Be Mindful of Listing Date at GoDaddy / Afternic

Elliot Silver
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13

I have a few hundred domain names listed for sale on Afternic / GoDaddy. After re-listing a domain name for sale, I discovered something that is pretty small but could pose a larger concern. Domain names listed for sale on Afternic have a listing date on the listing page:

For most people, this is probably a very small detail that would go unnoticed. I didn’t really even think about it until very recently, and I want to share why it could be problematic.

I was reading the news and I learned that a big company had acquired a smaller company, and I own the exact match .com domain name of the smaller brand name, which is completely generic/descriptive. In this particular field, the smaller companies retain their own branding, so there is not a concern that the brand name would change.

When I saw the news about the acquisition, I went to check

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Steve Jurvetson Launches Firm on Future.Ventures

Elliot Silver
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4

Steve Jurvetson is a well-known venture capitalist and was a co-founder of the VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ). Apparently, Jurvetson left DFJ last year, and Recode is reporting that he is starting a new firm called Future Ventures. Interestingly, the company is using the new gTLD domain name, Future.Ventures for its website.

The Future Ventures brand name sounded familiar to me because the exact match .com domain name, FutureVentures.com, was sold on NameJet about 2.5 months ago. I liked the name enough to bid $777 for it, but FutureVentures.com ended up selling for $1,009. There were 37 bidders who participated in the expiry auction.

When I did a Whois search for the domain name, the Registrar Status is listed

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Keep Track of Your Marketplace Listings

Elliot Silver
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4

Earlier this week, I received an offer for a domain name that had its BIN price listed on its landing page. I proceeded to negotiate with the prospect, and I told him he need to come up to a certain number to get a deal done. A couple of hours passed, and I received an email from Afternic telling me the domain name sold for the BIN price, which was lower than the BIN price on my landing page but in line with what I had emailed to the prospect.

I don’t typically have two different buy it now prices for my domain names. I think it is more fair for buyers if my prices are consistent across platforms, and I think it bring up questions if that isn’t the case. It is a case of fairness because a person would be (rightfully) upset if they paid $10,000 to buy a name via Afternic but found out that same name had an active BIN listing on Sedo at $7,000 after they already paid.

When I received the initial offer, I should have first looked at

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Afternic Users Can Now Use Non-PPC Landers

Elliot Silver
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4

Afternic emailed its customers yesterday to let them know they could now more easily set up landing pages without pay per click (PPC) links on them. These types of “for sale” landing pages make it more obvious that a particular domain name is for sale rather than having a smaller “for sale” notice on them. These landing pages give visitors the option to call a toll free number to speak with an Afternic sales representative, or they can fill out an inquiry form. The asking price is not listed on the landing page.

An example of the landing page Afternic customers can implement on their domain names can be seen below:

Prior to yesterday’s news, customer were able to forward their domain names to this type of landing page, but it took more effort setting up forwarding for each domain name. This nameserver change option will allow users to set this up in bulk.

Commenting on this change, Afternic’s Alan Shiflett shared the following information with me:

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Domain Names in Auction Should be Removed from Marketplaces

Elliot Silver
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3

It is annoying and perhaps a bit disheartening to add a domain name I won in an auction to one of my marketplace accounts and learn that it can’t be added yet because it is listed for sale in another person’s account. This happens when the former owner let the domain name expire or put it up for auction and did not remove the domain name from the account post-auction.

The annoyance comes from having to email the marketplace and ask them to remove a domain name from someone’s account so I can add it to mine. I need to wait for the marketplace to remove the domain name and then I need to remember to go back and re-add it to my account when they get around to it. The disheartening part is seeing a name listed for sale for $2,500 when I paid $1,500 for it at auction. I understand that timing is everything with domain names, but if a name didn’t sell for $2,500 when it was publicly listed for sale, it could mean that it will be more challenging to see a worthwhile ROI on my investment.

I am not entirely sure what marketplaces like Sedo and Afternic can do to scrub their listings of domain names in auction. Once a domain name is in a private auction, the domain name is no longer visible to non-bidders (including third party marketplaces). Sometimes a

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Changes I Made After Watching Paul Nicks Keynote

Elliot Silver
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13

Like many of you, I watched Paul Nicks’ NamesCon keynote speech yesterday afternoon. I thought there were quite a few helpful and interesting nuggets of information that he shared, especially for people who list their domain names for sale via Afternic.

Earlier today, in response to the keynote, I made some changes to a large group of domain names I have listed for sale. Here are a few:

I added the Afternic phone number to my parked domain names that I have listed for sale on Afternic. Yes, I would need to pay a commission if they help sell the domain name, but I have already committed to that by listing on Afternic. If their brokers can provide a lift over the phone vs. emails with me, it will be worth the commission fee. You can see the for sale message I am using by visiting Colonel.com.

I added BIN prices to

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