I have been working with Paul Nicks of GoDaddy the past several days to bring light to several issues I had noticed with the recent integration of GoDaddy registered domain names and Afternic DLS premium promotion. Here are two issues currently that I want to make sure you are aware of.
Auto Renew
There is currently a timing issue with domain names that are set with auto-renew at GoDaddy. If your domain name is list on Afternic and your domain name auto-renews via GoDaddy, your domain name listing will be removed and put into “in-review”.
I had this happen the other day and got an email that a domain I had listed was “Removed” but at the time I didn’t know why. Putting two and two together, I got an auto-renew email / receipt from GoDaddy and minutes later got the email that, that domain was removed from Afternic. The email stated:
Thank you for using GoDaddy as your Afternic Premium Promotion registrar.
The following domain name(s) are no longer eligible and have been removed from the Afternic Premium Promotion network:
SNEAKYCAT.COM
Domain names are removed for one of several reasons:
• The domain name has expired or been locked
• The registration information has changed
• There’s been a change in registration (ownership)
So if you wish for this to not happen with any of your domains that fit the bill, renew the domain before it hits the expire date (which technically happens with auto-renew domains at GoDaddy. The domain renews ON the expire date) so you will have to manually renew!
Tip: When a domain name is or goes into : In Review mode at Afternic, the domains live listing page is removed and not active on the site! This means www.afternic.com/domain/yourdomain.com also will resolve to a 404 page. I often redirect my domains to this page, so having it not resolve for me trying to sell the domain isn’t a good thing! I also use domain parking and link to that link structure, so again.. not having that link resolve isn’t a good thing! Hopefully GoDaddy will improve the “in-review” method to at least continue the domain to resolve when any issues are worked out.
Prior Approved Premium Domains
I had a lot of domain names registered with Moniker in the past and transferred a lot of them to GoDaddy. The problem? Moniker.com is a partnered registrar with Afternic Premium Promotion, so domain names that were registered with Moniker and that I decided to use the “Premium Promotion” with via Afternic were listed as “Premium” when I transferred in the domains to GoDaddy.
Now that GoDaddy owns / is a partner registrar with the premium promotion level, there is an issue. Domains already marked as “Premium” are not providing opt-in notification to connect the fast transfer option. In the end, you will NOT see a green check mark in your GoDaddy Domain Control area for these domains. Even though the domain is registered with GoDaddy and marked Premium with-in your Afternic account, unless you got an opt-in email, it is not right!
I was in the process this past week of moving all my domains from GoDaddy Premium Listings TO Afternic Premium Listings. The main reason, 20% commission instead of 30% for the same thing! So now I am currently “stuck” with a large amount of domain names that were marked “Premium” before because they were registered with Moniker but now are registered with GoDaddy. These domains were transferred almost a year ago, so it’s not something “new” and something the Afternic system should have detected in the first place and reduced the domains to “Network” at a minimum.
Afternic has always been bad at verification things, UI etc. so hopefully GoDaddy will clean the system up!
The above two problems will hopefully be fixed soon but I wanted to make sure you are aware of them and so you do not hound the crap out of GoDaddy with the problem they are now aware of. Sadly for me, I have about 3 hours of my time invested into helping GoDaddy become aware of the problems.
Jamie,
I know you had commented several years ago how ~95% of Afternic sales were from Buydomains’ inventory. Now that Godaddy owns Afternic, have you seen that change? I have never really sold many domains via Afternic though I see similar keyword domains sell for higher prices through their platform. However, Godaddy Premium Listings / Godaddy Auctions has been a nice source of sales.
With GoDaddy in a quiet period with its IPO, they haven’t been reporting sales… so there isn’t much of a way to track it right now. Now that GoDaddy owns Afternic, you would be silly to use GoDaddy Premium Listings because they charge 30% sales commission and you will get the same offerings via Premium Promotion via Afternic for 20%.
I moving everyone of my domains from godaddy 14.99 renewal fee’s. Some are 12 some 11 so stupid.
But really that is not the main reason I will be moving they just care about you.
Donny, I have the Domain Discount Club and I pay about $8.47 for .com domain renewals. If you have a fair amount of domains, you should consider it. I wrote up an article about it here: https://dotweekly.com/domain-discount-club-worth/
Jamie, after factoring in the club fee, what is your true cost per domain for renewal. It really sucks that you have to have hundreds of domains to benefit from being a long standing go daddy customer. Really. Been with goat for almost 15 years. For me to have to pay more for a domain renewal than the price they post on the front page of their site for a new domain is absolutely ludicrous. Jmo
I guess it’s like anything else, prices are going up! GoDaddy was always good at providing coupons to reduce cost but we all knew that had to stop at some point. For DDC, you simply have to take the amount of domains you own, divide the DDC price by the amount of your domains and add that to the $8.47 renewal cost (for .com) to see if it’s worth it for you.
I’m ok with an increase in prices, I just think they need to remember who they are and why so many people flocked to godaddy in the past. You don’t advertise a new domain on your front page being 12.99 and then charge your long time customers a renewal cost of 14.99. Regardless of fine print. I think it’s a poor way to do business, as a matter of fact, many of their employees that I have called and complained to feel the same way. Now I don’t know if you work for go daddy, it had just been easier to go in and renew as needed, but I’m slowly transitioning out because I don’t like taking a hit as a long standing customer. I’m tired of the only coupons coming to my email being for new purchase only. I think it’s crap.
No, I do not work for GoDaddy, just a customer. My renewal prices always “ranged” from $9-$14. From my understanding, it depended on how you purchased the domain or something along those lines. I do agree they need to charge everybody equally and there is no reason for the higher renewal fee than the stated price on the home page. I would bitch about that and if it’s not fixed, I’d move my domains as well. To note, with DDC, my renewal prices have been consistent.
With Domain Discount club, I saved more than $ 2000. It is a must for Godaddy customers who have at least 200 domains at Godaddy.
Hi Jamie glad to see you continuing to blog. The opt out on auto renewal is a bug we are working on. So in the future this won’t happen anymore, it is not by design.
Colleen:
On the pricing side, we hate to see people leave because of price and usually have ways to do bulk renewals, etc at lower pricing even if you don’t have enough names to make the discount domain club a good option.
I am happy to put you in touch with someone who can look over your account and see what we can do to help. Feel free to reach out, [email protected].