Problems, Bugs and Fixes at Afternic - Report Problems Here

[carob]

I suggest a new thread titled Problems, Bugs and Fixes at Afternic - Report Problems Here. Then we can all list our issues so Afternic have to fix them. These Afternic probs have been repeatedly flagged up across numerous threads on here over a period of time, including the need for 2FA. Godaddy own Afternic and have the resources and motivation to fix it - this risky mess is unacceptable and reflects badly on their brand.

For info, Afternic keep reverting some of my domains to "In Review" status for no reason, and I only know that if I log in there to check on them. Until I then ask support to take them out of Review they are not listed for sale and will not sell at Afternic.

@Joe Styler When can we expect Godaddy to take action on Afternic, including implementing 2FA?

 

[Arca]

I essentially agree with their strategy. One of the most important things is to get in the search path of as many possible people around the world.

I don't really care if they let Afternic as a searchable marketplace go away.

So the takeaway here seems to be that we are supposed to use Afternic in conjunction with another marketplace/service: Take advantage of registrar path leads with the help of the afternic.com domain listing portal and send type-in to another platform that is focused on and optimized for capitalizing on such leads.

I wasn't really aware of their stance on this until reading Paul Nick's comment, and prior to reading his comment I've actually been expecting/hoping that they would revamp the buyer-facing afternic.com platform at some point. Until recently I sent all my type-in traffic to afternic.com (with great results, thanks solely to the work of their brokers). However, with the deterioration of afternic.com I feel like this is no longer viable so I'm not sending most type-in to them anymore. There was actually another thread on here a long time ago where an Afternic rep chimed in and said that the BIN landing page domainers are forwarding to (afternic.com/domain/MYDOMAIN.com) is not meant for that purpose, and that this landing page will not see any active development/updates. This landing page exists only for the purpose of showing the BIN/make offer details on a dedicated page to people who navigate to a domain listing via afternic.com search (which, ironically, potential buyers are not meant to use as well).

 

[Arca]

@Paul Nicks - Here are a some of the issues that impede Afternic from smoothly functioning as a portal for domain owners to list their names into the most active aftermarket in the world:

- No built-in function for dealing with “already listed” domains besides contacting support via email each time

- Maximum 50 domains can be viewed per page on the portfolio management page (very cumbersome if you have hundreds or thousands of domains listed - making bulk edits on afternic.com is frustrating)

- No built-in way to deal with domains inexplicably stuck in “pending review” for weeks and months

- Domain portfolio management page is extremely slow to load, buggy, and saving changes often does not work

- I inexplicably get logged by the system at times, especially when making listing edits

- Domain portfolio management page requires horizontal scrolling

- Customizing domain portfolio management columns does not work, it is reverted back to default once you leave the domain portfolio management area

- There is a spreadsheet bulk edit/add function, but it is complicated to use because it has too many settings columns. It's not convenient to upload a spreadsheet if we just want to make a few edits. Improved upload/edit/delete functionality on Afternic.com would be far better than having to deal with the spreadsheet

- Domains get “hidden” for no reason at times

- Account owners are not notified when domains are removed from their Afternic.com account and we are not provided with a log of domains removed from our account by customer support/the system

- Sellers are not informed when a sale fall through (so we don't know that we can offer the domain for sale again, and we continue wasting time reserving it for an afternic.com transaction that is not going to happen - please send out an email when you deem a sale to have fallen through)

- There are no security features besides an alphanumeric password, we can't change our username, no two factor authentication (and we can't even use symbols !@#$%^ in passwords)

- When using the Afternic.com I am inexplicably sent to a page telling me:

Resend the activation email.

Please enter the account name selected during registration, and we will get the activation sent out again. Be sure to add [email protected] to your contacts list so the email isn't sent to your spam filter.

* Please verify your account first. You can use the form to resend the verification email.

I encounter this error page on a daily basis. I don't actually have to re-verify my account (even though I enter my email, I'm never sent this email). Clicking around on the website eventually enables me to get back into my account again. But it's still annoying to encounter this bug every day.

- Support takes days to answer any inquiry, and often they outright ignore support request (no response is provided by support)

- There is no ticket support system. If you had this, perhaps CS could be held accountable for ignoring support requests

- No way to control opted in/opted out of Afternic network settings. Once you opt in to the premium network there is no way to opt out via Afternic.com (besides manually deleting the domain from Afternic.com)

- We also need to manually delete and relist every opted in domain that is moved from one registrar to another, in order to enable fast-transfer subsequent to moving a domain to a new registrar. A built-in function at Afternic.com for dealing with this would be more convenient

- Some brokers do not ask for permission to work a lead. If there is no "floor" pricing set, brokers must ask the seller before they can reach out to the prospective buyer. If seller negotiates with buyer, and the broker also negotiates with the buyer unbeknownst to the seller, that can easily cause confusion, misunderstandings and mess up sales. Also, there is no way to indicate our preference for sending leads only to certain brokers which is a highly needed feature.

- The new transaction system is still far worse and slower than the old one. A number of glitches and bugs that were pointed out in this thread one month ago still exist

- Many TA agents do not respond to messages regarding transactions and there is still no chat log or record being created for messages exchanged between seller/TA agent

- The way transactions are handled in the new system is too inconsistent. Sometimes I push a domain to Afternic's registrar holding account and the TA Agent immediately marks it as "transfer complete". Other times I do the same and the TA Agent refuses to mark the domains a "transfer complete". When sellers indicate that a domain has been transferred, the system does not save it (unlike the old system). Transfers are taking 3-4x longer to complete under the new system than they used to with the old system.

- Estimated payout dates are highly inaccurate and no "sold date" is shown

- Parts of the “account summary” details have not been working for more than a year, and this section was further broken by the introduction of the new transaction system (doesn't updated at all anymore). Would also be good if you could expand the amount of sales data displayed in this area with more relevant stats and numbers.

- Adult keyword review system is inconsistent, non-adult names are blocked from the platform, while a search for any of the most common “adult” keywords on afternic.com show a ton of adult domains already listed on the platform

I understand from your comment on domaininvesting.com that the Afternic.com website platform is not supposed to be a place for buyers to come and buy domains, and that GoDaddy channels all aftermarket development resources towards expanding your reseller network (which is providing fantastic results for sellers, so I certainly appreciate the continued development of this sales channel), while Afternic.com is merely meant to be a portal for domain owners to list and manage their names. However, I hope that the (non-exhaustive) list of issues above demonstrates that the platform currently does not serve the latter function in a satisfactory way, and that it is in need of extensive updates, improvements, and continued development to reach that level of functioning. So while the buyer-facing aspects of Afternic.com will not see any updates/improvements, I hope you can commit to focusing some of GD's resources towards fixing the seller-facing aspects of Afternic.com, so that the platform can adequately and effectively serve its stated function of being a portal for domain owners to list and manage their names for sale.

 

[Premiums]

sold 2 names

 

[Haris]

@Paul Nicks - Here are a some of the issues that impede Afternic from smoothly functioning as a portal for domain owners to list their names into the most active aftermarket in the world:

- No built-in function for dealing with “already listed” domains besides contacting support via email each time

- Maximum 50 domains can be viewed per page on the portfolio management page (very cumbersome if you have hundreds or thousands of domains listed - making bulk edits on afternic.com is frustrating)

- No built-in way to deal with domains inexplicably stuck in “pending review” for weeks and months

- Domain portfolio management page is extremely slow to load, buggy, and saving changes often does not work

- I inexplicably get logged by the system at times, especially when making listing edits

- Domain portfolio management page requires horizontal scrolling

- Customizing domain portfolio management columns does not work, it is reverted back to default once you leave the domain portfolio management area

- There is a spreadsheet bulk edit/add function, but it is complicated to use because it has too many settings columns. It's not convenient to upload a spreadsheet if we just want to make a few edits. Improved upload/edit/delete functionality on Afternic.com would be far better than having to deal with the spreadsheet

- Domains get “hidden” for no reason at times

- Account owners are not notified when domains are removed from their Afternic.com account and we are not provided with a log of domains removed from our account by customer support/the system

- Sellers are not informed when a sale fall through (so we don't know that we can offer the domain for sale again, and we continue wasting time reserving it for an afternic.com transaction that is not going to happen - please send out an email when you deem a sale to have fallen through)

- There are no security features besides an alphanumeric password, we can't change our username, no two factor authentication (and we can't even use symbols !@#$%^ in passwords)

- When using the Afternic.com I am inexplicably sent to a page telling me:

Resend the activation email.

Please enter the account name selected during registration, and we will get the activation sent out again. Be sure to add [email protected] to your contacts list so the email isn't sent to your spam filter.

* Please verify your account first. You can use the form to resend the verification email.

I encounter this error page on a daily basis. I don't actually have to re-verify my account (even though I enter my email, I'm never sent this email). Clicking around on the website eventually enables me to get back into my account again. But it's still annoying to encounter this bug every day.

- Support takes days to answer any inquiry, and often they outright ignore support request (no response is provided by support)

- There is no ticket support system. If you had this, perhaps CS could be held accountable for ignoring support requests

- No way to control opted in/opted out of Afternic network settings. Once you opt in to the premium network there is no way to opt out via Afternic.com (besides manually deleting the domain from Afternic.com)

- We also need to manually delete and relist every opted in domain that is moved from one registrar to another, in order to enable fast-transfer subsequent to moving a domain to a new registrar. A built-in function at Afternic.com for dealing with this would be more convenient

- Some brokers do not ask for permission to work a lead. If there is no "floor" pricing set, brokers must ask the seller before they can reach out to the prospective buyer. If seller negotiates with buyer, and the broker also negotiates with the buyer unbeknownst to the seller, that can easily cause confusion, misunderstandings and mess up sales. Also, there is no way to indicate our preference for sending leads only to certain brokers which is a highly needed feature.

- The new transaction system is still far worse and slower than the old one. A number of glitches and bugs that were pointed out in this thread one month ago still exist

- Many TA agents do not respond to messages regarding transactions and there is still no chat log or record being created for messages exchanged between seller/TA agent

- The way transactions are handled in the new system is too inconsistent. Sometimes I push a domain to Afternic's registrar holding account and the TA Agent immediately marks it as "transfer complete". Other times I do the same and the TA Agent refuses to mark the domains a "transfer complete". When sellers indicate that a domain has been transferred, the system does not save it (unlike the old system). Transfers are taking 3-4x longer to complete under the new system than they used to with the old system.

- Estimated payout dates are highly inaccurate and no "sold date" is shown

- Parts of the “account summary” details have not been working for more than a year, and this section was further broken by the introduction of the new transaction system (doesn't updated at all anymore). Would also be good if you could expand the amount of sales data displayed in this area with more relevant stats and numbers.

- Adult keyword review system is inconsistent, non-adult names are blocked from the platform, while a search for any of the most common “adult” keywords on afternic.com show a ton of adult domains already listed on the platform

I understand from your comment on domaininvesting.com that the Afternic.com website platform is not supposed to be a place for buyers to come and buy domains, and that GoDaddy channels all aftermarket development resources towards expanding your reseller network (which is providing fantastic results for sellers, so I certainly appreciate the continued development of this sales channel), while Afternic.com is merely meant to be a portal for domain owners to list and manage their names. However, I hope that the (non-exhaustive) list of issues above demonstrates that the platform currently does not serve the latter function in a satisfactory way, and that it is in need of extensive updates, improvements, and continued development to reach that level of functioning. So while the buyer-facing aspects of Afternic.com will not see any updates/improvements, I hope you can commit to focusing some of GD's resources towards fixing the seller-facing aspects of Afternic.com, so that the platform can adequately and effectively serve its stated function of being a portal for domain owners to list and manage their names for sale.

You're the man

 

[campout]

So the takeaway here seems to be that we are supposed to use Afternic in conjunction with another marketplace/service

To me, having some good and easy to implement options for landing pages is important. I'm currently using Uniregistry BIN landers on all my names, but they have not been performing well for me this year, so I'm thinking about switching to Afternic. It would be awesome if you could just put Afternic nameservers on your name and then go into your Afternic account and select how you want that page to display to visitors (do you want to show ads? do you want to show the BIN page? do you want to show the page that just has Afternic's phione number and no price on it?)

But in terms of the searchable Afternic marketplace, my thought is just that I don't think many end-users at all are starting their search for a domain name by going to Afternic.com and searching for names.

 

[Arca]

To me, having some good and easy to implement options for landing pages is important. I'm currently using Uniregistry BIN landers on all my names, but they have not been performing well for me this year, so I'm thinking about switching to Afternic. It would be awesome if you could just put Afternic nameservers on your name and then go into your Afternic account and select how you want that page to display to visitors (do you want to show ads? do you want to show the BIN page? do you want to show the page that just has Afternic's phione number and no price on it?)

But in terms of the searchable Afternic marketplace, my thought is just that I don't think many end-users at all are starting their search for a domain name by going to Afternic.com and searching for names.

I also don't think end-users start their search for domains at afternic.com by typing in keywords in the search bar. I think most afternic.com sales (where buyers register for an afternic.com account and buy/make an offer via afternic.com) come from sellers forwarding their domains to afternic.com landing pages, and prospective buyers happening upon the platform in that way. Type-in leads. So it still comes back to the basic functionality of the platform, which extends beyond just their search function. It's not really assuring to send valuable type-in traffic to a platform that is full of bugs and not updated, and as Paul Nicks seem to indicate, not really intended to be a destination for buyers to come and buy domains (they are supposed to buy them via the registrar path, which the Afternic system generally handles well, especially when fast-transfer works). The afternic.com platform bugs are not only on the seller-side of things. I've bought domains via Afternic a few times and I found it very frustrating every time (bugs, buttons not working properly, problems with checkout and payment, lack of response from customer support, extended transfer delays, etc.). Since Afternic.com is not intending to overhaul the functionality and experience of using the afternic.com platform, and with the increase in bugs after the new transaction system was launched, it does not seem ideal or worth it to base your domain sales business around sending type-in leads to their platform under these circumstances (and giving away a 20% commission for this offering), when there are other services that put resources towards building and developing systems that capture and provide a smooth sales process to buyers that come in via type-in/landing page. The Afternic reseller network on the other hand works great and is absolutely worth the 20% commission fee.

 

[Cebe]

I listed domain on afternic. My registrar is namecheap. Landing page parking work but not match found on afternic search. Why its happend?

 

[carob]

Since Afternic.com is not intending to overhaul the functionality and experience of using the afternic.com platform, and with the increase in bugs after the new transaction system was launched, it does not seem ideal or worth it to base your domain sales business around sending type-in leads to their platform under these circumstances (and giving away a 20% commission for this offering), when there are other services that put resources towards building and developing systems that capture and provide a smooth sales process to buyers that come in via type-in/landing page. The Afternic reseller network on the other hand works great and is absolutely worth the 20% commission fee.

Totally agree. Best approach is list domains on Afternic network but point them to a landing page on another platform. I don't know if someone buying a domain on an Afternic-network registrar would think to type in the domain to see what happens. I would.

And they might get a nice surprise, finding the domain available at a lower price on the other platform. In that case you have just used Afternic as free advertising.

 

[Arca]

And yet, if you go to Afternic and search f*ck, sh*t, p*ssy, etc. It will return thousands and thousands of results.

I believe I have figured out why there are thousands of domains listed on Afternic with obviously adult keywords, like fuck, pussy, cock, porn, etc., even though anyone here who has tried to list names with those keywords, even non-adult names that could potentially be an adult name gets blocked by the system from doing so.

In another thread I detailed my struggles with a "super user" user who is able to list any domain he wants on Afternic, even if that domain is in my afternic account, and even if I have gone through the ownership verification process over and over again (so there is no doubt that I own the domain and he doesn't). Any domain included on his spreadsheet gets wiped out of other users accounts and gets force listed in his account. Customer support confirmed that these users are given such privileged rights. It seems this extends being able to list adult names as well.

I checked the listings for lots of adult names picked at random by searching for various adult keywords at Afternic.com, and the sellers who have lots adult names listed for sale are other "super users". These users have listed thousands and thousands of domains with keywords that we regular sellers are 100% blocked from listing for sale. There might be a few regular sellers who have been able to sneak in an adult name or two, but nearly all of the adult domains I checked belonged to sellers like these:

Frank Schilling (407 272 domains listed on afternic - that's the total number of domains listed, not the number of adult names)
Rick Latona (237 504 domains listed on afternic)
Huge Domains (portfolio size at afternic is hidden, but they own nearly 3,000,000 domains...)
namecom (20 1002 domains listed at afternic) - not sure which company this handle represents
Domain Holdings (269 418 domains afternic)

I understand that these super users with huge portfolios are granted a lot of privileges that regular users are not, but since these and other big users have collectively listed thousands if not tens of thousands of adult domains for sale at Afternic, why not just do away with the whole rule of not allowing adult keywords? Your platform is already flooded with adult keyword domains in all categories by these sellers. Why continue to block regular sellers from listing adult names, while allowing these "super sellers" to list them? That's a very inconsistent way of enforcing your own rules and regulations. Whether a seller has 500 domains listed for sale, or 500 000, is not a meaningful criteria for blocking the former seller from listing adult names while permitting the latter to do so. An adult name is an adult name, regardless of your total portfolio size. I suggest you delete all of the adult keyword domains listed by these super sellers from your platform or simply remove the adult keyword ban for regular sellers and let everyone list them, regardless of portfolio size.

 

[anantj]

@Arca You've put forward some incredible information in your last few posts. Most notably, the list if issues with Afternic, especially for domain management and the latest post about super users/exception to the adult listing rule. Thank you for all the information and hard work you're putting in this thread.

Your points on the issues with the Afternic interface are spot on and some of the worst parts of the platform. Those issues are usually what turn me off from using Afternic regularly or more heavily

 

[Premiums]

sold 2 names

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UPDATE: pmnt rcvd

 

[kaposzta]

I'm very happy with Afternic if it's about selling average domains for good ROI. I've sold 4 domains out of 100 in the last 3 months. The problem is about the payment. I'm still waiting for the funds for a domain sale of March! It was partially my fault, as I used incorrect payment info (which is very easy to do on their counter-intuitive, slow, outdated interface), but after I corrected it, and wanted to get the payment to my Paypal account, the screen still says "NON_US_WIRE" with a 13th May payment date? Why? And I received a notification that I sold another domain. The payment method is definitely Paypal, the Paypal address is definitely there, I double-checked my payment setup, but the screen says "NON_US_WIRE" again. Whaaaat! They should really do something to improve their UI and their backend.

 

[kaposzta]

The worst thing in Afternic is that you don't receive any clear instructions about the transfer. When I clicked on the link in their notification email (that my domain is sold), I have to choose my domain registrar from a list. WHY? Is it 1992 (yes, it is, based on the server speed of Afternic)? Okay, let's check if Dotster is in the list. It's not. I choose Other. A new field pops up, I enter Dotster. The text says "Transfer the domain to our account using our account info.", and there's a button with "get account information & start transfer". I click on the button. Then I see this "The domain transfer has been initiated and may take up to 4-5 days to be completed. If you have not transferred the domain or an error occurred, go back to previous step." What? So I have to transfer the domain? But to where? And how? Shit, Afternic's UI is WAY more complicated then Dotster's, which has the worst UI among all registrars

Does anyone know wtf is going on and what should I do to proceed with the transaction?

 

[Miro Baranasic]

Kaposzta I have the sam problem. Do I need transfer the domain from registar where domain is registered to afternic, with this given account information or what?

 

[kaposzta]

In the meantime I received a new email from Afternic, and the UI changed on Afternic.com/sold names. Finally I could provide the auth code. I think from now on, no action is needed from my side, I'll receive the payment after the transfer. So there's no problem with their process, only the messages are a bit vague.

 

[Miro Baranasic]

I have pushed domain from my Godaddy account to their account...

 

[Arca]

The new transaction system was launched more than seven weeks ago, but nearly all of the issues that were there upon launch persist today. TA agents nearly always ignore all messages being sent to them (what's the point of having a messaging system if there is nobody on the other end reading and responding to the messages?). It takes Afternic too long to acknowledge the receipt of a domain (often 1-2 weeks after getting it into their holding account - what is the point of making faster pushes on seller's end, when Afternic often takes weeks to get around to move the domain from their holding account to buyer?). Overall, most transactions take 3x-5x longer to than they used to, from sale to payout. Wasn't the point of this system to make things go faster? These features were touted upon launch:

- Close transactions faster with the ability to have a default payment method on file
- Find what you need faster with our redesigned, user-friendly dashboard

Transactions are not closing faster, instead things are taking three to five times as long as they used to, and the transaction dashboard is far less user-friendly than the old one. Bringing back the old transaction system would be a huge improvement for the Afternic platform.

And payments are still not being sent out on time:

On May 17 I received an email saying “You will receive an email within 1-3 business days to notify you when your payment has been sent to you.” It's May 27 today, so more than 1-3 business days have passed, but I'm still waiting for my payment (or a payment notification) to be sent to me.

On May 23, I received another email for another sale saying I would be paid “within 1-3 business days” - Still waiting for that payment as well.

 

[kaposzta]

And the worst thing is that they don't have normal support. You can send them a message, but you don't even know if anyone will read it. The replies are not too informative, TA agents don't reply, their automatic emails and instructions are not up to date. Very bad user experience.

 

[Haykay2005]

Afternic should do something fast, otherwise they will start losing money

 

[kaposzta]

Afternic should do something fast, otherwise they will start losing money

If I don't receive my payment from an April(!) sale soon, I will remove my domains from Afternic. I sold many names with them, but if I don't receive payment at all, what's the point?