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dande

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I think Epik is building the best ever Domain Lander in the history of domaining, and it really needs to be talked about extensively. That's why I am creating this discussion thread. A lot of thought process really goes into the project. And I can see (for the first time) a landing page that is built from the stand point of domainers rather than for just the marketplace itself.

Everything you have ever dreamt of getting or seeing in a professional landing page can be found in the new Epik marketplace landing page design.

Some of my Favorites Features:


1. The ability to optimize your "domain for sale" landing page to actually rank on Google, displaying your sales pitch/domain description. I just did that with few of my generic domain names such as ASAP.TV, targeting certain keywords, and they are showing pretty well on Google. That's a huge plus in my marketing effort.

2. Being able to change background image is another huge one for me. If you are good with pictures and images, you will surely find this very useful. I did that with Nagasaki.org and the result was truly amazing, showing the city of Nagasaki right at the background.

There are too many positive features and I don't want to mention all of them, all alone :xf.grin::xf.grin:

So I am leaving you guys to share and discuss what you loves most or dislike about the new Epik marketplace and the landing pages.


The only negative for me is the checkout process. There are too many terms and conditions buttons to tick before checking out. It will be nice if they can streamline those into one beautiful big button :xf.cool:

They also need to place the checkout button directly under the payment options. Right now it is awkwardly place somewhere below at the sidebar, which I don't find cool at all.

Sales experience is also welcomed in this discussion. I haven't had any sells so far at Epik because I started using the marketplace just recently, but the future is looking so bright.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Is there some way to setup catch-all for emails AND use some external lander page like Sedo?

Sure, set A-record or CNAME and then use catch-all email forwarding. You can do that as a combo.

On the other hand, why use the Sedo landers? At the very least split-test against the Epik landers and see which gets more qualified inquiries. With Epik at least you get all of the contact info.

Also, before NamesCon, the new Epik CRM will be live. If you have legacy inquiry data, we'll provide migration tools for Sedo and Uni DNS plus others upon request.
 
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Those MX records are Bounce.IO monetization of the MX stream.

I actually recommend instead using the email forwarding service with catch-all instead.

Bounce.io does not bring much so I think we'll drop it for now. I had not seen this request earlier but just confirmed with engineering that will go ahead and drop it.

That said, I strongly recommend using those email forwarders for intelligence gathering. I have sold many names by using misrouted emails as soft-sell to the CEO.

@vitigo - As discussed with Aleksey, approved to disable Bounce.io effective immediately.

@Jurgen Wolf - Quite update for you. The legacy of Bounce.IO host records will be dropped on Friday morning CET. It is about 2 million host records.
upload_2020-1-16_11-21-48.png


Small world story, it was Sean Stafford of @DomainGraduate who first pitched me on using Bounce.IO before they became ThreatWave and were acquired by Return Path. DomainGraudate is now part of Epik.

The end of an era because of @Jurgen Wolf.

In the meantime, try out email forwarding with catch-all.
 
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This email monetization is very dangerous... at least if it is enabled for Afilias TLDs...
Few years ago - one of my .ME domains was suspended exactly due to Email monetization at ParkingCrew...
And overall, MX revenue is very minor but risks are very high - so no any sense to use it.
 
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This email monetization is very dangerous... at least if it is enabled for Afilias TLDs...
Few years ago - one of my .ME domains was suspended exactly due to Email monetization at ParkingCrew...
And overall, MX revenue is very minor but risks are very high - so no any sense to use it.

We never had an issue with it, but the ROI was small. We originally added it to see if improved SEO, i.e. activating an MX record.

I believe the real ROI is by mining the catch-all for emails that can be used to engage the logical buyers.

One word of warning to not try to hack someone's PayPal or online banking due to abandoned email address. It is extremely easy but definitely not in the gray area.
 
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My suspended doMEn definitely had some working email address prior my registration...
Was popular blog on it... later dropped and I caught it...
It was blocked by Afilias after ~2-3 months of parking (with enabled Email monetization).
 
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Also keep in mind, that Afilias blocks are usually silent (without any notifications to registrants).
So most domainers even don't know that their domains are not alive until manually detected.
 
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As a side note, I recently tried to use epik dns for some temporary routine (txt records verification for a set of domains where I decided to change the parking company) - so I just added some external domains, configured A and TXT records in bulk, verified and deleted these domains. It worked. With an exception that I've seen some strange A records, it looked like Epik either grabbed and saved IPs which were live years ago or tried to include current IP addresses together with the new IPs I just submitted as A records. And, no existing records were shown initially, unknown records appeared after I finished everything. Why is this? One would expect clean DNS before managing it. And, is there a way to check a real zone content after I finished the config - with such a strange behavior it is possible that there are some other unknown and unnecessary records I forgot to remove, or was unable to (maybe some exotic record type which is not in GUI for example)?
 
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Bulk DNS is very specific there... it affects all types of records when you submit any changes...
In other words, if you submit just bulk TXT modification - all other records like A, MX etc. will be updated as well...
That's why outcome is unpredictable...
 
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Sure, set A-record or CNAME
In Sedo case, IPs are frequently changed. So, just CNAME to sedoparking.com should be better. Not to forget about making a decision as to naked domain config ( @ ), as there should be different possible ways to setup it.
 
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ALIAS record type for @ - Epik has it from my observation...
CNAME for subdomains like www or * (catch-all).
 
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Is there some way to setup catch-all for emails AND use some external lander page like Sedo?
I'm curious why you would want to use a SEDO external landing page instead of a EPIK landing page? EPIK is way better!!!
 
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... TrustRatings link should be placed anywhere in the footer or below the body, but not on the top...

Something I recently noticed on that. The trust ratings icon shows 5 stars but if you click on it ot goes the the rating page for that domain which I suspect in many cases like mine is unrated, could be confusing if an end user saw that...
 
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Trustratings was invented with trustpilot in mind. We all understand this. The logos are similar. So. as a domainseller, I prefer not to show this trustratings at all (the visitors may be misleaded). Moreover, imho, one should not expect <any-undeveloped-cool-domain. com> be rated by a "third party". Epik as a business - maybe, but not each and every domain from the Epik marketplace. Can bulk opt-out be arranged? Account by account basis (as some sellers may still want to show it due to one reason or another)...
@Rob Monster
 
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Trustratings was invented with trustpilot in mind. We all understand this. The logos are similar. So. as a domainseller, I prefer not to show this trustratings at all (the visitors may be misleaded). Moreover, imho, one should not expect <any-undeveloped-cool-domain. com> be rated by a "third party". Epik as a business - maybe, but not each and every domain from the Epik marketplace. Can bulk opt-out be arranged? Account by account basis (as some sellers may still want to show it due to one reason or another)...
@Rob Monster

The TrustRatings logo can be turned on/off at the domain level. There is no global setting for that. Also before NamesCon, a notable upgrade will be completed for it.

We have it on good authority that the trust signal does help with conversion/engagement which is why it was deployed in the first place. That said we have not split-test that yet.

Rob
 
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Regarding catch all, i might have missed the discussion, can it be used for external domains on Epic nameservers?
 
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In Sedo case, IPs are frequently changed. So, just CNAME to sedoparking.com should be better. Not to forget about making a decision as to naked domain config ( @ ), as there should be different possible ways to setup it.
Found this article, thanks.
 
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Please add one more option into your UI settings... to completely disable Estibot "appraisals" (to hide this data/column at all).
Thanks.
 
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Please add one more option into your UI settings... to completely disable Estibot "appraisals" (to hide this data/column at all).
Thanks.

Do you really care that this column exists, or are you asking for the ability to set up a custom views on the data? It is more realistic from a support documentation perspective that we give you the ability to set up custom views. We have a few requests for custom tabs for domain manager so I rather go that route. Yes?
 
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Question for the group about live chat.

As it is, we have the option of a live chat on SSL landers. It is attended by Epik staff and we actually see engagement with it. We usually get the prospect to submit an offer, but sometimes they don't and we send the transcript to the domain owner for their followup or input.

I am discussing with engineering about the option of adding web chat directly into their control panel where domain owners can chat directly with their arriving prospects and bring across the finish line. It would tie into the new CRM system that is coming online this month so there is a central record of the touch point.

What do folks think about that idea?
 
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The less columns - the better.
Estibot data is 100% noise and can be safely removed/excluded.
 
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I have no need to view estibot appraisals for any purpose, so I'd prefer this column to disappear. If I can switch it off forever - fine. Moreover, I would appreciate if no queries about my domains would be sent to estibot at all (even in background and invisible). The reason is that their "system" will notice who is quering and may use this extra data in their so-called algorithm (epik -> epik customers -> domainer owned etc.)
 
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What do folks think about that idea?
If, as the result, there would no more annoying blue "feedback" in the right bottom corner - this would be great. No need to have an opportunity to submit a feedback on each and every page inside the account, it should be something separate, like a chat. Or, better, normal tickets system.
 
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If, as the result, there would no more annoying blue "feedback" in the right bottom corner - this would be great. No need to have an opportunity to submit a feedback on each and every page inside the account, it should be something separate, like a chat. Or, better, normal tickets system.

If you mean this:

upload_2020-1-17_8-50-17.png


It is an attended live chat.

Right now it is attended by Epik personnel. The question is whether domain owners themselves would want to have the ability to live chat with their prospects.
 
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Regarding Chat between sellers and buyers...
Make it as option... who needs it - will switch it ON.
 
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If you mean this:

Yeah, this blue thing. On my screen it says "feedback" though. It is not "native" for the design, is it? Also, why waste space showing icann and domaining icons inside the account, on each and every page? I know that Epik is ICANN accredited, and whether it paid domaining .com for a listing is irrelevant for domain management needs.
As for support in general - if I have an urgent issue, I'll prefer to call. Should it be 24/7 and with multilingual support as Epik staff is located in different countries - fine. I would have no issues speaking and understanding English, but my personal preference would be either Spanish or Russian :) And, if the issue is not urgent - I'd rather submit a ticket. It would allow to better route it to appropriate staff member, with better history and tracking. So, live chat may only be useful for endusers in aftermarket transactions who may not be well familiar with what happens and why. Imho.
 
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