In 2013, GoDaddy acquired Afternic and SmartName. SmartName is a domain name monetization platform founded by Larry Fischer and Ari Goldberger. SmartName has continued to operate post-acquisition, and I use it to monetize some of my domain names that perform better there than elsewhere.
When I logged into my SmartName account yesterday afternoon, I noticed a message informing customers that SmartName is going to be retired later on this month. Accounts will be migrated to GoDaddy’s CashParking service, a similar type of domain name monetization platform.
Customers won’t have to change active SmartName nameservers, but I assume they will need to use CashParking nameservers when adding new domain names to their account. Customers will need to add and edit domain names within the GoDaddy CashParking platform rather than SmartName. In fact, according to the notification, SmartName will become “read-only” on June 2.
I am not very familiar with GoDaddy CashParking, nor do I readily know how to access the platform. I am sure I can find it, but GoDaddy should probably add a link to the CashParking service within that notification.
