Afternic

The time finally came. Dan.com has been completely shuttered by GoDaddy.

The innovative platform was acquired by GoDaddy in 2022. It was operated independently for a short period of time, and the platform was absorbed by GoDaddy and Afternic. Earlier this year, it was announced that Dan.com would close down over the Summer, and that time has come.

If you visit Dan.com now, you will be forwarded to Afternic with a Dan.com tracking url.

My educational background is in the field of direct marketing. Following my undergraduate degree, I went to NYU and earned a Master’s degree in Direct and Interactive Marketing. I then worked at a direct marketing agency called Wunderman, followed by a corporate direct marketing role at AIG.

One of the hallmarks of direct marketing is testing. I recall one of my professors telling the class about the “test everything” mantra in this field. Testing is the most important thing, and once you have a winning campaign or strategy, you keep testing to see if you can iterate and improve your results. All of this is to say that I am a big believer in testing.

I read a blog post about testing written by GoDaddy’s Adam Ramsdell. While I agree with the testing sentiment, I think it would be very difficult for most domain investors – myself included – to accurately test in a way that will create actionable results.

My Afternic Lead Center is full of Stalled, Qualifying, Confused, and Unknown leads. As a domain investor, this is pretty confusing and slightly frustrating. I don’t blame Afternic brokers for this because I have become familiar with how their platform works, but I do think Afternic and GoDaddy should better educate its sellers on the brokerage process.

When a prospective buyer submits an offer or inquiry, I am pretty certain they quickly receive an automated email with information about the domain name and a broker contact. The Afternic broker will follow up various times via email and a phone call if they have the correct phone number. Afternic brokers earn a living on commissions, so they have a vested interest in selling domain names.