Afternic

Yesterday afternoon, Paul Nicks (GoDaddy VP and GM of the Aftermarket) announced that the Afternic beta website is now open to all Afternic customers:

Hey all, @afternic beta is now open to all accounts, just login and click the “Try Afternic 2.0 Beta” banner. Previously we limited to only smaller portfolios, so now y’all that have large portfolios can play as well.

— Paul Nicks (@PaulENicks) October 7, 2021

To access the beta, customers need to click the “Try the new Afternic 2.0 BETA” link on the left sidebar of the website. Once on the website, there is a quick guide sharing some screengrabs of what users can do on the beta site.

When a domain name is listed for sale at Afternic and it is not registered at GoDaddy, the registrant needs to approve a Standardized Form of Authorization (FOA). This approval is necessary for a domain name to be listed and eligible for the Fast Transfer network.

These approvals are very important to review carefully. Once this link is clicked and approved, if a domain name is sold via Afternic, it will be immediately pulled from the registrant’s account. Even if you did not sell a domain name in your Afternic account, if you click the approval link, the domain name will be sold and will transfer.

When I list domain names for sale at Afternic, the Network Solutions email has an important notice (including the “thes” typo):

Since GoDaddy acquired Afternic in 2013, I don’t think a whole lot has changed with respect to the design of the Afternic website. I presume this is because much of the focus has always been on the integration of domain name sales listings within the GoDaddy website and its DLS network partners, and there probably aren’t a ton of people who end up directly visiting Afternic’s website to buy domain names.

Here’s a look at how Afternic looked in 2013, courtesy of the Screenshots.com tool found via DomainTools: