Following up on GoDaddy’s pledge to make its auctions more transparent, I was just notified that GoDaddy will be introducing unique bidder IDs for all bidders on GoDaddy Auctions. The plan is to implement this change following the close of auctions tomorrow, April 11th.
The top publicly reported domain name sale of the day this past Saturday was the auction for ChefD.com. The domain name sold for $11,850, as reported in a tweet from NameBio on Sunday morning:
Top sale of the day goes to @GoDaddy – chefd(.)com sold for $11,850. Daily market report: https://t.co/bwkj9sdiCu
— NameBio (@NameBio) April 7, 2019
For the past few days, I have been digesting the news about a GoDaddy employee bidding on GoDaddy Auctions. As I wrote on Thursday evening, the news is disappointing. In the article revealing the discovery, Paul Nicks wrote, “We are also reviewing platform changes to make things even more transparent.” After thinking about this, I think there are three things GoDaddy should do to be transparent and reassure customers that GoDaddy Auctions is a fair auction platform.
Paul Nicks, VP and GM of the Aftermarket at GoDaddy, published an article on the GoDaddy Blog this evening that is concerning to me as a GoDaddy customer, especially because I am an active bidder on GoDaddy Auctions. Paul tweeted a link to the article via his Twitter account a short while ago:
For my domains followers, I wanted to update you on a serious situation we had brought to our attention. https://t.co/jis04Q7kwa
— Paul Nicks (@PaulENicks) March 29, 2019
Sedo recently entered the expired domain name auction business. I was just informed that the company made it easier for users to search for expiry inventory without having to sort through other types of inventory listed for sale on Sedo (BIN, make offer, private auction…etc.). The dedicated expiry auction page can be found here: https://expiringdomains.sedo.com.
There’s a thread on NamePros asking people how to get people to view specific private domain auctions. I am an active bidder at NameJet, GoDaddy Auctions, and to a lesser degree, DropCatch.com. I thought I would share how I find domain names to bid on just about every day. I don’t know if it will be helpful to people trying to sell via auction, but perhaps someone will find it interesting.
