By now, I am sure you heard that Twitter is becoming X. Elon Musk, who bought X.com, is now forwarding X.com to the Twitter website. I would not be surprised if that flips at some point and X.com becomes the home for the matching X brand.
As you may recall, GoDaddy previously operated the X.CO domain name, where it served as a url shortener. In 2017, GoDaddy sunsetted the X.CO shortener, and it currently forwards to GoDaddy’s home page.
GoDaddy is set to introduce a Lease to Own purchase option for buyers of aftermarket domain names listed for sale via Afternic. This option has been one of the unique points of differentiation for sellers on Dan.com, a company acquired by GoDaddy last year.
While I offer LTO on most of my domain names I have listed on Dan, I am cautious about it with others because of the potential damage highlighted by Brad Mugford:
Interesting, but a quick question.
Is the buyer allowed to use the domain during the lease period?
If so, where are the terms regarding the buyer’s usage?
For the low price of a LTO payment, a buyer could possibly damage the value of a domain.@jamesiles @PaulENicks https://t.co/lWxvZBwiJL
— DataCube (@datacubecom) July 14, 2023
One of the most helpful offerings from Dan.com is the easy to use Lease to Own (LTO) purchase option. Domain name buyers who do not want to spend the money to acquire a domain name at the time of the sale can opt to pay for it over a period of time when offered by the seller.
Dan.com was acquired by GoDaddy last year, and the LTO option is now coming to Afternic. This means domain name buyers shopping on GoDaddy will be given the ability to purchase a domain name over a period of time, if leasing is offered by the seller of the domain name.
Afternic posted a tweet about the new offering along with an article that covers how sellers will be able to add the LTO option to their domain names listed for sale via Afternic:
OpenAI’s ChatGPT service has really taken off in the last several months. With its growth, third party companies and developers have been creating plugins within the ChatGPT platform offering various types of information and services.
GoDaddy recently launched its ChatGPT plugin called GoDaddy Name Search, and anyone can use the free tool to search for domain name ideas. Unlike visiting GoDaddy’s website to search for domain names, users can type in a descriptive idea for their business, and the plugin will return domain name suggestions based on availability. Users can click through on the domain names they like to hand register them via GoDaddy’s website.
When I read that all Dan.com BIN listings will be added to GoDaddy’s Afternic network, I didn’t see much of a downside for domain sellers. It means there’s more exposure for domain names for sale than what is received now. At second glance, this listing migration could pose an issue for many sellers, and at the least for me, will be a bit of a time suck.
I have never been great at deleting stale (old and no longer valid) listings from marketplaces. Up until last year, I didn’t use Sedo much, so Afternic and Dan.com were the only marketplaces where I had domain names listed with BIN prices. When I sold a name at Dan.com or in private, I would immediately delete the listing from Afternic.
When I sold a name at Afternic, I would remove it from Dan.com when I could remember to do that. My thinking was that nobody would find the Dan.com listing since the nameservers would change after it sold and it would redirect elsewhere. Since people generally find my Dan.com landing pages via direct nav, it wouldn’t be likely that anyone would see the names I had sold.
I received an email from Dan.com announcing three changes to the platform. At least two of these changes will impact most sellers and attention should be paid to them. The email I received is below, but in short, the changes are:
The first change is not important to me. I have always been paid out in USD and that will continue for me. I assume sellers outside of the US may be happy with this change.
The currency change to listings is probably not going to have much impact on the perceived value of the domain name, but sellers may wish to update the gross price to reflect preferred “charm pricing.” Some sellers prefer to have prices that end in -888, -999, or even -111. When EUR or other currency is converted to USD, the charm pricing will likely be lost and need to be updated.
I don’t see much of a downside for domain names to be added to Afternic’s network, but sellers should be aware of this change.
Email received from Dan.com this morning:
