Here are three features of Uniregistry’s marketplace that I hope GoDaddy keeps post-acquisition.
Yesterday, GoDaddy announced that it is acquiring Uniregistry, the Uniregistry marketplace, and the Name Administration domain name portfolio.
In an interview with Domain Name Wire, GoDaddy VP of Aftermarket Paul Nicks said GoDaddy plans to retain much of what Uniregistry has built. Here are some things about the Uniregistry Marketplace that I hope GoDaddy keeps or builds into its own platform.
Keyword category-targeting – GoDaddy doesn’t have much of a domain name parking platform. And let’s face it, few of us are making decent money from parking anymore. That said, Uniregistry has a good parking feature that I use even when I’m not hunting for much parking revenue. It lets you set a category for the ads that should show on your parked page. Showing ads relevant to a domain name helps establish a legitimate interest in a domain name, which is a key defense in UDRP cases. Setting a category for the dictionary meaning of the domain avoids Google’s algorithm deciding to show trademark-related ads.
Buyer information – Right now, Afternic doesn’t tell you anything about who is inquiring about your domain names. Uniregistry shows you the IP/location and the prospect’s contact information. There are even handy links to search Google for the prospect’s email address or find their LinkedIn profile. This is helpful when negotiating.
Self-service or full-visibility features – There’s a fundamental difference between Uniregistry’s marketplace and Afternic. Uniregistry lets you handle leads yourself or send the leads to brokers, while GoDaddy takes care of everything for you. It would be great to have the Afternic team handle inquiries for you while also giving you visibility into what’s happening, which is possible with Uniregistry. If GoDaddy removes self-service capabilities, this could lead a lot of domain investors to take another look at DAN.com and Efty.
What other features would you like GoDaddy to retain or add to its platform?
A says
Very good comment Andrew. I’d say more – even if Uni isn’t always perfect in details, it’s an amazingly useful platform as it is. IMO, modifications by GoDaddy would be more likely to break it, rather than refine it.
Afternic is effective as well, but it’s very different than Uni and every attempt to make Uni like Afternic, would be a huge step back for Uni.
Key feature of Uni which IMO should stat untouched:
– self-brokerage option / full access to lead management
Years of experience which Frank put into Uni brought Uniregistry to such a level, where most of people, even incl. GoDaddy, would be more likely to break it, rather than make it better.
John Berryhill says
“Showing ads relevant to a domain name helps establish a legitimate interest in a domain name, which is a key defense in UDRP cases. Setting a category for the dictionary meaning of the domain avoids Google’s algorithm deciding to show trademark-related ads.”
After years of yelling about that, I’m glad that someone gets it. It is easily among any short list of the key features of the Uniregistry marketplace platform.
It could use some updates, but it remains to be seen whether it will be kept or receive any dev support.
paul says
“If GoDaddy removes self-service capabilities, this could lead a lot of domain investors to take another look at DAN.com and Efty.”
Exactly. You would almost have to leave GD/UNI and find a viable alternative. It would be a step backwards.
Mike says
Godaddy already loses a ton of sales, as people co list on dan.
Many of those Uni landers starting pointing to Dan in Dec 2019, and as Uni implodes with employees starting to leave, and morale dropping, those customers which are highly Domain smart are going to leave.
Hopefully Godaddy if you are listening get a team in their to manage the merge, try to keep clients, and morale up. If Uni customers seem a drop off in service, they will transfer out in a blink of an eye.
Accent says
The page for each domain giving previous inquiries, traffic and notes is a vital part of my business that I would have to replace somehow if Godaddy trashes it.
patrick says
I have always had my domains pointed to domain name sales and liked the fact they supplied the inquiry email, phone number, name I then pointed my domain’s to the uniregistry servers and had a inquiry but there was no contact information supplied, odd the only thing I don’t like on uni/ dnsales is visitor stats I moved all my domain’s to sedo for a two month period to see if traffic was different on sales landers, no ads, suffice to say I was shocked one domain at dnsales showed one or two visitors per month on sedo it was 2800 first month and 1900 for December dnsales showed maybe 100 total for the month 150 domains, sedo I had 16000+ visits they say you must have a PPC page for stats but I don’t do PPC yet they give you estimated visits on landers, not what I would call inspiring as traffic is a large part of pricing.
Andrew Allemann says
Parking companies record stats differently. If there’s a big difference, it’s likely becaues one filtered out bots and the other didn’t.
patrick Cowan says
Would be an incredibly amount of bot traffic that I’m sure Sedo filters out, had similar high traffic at afternic parking pages.
Anthony Mitchell says
Afternic’s four-tier pricing options would be a welcome addition to UniMkt. Half the times I leave notes on UniMkt with floor and reserve prices, these notes are ignored by brokers.
The Afternic platform is so antiquated that I cannot imagine that it is easy to maintain or keep locked down. Better for everyone if GoDaddy replaced Afternic with UniMkt entirely.
Jose says
There is much to know before setting foot in Uniregistry if I had known before, I would never have set the other foot.
I was wrong to believe in Uniregistry and its Marketing team but everything was very well studied, as soon as I arrived as a customer account 25% discount for registrations, renewals etc. generic domains and 30% discount for new extensions, so do not click on the hook.
Who give you such appetizing food discounts without being a customer accounts, in this domain market?
I have more than 150 domains in UNI, and in Uniregistry.com/market more than 75 premium domains for sale in BIN and waiting for a Broker Domain to contact me and say we have finally been able to find a buyer, if I write of this This is because I have never been able to understand how Uniregistry Brokers have to start a $ 9000 domain negotiation with a buyer from India and there are three different brokers for three long years trying to make this buyer buy a single word domain easy to pronounce and remember for world user.
This is one of my experiences in Uniregistry with broker domain team, now it is in a prisoner insoluble window and with a keyword: Ignored since 2017, the most incredible thing is the response of a person from the UNI marketing team after many attempts to convince the buyer this one did not want to buy and could not
do more.
I respond when I was working in the stock market of my country Spain (EU) the Brokers do not wait three years to sell, if the answer is no! There is another interested buyer, a broker live on sales and from this end of the month they make a lot of money in commissions, but the most important thing for them is to make high sales, so their CV which will serve to sign for other better companies or be created your own company.
I don’t know if he still understood, the answer by email was not that of a domain market professional.
Uniregistry exists because this is an other company that is NAME ADMINISTRATIVE INC that is Namedia (.com) I never knew this I discovered Namedia in this post written by Jeffrey M. Gabriel
Vice President of Sales see this link https://uniregistry.com/blog/post/to-price-or-not-price-your-domain-name
I pay ELITE PLUS, for one year, to be Premium Market granted by Uniregistry.com and also Testimony Domain Investor (The latter at the request of the former Account Manager Mr. Rhys Haldane, and I accept) the other does not help me at all and I pay to to have a discount that I had lost with the new Domain Perks and I was excited to receive the Premium Market email from Uniregistry.com
Name Server: NS1.UNIREGISTRY.LINK – NS2.UNIREGISTRY.LINK this tells me that it is to have Broker Domain, Parking domain with Landing Page Ads, Banner, Affiliates result from Uniregistry.com/market when clicking on one of my domains ( .com) the redirection of what Domain Parking should be with Landing Page Ads is https://domainnamesales.com/
This is what Godaddy has acquired as an innovative domain market. Do not!
Ravi says
great points Andrew…
I was not aware of this feature where we can select preferred category for ads. that really is very helpful for domain investors.
Thanks,
Ravi
Dave Tyrer says
I’ve sold just over a quarter of a million dollars worth of domains on the Uni platform since the end of 2016.
So I’m a big fan of it’s speed, simplicity, sophistication and superiority.
Project Dynamo delivered more than 50 innovations to a platform that was already the best.
The Uni Market is more advanced than Afternic in every respect. The only change I can think of that would be good would be to lower Uniregistry’s minimum commission which I think is $175 down to whatever Afternic’s is.
Godaddy should throw Afternic out the window, load everything up on the superior Uni platform and rename it as DomainNames.com.
(This is because DLS affiliates do not want the platform to be called Godaddy.)
equity78 quoted Joe Styler on NamePros:
“We will not get rid of Afternic as a brand in the foreseeable future. We need a strong non GoDaddy brand to facilitate the DLS service. We cannot use the GoDaddy brand for other registrars or they would be much less likely to participate in Afternic Fast transfer.”
https://www.namepros.com/threads/godaddy-could-wipe-efty-dan-bb-off-the-map-if-afternic-were-branded-to-godaddy.1172204/
A says
Congrats on your Uni sales. I also like the platform.
Sorry for the off topic, but as you’re an experienced user of Uni, I’d be curious to know your thoughts on the following:
– do you see a difference in lead-to-sale conversion between 1) PPC vs non-PPC, and 2) vertical vs, horizontal layout of lander, and 3) BuyNow vs Submit inquiry in vertical lander?
Dave Tyrer says
Your questions are welcome.
1. My domains are almost all brandables with minimal traffic, so I’ve never tried PPC landers. IMO PPC ads “cheapen” domain landers, so I would only use that option if I had some substantial traffic. Effective landers should have class and prestige and avoid distractions, which means avoiding ads.
2. I’ve only ever used vertical landers, I have never used the horizontal landers. I must have made that preference back in 2016… I should experiment more.
3. I am a vocal supporter of the BuyNow AND Submit Enquiry vertical lander style. Uni calls it the “Offers and BIN” vertical lander, but I want to stress this actually has a “Submit Enquiry” field – not a “Make Offer” field as the name would suggest.
This difference is really important.
“Make Offer” is incompatible with “BIN” – it suggests weakness, it suggests your price is only an ambit price, it suggests you don’t really mean it.
“Submit Enquiry” on the other hand does not imply that you will lower the price (though it is a good idea to have a little flexibility.)
Until mid last year, I used the “BIN” only vertical lander, then switched to BIN plus Submit Enquiry. Seven months later I feel I can confidently say that sales velocity is up significantly. Maybe up to 20 percent higher or whatever.
So I believe in having a focused and prestigious lander, with a variety of options to serve the customer as best as possible. Give the customer what the customer wants.
The mistake I believe I made prior to June 2019 was underestimating the importance of trust. Many buyers will hesitate to click the button to pay $5,000 to a company they have never heard of.
Prior to my listing change, many customers were either contacting me via WHOIS or finding their way to Uniregistry brokers through their own effort. (Uni landers don’t link to Uniregistry.) This was an obstacle.
Adding the Godaddy brand to the Uni landers could be a very positive thing in regard to the trust issue. The Godaddy logo that has just been added to Uniregistry looks good.
A says
I appreciate Dave. Sorry guys for a little off topic, but IMO it’s valuable, especially with Dave’s comment based on solid sample of activity and sales at the platform.
joesaba2014 says
If any of you can help me or tell me what relationship uniregistry has with Afternic, see these two Uniregistry links https://www.uniregistry.help/hc/en-us/articles/360043138454-Afternic-Domain-Listing-Service-DLS –
https://uniregistry.com/blog/post/uni-now-supports-afternic-dls
and now see this link from Afternic’s Domiain Reseller Network https://www.afternic.com/domain-reseller-network my question is where is Uniregistry? I have domains from other registrars that are Domain Reseller Network Afternic …. and no problem.
Add 15 Uniregistry domains to Afternic and month they were retained I asked Afternic and they tell me we are waiting for confirmation of domain registrars, I write email to Uniregistry and their response is this as of June 15, 2020 – (Uniregistry Support)
Please note that although Uniregistry has been acquired by GoDaddy, no changes to the website and pricing have been made so far. We are still two separated Markets and Registrars. Therefore, kindly be advised that we have in no way caused this and, unfortunately, are not able to troubleshoot this issue. Please reach Afternic customer support directly in this regard.
In the future, if any changes are to be made and, for instance, we finally merge our platforms, they will be communicated in advance.
Who can tell me if this is true and why these two domain registrars sell in the news or on their web pages what is not true or what they still do not know how it is working.