains. This is not meant to undercut anyone - we just find that to be the optimal price point for most hand-reg names. Over time, as we collect additional analytics, we do increase the pricing for several SH registered domains. Sellers also have the flexibility to make some adjustments to those prices (higher or lower) for both seller owned and SH registered domains.



I looked into this specific domain. Your domain, s/t/o/r/k/s/y/./c/o/m was submitted to SH on Sep 30, at 7:38AM CST, and was rejected on Sep 30, at 6:06pm CST.

The other domain, s/t/o/r/k/z/i.com was submitted as an unregistered domain by another seller on Sep 25 at 8:26 pm (5 days before your submission). It was approved by SH on Sep 29th at 8:47pm CST (1 day before your submission) and registered by SH on behalf of other creative on Sep 29th at 6:07pm CST. (still 1 day before your submission). This can also be verified via Whois info in case you are interested.

As a background, we get more than 200,000 unregistered domain submissions per month to SH contests (in addition to several thousand unregistered marketplace submissions). It would be unethical for us to take seller's or creative's ideas and then register our own names based on those ideas.

We understand that it can take time to build trust with a marketplace or any business for that matter. We have a 24x7 support team that can help answer any such concerns. You can certainly disagree with our approval or rejection criteria. However, please use your best judgement before implying a business may be engaging in unethical or "slimy" practices.

You have my genuine apology.

For the sake of clarity & due diligence, I did try to verify this info with your support team and was just told that there's no information about that on my account. Additionally, even using a cst to utc/zulu calculator + whois - I struggle to land on the same creation times you have. Regardless, instead of letting ego/emotion fuel my anxiety - it feels much more reasonable to lean into the assumption of good in others and take your word for how all of this played out rather than jumping to negative conclusions.

 

[golan]

I had these names recently rejected (which I believe are great brandables) :

eteria
bewey
secria
folmy

No, they are not. Sorry.

 

[Coindoji]

No, they are not. Sorry.

I decided to take the first name and see what's up :

I disagree - this is a great name and it sounds awesome for any brand (eternal, eternity), but you might be the type of guy who likes 'Zoxely' and 'Ultala' more (these are accepted, just random examples).

 

[blogspotter]

Those saying they reject by domain age, I submitted some hand registrations this week. All domains hand registered last week.
6 domains got approved.
Lexaca, Elivor, Aruzy and Yuoko got preapproved because there were enough votes.

Beuxy and Kovega also got approved.
All 6 were hand registered last week.


Ceurix, Alevv, Volonex, Yozaki, Riboca, Nepolia, Menavio, Bocaty, Topixi, Doconti were names from that batch that got rejected. I think because I submitted everything together, otherwise I am sure 2/3 of these are not bad and I usually get a better approval rate on my hand regs. or maybe I registered way too many one day

I submit hand registered domains and they get approved at about 60-70% if they pass the radio test, and are good when you say out

PS: I usually delete domains that don't get approved, so you may want to check them out if you like

 

[blogspotter]

@GrantP Your 1-2 syllable filter a bit off.
If your search functionality don't work as intended, I think it would be a better idea to rotate and give equal weight age to every name by randomising the search result

When I search 1 syllable, i find a lot if multi syllable or non pronounceable LLLLs

 

[jk23]

Perfect example of how the approval process still needs to be improved:

Eteria - rejected
Lexaca, Elivor, Aruzy, Yuoko - accepted

The reviewers aren't using any data to make their decisions- just eyeballing it, apparently. To be fair, they aren't incentivized enough to take the time to do so.

 

[JudgeMind]

Folks, check your delisted section at sh.. I had a bunch that were delisted and wasn’t sure why.

 

[DomainBanana]

I decided to take the first name and see what's up :

Good analysis, @Coindoji

The SH review process doesn't mean much because they don't take the time to properly evaluate each domain on its merits. They take shortcuts with a superficial polling process, asking "which name do you like best?", that doesn't factor in the info you shared or many other important data points for a domain.

Because they fail to properly review domains, they can't possibly evaluate them properly either.

They just default to selling names at a discount.

I recently had a name that I invested in for ~$150 rejected from SH. Its 'expert' score was 1/15.

BB approved this domain for $8995.

Meanwhile SH regularly accepts poorly conceived hand-reg names.

For serious reviews / evaluations of a brandable, BB remains the gold standard.

 

[blogspotter]

Perfect example of how the approval process still needs to be improved:

Eteria - rejected
Lexaca, Elivor, Aruzy, Yuoko - accepted

The reviewers aren't using any data to make their decisions- just eyeballing it, apparently. To be fair, they aren't incentivized enough to take the time to do so.

Not replying because it is my domain, but you need to understand the type of domains that are looking for.
They are all eye balling and doing yay or nay and based on yays, it is approved.
Nobody is going to look at data.
Data simply says it has demand and domains with possible existing end users are best parked on afternic.

SH is looking at what a newbie business person is going to buy when he comes to decide on a new business name.

Names with many extensions taken simply means there might be someone who might want to upgrade to the dot com. That is not the market brandable marketplaces are trying to serve. They want people to shop for a unqiue name from hundreds of choices.

When one go for an upgrade, he comes via a type in or a registry path as he knows what he wants to buy. Why even pay 25% commission for such a name.

 

[DomainBanana]

Nobody is going to look at data.

No buyer looks at data, but paired with subjective intuition, data can be incredibly important in helping to identify and value domains.

Every successful domain investor gets this.

BB gets this.

It would be nice if SH would understand this, too.

 

[jk23]

Not replying because it is my domain, but you need to understand the type of domains that are looking for.
They are all eye balling and doing yay or nay and based on yays, it is approved.
Nobody is going to look at data.
Data simply says it has demand and domains with possible existing end users are best parked on afternic.

SH is looking at what a newbie business person is going to buy when he comes to decide on a new business name.

Names with many extensions taken simply means there might be someone who might want to upgrade to the dot com. That is not the market brandable marketplaces are trying to serve. They want people to shop for a unqiue name from hundreds of choices.

When one go for an upgrade, he comes via a type in or a registry path as he knows what he wants to buy. Why even pay 25% commission for such a name.

Totally disagree. Data is a great indicator of demand.

Also, I have a pretty good idea what they are looking for.

 

[Atom.com]

Evaluation was mentioned few times here already, I also believe it sucks.. but what can we do?

I had these names recently rejected (which I believe are great brandables) :

eteria
bewey
secria
folmy

The information shared is unfortunately not accurate. We welcome constructive criticism, but if the information is not factual, it is unproductive for everyone involved.

• "Eteria" was approved by SH on September 16 but was rejected by you because you did not agree to the approved price.
• "Secria" was approved on Aug 18 and is currently live.
• "Bewey" - looks like this domain was submitted by a different seller account. It seems you are claiming you submitted this domain. Maintaining multiple accounts is a direct violation of SH policy because it is unfair to other sellers who are following rules for submission limits, appeal process limits etc. Our team will follow up with you regarding this issue separately.

On the broader point of approval criteria, we accept those names that we believe will resonate with our customers. There is significant amount of data and analytics that is built into our approval process. We also share several of our data driven insights on an ongoing basis.

Despite all the data we use, brandable domains can be subjective and we will certainly make wrong decisions from time to time. We've seen many examples of names that were not accepted by SH but sold elsewhere. Therefore, if you strongly believe you have a high quality name that was not accepted by SH, we encourage you to consider other avenues or marketplaces for listing those names.

 

[DomainBanana]

Despite all the data we use, brandable domains can be subjective and we will certainly make wrong decisions from time to time. We've seen many examples of names that were not accepted by SH but sold elsewhere. Therefore, if you strongly believe you have a high quality name that was not accepted by SH, we encourage you to consider other avenues or marketplaces for listing those names.

Grant, there is much to love about SH. Overall, the marketplace is doing some cool, creative, and amazing things.

But rather than continuing to defend SH's convoluted and flawed review process, please listen to the scores of sellers (as demonstrated by this thread and shown again by the sellers surveyed in this summer's Branders Union report) who repeatedly say that SH's review process is broken.

As I pointed out above, there are currently 4 distinct ways that a domain can be reviewed on SH, each with its own standards and biases, which conflict with and contradict each other. The lack of a single, meaningful process means there is inherent inconsistency, confusion, unfairness.

When 'experts' pick out a name they like in a poll and reject the others, this is not "data and analytics", this is pure subjectivity.

When SH allows some names to go through the 'expert' process yet arbitrarily shortcircuits the 'expert' process on other names, the process loses further credibility.

When SH accepts a domain from one seller through an under-the-table bulk deal but will not accept the same domain from another seller through the standard process, this is not based on "what will resonate with your customers". This is not "data and analytics". It is pure favoritism.

A SH accept / reject is not much better than a roll of the dice. Sellers can't learn anything meaningful about the value of their domains -- or about how to improve their acceptance rate -- through this jumbled process.