Company signs four more partners for its domain name sales network.
GoDaddy’s Afternic has signed deals with four more companies to expand its sales distribution network.
Three of the companies — EJEE, eName, and Xiamen Nawang — will give domain names on the Afternic platform more exposure in China.
All of these companies will syndicate domain name listings on Afternic. Customers will be able to instantly purchase domains on Afternic that are eligible for Fast Transfer. EJEE customers will also be able to sell their domains through Afternic’s Fast Transfer system.
Afternic added HiChina back in 2012 and immediately saw an uplift in sales. This was before China was the domain name powerhouse that it is today.
The other new partner is Webnames.ca, which is one of Canada’s earliest domain name registrars.
Casey says
I’d rather they fix their horrendous Afternic.com website instead of expanding their network. Doesn’t matter if they have a broad network when it’s nearly impossible to manage a portfolio for sale on the afternic website. Somebody posted this list of Afternic issues on NamePros recently:
– No built-in function for dealing with “already listed” domains besides contacting support via email each time
– Maximum 50 domains can be viewed per page on the portfolio management page (very cumbersome if you have hundreds or thousands of domains listed – making bulk edits on afternic.com is frustrating)
– No built-in way to deal with domains inexplicably stuck in “pending review” for weeks and months
– Domain portfolio management page is extremely slow to load, buggy, and saving changes often does not work
– I inexplicably get logged by the system at times, especially when making listing edits
– Domain portfolio management page requires horizontal scrolling
– Customizing domain portfolio management columns does not work, it is reverted back to default once you leave the domain portfolio management area
– There is a spreadsheet bulk edit/add function, but it is complicated to use because it has too many settings columns. It’s not convenient to upload a spreadsheet if we just want to make a few edits. Improved upload/edit/delete functionality on Afternic.com would be far better than having to deal with the spreadsheet
– Domains get “hidden” for no reason at times
– Account owners are not notified when domains are removed from their Afternic.com account and we are not provided with a log of domains removed from our account by customer support/the system
– Sellers are not informed when a sale fall through (so we don’t know that we can offer the domain for sale again, and we continue wasting time reserving it for an afternic.com transaction that is not going to happen – please send out an email when you deem a sale to have fallen through)
– There are no security features besides an alphanumeric password, we can’t change our username, no two factor authentication (and we can’t even use symbols !@#$%^ in passwords)
– When using the Afternic.com I am inexplicably sent to a page telling me:
Resend the activation email.
Please enter the account name selected during registration, and we will get the activation sent out again. Be sure to add info@afternic.com to your contacts list so the email isn’t sent to your spam filter.
* Please verify your account first. You can use the form to resend the verification email.
I encounter this error page on a daily basis. I don’t actually have to re-verify my account (even though I enter my email, I’m never sent this email). Clicking around on the website eventually enables me to get back into my account again. But it’s still annoying to encounter this bug every day.
– Support takes days to answer any inquiry, and often they outright ignore support request (no response is provided by support)
– There is no ticket support system. If you had this, perhaps CS could be held accountable for ignoring support requests
– No way to control opted in/opted out of Afternic network settings. Once you opt in to the premium network there is no way to opt out via Afternic.com (besides manually deleting the domain from Afternic.com)
– We also need to manually delete and relist every opted in domain that is moved from one registrar to another, in order to enable fast-transfer subsequent to moving a domain to a new registrar. A built-in function at Afternic.com for dealing with this would be more convenient
– Some brokers do not ask for permission to work a lead. If there is no “floor” pricing set, brokers must ask the seller before they can reach out to the prospective buyer. If seller negotiates with buyer, and the broker also negotiates with the buyer unbeknownst to the seller, that can easily cause confusion, misunderstandings and mess up sales. Also, there is no way to indicate our preference for sending leads only to certain brokers which is a highly needed feature.
– The new transaction system is still far worse and slower than the old one. A number of glitches and bugs that were pointed out in this thread one month ago still exist
– Many TA agents do not respond to messages regarding transactions and there is still no chat log or record being created for messages exchanged between seller/TA agent
– The way transactions are handled in the new system is too inconsistent. Sometimes I push a domain to Afternic’s registrar holding account and the TA Agent immediately marks it as “transfer complete”. Other times I do the same and the TA Agent refuses to mark the domains a “transfer complete”. When sellers indicate that a domain has been transferred, the system does not save it (unlike the old system). Transfers are taking 3-4x longer to complete under the new system than they used to with the old system.
– Estimated payout dates are highly inaccurate and no “sold date” is shown
– Parts of the “account summary” details have not been working for more than a year, and this section was further broken by the introduction of the new transaction system (doesn’t updated at all anymore). Would also be good if you could expand the amount of sales data displayed in this area with more relevant stats and numbers.
– Adult keyword review system is inconsistent, non-adult names are blocked from the platform, while a search for any of the most common “adult” keywords on afternic.com show a ton of adult domains already listed on the platform
The sad thing is, I could add a bunch of issues to this list. They haven’t fixed a single issue with the Afternic.com platform for years. What’s the point of expanding their network when the only way to access this network is through their terrible afternic platform. They need to get their priorities straight and fix their platform before anything else. So many domainers simply avoid listing names for sale via Afternic due to the dozens of bugs and problems that plague their outdated platform.
Sameh says
Wow!! Thank you so much for listing all my frustrations with Afternic for years. I asked them the same question over and over again. Why you wouldn’t build a new platform from ground up or at least fix the bugs in the current platform. For a company as huge as GoDaddy and a powerful network such as Afternic, how hard is it to build a working platform.
Same goes with GoDaddy itself but I’ll save that for another post. They have the same issues with their website for years and it never fixed. A bug is fixed and two will come up.
For strong source of revenue such as Premium Listings, how hard is it to make it a little bit manageable?
I love GoDaddy & Afternic and they deliver huge sales (in numbers and value) but unfortunately, GoDaddy is their own worst enemy!
Ehren says
Thank you Casey. Nice summary.
John says
Does anyone have issue when using Firefox on their site? I used to be able to login with Firefox and no longer can.
domains33@gmail.com says
I also can’t log in using FireFox. Not a new issue on my end though. Been like that for months. FireFox is my main browser, so it would be good if they could fix it.
Both Paul Nicks and Joe Styler have stated that they will not be making any updates to the Afternic.com platform though. So don’t expect a fix.
John says
Firefox is my main browser as well. When I call them they say it isn’t an issue and to use another browser. I won’t do it and that is why I haven;t been using them.
Sebastien Staub says
YES YOU WANT TO BEAT FLIPPA …..MAKE IT WORK FOR US !! THANK YOU.
Patrick Cowan says
Afternic is horrible as mentioned they haven’t even updated the trending domains on the front page for years,it reminds me of a rundown shopping mall,imo GoDaddy wasted money when they didn’t update the site after purchasing it.