registrars New display on GoDaddy when searching for names that are in Afternic

[campout]

It looks like GoDaddy has rolled out a new display when you search for names in their search bar. I think it only applies to names that are in Afternic, and maybe GD Premium.

I think I like it. They're trying to sell the name by quoting their own estimated value and making some automated points about the name on the right.

They should be able to tell real quick if it's helping or hurting sales rate.

 

[Joe Styler]

Indeed, I still disagree with the sales method where 2 different prices / valuations are shown. Assuming that todays behavior (not to show lower appraised values) is not specific to the IP/browser I noticed it from, and assuming that it will stay, it would be useful to see real results of the experiment. What if we see an increase in sales? In this case, I would be happy to transfer more BIN domains to GD/Afternic channel exactly for this purpose, let them show what a deal the buyer is receiving with a higher appraised value. This would open a question how to retreive "appraisal" values in bulk, as I would need to see if the domain is "appraised" with a higher value, but it is too early to ask this question now.

You can see them in bulk if you come to namescon. We have a couple really cool things exclusively for Namescon attendees.

 

[Joe Styler]

@Joe Styler Are you going to change the order of premium listings at related searchs? Before new tld flood it was second or third, now one premium listing is placed at the very bottom. This change drastically reduced the sale of premium listings. I don't know how it affected the sale of other tlds and changed things more profitable for Godaddy or not but it was a huge blow for premium listings.

If you are talking about listing other premium names similar to what the buyer is searching for then there is nothing I know of in the near term to bring that back. We did a lot of testing and what we saw was that people either buy the exact premium domain they were searching for or they move on, they do not typically buy a similar name. We tried a lot of tests some of which were putting them right below the main result, putting them on the top right column, featuring them as alternatives, sending people emails with similar names etc, etc. A lot of tests. The only one we found that works is if someone has a tld other than .com and the .com is available for sale on the Aftermarket a % of people will buy that exact name in the .com.

Times and attitudes and buying habits change so I am sure at some point we will test it again, but we do not have any immediate plans to do so.

 

[Joe Styler]

They are still offering my names for sale without authorisation, or the ability to deliver.

Before bidding or paying for a name, you should check with the registrant to see if GoDaddy/AfterNick has the ability to sell it. SimplyPho.com is not for sale btw.

It looks to us like it is for sale. It is listed by the whois registrant and the WHOIS even says that its for sale on Afternic.
simplypho.com
whois information
Registrant Contact Information:
Name
Pacific Web Host
Organization
THIS DOMAIN IS FOR SALE, CHECK AFTERNIC.COM
Address
97 Grafton St.
City
Bondi Junction
State / Province
NSW
Postal Code
2022
Country
AU
Phone
+61.8158886883

 

[Joe Styler]

Here is another one that is listed there, and it is not for sale - it's one I bought to develop.

Isn't there a $70 fee to buy these names, or is that on Afternic?

Here is another Whois capture from this one. I am using WHO.is maybe they have out of date info or something but these whois lookups are showing different people than you.
Registrant Contact Information:
Name
Vyacheslav Vasilenko
Organization
Address
Bratiev Gorkushenko 1 - 48
City
Saint-Petersburg
State / Province
Saint-Petersburg
Postal Code
198516
Country
RU
Phone
+7.9119274677
Email

 

[DnFolk]

It looks to us like it is for sale. It is listed by the whois registrant and the WHOIS even says that its for sale on Afternic.
simplypho.com
whois information
Registrant Contact Information:
Name
Pacific Web Host
Organization
THIS DOMAIN IS FOR SALE, CHECK AFTERNIC.COM
Address
97 Grafton St.
City
Bondi Junction
State / Province
NSW
Postal Code
2022
Country
AU
Phone
+61.8158886883

Here is another Whois capture from this one. I am using WHO.is maybe they have out of date info or something but these whois lookups are showing different people than you.
Registrant Contact Information:
Name
Vyacheslav Vasilenko
Organization
Address
Bratiev Gorkushenko 1 - 48
City
Saint-Petersburg
State / Province
Saint-Petersburg
Postal Code
198516
Country
RU
Phone
+7.9119274677
Email

These are not updated and old owner details. for the latest ones check whois.com

 

[DnFolk]

Don't like godaddy estimated value being visible with BIN. confusing buyers and can even influence them that we sellers are overpricing.

 

[Kuffy]

@Joe Styler
Thank you for taking the trouble to reply to my comments at last. However, I am concerned that you attach so little importance to this matter, which seems to be escalating. As has been pointed out - the whois info that you posted is out of date, and I am surprised that a representative of GoDaddy would not notice that. Perhaps you should believe in the services of your company as the GoDaddy whois shows the correct information. So does the definitive whois at ICANN. I'm also disappointed that you show such little respect for domain investors. I've got over 20 years experience, and a portfolio of over 600 names. I know that is fairly small by modern standards, but it is large enough to understand the basics of whois records.

It would appear that this is the sequence of events.

• The name was registered with Name Silo and listed for sale on Afternic.
• It was listed for sale at a price of $144.40, which seems to be a low price in my opinion.
• Afternic failed to sell the name despite its low price
• The name was set to expire on 23-11-2017
• I purchased the name through the NS market place, and the name was transferred to my account.
• I changed the name servers to private-rack.com, and put a simple holding page on the name. This has no indication that the name may be for sale.
• After a couple of weeks, I received an alert from Name Silo that the name had been submitted for a new fast track sale. I assume that "new" means the appication had been submitted within the last 48 hours.
• At this point I brought the issue to the notice of NamePros members to try to get some clarification of the situation.

At this point it would be useful to know if the new appiction was submitted by the previous owner. We don't need names, a simple confirmation that is was or was not the same person will be sufficient.

I don't use Afternic, but I assume that a listing is live only when the name is available. If the name expires, shouldn't the listing be cancelled?

 

[campout]

Now if only you guys set up GoDaddy nameservers for direct buy now landing pages

Yeah this would be my #1 request for GoDaddy in my wish list.

 

[anantj]

@Kuffy - I have seen you post a few times about this.

Why not setup an account at Afternic, add this name to you account, and then turn the "hidden" option on.

After the name gets reviewed and approved in your account - this should prevent the other user from listing on Afternic in the future.

Not entirely foolproof unfortunately. Afternic has supersellers who can override existing listings and list domains they do not own. Afternic is weird af

 

[anantj]

Could Afternic do better ownership checks? Sure. But, I imagine from their point of view - they validated the previous owner before and have no reason to assume they don't still have ownership if they still have it listed for sale. In the end, it is the domain sellers responsibility to keep their profile up to date - or risk losing it if they can't honor a sale.

Not at all. @Kuffy is not the domain seller in this case at all and it definitely is not their responsibility. Why should they be responsible for an unrelated, 3rd party service that they have no connection to (Afternic in this case)

 

[Kuffy]

It's starting to look as if GoDaddy is a name harvesting machine, and not a service for domain professionals, unless they are in the inner sanctum of course.

 

[anantj]

@Kuffy I'd request that you reach out to Namesilo and make sure Fast Transfer is disabled for all your domains... (Both Afternic and Sedo). And repeat this with other registrars that you use.

 

[Kuffy]

@Kuffy I'd request that you reach out to Namesilo and make sure Fast Transfer is disabled for all your domains... (Both Afternic and Sedo). And repeat this with other registrars that you use.

I don't really have a problem with Name Silo. At least they are prepared to talk to me. They send an opt-in email, so if I miss it, it isn't enabled. I don't know if theyhve global opt out setting. Maybe it's something I should suggest to @namesilo

Imagine what it would be like if fast transfer was enabled on your house. You could get a knock on the door, and a bailiff would say "Come on, you have to be out by 12 o'clock"

 

[Joe Styler]

@Joe Styler
Thank you for taking the trouble to reply to my comments at last. However, I am concerned that you attach so little importance to this matter, which seems to be escalating. As has been pointed out - the whois info that you posted is out of date, and I am surprised that a representative of GoDaddy would not notice that. Perhaps you should believe in the services of your company as the GoDaddy whois shows the correct information. So does the definitive whois at ICANN. I'm also disappointed that you show such little respect for domain investors. I've got over 20 years experience, and a portfolio of over 600 names. I know that is fairly small by modern standards, but it is large enough to understand the basics of whois records.

It would appear that this is the sequence of events.

• The name was registered with Name Silo and listed for sale on Afternic.
• It was listed for sale at a price of $144.40, which seems to be a low price in my opinion.
• Afternic failed to sell the name despite its low price
• The name was set to expire on 23-11-2017
• I purchased the name through the NS market place, and the name was transferred to my account.
• I changed the name servers to private-rack.com, and put a simple holding page on the name. This has no indication that the name may be for sale.
• After a couple of weeks, I received an alert from Name Silo that the name had been submitted for a new fast track sale. I assume that "new" means the appication had been submitted within the last 48 hours.
• At this point I brought the issue to the notice of NamePros members to try to get some clarification of the situation.

At this point it would be useful to know if the new appiction was submitted by the previous owner. We don't need names, a simple confirmation that is was or was not the same person will be sufficient.

I don't use Afternic, but I assume that a listing is live only when the name is available. If the name expires, shouldn't the listing be cancelled?

Sorry I didn't mean to offend you I just did a quick whois check and that is what I saw. So it is reasonable that the domains just changed hands and the old listing is active. We can remove them. In our terms of service we ask that the listing party be responsible for removing out of date listings. We do check names periodically when they expire but quite frankly it is impossible to check them all and do it as soon as they change hands. We as well as any other registrar are limited in how many whois lookups we can do per day per registry. I don't know what is public or non public so I will keep my numbers vague and say that we do millions of whois lookups some of them for new registrations when people come to buy a new name we need to see if it is available, if it can transfer etc, we also look up whois for names listed on the marketplace which right now is close to 13 million. If we did a real time regular check on all names we would essentially DDOS the other registrars or registries and they as you can imagine do not allow that. So we do the best we can and we do check names listed on the marketplace and take seriously any names not listed correctly. We also audit listings and work with big sellers to "keep them honest" on their lists. If you have a new purchase of a domain we might not catch it right away but that does not mean we don't care or are not looking. If you contact [email protected] they can remove it for you. If you do not want to, as you have made clear previously then we will catch it and remove it eventually. We have made changes to help work around these limitations and keep inventory better up to date and have other changes in the pipeline. It is something we take seriously.

 

[carob]

I don't really have a problem with Name Silo. At least they are prepared to talk to me. They send an opt-in email, so if I miss it, it isn't enabled. I don't know if theyhve global opt out setting. Maybe it's something I should suggest to @namesilo

I'd also like to see that, to be able to turn off all fast-transfer at registrar level. Because Afternic has no way to switch off fast transfer once you enable it on a domain - I asked in another thread and was told to email support: https://www.namepros.com/threads/pr...rt-problems-here.1006373/page-23#post-6526719

So as it stands the only way to disable fast transfer once it is enabled (assuming it is in your account) is to remove the Afternic listing, assuming that actually works.

 

[Kuffy]

We can remove them. In our terms of service we ask that the listing party be responsible for removing out of date listings. We do check names periodically when they expire but quite frankly it is impossible to check them all and do it as soon as they change hands.

All you have to do is the set the listing to end when the name expires. You could mail the account holder and ask him to renew if he wants to continue his listing. Of course this would reduce the number of names that you purport to have for sale .

You still haven't replied to my question - why did I receive a notification of a new listing after the name had been transferred? and did the request originate from the original registrant, or a new party who had seen the name mentioned on the boards?

 

[anantj]

I don't really have a problem with Name Silo. At least they are prepared to talk to me. They send an opt-in email, so if I miss it, it isn't enabled. I don't know if theyhve global opt out setting. Maybe it's something I should suggest to @namesilo

Imagine what it would be like if fast transfer was enabled on your house. You could get a knock on the door, and a bailiff would say "Come on, you have to be out by 12 o'clock"

I did not mean that there's a problem with Namesilo. I meant, make sure that FT is disabled for your domains. Namesilo can check and confirm (and remove FT if required).

 

[carob]

Just a note here about something that delays Afternic listing emails - they make you wait 60 days to activate a listing after a whois change and maybe other changes as I recall. So you submit the listing, then get emails about it 60+ days later.

 

[Joe Styler]

I can have someone check and see if there was a new attempt to list your name. There may not have been. It may simply be the case where there was an automated follow up sent because the original lister did not respond to the first one we sent a couple months ago. If it is a new attempt I cannot tell you who is trying because of our privacy policies but we can make sure they stop trying which is against our policies as well.

 

[Joe Styler]

All you have to do is the set the listing to end when the name expires. You could mail the account holder and ask him to renew if he wants to continue his listing. Of course this would reduce the number of names that you purport to have for sale .

You still haven't replied to my question - why did I receive a notification of a new listing after the name had been transferred? and did the request originate from the original registrant, or a new party who had seen the name mentioned on the boards?

I just checked both listings look to me to be old as in almost a year old. If you see them pop up again now that I canceled them please let me know.

 

[Kuffy]

Thanks for that.

However, we still have the problem of expired listing being included in fast transfer. I don't have the time to check all listing venues for all the names I acquire. Having to add a "No Afternic" button to every site doesn't seem to be good for either of us.

 

[Joe Styler]

Thanks for that.

However, we still have the problem of expired listing being included in fast transfer. I don't have the time to check all listing venues for all the names I acquire. Having to add a "No Afternic" button to every site doesn't seem to be good for either of us.

No it is not, but honestly when I saw it, it gave me a laugh. So thank you for that We'll keep trying to improve and I appreciate the feedback. If you see another listing request come through for you let me know and I will look into it.

 

[Kuffy]

You've tempted me with that valuation for BuyRealGold.com. $25,000 seems to be a good price - I might even sell it for that.

 

[accent]

I think the core problem is that sales at auction and end user sales are mixed together in the appraisal. They are completely different. If only end user sales (no auctions) go into the appraisal I suspect most domainers will feel it is fair. As it is, we are expected to compete with auctions in pricing.

The entire four letter domain market was re-structured in 2016 (Chinese Boom). Chip (no AEIOUV) LLLL.coms now sell for $950 MINIMUM at auction. The tool is not aware of this and shows comps as low as $25. Then it tells the buyer that a 4 letter domain is valuable because it has less than 15 letters and has the keyword: "M". Probably, there are not a lot of four letter .coms in Godaddy's inventory, but the neglect is obvious to the buyer.

@Joe Styler
This is a seriously negative plan because of the too-low appraisals. I fear Godaddy is not listening to the many customers on this thread who are telling them, loudly, "Too Low!". Use End-User sale prices to build appraisals for End-Users.

 

[Joe Styler]

It is only being tested and these are good points. I will tell the team who works on this. On the backend of the appraisal tool we look at wholesale and retail pricing and retail values should be what is returned. This sounds like a glitch. I do think the keyword "M" is very good though but since there is not one in my name I prefer the keyword "J" Thanks again. I will have someone look at it. It would help if you can give me the 4L you looked up so I can take a screenshot to show them.