question Why do domains sell for so much on auctions when there is no interest later on?

[domainhacks-931385]

Story goes like this

Domain sells for XXX+ on an auction platform with multiple bidders

Domain sits on Sedo with no offers for months after (sometimes no views either).

Why is there so much interest at the auction but no interest after?

 

[NameOmnia]

If I was in Adam's shoes I probably would have done exactly the same thing. If your employer gives you a green light to bid then who honestly in their right mind wouldn't bid. If the company didm't think it was morally wrong then why would the employee worry about it.

Because you MUST have your own personal moral.
I am the one who has to live with myself everyday and look at my own self in the mirror; if it's not right it's not right even if a business gives you the green light.

Because of this kind of attitude the world is what it is : fu***d up and driven by profit rather than personal rectitude. It's appalling to still hear this stuff after all we saw ( and still see ) on a daily basis around the world

 

[hookbox]

Because you MUST have your own personal moral.
I am the one who has to live with myself everyday and look at my own self in the mirror; if it's not right it's not right even if a business gives you the green light.

Because of this kind of attitude the world is what it is : fu***d up and driven by profit rather than personal rectitude. It's appalling to still hear this stuff after all we saw ( and still see ) on a daily basis around the world

Of course you must have personal morals but I think your taking it to an extreme. The company didn't ask him to alter accounting records, or steal from petty cash. The company allowed their employees to bid on names so he bid on names he wanted to buy. I don't see what is morally wrong. He didn't steal the names, he bid on the names. If he used the company credit card to fill his wife's car up with gas or take his buddies on a weekend trip then that is morally wrong. If bidding on some names is all he morally does wrong in his life then he is obviously doing something right.

I don't know Adam, I have never met Adam but I have watched every interview he has done and every video he has made and I don't see I guy that would hurt a fly. You can normally tell a person a mile away that is morally short but I don't see it.

 

[NameOmnia]

My comment wasn't about him or anyone else personally but my comment was a general one to address your previous one. I don't know AD and I am not in the position of expressing any opinion about him, positive or negative that is.

If employees were allowed to bid for " personal use " is one thing even though I still think they did have a great advantage by knowing data that other bidders didn't know.
There is also another possible scenario though, that is an easy way out for GD to earn more money.
I explain myself better.
Let's say GD wants to make more profit. GD itself can't bid on their own domain auction because it would be a scandal if discovered so GD allows their employees to bid...
Done. They know every proxy bid in the system...so they just bid right up to your proxy...how does it feel like?
A name that you might have bought for 10 you end up paying 300...NICE.
And who is going to put the 300$ in their pockets? Right. GD.

The same game can be played by all those who allow employees to bid and even if they are not tricking everyone they still have advantages that other bidders don't have.

 

[equity78]

Photon what you pointed out was criminal imo, no one ever accused Adam of that, and why are we talking in general this thread for the last 20 posts has been about Adam Dicker at Go Daddy. If they did that then I agree with you 100 % that they should get nailed on that.

The other thing is people love to pontificate in forums, social media and blogs, but it really doesn't wash out in the end, People have short memories, "gimme that .99 coupon code" But Bob shot an elephant, those bastards kind of supported SOPA at the beginning, Adam Dicker bid on a .us name while working there, a .US name people, DOWN WITH GO DADDY. Yeah but I love .99 coupon codes and Bob doesn't run the place anymore, SOPA went away and .US sucks. So again anybody got a .99 coupon code ?

 

[NameOmnia]

Photon what you pointed out was criminal imo, no one ever accused Adam of that, and why are we talking in general this thread for the last 20 posts has been about Adam Dicker at Go Daddy. If they did that then I agree with you 100 % that they should get nailed on that.

The other thing is people love to pontificate in forums, social media and blogs, but it really doesn't wash out in the end, People have short memories, "gimme that .99 coupon code" But Bob shot an elephant, those bastards kind of supported SOPA at the beginning, Adam Dicker bid on a .us name while working there, a .US name people, DOWN WITH GO DADDY. Yeah but I love .99 coupon codes and Bob doesn't run the place anymore, SOPA went away and .US sucks. So again anybody got a .99 coupon code ?

Sorry to correct you Equity but my original post about that type of bidding at Gd was this

Yes, you are right and GD was caught bidding against their own customers

then as domainace came out with this " Godaddy has never been caught bidding against their own customers "

I simply copied and pasted an article from the internet that was mentioning his ( AD ) name.
Then I have never posted about him directly or against him or pro him
My comment about the moral was in reply to what hookbox said " f the company didm't think it was morally wrong then why would the employee worry about it. ". Once again not about AD or pro him or against him.

In fact I clearly stated " My comment wasn't about him or anyone else personally but my comment was a general one to address you previous one. I don't know AD and I am not in the position of expressing any opinion about him, positive or negative that is. "

no one ever accused Adam of that

NEITHER DID I

I haven't accused anyone of anything. Saying " There is also another possible scenario " as I did, it is not accusing it is expressing a possibility. Frankly I don't know how that can be mistaken or misunderstood; it is indeed very clear.

So please stop putting things in my mouth or implying I said something when I didn't. I am a pretty straight forward person and if I want to say something I simply say it with no " half ways " and without hiding myself behind a finger.

I hope it's clarified.

 

[equity78]

I didn't put words into your mouth, I did not say you said Adam did that, I was saying the scenario you played out, no one accused Adam of doing, I agreed with you if Go Daddy did that then that is criminal and they should get nailed for that.

Currently Flippa allows its employees to bid on auctions. They have no one high profile like Adam so we will see what comes of that.

One of the biggest issues I have noticed over the years, is many NOT ALL, but many people like selective transparency, all the marketplaces should adhere to complete transparency imo.

People bidding should have bidder id's Not bidder 1 Like on Flippa or Go Daddy, NameJet is far more transparent, I see I am up against Taryn (Frank Schilling) great, I know what I am dealing with, I know who he is and what kind of budget he has, I don't need to waste two hours of my life bidding back and forth when I know if he wants it, he is outbidding me.

Flippa and Go Daddy, IMO need to do the same, their systems are far easier to manipulate and pull the wool over 99% of all participants.

Employees bidding should be denoted with a special note so that some people who feel its wrong can say, "I don't want to participate in this auction, I don't trust it" They can feel better knowing that other auctions don't have employees and just have to worry about the seller's friends pulling a shill game.

 

[Zombies]

Yeah but I love .99 coupon codes and Bob doesn't run the place anymore, SOPA went away and .US sucks. So again anybody got a .99 coupon code

The 99cent coupons that are keeping folks distracted with pigeon poo is quite handy.

 

[NameOmnia]

I didn't put words into your mouth, I did not say you said Adam did that, I was saying the scenario you played out, no one accused Adam of doing, I agreed with you if Go Daddy did that then that is criminal and they should get nailed for that.

Currently Flippa allows its employees to bid on auctions. They have no one high profile like Adam so we will see what comes of that.

One of the biggest issues I have noticed over the years, is many NOT ALL, but many people like selective transparency, all the marketplaces should adhere to complete transparency imo.

People bidding should have bidder id's Not bidder 1 Like on Flippa or Go Daddy, NameJet is far more transparent, I see I am up against Taryn (Frank Schilling) great, I know what I am dealing with, I know who he is and what kind of budget he has, I don't need to waste two hours of my life bidding back and forth when I know if he wants it, he is outbidding me.

Flippa and Go Daddy, IMO need to do the same, their systems are far easier to manipulate and pull the wool over 99% of all participants.

Employees bidding should be denoted with a special note so that some people who feel its wrong can say, "I don't want to participate in this auction, I don't trust it" They can feel better knowing that other auctions don't have employees and just have to worry about the seller's friends pulling a shill game.

I agree and I also think that if the earning of the marketplace ( or whatever else entity ) depends upon the selling price ( aka the higher the name sells the higher the earning ) then NO ONE related to the marketplace itself should be allowed to bid on the domains or websites.

 

[SpongyBob]

Stub is right.

There are literally hundreds of trolls that lurk Godaddy Auctions.

Pick any name (that is semi decent of course)

Place a bid.

Expect to see 'Outbid'.

It is ridiculous. People bid just because someone else bid.

lol. Sheep, lemmings, etc.

I think in psychology they call it "scarcity". People are terrified of missing out, so make the dumbest decisions.

 

[Name Trader]

What was morally wrong was AD knowing what other bidders top proxy bid was, and using that info to place winning bids on domains. So he had insider information not available to all other bidders. I say that is not right, even if other employees were doing it. Also, if this passed the smell test, why isn't AD still GoDaddy VP (of Auctions?). After all he admitted to receiving a lucrative salary. GoDaddy are not blameless in this either, letting their own employees, with privileged confidential information, bid in their auctions. What was GoDaddy thinking?

I kinda agree with AD, that this is water under the bridge now. There are more up-to-date issues we should be focusing on. But unless we learn from past mistakes, we are destined to repeat them.

<hobby-horse off>

 

[DU]

Wait, and I am not saying it was the way I would run a company, but let's be clear when Adam joined Go Daddy it was permissible for all Go Daddy employees to bid on auctions for themselves, not just Adam, just like it is permissible at Flippa. Go Daddy stopped the practice but Flippa still allows it.

Absolute bottom line and the only thing that absolutely matters

The auction process itself is unregulated in Arizona, which means tactics designed to manipulate bidders - though frowned upon by most auctioneers - are not illegal.

The industry is trying to price domain investors out of it DomainAce, its why ICANN and their leader Fadi called domainers, squatters, created the New Gtlds, Uniregistry, Minds + Machines, Donuts are now the domainers except they get to call themselves a registry and create their own pricing, $60,000 for a premium never before registered domain name isn't squatting, its from the registry so you know its good, but if it is someone holding an LLL.com they bought in 1999 well that scumbag sob is a squatter.

I don't know much about this Fadi person - where did he call domainers squatters? I don't think the industry is trying to price domain investors out of anything - I don't think ICANN is receiving a higher fee for premium registrations.

The market never lies and the domain market has and will continue to change with the market and what the market demands from its users and investors (and squatters). The internet platform itself is also going to continue to change and it's probably not safe to presume that these changes will have a correlation over the next 10 years.

In fact, I think its safer to presume that they won't.

It's getting more and more apparent that the platform will change quite significantly - whether the current dominant naming convention using DNS continues along with the platform change is an interesting consideration.

This news is over 8 years old, instead of worrying about stuff almost a decade old, what have you done to improve your domain knowledge in the last 8 years? BTW all GD employees were bidding and were allowed to be bidding at the time. BTW, the salary was a hell of a lot more than 75k lol

Nothing like a little smug to endear yourself to people.

What was morally wrong was AD knowing what other bidders top proxy bid was, and using that info to place winning bids on domains. So he had insider information not available to all other bidders. I say that is not right, even if other employees were doing it. Also, if this passed the smell test, why isn't AD still GoDaddy VP (of Auctions?). After all he admitted to receiving a lucrative salary. GoDaddy are not blameless in this either, letting their own employees, with privileged confidential information, bid in their auctions. What was GoDaddy thinking?

I kinda agree with AD, that this is water under the bridge now. There are more up-to-date issues we should be focusing on. But unless we learn from past mistakes, we are destined to repeat them.

Where's @HeyNow when you need him? Whether it matters or not is an individual choice.

But you're right about the proxy bid and information. Even Sotheby's employees may bid only if the employee does not know the reserve and fully complies with Sotheby's internal rules governing employee bidding - I don't know what those internal rules are but I'm pretty sure they get audited quite a lot. The question is always about the appearance of impropriety and that's what the auction house tries to avoide.. but GoDaddy has other issues.

I would think that GoDaddy would have bigger concerns with internal bidding - why are my employees spending time bidding during the work day? Are their support questions influenced in any ways. If it's in their own time, without access to information, from their own devices? Who cares? Not me. It's all about access to information.

To answer the OPs question again which has already been answered? Don't be surprised that many domains in auctions are sold before they're even bought so the price reflects pretty close to the top edge on meaningful names. Some of the quick profits made by the usual suspects aren't solely due to good, hard, honest work.

 

[Name Trader]

Where's @HeyNow when you need him? Whether it matters or not is an individual choice.

Yeah! I'd forgotten about him. Still I wouldn't see his posts. I got tired of his rants. So put him on my ignore list. Maybe you did the same Now I feel bad about bringing it up Or was I just replying to a message, and then had to explain myself?

 

[HeyNow]

Yeah! I'd forgotten about him. Still I wouldn't see his posts. I got tired of his rants. So put him on my ignore list. Maybe you did the same Now I feel bad about bringing it up Or was I just replying to a message, and then had to explain myself?

More likely you got tired of reading the truth.

 

[Nathan K]

The market never lies

That's a good one. "The market" is not some infallible gift from God. Markets can be manipulated, and they also respond to investor/consumer feelings in addition to the reality at hand. If markets never lie, then why do bubbles form?

 

[biggie]

Why is there so much interest at the auction but no interest after?

it's the hype, the frenzy, and the thought of someone outbidding you on a name you think is good....especially if others are bidding on it too.

 

[DU]

That's a good one. "The market" is not some infallible gift from God. Markets can be manipulated, and they also respond to investor/consumer feelings in addition to the reality at hand. If markets never lie, then why do bubbles form?

Manipulated or not the market doesn't lie. It changes. With a bubble the changes are just more extreme and worse so if you're caught out during the implosion.

 

[domainhacks-931385]

Another great example today:

Zubar.com $2,550 on Auction

Really? For an auction sale that is overpriced.

 

[Beezy]

Another great example today:

Zubar.com $2,550 on Auction

Really? For an auction sale that is overpriced.

But if an end user got it at auction, it might be underpriced. I pay that much for domains I'd develop/use/know i can flip.

 

[JB Lions]

Another great example today:

Zubar.com $2,550 on Auction

Really? For an auction sale that is overpriced.

You've asked about names like this before, and the answer was to Google it. Same here. Why not just use Google? It's a closed business, might have backlinks. It's a last name, one of a professional footballer. There is a site named thezubar.com, it could be them. Many possibilities.

 

[silgro12]

Another great example today:

Zubar.com $2,550 on Auction

Really? For an auction sale that is overpriced.

Zubar also means dentist on croatian so maybe some croatian guy bought it for his dentist business