Afternic

This comic posted on X today is something domain investors should think about when working with a domain broker. Who does the broker represent? Ultimately, it boils down to whether or not the domain name is already listed for sale via Afternic or not.

Something to think about: Domain Brokers pic.twitter.com/SgA8I8nL3p

— ARIYAS (@domainretail) September 20, 2024

Mark Chavez posted a reply to the comic with a comment related to Afternic brokers. I think the way Afternic and DBS brokers work on behalf of buyers and sellers is a bit unclear, so I thought I would share my understanding of how Afternic and DBS brokering works.

As you know, GoDaddy is shutting down Dan.com in October. Yesterday, Afternic and Dan launched a “Migration center” to help domain name sellers move domain names to Afternic and archive account data before October 15. Buyers were also emailed about the migration process.

I have heard from many domain investors who sell on Dan, but I had not heard from any buyers until yesterday.

I have two active LTO deals remaining on Dan.com. One of the buyers reached out to me to let me know he submitted the remaining 5 monthly payments (approximately $3k) ahead of schedule. He did this because he wanted to avoid dealing with the transition to GoDaddy.

The image above is a GoDaddy landing page that is shown when the domain name has Afternic nameservers but is not listed for sale via Afternic. The visitor is encouraged to “Get this domain,” and clicking the link opens a new browser window with a GoDaddy search page searching for that domain name. If a person wants to buy that domain name, the prompt is to pay for GoDaddy’s Domain Broker Service (DBS).

For some reason, it would appear that this isn’t limited to the situation I described above. In fact, I mentioned it on X when I noticed a domain name of mine with this landing page even though it was actively listed for sale in my Afternic account:

Just saw a domain name I won in auction in June that I added to @Afternic shortly after is showing a page that says “This domain is registered, but may still be available.”

It is definitely in my account listed for sale. Is there a way to make sure no others are like this? pic.twitter.com/eNfupnzKnN

— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) August 30, 2024

GoDaddy acquired Dan.com in 2022. The company reportedly spent north of $71 million USD to acquire the domain name sales platform. This morning, GoDaddy announced it is “merging” the Dan.com platform with Afternic. The announcement was made in a blog post, and the company provided answers to numerous questions domain investors and Dan customers will likely have in the wake of this news.

This news isn’t surprising as the company has hinted at this outcome for a while. It comes after GoDaddy acquired Uniregistry, another competitor it shut down following an acquisition of its assets. Two well-liked platforms have now been acquired and retired.

Afternic recently began offering Dan.com-lookalike landing pages with GoDaddy branding. I liked them enough to move inventory to them away from Dan.com. Afternic followed this up with the ability to allow prospects to make an offer to buy a domain name in addition to the BIN and LTO options.

Unlike how the Make Offer process works on Dan.com, there is no negotiation box for sellers to communicate with buyers directly. Instead, when a buyer submits an offer via the landing page, the negotiation is handled by a GoDaddy broker.

Yesterday, Afternic announced its new “Boost” feature. Afternic sellers are automatically opted into this program and must opt-out if they don’t wish to participate. The features and potential benefit of Afternic Boost were shared in a thread yesterday:

Introducing Boost, our new program that can contribute up to a 10% increase in sales performance for your portfolio* with:

🚀 Higher visibility at GoDaddy
👀 Boost badges to support conversions
📨 Email marketing to potential buyers

Launches September 4! https://t.co/l2t7NnWyzV

— Afternic (@afternic) August 7, 2024

My read on the news is the commission rate is reverting back to 20% for people using their nameservers in exchange for some features and enhancements.