Afternic - Official Thread

[GoDaddy]

Hello NamePros!
By popular demand, we have launched a dedicated feedback thread for Afternic, the GoDaddy-owned domain name marketplace.

We have created this thread as a way for you to tell us what works, what doesn't work, and what features you'd like to see at Afternic (please be constructive with your feedback). We're looking forward to hearing from the domain investment community to help us shape the future of Afternic.

We will also be sharing Afternic product updates in this thread.

Please note that this thread is not meant for support. Please email our support team at [email protected] for assistance.

 

[GoDaddy]

I have received an offer from an Afternic broker, but how do I accept it?

I hit the "Accept Offer" button, and all it does it try to change my Floor Price to the price of the offer, which it has already done. Each time I hit Accept Offer, it brings up the same "change price" screen over and over and over even though the values have already changed.

If the "Accept Offer" button is actually a "Change Price" button and this is functioning as intended, then the button should not be called "Accept Offer".

This is the definition of insanity.

@AfternicDLS @GoDaddy

Hi @DomainRecap
The process is:
1. Click the Accept Offer button
2. Adjust the floor price to the accepted amount (the floor price should auto-populate to the offered amount)
3. Click Save Changes
4. Click Send to send the message to the broker

There's an opportunity to make this clearer, though. We have sent this feedback to our team to review for future iterations of the lead center. Thank you for sharing your experience.

For the domain names which do not use Afternic nameservers (...and haven't been there for years), when there is suddenly a view count, where do these come from?

Hi @capybara,
The views are tracked to our landing pages (e.g https://afternic.com/forsale/[domain]) and the views you mention are likely coming from an Afternic partner directly to the landing page.

In September, 2023 I listed one of my domains (two generic English dictionary words, exact match for a service), and wanted to try parking it with ads. My parking account status was and is still approved, I set the nameservers to Afternic (1 and 2) as instructed, and selected "Cashparking" lander. Once or twice since that date I checked (typed domain's exact URL) and it was effectively displaying related ads. Last time was yesterday. But then I logged into my account and looked up for the parking stats of those nearly four months, and... nothing!! Checked three times, selecting the right time frame, and got always the same result "Sorry, no...etc.". So I guess I will never know, but, if any revenue was generated, it certainly did not reach me (neither did I have the chance to know if my name was at least visited).

I feel outraged, and I don't even want to waste time and energy on this. Just changed nameservers out of AN.

So sorry to have to complain, absolutely not my style.

Hi @MariaEl,
We're sorry to hear that. Could you send us a DM with an example domain name from your account? We want to pass this to our parking team to investigate.

I see that Afternic Classic view is going to be retired tomorrow and we will only be able to use Afternic 2.0. I still see no way of being able to submit my details after making a purchase. I can see it in my list of purchases (Domains --> Purchases) but no option to click on anything.
FYI My complaint to Afternic resulted in them giving me the details to submit my info via the Classic view. Glad I did it today before there was no option.... Anyone else experience this?

Hi @lotk,
That's a good question. The ability to submit your details after making a purchase will continue to be done via the Classic view for now. We will change this Transaction Assurance page when we can bring all its elements into the 2.0 experience.

 

[kor]

I received an offer of $100 for a domain name that I had just added to my portfolio and was listing only to collect offers. Of course, I rejected this funny offer.

Then I got this message:

I am the only one who will decide the pricing of the assets I own. No one has the right to comment on this point until I ask for. Especially to speak to me in an imperative manner is unacceptable!

If you do not want such listings to be made in Afternic, then simply remove this option. Or train your brokers properly!

 

[bmugford]

I received an offer of $100 for a domain name that I had just added to my portfolio and was listing only to collect offers. Of course, I rejected this funny offer.

Then I got this message:

Show attachment 251612

I am the only one who will decide the pricing of the assets I own. No one has the right to comment on this point until I ask for. Especially to speak to me in an imperative manner is unacceptable!

If you do not want such listings to be made in Afternic, then simply remove this option. Or train your brokers properly!

I kind of see both sides on this.

I am sure as a broker it would be easier to do your job if you have pricing guidance. That being said, I do find that response to be rather snotty.

In an ideal world I would go through and set more accurate minimum offers on every domain. In reality, I don't feel like spending countless hours doing that with thousands of domains.

Brad

 

[DomainRecap]

The broker seems to be confused by Minimum Offer and Baseline Price, which are two totally different things.

Plus, I put $1K as my minimum, but the Afternic brokers totally ignore it and still send me offers in the $200-$500 range, so they clearly want to drive on both sides of the road.

 

[MariaEl]

Hi @MariaEl,
We're sorry to hear that. Could you send us a DM with an example domain name from your account? We want to pass this to our parking team to investigate.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

 

[kor]

In an ideal world I would go through and set more accurate minimum offers on every domain.

The dilemma actually starts here.

It is not possible for me to provide optimum pricing for assets related to sectors that are just starting to grow, such as AI.

If I set the minimum offer as $1000, this time offers worth $1000 will start coming and I will not accept them again. Or if I set it at $50,000, I will miss the $49,000 offer.

"Make offer", as the name suggests, means open to offers. While the brokers should be aware of current market data and look out for the interests of "both" parties, it seems like some of them are just busy acting like teenagers.

My personal opinion is that the broker himself wanted to own this domain name and got angry when he did not get the response he expected. I don't think someone would react this much to a commission they would get out of $100.

 

[bmugford]

I contacted my account rep about this one today. It's not a big sale.

I received this "1-3 business day" email 8 days ago now.

The transaction still does not even show a payout date.

I was told that they talked to the transaction assurance team and it was escalated.

It seems like I am having issues with almost every transaction lately.

Brad

No update yet. The domain is still not scheduled for payout.

This is the email I received on 1/4. It says 1-3 business days.

Meanwhile, in the control panel it shows "transfer processing" with a 1/2/2024 payout date.

If you click on "See Status" it shows the following message, with no payout date scheduled.

It seems like Afternic's system has no idea what is going on.

There sure are a lot of mixed messages. @GoDaddy

Brad

 

[GoDaddy]

I received an offer of $100 for a domain name that I had just added to my portfolio and was listing only to collect offers. Of course, I rejected this funny offer.

Then I got this message:

Show attachment 251612

I am the only one who will decide the pricing of the assets I own. No one has the right to comment on this point until I ask for. Especially to speak to me in an imperative manner is unacceptable!

If you do not want such listings to be made in Afternic, then simply remove this option. Or train your brokers properly!

Hi @kor
Thanks for your feedback. We'll be sure to share this with our sales team lead.

No update yet. The domain is still not scheduled for payout.

This is the email I received on 1/4. It says 1-3 business days.

Show attachment 251632

Meanwhile, in the control panel it shows "transfer processing" with a 1/2/2024 payout date.

Show attachment 251635

If you click on "See Status" it shows the following message, with no payout date scheduled.

Show attachment 251634

It seems like Afternic's system has no idea what is going on.

There sure are a lot of mixed messages. @GoDaddy

Brad

Hi @bmugford,
Thanks for pointing this out. The email you received comes from a standard template that provides general guidance on our typical payout schedule. Afternic's platform communications should be in sync, though. We'll bring this up with our engineering team today.

 

[lovely4ever]

Afternic have retired the classic interface , Now only 2.0 for the use .

.

 

[GoDaddy]

Afternic have retired the classic interface , Now only 2.0 for the use .

Show attachment 251641



.

Thanks @lovely4ever!

To note, since there were a couple of questions about this above, we will still be using some Transaction Assurance pages in the Classic View for now. Other than that, we're excited to focus on Afternic 2.0 and the continued updates we'll release!

 

[bmugford]

Thanks for pointing this out. The email you received comes from a standard template that provides general guidance on our typical payout schedule. Afternic's platform communications should be in sync, though. We'll bring this up with our engineering team today.

Thanks for responding.

I provided (3) different screenshots that all show different things. That is a problem.

GoDaddy has a market cap of around $15B. Surely there are the resources to fix this type of confusion.

Brad

 

[Future Sensors]

Even within the dashboard you can come across different statuses in different places, for the same transaction.

I suspect that this issue was never further addressed at the time, which is why inconsistencies like this continue to persist. So many things have been suggested since this thread started (and in threads preceding this thread). It is a pity that these are not being picked up.

 

[Janoss]

@GoDaddy

Can you please ask your team to look into adding back the ability to add multiple payout methods from the user settings? It is a step backwards to need to contact support in order to add a new payout method rather than users having the ability to just add it themselves and choose whichever they want as default right in their settings.

 

[411domains]

@GoDaddy

Since the "upgraded," version does not have it, I would like to recommend carrying over the "Registrar" info so that it can be added to the columns and viewable on the user's end.

How is it useful to the user?

It has proven to be a key piece of information when troubleshooting and resolving sync issues.

Let's say we move a domain or several domains to another registrar.

Obviously, they immediately go into review at Afternic. (Good)

Unfortunately, they will remain in review for eternity unless we call, email or delete & re-add the domain. (Bad)

Personally, I prefer deleting & re-adding. (It's efficient.)

In my experience with deleting & re-adding domains post transfer, I have found that many times Afternic's system re-adds the losing registrar info instead of the new registrar. It shouldn't, but it's does.

I discovered this while troubleshooting why opt-in notifications were not being received for domains that had been transferred and became Fast Transfer eligible.

After all the usual workarounds failed, I thought to check the registrars in the classic version and sure enough, they were showing the wrong registrars.

If the system is showing the wrong registrar, the domains will remain in pending opt-in status for eternity and no amount of refreshing will ever get them up to Fast Transfer Active status until the registrar info matches.

While this may be fine for some, I prefer the extra benefits of the Fast Transfer network.

That being said, it would be appreciated if this key piece of information were carried over. Quite frankly, I'm surprised it wasn't.

Since "Classic" is out and it's now being referred to as an "upgraded" experience, does this mean that basic, industry standard filter functions are coming soon?

 

[tonyk2000]

The ability to select a payout method after the sale is complete will continue to be in the Classic environment for the moment. Once we're confident that a 2.0 experience replaces all the functions on that page successfully, we'll switch that page over.

OK. GD killed afternic classic earlier today. I had an instant transfer sale ~2 hours ago. Please explain where and how am I now supposed to select payee for it (if needed)?. There is no dasboard with recent sales anymore. So I searched for the domain in sold section @ the "new" interface and found the following:

Status: Payout Pending
Payout date: 1/17/2024

1/17 is tomorrow. The domain was sold today so it cannot and wouldn't be paid tomorrow. Naturally, I did not yet receive an usual email from TA ( with the Subject: The transfer for <...> is done!) indicating that the payout is scheduled, as the sale occured just 2 hours ago. In afternic classic, I could select the payee after 2 hours (actually, within ~12 hours if it was sold on GD and within days if sold elsewhere). Now I cannot. Please advise.

 

[411domains]

I received an offer of $100 for a domain name that I had just added to my portfolio and was listing only to collect offers. Of course, I rejected this funny offer.

Then I got this message:

Show attachment 251612

I am the only one who will decide the pricing of the assets I own. No one has the right to comment on this point until I ask for. Especially to speak to me in an imperative manner is unacceptable!

If you do not want such listings to be made in Afternic, then simply remove this option. Or train your brokers properly!

Rich has been around for awhile, I don't know why he would say that. Perhaps he was just having bad day or something.

Regardless, it's never a good idea for a broker to say something like that. Especially in that tone.

Then again, maybe they shouldn't sit on leads like they do, but that's getting off topic.

It's a sales platform. You can ask or in this case, not ask whatever you want.

The bottom line is, it's your asset not theirs.

 

[USA]

@GoDaddy suggestion for new afternic
Make font black not gray hard for reading. Remove gray background. Font is too thin

 

[bmugford]

Hi @bmugford,
Thanks for pointing this out. The email you received comes from a standard template that provides general guidance on our typical payout schedule. Afternic's platform communications should be in sync, though. We'll bring this up with our engineering team today.

This transaction finally has a payout scheduled on 1/19.

That is 15 days after the "1-3 business days" email, and by my count on the 10th business day.

It is also well after the "next 7 days", not business days, shown in the other screenshot.

Brad

 

[capybara]

What are the exact conditions for a transaction to be handled by Escrow.com? What happens if the seller or the buyer are from a country not supported by Escrow.com?

 

[bmugford]

This transaction finally has a payout scheduled on 1/19.

That is 15 days after the "1-3 business days" email, and by my count on the 10th business day.

It is also well after the "next 7 days", not business days, shown in the other screenshot.

Brad

I received payment on this one today.

I also received payment on another that was sold on 1/16.

So, that one went from sold, to completed email, to paid in only (2) days.

One suggestion is it would be nice if Afternic broke down what amount was for what domain, if there are multiple payments at one time. @GoDaddy

Brad

 

[Springs77]

@GoDaddy I am no longer seeing the "DAN LANDER" selection turn RED when the name is already listed in someone else's DAN account. So if the name is already listed in another shady DAN account (which happens 90% of the time, people adding names they don't own), you won't know, and your domains are resolving to another person's DAN lander listing with a different price and description.

Kind of a big issue for people using the DAN landers especially making changes in BULK. I only noticed it by chance.

 

[SpareDomains]

This is what I get on my mobile device in Chrome for the two domains I purchased.

Some domains load properly, some don't.

Show attachment 251527

I use Bitdefender and efty, dan, sedo, squadhelp, dynadot all fine but afternic all day long with the ssl warnings. If you're trying to sell to end users "attackers might be trying to steal your information" probably not the best message to send as how many will click through versus abort. They really need to just toss the Afternic/Goddady logo on Dan and forward afternic to Dan and be done with it. Afternic is beta bug fest for years now.

 

[GoDaddy]

@GoDaddy

Can you please ask your team to look into adding back the ability to add multiple payout methods from the user settings? It is a step backwards to need to contact support in order to add a new payout method rather than users having the ability to just add it themselves and choose whichever they want as default right in their settings.

Hi @Janoss,
Customers can still update and edit their default payout settings, but we appreciate your feedback and we'll continue to monitor user sentiment on this.

@GoDaddy

Since the "upgraded," version does not have it, I would like to recommend carrying over the "Registrar" info so that it can be added to the columns and viewable on the user's end.

How is it useful to the user?

It has proven to be a key piece of information when troubleshooting and resolving sync issues.

Let's say we move a domain or several domains to another registrar.

Obviously, they immediately go into review at Afternic. (Good)

Unfortunately, they will remain in review for eternity unless we call, email or delete & re-add the domain. (Bad)

Personally, I prefer deleting & re-adding. (It's efficient.)

In my experience with deleting & re-adding domains post transfer, I have found that many times Afternic's system re-adds the losing registrar info instead of the new registrar. It shouldn't, but it's does.

I discovered this while troubleshooting why opt-in notifications were not being received for domains that had been transferred and became Fast Transfer eligible.

After all the usual workarounds failed, I thought to check the registrars in the classic version and sure enough, they were showing the wrong registrars.

If the system is showing the wrong registrar, the domains will remain in pending opt-in status for eternity and no amount of refreshing will ever get them up to Fast Transfer Active status until the registrar info matches.

While this may be fine for some, I prefer the extra benefits of the Fast Transfer network.

That being said, it would be appreciated if this key piece of information were carried over. Quite frankly, I'm surprised it wasn't.

Since "Classic" is out and it's now being referred to as an "upgraded" experience, does this mean that basic, industry standard filter functions are coming soon?


Show attachment 251642

Hi @411domains,
Your usage of the Registrar column is a helpful insight. We'll work on getting the column re-added in a future update to the Afternic UX. Thank you for sharing.

OK. GD killed afternic classic earlier today. I had an instant transfer sale ~2 hours ago. Please explain where and how am I now supposed to select payee for it (if needed)?. There is no dasboard with recent sales anymore. So I searched for the domain in sold section @ the "new" interface and found the following:

Status: Payout Pending
Payout date: 1/17/2024

1/17 is tomorrow. The domain was sold today so it cannot and wouldn't be paid tomorrow. Naturally, I did not yet receive an usual email from TA ( with the Subject: The transfer for <...> is done!) indicating that the payout is scheduled, as the sale occured just 2 hours ago. In afternic classic, I could select the payee after 2 hours (actually, within ~12 hours if it was sold on GD and within days if sold elsewhere). Now I cannot. Please advise.

Hi @tonyk2000,
We are correcting an issue with the display date for the payout date; thank you for sharing this. By clicking on the status, you will be taken through to the TA page in the Classic experience for additional information.

@GoDaddy I am no longer seeing the "DAN LANDER" selection turn RED when the name is already listed in someone else's DAN account. So if the name is already listed in another shady DAN account (which happens 90% of the time, people adding names they don't own), you won't know, and your domains are resolving to another person's DAN lander listing with a different price and description.

Kind of a big issue for people using the DAN landers especially making changes in BULK. I only noticed it by chance.

Hi @Springs77,
Thanks for your feedback; we'll share this with our team. If your domain name was originally listed with Afternic, not listed at Dan.com, and you use Afternic's Dan.com Lander option, then adding that domain name to a Dan.com account while you're using Afternic's Dan.com Lander option should be impossible because of the way Afternic utilizes the Dan.com Lander to display your name. You're welcome to share a domain name or two as an example for us to check via DM.

For any domains at Dan.com that are erroneously listed, you can use their ownership verification system: https://dan.com/users/settings/ownership

 

[tom365]

I'm certain GD did plenty of due diligence on that, so the price reflects a lot of valuation factors that we can speculate on.

Simply comparing the elegance and user-friendliness of Dan to the antiquated, buggy Afternic that seems unable to break out of its shell. It's saddening and reflects badly on the entire ecosystem at GoDaddy.

I sent an email to Afternic and also left an online message to Afternic,it has been 7 days.but there was no response.

I purchased a domain through Afternic,paid and the seller has already pushed the domain name to Afternic's godadd account. However, it has been 7 days and Afternic has not pushed the domain name to me. I sent an email to Afternic and also left an online message to Afternic, but there was no response.

Afternic maybe gone bankrupt? why afternic nobody goes to work?

 

[GoDaddy]

@GoDaddy I am no longer seeing the "DAN LANDER" selection turn RED when the name is already listed in someone else's DAN account. So if the name is already listed in another shady DAN account (which happens 90% of the time, people adding names they don't own), you won't know, and your domains are resolving to another person's DAN lander listing with a different price and description.

Kind of a big issue for people using the DAN landers especially making changes in BULK. I only noticed it by chance.

Hi @Springs77
Our team did spot a bug in the Dan.com Lander notification system. This has been resolved, thank you. If you still experience issues, please DM us.