I keep most of my domain names registered at GoDaddy because I find it is easier to manage a portfolio at one registrar. Throughout the year as I acquire domain names at auction, my other registrar accounts grow. I have domain names at Network Solutions, Namecheap, Dynadot, NameBright, and probably a few other domain registrars.
Late last night, Jesse Tinsley, Founder of Recruiter.com, announced a large domain name acquisition. His company purchased the Employer.com domain name for $450,000 USD.
Jesse shared details about the acquisition in a post on X:
Big news: We purchased https://t.co/GRPNMB5NiB for ~$450k.
Because it’s easy to remember and perfectly captures our vision: which is empowering businesses to onboard effortlessly and pay employees anywhere in the world with ease.
It’s the start of…
— Jesse Tinsley (@JesseTinsley) November 26, 2024
Notably, Jesse shared the reason his company spent nearly half a million to buy this meaningful one word .com domain name:
Yesterday morning, I noticed a handful of expiry auctions on GoDaddy Auctions that had a $1 opening bid. The typical starting bid for these types of auctions is $25, so that caught my attention. Most of the other auctions I visited yesterday had the standard $25 opening bid.
$1 expiry auctions at @godaddyauctions? pic.twitter.com/a90XMe1gbQ
— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) November 17, 2024
I reached out to GoDaddy to ask about this anomaly, and a company representative confirmed this is a test. He was unable to provide additional details about the test, so I don’t know how long we are going to see $1 opening bids. I was told GoDaddy does quite a bit of testing across many variables. For instance, the commas in prices and estimated values across different GoDaddy services were recently removed as a short-lived test.
In July of 2022, I was told about a GoDaddy change that was made with the hope of successfully delivering more GoDaddy Auction wins to customers. I believe the policy change is that if a GoDaddy registered domain name isn’t renewed 3 days before an expiry auction, it is no longer allowed to be renewed. I don’t bid on enough domain names to comment accurately, but by and large, it seems like I receive fewer refunds for GoDaddy Auctions wins.
When I buy a domain name, I list it on an Excel spreadsheet. If the domain name is not delivered instantly, I put a yellow highlight on the cell so I can keep track of it. Today, I scrolled up and saw a domain name I won at auction on October 27th was not delivered to my GoDaddy account. I paid for the domain name on October 30th. Two weeks is a long time for provisioning.
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.
