Why can it be so difficult to make offer on a name listed for sale at GoDaddy?

[namemarket]

I have been trying to figure out why I get poor results and rare offers via Godaddy so been looking at the chain of events which leads an end-user to buy or make offers. Keep in mind i'm looking for end-users, not domainers.

So I do some role-playing, assuming a small business person wants to expand or start a new business and needs a domain name with my domain in mind.

Perhaps the first thing he/she is likely to do is go to a domain registrar to check availability. Since Godaddy is far and away #1 and most everyone has heard of GD they usually will go to GD first.

Let us also assume you either do not have an account at GD or may have a rarely used account so you do not bother to login or may not have your login credentials handy.

So you search or type-in godaddy.com (not being logged-in) and see the domain search box on https://www.godaddy.com/offers/doma...ViR-tBh1qpwwvEAAYASAAEgKynvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

next you type-in OAME.COM (example only, not my name)

next you see on https://www.godaddy.com/domains/sea...mskey=1dom_03_godaddyb&domainToCheck=oame.com it's only available on auctions.

next you look for a link to make offer at auctions but no where on the page is there a link or anything saying auctions, or instructions on what to do to visit auctions area.

If you spend some time navigating around the page and go to domains link then you finally see a link to auctions.

so after going there you again type-in OAME.COM

then you enter an offer or BIN price and are told you must create a GD account and also pay $4.99 to bid at the auction.

however, you know your bid may be too low and rejected so why go thru the trouble of opening a GD account, giving your credit card info and paying $4.99 simply to make a bid, you may not do that so you give up trying to buy or make an offer there.

Next, you exit GD and decide to lookup owners email or phone number using a Whois service but that cannot be done anymore as it is redacted so you again give up.

next as a last step you try typing-in OAME.COM into browser but see a Uniregistry parked page so you may be real confused and weary by now and wasted so much time and hassle so you look for a different name for your business or product, or no name at all for now.

That long complex and involved process just to make an offer is ridiculous!

 

[karmaco]

No matter what the majority of sales going on at GoDaddy are domainer to domainer. I think it’s reasonable to think the first step for anyone who’s ever been on the internet is to type the name into a search engine. Not the last step.

Overall I agree that GoDaddy appears to be a club and does not make it easy to see your name from the outside like everyone else does.

 

[Ategy]

Pretty similar discussion to the one here ...
https://www.namepros.com/threads/4-negativities-resulting-from-godaddy-search-domain-page.1125358/

I know that at first thought, the $4.99 fee to get access to GD Auctions might seem like a useless frustrating hurdle for potential end users to overcome .. and while it is indeed a frustrating barrier, I think it's very likely a very necessary barrier to help weed out what potentially could be countless fake/shill bids every day.

While cheating and faking auction bids certainly is a problem, unavoidable and pretty much impossible to stop, I think that one extra step likely cuts it down 95% or even more.

Maybe a solution is to have that step be eliminated when it comes to Buy It Now domains which do not have any live auction elements to them. Effectively have them treated like the various nTLD "premium" domains where GoDaddy shows the upfront cost along with the renewal price.

I'm relatively sure GD doesn't really care about the $4.99 fee (what they lose there would likely be made up by increased volume in BIN marketplace commissions). But even if they still wanted to charge the $4.99, then effectively they could just add it to the BIN price and make it that much simpler for the potential buyer.

In fact .. they could go one step further and say that as part of the purchase that they get free access to GD auctions for a year (as membership was included in the BIN price). Although I'm thinking some A/B testing might be a good idea to make sure just having that info doesn't distract the potential buyer to go look at the Auctions platform instead of simply buying the domain right away.

Anyhow .. as usual .. @Paul Nicks @Joe Styler .. the floor is yours .. lol

 

[creataweb]

Make your lander for the name and hope the buyer is smart enough to check there and not just GD

 

[namemarket]

Make your lander for the name and hope the buyer is smart enough to check there and not just GD

They still may do that first or at least eventually type it in after the end-user discovers how hard it can be (if not logged-in to Godaddy) to make an offer but keep in mind type-in traffic for last several years is way down with an ongoing decline and all indications showing type-is will keep on declining in the future.

It's a reason I am far less a fan of landing pages now but finding other options and alternatives are a problem. Any ideas anyone?

The main reason I have so many names at GD was to take advantage of their incredibly high traffic however Godaddy seems to be setup in such a way to appeal to domainers who are always logged-in, and non-domainers to get them buying new extensions such as the current 0.99c promo. Godaddy is a very poor resource for end-users looking to buy desired domains which are listed for sale, IMO.

 

[xynames]

Two different venues. Auction. Not auction. You’re mixing and matching terminology (bid, offer) and rules that apply to one or the other.

To bid in any auction requires registration and some sort of verification. This is normal.

To make an offer on a domain that is not in an auction doesn’t require all that but to make any offer one must at least fill out the submission form with name email telephone number.

So what’s the problem?

 

[namemarket]

Two different venues. Auction. Not auction. You’re mixing and matching terminology (bid, offer) and rules that apply to one or the other. To bid in any auction requires registration and some sort of verification. This is normal. To make an offer on a domain that is not in an auction doesn’t require all that but to make any offer one must at least fill out the submission form with name email telephone number. So what’s the problem?

That is not valid based on my experience xynames. You and many others may not know this. It is confusing and a long story which took me ages to realize myself when discovering it after lots of role-playing as a buyer and numerous calls to GD support.

In fact I only actually listed a relative few domains in Godaddy auctions. However ALL my domains (many 100s) are listed in auctions. If your type-in my names it clearly says it's listed in auctions but I never listed it.

My regular view and beta views says most all are not listed in auctions but they really are! I think listed status column check-marks applies to featured or premium auctions only, not basic.

Since I knew that was a giant negative issue for many end-users (see my other posts on it) and I am also not looking for domainer buyers I tried to remove them all using the online capacity from auctions without success.

So next was to call support to cancel all my auctions and/or membership which rep agreed to do but it was gone from My Products screen only a short time.

A few hours later I visited and again I was an active auctions member shown again on My Products page!

Next I call GD support again and ask why auctions was reinstated on My Products. I get answer saying because I am in Discount Domains Club an auctions membership is required.

To verify that, I again call support and the new rep said something different saying names may not be listed at Afternic unless I am also a GD auctions member so by listing at Afternic.com I am required to have an active Godaddy.com auctions membership which is why I was made a member again by the automated system.

On my latest call the rep said there is absolutely NO WAY to cancel my auctions membership or remove any names from the basic auctions and that is why every name is listed at auctions, even if not desired so sorry nothing can be done about it! So I have now thrown in the towel and may be moving domains elsewhere.

 

[xynames]

I agree, that does sound confusing.

However, I just did a random check at godaddy.com and entered several of my domains, some with BIN already set by me, some not, and in each case nothing related to auction came up. What came up was perfectly normal and as expected for domains listed by me in the Afternic marketplace.


Your domains are listed in GoDaddy auctions? So, when do these auctions end? That just makes no sense if they are listed in perpetual auctions, which is what you seem to be describing. An auction has an end date, a BIN, maybe a reserve, etc.

 

[namemarket]

maybe you can give me 2 of your non-auction GD names also listed on Afternic and assuming you are a Discount Domain Club member so I can test it.

 

[xynames]

Well it wouldn’t apply as I’m not a domain club member. But if you go to XYNames.com many of my domains are listed you may punch them in wherever, to test.

 

[namemarket]

Thanks but not relevant if not listed on Afternic and/or you are don't have GD Domain Premium Account, aka Domain Discount Club.

 

[xynames]

I don’t know what you mean by “and/or” but all my domains are listed at Afternic.

 

[namemarket]

...if you go to XYNames.com many of my domains are listed you may punch them in wherever, to test.

I went to Godaddy and tried to make offer on YFIT.com (nice name btw) which has a 13k min offer, so as a test I entered $13,500 but the system would not let me place the offer unless I was logged-in to a Godaddy account and also needed to be an Auctions Member.

To everyone here who concentrates more on the domainer resale market and already has the needed requirements and is logged-in all the time, as most everyone would be due to GD's advanced auto-login website coding (which seems to be based on cookies and possibly IP addresses) that is not an issue.

However, a typical non-domainer end-user searching for YFIT for his new business who goes to GD due to their great name recognition with the public may not have a GD account, or if they do have account login credentials may not be handy.

Even if they open new GD account they are still required to buy the auctions membership for $4.99 and give credit card info etc for the account. something some people may not want to do.

In fact, an end-user may not desire to open an account at all when he sees YFIT.COM appears to be listed in an auction because he may think by getting in unwanted bidding war (an actual negative term Godaddy used until last week) the price may be elevated from a heated auction environment. A huge negative, imo.

 

[Ategy]

I went to Godaddy and tried to make offer on YFIT.com (nice name btw) which has a 13k min offer, so as a test I entered $13,500 but the system would not let me place the offer unless I was logged-in to a Godaddy account and also needed to be an Auctions Member.

Correct me if I'm wrong .. because I'm not 100% on this .. but if you submitted a $13,500 offer, wouldn't the owner have the option of pushing it to auction? Which would indeed require that first "offer" to also technically be an auctions "bid" (and thus requiring the original buyer to be an auctions member)?

Again I'm going out on a limb because this is one of the corners of the GD platform I'm not too familiar with .. but maybe if what I said above is true, then the solution is for the domain to be treated as a buy it now on hold and only convert it to an auction if the owner decides to push it to auction. I'm guessing that most "make offers" offers are either approved or rejected, and that only a small percentage are ever pushed to auction.

Beyond that, it would help even more if it converted only after another bid was placed. (Although that could be problematic if the second bidder bids with only 5 minutes to go is it would be asking a much for the original offer maker to join and learn the auctions platform in 4 minutes or less after getting and reading their email warning of another higher bid being placed).

It's hard for me to test these things out because I have multiple GD tabs open all the time .. so even if I log out .. there are cookies doing their thing making some things look different than cookieless first time visitors to GD. Plus I'm in Canada .. and we always seems to get the B in GoDaddy's A/B testing .. lol .. they still push .co over .com in searches!

 

[creataweb]

BTW if you don't have your names listed on Afternic or GD and someone tries to search it on GD, it will show a BUY SERVICE for a possible interested party to send an offer thru a broker I assume (GD Buy Service or something to that effect.)

 

[xynames]

namemarket,
Do you think that has to do with that your existing GoDaddy memberships? When I go to GoDaddy on a clean web browser with all cookies cleared it lets me put it in the cart and then as I move along yes requires me to register for a GoDaddy membership, but nothing special otherwise.

Now, what I don't see via GoDaddy.com is the ability to make any offer, solely to put the domain in the cart at the BIN of $20K, so already the process you describe above for that domain of mine you mention is more than I was seeing, for someone who was not logged in with no existing GD account.

So then I logged into my own GD account, which is different of course from my Afternic account, and I looked at this domain you mention above, and a different one of mine. For that different domain, there was not just a Buy It Now button, there was a Get It button, and when I clicked that, I was able to make an offer, without joining GD Auctions.

At this point, your thread has created a different question in my mind, which is why some domains of mine appear with a Get It button, and some with only a Buy it Now button, when all such that I tested are similarly Afternic listed, with a BIN, a floor and a minimum offer.

But in no case was the requirement to register for GoDaddy auctions introduced into my equation when I tried with or without a preexisting GD account.

 

[namemarket]

namemarket,
Do you think that has to do with that your existing GoDaddy memberships? When I go to GoDaddy on a clean web browser with all cookies cleared it lets me put it in the cart and then as I move along yes requires me to register for a GoDaddy membership, but nothing special otherwise.

Now, what I don't see via GoDaddy.com is the ability to make any offer, solely to put the domain in the cart at the BIN of $20K, so already the process you describe above for that domain of mine you mention is more than I was seeing, for someone who was not logged in with no existing GD account.

So then I logged into my own GD account, which is different of course from my Afternic account, and I looked at this domain you mention above, and a different one of mine. For that different domain, there was not just a Buy It Now button, there was a Get It button, and when I clicked that, I was able to make an offer, without joining GD Auctions.

At this point, your thread has created a different question in my mind, which is why some domains of mine appear with a Get It button, and some with only a Buy it Now button, when all such that I tested are similarly Afternic listed, with a BIN, a floor and a minimum offer.

But in no case was the requirement to register for GoDaddy auctions introduced into my equation when I tried with or without a preexisting GD account.

I tried it a couple times (not logged-in) several hours ago and it always said YFIT.COM is available for 20k BIN or 13K minimum offer so real odd you do not see the 13k make offer button. After making the 13.5 offer a new screen popped up saying I need to login, place the offer at auction. P.S. I also think it said auction had a long 86 days time left,

A few min ago tried again and it was changed where the 13k offer button is now gone and only option is 20k BIN. Did you call GD support or use Afternic to change it? Do you recall setting a 13k min offer in the past?

 

[xynames]

I haven’t done or changed anything haven’t contacted anyone. Also my domains are listed for sale on Afternic so any godaddy “listing” is via Afternic only.

On that domain the BIN is $20k with $10k minimum offer. For whatever reason whenever I’ve viewed it on GoDaddy all I’ve seen is the option to Buy it Now no offer option. When viewed on Afternic there are all options including to make offer.

 

[Joe Styler]

We do require a membership for any names on auction that are not BIN. We have reduced the amount of sales types you need to have a membership to complete over time and are looking at further reducing this in the future.
The only reason we have an auctions membership requirement is to help prevent fraud. This is only one piece of the overall things we have in place but we do think it is important at the moment. As other people brought up it helps prevent bad bids or fake bids. We do not feel this negatively impacts overall sales.
If you have a BIN price on the domain we collect a payment at the time of the purchase which allows us to check the payment method and verify it at that time, basically the same type of thing we would do with a membership purchase.
You cannot list your domains on Afternic and not have them feed to partners of which GoDaddy is one. That defeats the purpose of Afternic which is a distributed listing service. If you want to remove your names from GoDaddy auctions you need to both remove the names from the auctions site and remove the listings from Afternic. That would prevent your domains from showing up on the auctions.

 

[xynames]

I think what started this whole thread is namemarket's belief that domains that are not intended for auction by the seller are showing up in GoDaddy auctions. I have not observed that, but what I have observed is:

Seems with some of my domains there is a Get It button with option to make offer but with others the only option is to Buy it Now. This discrepancy is with domains of mine that are similarly listed at Afternic (with BIN, floor, minimum offer), and yet some end up with a Get It some with only a Buy it Now, at Godaddy. Again talking only about how they appear via the godaddy.com site, for domains that are directly listed only at Afternic.

 

[Joe Styler]

I think I answered his question in that if he is listing via AN they are going to show up. As far as the get it vs buy it now button it sounds like a marketing test to me if all other variable are the same.

 

[xynames]

Namemarket - are you listing your domains for AUCTION anywhere at all? May we get a clear yes or no to this.

And if NO - so you’re saying that they are appearing in GDiddy AUCTIONS anyway with a clear auction end date etc.?