When I visited a Namecheap auction this morning, I noticed an informational header indicating that Namecheap may change the time of day its auctions end.
“Have your say on Auction end times
We’re reviewing our end time schedules and want to know what works for you. Share your ideal bidding window and shape the future of Auctions, all from one short survey.”
It is said that in Major League Baseball, a player can fail 70% of the time at the plate and still make the Hall of Fame. Someone with a long career whose batting average is .300 or better has a decent shot of being inducted in the baseball Hall of Fame while being known as a solid hitter.
Domain investing is similar in a sense, but the bar to be considered successful is even lower than a hitter in baseball. A decent domain portfolio may have a 2-3% sell through rate (STR). A strong domain investor portfolio optimized for sales might sell only 5% of the portfolio in a year. 95% of a domain name portfolio may sit unsold each year, and a large percentage of these domain names may not get an offer or inquiry during the course of a year.
When I was operating my directory websites, a business friend of mine gave me some good advice that applies directly to domain name sales. Enable immediate payment for domain names that buyers want to buy. Whether this is an Escrow.com payment link, a BIN link with Efty Pay, or a BIN landing page with GoDaddy, Atom.com, Spaceship, or other platform, the buyer should be able to pay immediately without jumping through hoops.
Ready to dominate GoDaddy Auctions? Join industry vets @JJStyler & Bart Mozyrko for a live masterclass on advanced bid strategies, auction secrets, and pro tips! Dec 11th, exclusive to DDC Pro members. Q&A to follow. Don’t miss it—sign up at https://t.co/ev22orGcYn! #domains pic.twitter.com/M5SWZZU2m2
— GoDaddy Domain Academy (@DNAcademy) November 26, 2025
GoDaddy’s Domain Academy will be hosting a masterclass focusing on domain auction strategy for GoDaddy Auctions. The session will be hosted by GoDaddy’s Joe Styler and Bart Mozyrko. Joe is a longtime GoDaddy employee, and he leads the GoDaddy Auctions team.
Atom.com recently announced “one of the biggest updates to search and discovery” on the platform. The platform is making its search results less literal and more intuitive. By way of example, if someone searches for the term “baby,” instead of being solely shown domain names with the baby keyword in them, the platform will show domain names that could make nice brand names for someone starting a baby-related business. The blog post has many more details about the change.
GoDaddy has two distinct brokerage teams that work exclusively on behalf of buyers or sellers. The Afternic team represents sellers who have listings on the platform. If an offer is made by a buyer for a domain name listed on Afternic, the Afternic broker’s role is to get the most money for the domain name on behalf of the seller. If an offer is made through GoDaddy’s Domain Brokerage Service (DBS), the DBS broker works to get the buyer the lowest price.
Tom McCarthy is a broker on GoDaddy’s DBS team. I understand he is one of the top performing brokers on the team. When I receive inbound offers for domain names I don’t have listed on Afternic, and Tom is representing the buyer, I know the buyer is serious and educated about domain name values.
Tom recently began posting more regularly on X, and he posted a thread identifying the differences between the DBS and Afternic teams, and the role he plays as a buyer’s broker. I think it’s a good read for people to get an idea of what the DBS team does and who they represent.
