Here’s a quick guide to uploading all of your domains to Afternic.

About a year ago I wrote about uploading your domains in bulk to Sedo and Afternic. Over the weekend I uploaded another 400 or so domains to Afternic and I documented the process. The results is a a quick tutorial on how to use Afternic’s upload system.

The first thing you need to do is log in to your Afternic account. After you do this, go to www.afternic.com/pfupload.php. On this page you can download your current Afternic portfolio. This is also the page where you upload your edited and updated portfolio of domains.

To download your existing portfolio, click on the “download” hyperlink. A typical file download box will pop-up, as seen here:

Save the file to your computer. The file is in .csv format, which can be easily opened and edited using Microsoft Excel. When you open the file you’ll see your existing domains and their attributes. This screen shows the format:

You won’t see the field names at the top of the columns. You can insert a row at the top of the spreadsheet and enter the field names to make it easier for you. Just be sure to delete this row before you upload your listings. The columns from left to right are:

1. Domain
2. Minimum offer
3. Reserve (set to 0 to not have a reserve price)
4. Asking (set to 0 to not have an asking price)
5. Top category (you can see a list of all categories here)
6. Second-level category
7. Parking status (set to 0 if not parking with Afternic)
8. Description
9. Traffic (leave this one blank, you can’t upload traffic stats)
10. Auction status (1= for sale, 2=parked, not for sale, 3=not for sale)

After completing the fields for each domain it’s time to upload your portfolio. Go back to www.afternic.com/pfupload.php and click the upload link. Browse to the file location on your computer and then click the button to upload your portfolio.

While it’s uploading you’ll see a status indicator:

When the upload is complete you’ll see the results. You are sure to get a few errors. You can edit the domains with errors and reupload your portfolio. Here’s what the errors screen looks like:

The typical errors you’ll get are:
-You neglected to select a second level category or the second level category doesn’t fall under the primary category you selected
-You selected the “one word” category but the domain isn’t in Afternic’s dictionary. (I appreciate Afternic checking domains before listing them in the one word category; it makes the buying experience much better.)
-The domain is listed by another member. In this case, verify you uploaded the correct domain and then email Afternic support to ask them to delete the other user’s listing.

By keeping your portfolio up-to-date on both Afternic and Sedo you will maximize potential for your domains to sell. They will not only show up on the exchanges but also in the search results at DomainTools.com.

If you have any questions or need clarification please post a comment below.

Two large domain name companies are responsible for major transactions.

Perhaps the two of the largest domain transactions of the year occurred recently.

First, InterSearch Group, Inc. (OTCBB:IGPN) acquired Banks.com. Depending on the size of the transaction, InterSearch will likely disclose the purchase price in its next quarterly filing. One reader suggested this might be the $1.2M purchase Afternic recently coordinated, but I have know idea if this is true. InterSearch paid over $10M for IRS.com and the company realizes the value of a good domain name. InterSearch is the parent company of domain parking company ParkingDots. The company views its parking service as a pipeline for key domain purchases.

Second, Internet Real Estate Group (formerly DealJam) sold Computer.com to Tiger Direct, a division of Systemax (NYSE: SYX). Internet Real Estate Group is perhaps the biggest player in premium domains. Among the company’s properties are Software.com, Phone.com, Chocolate.com, Luggage.com, and Relationship.com.

Thanks two two readers for sending me information about these recent sales.

The US Senate is discussing domain names today.

The US Senate discussed domain names today, including arguments against VeriSign’s ability to hike prices 7% per annum. A CNET article highlights the discussions:

Sen. Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican, questioned why VeriSign should have what critics have called a guaranteed perpetual income stream from .com domain registrations. The company currently receives $6 per domain, or about $323.4 million a year, from .com fees alone.

In March, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, granted VeriSign the right to raise prices it charges registrars like GoDaddy and TuCows for .com domains by 7 percent annually. A coalition of registrars has filed a federal lawsuit to block the deal.

Among those in Washington to testify was Christine Jones, general counsel for GoDaddy. She argued that, after the .net contract was put out to competitive bidding, the fee VeriSign collects for .net registrations fell.

Although I agree that the price hikes aren’t warranted, it’s easy for VeriSign to poke holes in GoDaddy’s arguments. If this is about helping consumers, why didn’t GoDaddy reduce the prices of its .net domain names when VeriSign lowered the wholesale cost? In fact, GoDaddy charges more for .net domains than it does for .com.

DomainSponsor’s parent company has acquired 10 domain portfolios in the past two months.

At the beginning of this month I wrote an entry titled Acquire or Die: the future of domain parking companies. I suggested that domain parking companies will cease to exist in the future if they merely park other peoples’ domains. They need to own the domains.

Oversee.net, parent company of popular parking service DomainSponsor, is one of those companies that “gets it”. They already handle parking for over a million domains and they are aggressively acquiring more domain portfolios. Today the company announced that it has acquired 10 portfolios in the past two months. The company did not release information about the number of domains or dollar amount, but I know for a fact they are not just playing around.

Information on how to sell your domain portfolio to Oversee.net is available here.

NewYork.info has changed hands again, setting a new record for .info sales.

According to DNJournal’s latest sales report, NewYork.info has sold for $46,392, setting a record for the highest reported .info sale ever. The domain made headlines when it sold in 2004 for $28,086. In just 32 months the domain appreciated 65%.

.Info has seen an uptick lately. Just last week, Racing.info sold for $18,000 on Sedo. Other top .info sales this year include:

Casino.info €28,000 at Sedo
Camping.info $28,100 at Sedo
New-York.info €19,000 at Sedo
CreditCard.info $20,000 at Sedo
Physician.info $10,500 at Sedo
Detroit.info $10,000 at DNForum

Sedo is leading the way in .info sales. I get several offers each week through Sedo for my Blogs.info domain, although none have been high enough to warrant a sale. Please contact me if you are interested in acquiring Blogs.info.