In June of last year, GoDaddy’s began using a different landing page design for its NameFind portfolio. In August of this year, I noticed that NameFind was forwarding many of its valuable domain names to an Afternic form rather than using the newer landing page. This is the same landing page GoDaddy and Afternic clients are able to use.

As you can see on this Afternic landing page, there is no GoDaddy branding, even though GoDaddy owns Afternic and owns the domain names in the NameFind portfolio.

Last month at the GoDaddy meetup, I mentioned to a couple of people that I thought it would be better if the landing page was branded as GoDaddy rather than Afternic. GoDaddy has spent a ton of money and time building its brand, and it is much more well known than Afternic. Not everyone loves GoDaddy, but I think there would be a greater level of trust dealing with GoDaddy than Afternic, even though it is essentially one and the same. Joe Styler addressed this in a comment on NamePros and indicated that a GoDaddy-branded landing page could be in the works.

I am curious how readers feel about this. Do you think GoDaddy should use and offer a GoDaddy-branding domain name for sale landing page?

I am sure it is no surprise, but I am a Boston Red Sox fan. My wife and I don’t get to a lot of Sox games these days, but we have a season ticket package and go to Fenway Park as often as we can. I anticipate that I will be at every Red Sox home game during the MLB playoffs, and I will be watching the away games on tv.

With the AL and NL playoff teams now set, I thought it would be fun to see who you guys are rooting for:

Each day, I can be a participant in anywhere from 1 or 2 domain name auctions to maybe a couple dozen give or take. I actively bid on a handful of domain names each day, and as I find the prices creeping higher and higher, I have been buying fewer names at auction.

As names are sold, I sometimes wonder who is willing to pay so much for certain domain names. Because of the amount of names I bid on, I don’t really keep track of what happens to the names after the auctions conclude. On occasion, I will look at some of my bidding lists and do a Whois lookup to see who the winning bidder was. I am sure others do the same thing. Some people may follow these sales more closely than others, and I bet some people don’t even care. They lose an auction, and the domain name is not of interest any longer.

Do you monitor domain names you don’t win at auction to see who bought them?

CloudFlare will be expanding its domain registrar business by offering low cost domain registrations. From what I know (as an observer rather than a client), CloudFlare has a high level of security and it’s products are trusted by many top companies.

ClouldFlare will be offering its domain registration services in waves, in order of tenure as a customer of the company. I am curious if you will transfer your domain names (or portfolio of domain names) to CloudFlare in light of today’s news. Feel free to add commentary if you would like to add insight:

This morning, I wrote about the ICA’s campaign to prevent price increases on .com domain name registrations (and renewals). Price increases are regulated, and they impact everyone who owns a .com domain name.

For some people with large domain portfolios, a price increase can mean a substantial amount of money. For others, the increasing price of .com domain names may be a bit of an inconvenience that has little impact on business operations.

Finances aside, there are some people who think the actual price of .com domain names should be very low. The profit margins are quite high, and if the .com registry were to go out for bid (I do not believe it can), registration prices would come down substantially.

I am interested in knowing where domain investors who read my blog stand when it comes to this issue. You are also invited to share additional thoughts in the comment section below:

Domain name values are dynamic. A few big sales in a short period of time, and similar domain names can increase in value. Domain names are unique digital assets, and comparable sales and/or trends can cause changes in their valuations.

During the last year or two, I have been more willing to put BIN prices on my domain names, I have also been adding more domain names to Afternic to drive revenue on names I consider moveable inventory. These are the types of names I regularly buy at auction for $500 or less and am happy to quickly sell for 4 or low 5 figures without a negotiation. I added the Afternic phone number to many of my parked landing pages, and it’s always nice to see an email telling me a domain name sold or telling me they have an offer.

BIN pricing is a double edged sword. It’s great to move inventory, but it can be a bit of a shot to the stomach when a deep pocketed buyer picks up a name for relatively cheap. I don’t generally have regrets because there are probably plenty of deep pocketed buyers who wanted one of my names that I priced too high and they picked up something else instead. I do think it is important for me to look through my BIN-priced names to make sure the pricing is reflective of the current market conditions.

I thought it would be interesting to poll readers to see how often they update their buy it now pricing. As always, additional thoughts are welcome in the comment section: