services What are best alternatives to DAN? (Since GoDaddy has bought & ruined the service as expected)

[Maxxo]

Can anyone recommend some good alternatives to DAN that don't have such high commission fees? DAN user interface is still nice, but Godaddy really screwed the pooch with increase on commission fees from 9% to 15% and 25% for not using their nameservers. I guess that's no surprise. Too bad DAN sold out for an exit paycheck. Bummer.

I guess Efty is in a prime spot to add DAN users like me who are looking to jump ship.

Any ideas or recommendations? Thanks!

 

[eternaldomains]

I just opened a Sav account to check out the interface. Seems mature and has lots of features. 4% commission on sales off their landers. As easy to import as domain,price. Does anyone have experience with Sav they could share?

Just look at their official thread and you'll see countless complaints on almost every of their 70+++ pages, avoid SAV like the plague.

 

[Mister Funsky]

If you are going to pay, check out DNHat.com.

2000 names or less is only 180 a year compared to Efty which would be 864.

 

[nononsense123]

Escrow.com needs to start offering landers.

 

[Sperry8]

Wait.. can we have bodis landers without any ads? And can we attach Escrow api to bodis?

Yes, you can. Here is one of the names I have listed there so you can see the lander. https://biogrocery.com/ I removed all parking and attached escrow via the backend api within Bodis. I pay 0% commission and the buyer pays Escrow fees. So if a name sells (by someone who types in the name into a search engine) I pay $0 and earn the full sale price.

 

[NameInbox]

Sedo - bid EU company
Daaz - like Indian dan I sold there on xx all was fine, auctions were useless for me
NameSilo - I like it and I hold some domains there

 

[tonyk2000]

Lets think globally. GoDaddy does what is good for them. We should do what is good for us. Own landers is the first thing imho. HD does it, Mike Mann does it, anybody can. Potential outcomes: freedom, full control, easier to select or switch processing providers (case by case basis), no adblock issues, etc. Selling with BIN? Link the buynow button to dynadot (namesilo, porkbun) marketplace listing if appropriate, or to daaz maybe. Not to escrow .com (the buyers will need to provide kyc docs on themselves or their company just to purchase something online, a lot of countries not served, etc...). Depending on your location and business setup, consider own merchant account. Selling via makeoffer? After the negotiation is finished, process it via sedo or escrowdomains (Stevan Lieberman).
Questions to be answered (again, case by case basis) - hosting company, server management (shared hosting is not enough for domaining needs, and is not intended to serve hundrends/thousands of domains), bot management, SEO, list or not list domains on sedo/afternic, etc.

 

[Dane]

Efty are currently beta testing smart landers and to my understanding there will be ssl for every page, without the need to forward internally, once they're launched.

Edit: you can read about them here- https://blog.efty.com/2022/09/30/changing-the-domain-game-with-smart-landers/

I would sign up for Efty today if it were less expensive. Lots of other people would too.

 

[NameBuyer.com]

What are your thoughts on using Afternic's Premium (Fast Transfer) Network vs using Afternic's regular (non Fast Transfer) network? How much difference do you think it makes to the bottom line?

I'd say it is extremely significant. The process has changed throughout the years so it's always important to test what your customer sees, but anytime I've checked the alternate process, it's not one I would choose.

If you have some Ultra Premium domains that you don't want to list as fast-transfer, just don't price those domains or disable the fast-transfer option for those domains. But for the majority of my domains, I would include this option. If you are at a registrar like Epik who no longer supports this, I would move your domains as quick as you can. I pushed Rob to enable this for Epik many years ago, and basically said if it wasn't enabled I was leaving because of the sales decline I experienced firsthand. He was able to get it up within 1-2 months after our conversation, which I appreciated, but since fast-transfer is no longer allowed with Epik due to a policy change by Afternic, I've been moving my domains as fast as I can out of there.

Once setup the non-fast transfer pages will look like this at GoDaddy. Instead of "Buy Now" you get a "Get It" button. That takes you to GoDaddy auctions where the customer is also presented with an offer minimum ($28,925) unrelated to anything I've setup. You don't want them to see an offer box, and this offer box containing a price under my asking price probably just killed all chances of me getting the full value for this domain.

Once setup the fast transfer pages will look like this at GoDaddy. It has a "Buy Now" button that takes you directly to the shopping cart. There are no offer boxes displayed and no offer amount that is lower than your asking price.

For external sites, it just gets worse. For Register.com for instance, where you'll probably be getting a decent amount of premium buyers purchasing (due to being price insensitive purchasers), it doesn't even show your domain for sale if you don't opt into the fast-transfer option. I think this was different in the past, but the few that I've checked now don't even show your domain for sale.

 

[GoKaizen]

If you have found a buyer for one of your domains outside SH platform, you can import that lead and only pay 4.5% commission to SH.

Benefits:

• Low 4.5% commission on Imported leads
• Escrow and Payment Process handled by SH
• Customer Support and Transfer assistance by SH

https://helpdesk.squadhelp.com/en/articles/5524079-import-a-lead-for-standard-wlm-listings

 

[Sperry8]

Escrow.com needs to start offering landers.

Combo Escrow up with a free Bodis sales lander. Nice way to sell domains for free. You can even park with Bodis while waiting for the sale if you'd like.

 

[tonyk2000]

if the buyer has already done the kyc with Escrow.com, they presumably wouldn't have to repeat this?

I think no. But, how many occasional buyers (endusers) do have a verified escrow .com account?

As for the marketplaces, what would be great is being able direct a the registrar's lander directly to the marketplace listing. Namecheap doesn't offer that. Have any of the others added this feature yet (Dyandot, NameSilo, Porkbun, etc?)

Unsure did I understand the question correctly, but if you have listed the domain on such a marketplace - you may either "park" the domain with them (not the thing we are discussing now) OR obtain appropriate link code for your own lander, or for custom forsale url on lets say bodis parked page, so the visitors who are purchasing the domain will arrive to the registrars website, pay and receive the domain instantly... as mentioned registar powered marketplaces are for domans regged with said registrars.

You have had good experiences with these? I''m curious about escrowdomains, which we don't hear much about on the forum. Why do you like that escrow as a Dan alternative?

in U.S., lawyers are allowed to provide escrow services and they do not need to obtain a separate escrow license to do so. It is exactly what G&L Escrow (escrowdomains dot com) does. Stevan Lieberman’s reputation is unquestionable.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/escrowdomains-com.1215743/

 

[Dane]

What concerns me is whether the marketplaces actually harm the number of sales, by trying to add on Afternic sales at checkout.

This is really, really bad. What if the buyer sees a different name for less money that is "good enough" in their opinion and decides to buy that name instead?

 

[Dane]

Yes, they are actually the preferred landers now for all of my domains. And you can even switch from parking to their free straight sales landers only, with a click of a button.

There are some really neat features as well with the sales landers. To minimize spam, you can add an email verification. You have a section to provide a description. If you want to be able to expedite an offer submitted, you can have the potential buyer add their phone number. This might speed things along to allow you to directly submit the offer for processing to Escrow.com---if that's the choice you make for transactions with these landers.

If Bodis can make these landers... and if Efty can link directly to Dan's 5% "bring your own lead" commission... can Bodis do the same? Can they have a landing page that links directly to Dan's 5% "bring your own lead" offer?

 

[tonyk2000]

Yeah, own custom landing pages should be well tested. Not only on mobile and basic desktop browsers. Also, the code is important. And even the page size. I am wondering is it really necessary to send 1.2 MB of data with 57 http requests to each visitor on ns5/ns6 gd-afternic BIN landing pages for example? Probably, no. Far from optimal. And, professinal design/development is a must. There are a lot of things to think of. Just one example - beleive or not, many visitors do still print websites. Try to print your custom lander, or save it as pdf. Does it look good on paper? Most likely no, if the developer forgot about separate "styles" for printing...

 

[Bob Hawkes]

If (when) you interract with him again, please suggest he at least give a rough timeframe for release. If I knew it would be launched in 30-60 days, I could relax and not stress about finding another solution to the 'problem' we are facing.

However, if I commit man hours and treasure for hosting my names, it would be unlikely I would abandon that to try the spaceship.

Will do. It is not that I have some personal association, but I had tweeted to the official Namecheap account and he responded from his personal account to me with the information on Spaceship. My guess is he won't commit to a date, but I will see what I can find. I agree that many, me included, might make different moves in next month if I knew it was within 6-8 weeks. Thanks for suggestion.
-Bob

 

[NameBuyer.com]

Can anyone recommend some good alternatives to DAN that don't have such high commission fees? DAN user interface is still nice, but Godaddy really screwed the pooch with increase on commission fees from 9% to 15% and 25% for not using their nameservers. I guess that's no surprise. Too bad DAN sold out for an exit paycheck. Bummer.

I guess Efty is in a prime spot to add DAN users like me who are looking to jump ship.

Any ideas or recommendations? Thanks!

No, really GoDaddy removed all incentive to list your names anywhere but Dan/Afternic.

If you have $20,000 in sales per year, about $10k is coming through your lander, and $10k via Afternic. So you are paying an overall commission of $3,000 ($20k * 15%).

If you decide to set up your own lander and pay no commission (just escrow fees) on $10k coming through your lander and $10k via Afternic, you are going to pay commissions of $2,500 ($10k * 25%). If you add in escrow fees and other costs you're likely going to be over the $3,000 anyway.

So for me as a creator of biix.com (where there was 2% commission and lease options), there's really no purpose for me to promote that solution to others or even use it myself. The selling points of biix was a low 2% commission, lease options, and the trust of escrow.com as opposed to Dan.com, which no one had any brand recognition with until they were bought by GoDaddy. If you can potentially get the same or higher sales by just using Afternic/Dan, then you should just be using Afternic/Dan because the savings are so nominal now by having your own lander somewhere.

Positives to solely using Afternic/Dan:

1. Afternic is a must if you are selling domains and opting for their Premium Network with instant purchase. If you aren't using it, then you are getting up to 50% less sales than you would otherwise. Some people don't like the instant purchase option, but if you look at how much more those domains are promoted, you should be opting for this feature. Their ability to make you sales without your traffic is so significant that years ago when their commission was 30%, I was happy to pay it because they made such a positive impact on my sales.

2. Leases need to be an option or you'll be losing sales. I've had a buyer recently who in no way could make a $10k purchase work, but they had a great business that they were trying to grow. After offering a lease option (for over $400 per month), it was an easy decision for him. With the ability to use the lease option at Dan, it makes the sale of your larger domains much more viable while still receiving the 15% commission rate.

3. Trust needs to be at the forefront of your plan because you don't want the trust issue to cross the mind of your buyer. I've seen people have their highest sale on one platform, then setup their own lander that had no shot at selling a high-value domain. Don't do this. Know that everything matters in your sales process.

Negatives:

Transparency - you really don't have a lot of insight as to what deals are in discussion unless you communicate with your Afternic Account Manager. But it sounds like they have a dashboard coming that will address this as well.

 

[Charybdis]

I just opened a Sav account to check out the interface. Seems mature and has lots of features. 4% commission on sales off their landers. As easy to import as domain,price. Does anyone have experience with Sav they could share?

But the low commission is not the be-all end-all feature you need to look for. You also need trusted landing pages. You need to build trust. Look at the SAV landing pages, would you spend there thousands of dollars as a buyer? Where's the live chat? Where's the phone number?

If you ask me, the GoDaddy or Dan landers are very good for 15% commission, they build trust because GoDaddy is a trusted brand.

Personally I don't use them, but you must not forget the trust factor. I don't use these landing pages because I only use the landing pages of Squadhelp and BrandBucket. They also build trust, but the commission is even higher (25-30%) but extra marketing and promotion is included.

I would definitely not use a lander just because of the low commission.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

This is the link to Bob's commentary today Sav Landers

Just wanted to stress that the fact that the Sav lander is not https is a significant downside of Sav landers (the page they go to buy is https of course). I hope they will correct that. Two people also reported slow response with Sav landers coming up, although I directly observe it. It may be related to mobile and cellular in some way.

I agree it is an alternative to consider. I have only the one trial listed so no sales. I have listed and sold names registered at Sav though, with a smooth process. They just transfer the name and send you an email that your fund balance has been increased. There is a wait time before it can be withdrawn, don't remember how many days.

-Bob

 

[Dane]

If your domain has a "buy now" price and no "make offer" option on AN, one would question why they have the right to change the nature of the sale without informing you explicitly.

If, for some reason, they believe they can do this because you have provided a "floor" option, that is highly dubious. The "floor" is not supposed to be visible to the potential buyers. But, by putting in this lower price, are they now effectively allowing an automatic sale based on your floor, without the supposed "negotiations" they were presumed to do on your behalf. Who knows?

Why should the Fast Transfer and the non-fast transfer sales pages be different anyhow? I don't recall ever being told that that was that type of distinction with the two choices. The only difference appeared to be that you were opting into a larger network if you allowed immediate transfer.

The lack of transparency here remains all the more concerning with AN.

I agree with all of the above. I'm starting to not fully trust GoDaddy (I've never felt this way before) but I'm not sure what to do about it.

 

[Charybdis]

Squadhelp charges only 7.5% if you are after low commission. You need to list the domain as a "standard listing" in order to pay this reduced commission. You can optionally pay for an upgraded promotion opportunity, or upgrade the domain to premium listing if eligible (optional), for higher commission.

 

[Mister Funsky]

Does domainio import your pricing at each market place on demand or do you have to enter each price into the system?

If it it can pick up pricing automatically it would be a big plus for volume name holders.

For anyone that may have a question like mine or for more answers here is a thread to visit:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/domain-io-the-portfolio-dashboard-official-thread.1262213/

 

[Dane]

I hope, at this very moment, Matt is working on a way to integrate multiple payment options into the Bodis platform as he has done with Escrow.

Huge opportunity.

 

[SuperBrander]

Put all the lipstick you want on a pig, still a pig. Domainio landers are exactly what I want. Email. Phone. Chat widget.
Button goes right to namesilo checkout.
Efty no ssl unless you forward internally. Dorion has an efty thread here, I kept it pretty much alive.
Had acct there 5-6 years. Rip
No comparison imo

Efty are currently beta testing smart landers and to my understanding there will be ssl for every page, without the need to forward internally, once they're launched.

Edit: you can read about them here- https://blog.efty.com/2022/09/30/changing-the-domain-game-with-smart-landers/

 

[tonyk2000]

Feel free to check out AmericaMed.com as an example

Very interesting. Did not see such an effect before. With adblock, I saw an empty page (30 seconds or so) and then it was forwarded to another bodis-powered page, with ads from BING - must be 2nd tier (were not blocked by some reason), and custom forsale top link to namecheap.