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Afternic launches new upgrades in beta

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Some users get access to improved seller management tools today.

Screenshot of Afternic's new seller dashboard showing domains for sale and prices

Afternic launched a new seller dashboard in beta today.

GoDaddy’s domain name aftermarket Afternic has launched upgrades to its seller systems in beta.

This afternoon, the company rolled out the beta to a randomly selected group of 10% of users who have fewer than 1,000 domains in their portfolios. The company will expand the beta over time as it collects feedback and monitors the platform.

The improved seller system includes many features and fixes that sellers have asked for. For example, sellers can now view and manage 500 domains at a time, rather than the old pagination of just 50 domains per page. They can also change prices “inline” rather than making all of the changes on a page and clicking a save button.

Other improvements include a filtering system based on domain status, export to .csv, and a better single domain view that incorporates comparable sales data from GoValue and offer history on the domain. (Offer history is currently limited to the seller’s negotiations on Afternic and does not include data from leads GoDaddy’s brokers handle.)

While some of the changes are rudimentary, they solve many of the headaches Afternic sellers experience. And more is on the way. Rather than launch everything in beta at once, GoDaddy is deliberately launching upgrades in an incremental fashion.

The new beta comes on the heels of Afternic launching two-factor authentication.

It’s coming: prepare for higher .com prices in September

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Domain owners can renew early to avoid the pending price increase.

Picture of a black arrow pointing up and to the right on a green background

The wholesale price of .com domain name registrations, transfers and, renewals is increasing later this year for the first time since 2012. Domain investors and consumers with large domain portfolios should prepare.

On September 1, the price Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) charges registrars for .com domains will increase from $7.85 to $8.39. Domain registrars, such as GoDaddy and Namecheap, charge a markup on top of this. In practice, domain investors and large portfolio holders pay a price only slightly higher than the wholesale price. Some registrars, such as Cloudflare, charge only the wholesale price to all customers.

These registrars will be forced to increase their prices on September 1 in order to continue making a profit (or breakeven, as it were).

Registrars will pay Verisign an additional $540 per 1,000 domains registered, and consumers should expect to pay at least that much more.

And the price is likely to continue to rise by 7% for the next three years, bringing the wholesale price to $10.26 — an increase of $2,410 per 1,000 domains every year.

Domain registrants can lock in today’s prices by renewing early, though. They can renew domain names for up to 10 years at the current price until the new price takes effect on September 1.

Now would be a good time for domain owners to evaluate their portfolios and consider registering domains early.

Google Chrome brings back the full URL

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Some users saw only the domain name during a test.

Screenshot from Google video about URLs showing second level domains

A screenshot from a Google video explaining ways to make URLs more human-friendly, such as removing subdomains and file paths.

The full URL has won, at least for now.

Android Police reports that Google has nixed an experiment that showed some Chrome users only part of the URL rather than the full string.

The thinking behind the test was that users who only saw the domain name and not the entire URL would pay more attention to the domain and consider if the site was suspect.

But the experiment didn’t pan out as theorized. Google has ended the experiment because the company says it didn’t have a meaningful impact.

This battle is won, but you can expect more assaults on URLs in the future. Google says URLs “kind of suck.”

Domain stocks trail market in 2021

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MMX is one bright spot in the industry.

Picture of stock chart with the words "domain stocks"

Major domain name stocks are treading water this year despite the up markets.

I analyzed prices from the December 31 close last year to the market close yesterday, June 9. During that period, the Dow is up 13%, the S&P is up 12% and the NASDAQ is up 8%.

MMX is up due to the GoDaddy acquisition, but other stocks are either neutral or down. Here’s a look, ranked by gains for the year.

MMX (London AIM: MMX): Minds + Machines (MMX) is the one bright spot this year after GoDaddy announced it’s acquiring substantially all of its assets. Shares are up 46%.

Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX): Shares in the company that owns Enom have increased 5% so far this year. Its yearly financial comparisons are hard to read because the company sold its mobile business last year on an earn-out deal.

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN): Verisign is trading neutral for the year, up 1%. It surprised the market with improved guidance after Q1. Analysts and stockholders should have already priced in the 7% price increase for .com that goes into effect on September 1.

GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY): GoDaddy is treading water this year, down 2%.

Clarivate (NYSE: CCC): Clarivate is kind of, sort of a domain company. It owns MarkMonitor. It was a SPAC before SPACs were cool. Shares are down 11% so far this year.

CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC): CentralNic’s shares are down 12% so far this year. The company reports strong growth as the mix of the company has changed with a focus on online advertising businesses.

NameSilo (OTC: URLOF): NameSilo is down 22% this year. The company announced last year that it signed a non-binding letter of intent to be acquired, but that has not progressed to a definitive agreement as of April 5 this year.

I do not own individual shares in publicly-traded domain name companies to avoid a conflict of interest. Mutual funds I own, including index funds, do hold some of these stocks.

Total domain counts are falling. Here’s why

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.Com is doing fine, but the same can’t be said for other top level domains.

Red arrow trending down and to the right on a blue background

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) has published its quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief (pdf) for the first quarter of 2021.

The company calculates that total domains registered across all extensions fell 2.8 million, or 0.8%, since the end of 2020. Total domains fell 3.3 million, or 0.9%, compared to the first quarter of 2020.

This might come as a shock to people who have heard about exploding growth in domains during the pandemic and with Verisign raising its guidance for the year.

While .com continues to grow at a steady clip, total country code (ccTLDs) and new top level domains have fallen.

Verisign figures the total base of ccTLDs fell 1.5% compared to the end of last year and 0.6% compared to a year ago.

The biggest fall has been in new top level domains, which have plummeted 29.3% over the past year and 12.3% in the last quarter. This has to do with a handful of top level domain operators halting or reducing low-cost registration promotions.

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