Are you selling domains at Afternic without parking there?

[infosec3]

For those of you who list domains on Afternic. Have you been successful in selling domains without parking them there?

I have used SEDO successfully, but rarely use Afternic. What is your experience getting offers or purchases for names you list without parking?

Your comments are appreciated.

 

[gilescoley]

Yes I have, and all mine are parked at Sedo as well

 

[kaz2]

Yes I have, and all mine are parked at Sedo as well

Hi giles, what sort of names do you sell on afternic? Are they hand registered names or are they domain names that you purchased on the drop?

 

[bazabizo]

Yes I have successfully sold 5 names on Afternic without being Parked there. The thing is IT MUST BE AFTERNIC PREMIUM! other than premium you have limited chances to sell

 

[kaz2]

Yes I have successfully sold 5 names on Afternic without being Parked there. The thing is IT MUST BE AFTERNIC PREMIUM! other than premium you have limited chances to sell

Thanks bazabizo, when you say premium do you mean the fast transfer network where a domain is sold and instantly transfered?

 

[Name Trader]

I list my domains for sale at Domain Sales companies and park my domains at Parking companies. I'm seeing more enquiries/sales than in previous years from Afternic. I believe these extra sales are coming from the GoDaddy connection. Don't ask me how that works.

 

[campout]

@stub I would assume you have many domains that don't pull their weight in parking revenue. (Maybe I assume wrong?) Why not put a For Sale lander on those?

 

[SpareDomains]

I generally find that majority of leads come from wherever I have it parked. So now majority of leads come direct to my own sales pages, if I flip them to Sedo, Afternic, DomainNameSales etc... whoever they point to will receive the most leads. Have made sales across the board without parking but majority of leads always ends up where I have them parked.

 

[Dominic Belley]

When I list a domain on Afternic I like to put first letter of word in uppercase.

I want : MyDomainName.com
When I forget : mydomainname.com

Is there a way to correct the name without having to remove it from the marketplace and resubmit?

 

[Fancy.domains]

I have sold about ten names at Afternic without having them parked there.

I prefer to make landing pages by myself. I'll obviously lose some click revenue, but I prefer to have landing pages without ads.

 

[Name Trader]

@Nat Hunt - I do. Lots. I intend to. But it's a lot of work because of so many domains. I always seem to be on the cusp of having my own updated sales platform with landers, to which I can point the domains. I could use Domain Name Sales, or Efty. But it's a lot of time-consuming manual work involved. I am also considering using Uniregistry's DNS and just pointing them to Domain Name Sales. Whatever I do will be a lot of work and upkeep. For sure. But it's coming soon (I think it's real soon, but as always, there are hiccups and even disappointments along the way).

 

[kaz2]

@SpareDomains: once again, thanks for the reply - how much of the traffic you get to your own domain landing pages is direct navigation or typein traffic? Have you sold many domains directly to end users who sought you out via a landing page?

 

[kaz2]

@stub: respect you and your are a forum legend but I am not sure you are right in saying that it is easier to put up your own domain landing pages than use something like Efty or Bodis who have attractive landing pages that can track leads for you?

In addition to this I would suspect that having your domains on large 3rd party sites with professional looking landing pages that had Escrow integrated would inspire more trust for buyers than if they landed on a private portfolio site?

The only advantage I can see in having your own landing page is if you wanted to use something like Google analytics to track traffic but this would only be worthwhile if you had very high traffic type in domains.

 

[passini]

I sold a couple in the past 12 months both for 4 figures. They were parked at Sedo and listed with make offer at Afternic so no premium listing. I have only 120 names on Afternic so I'm happy with the results.

 

[kaz2]

I sold a couple in the past 12 months both for 4 figures. They were parked at Sedo and listed with make offer at Afternic so no premium listing. I have only 120 names on Afternic so I'm happy with the results.

Hi, thanks passini. Congratulations on your success, well done. What sort of domains where they and can you tell us the name?

Apart from those two, have you sold any others?

 

[Name Trader]

@stub: respect you and your are a forum legend but I am not sure you are right in saying that it is easier to put up your own domain landing pages than use something like Efty or Bodis who have attractive landing pages that can track leads for you?

In addition to this I would suspect that having your domains on large 3rd party sites with professional looking landing pages that had Escrow integrated would inspire more trust for buyers than if they landed on a private portfolio site?

The only advantage I can see in having your own landing page is if you wanted to use something like Google analytics to track traffic but this would only be worthwhile if you had very high traffic type in domains.

Funny. I don't think of myself in those terms. At all. You make good points. I was referring to inputting thousands of domains into Efty. It is quite time consuming to load just 1 domain and get it setup correctly. IMHO. If they had some kind of bulk upload facility my opinion would be quite different. I like Bodis landing pages too. And you can bulk upload as well. I think their offering is quite good option.

Why does a private portfolio site have to look unprofessional and not employ Escrow.com? I will admit, that a lot do look unprofessional and don't employ Escrow.com. But that is changing (not fast enough) and it doesn't have to be that way.

It's not hard to setup one landing page for multiple domains. But does require a tiny bit of PHP knowledge. If you don't have that knowledge, you could get it done quite cheaply on places like fiverr or freelancer. Most domainers are not designers, so personally, I'd look at the contracted out route, for a better looking page. They could easily add Escrow.com to the mix. But personally, I prefer to sell at Make Offer prices. Which is why I've been slow to add Escrow.com.

For me, the biggest advantage of a personal landing page, is that it is easier to find out more about your potential customer.

 

[DomainDepot]

When I list a domain on Afternic I like to put first letter of word in uppercase.

I want : MyDomainName.com
When I forget : mydomainname.com

Is there a way to correct the name without having to remove it from the marketplace and resubmit?

I had the same issue. I spoke with Afternic support and they do not have this feature yet. Additionally, if you upload multiple names using their spreadsheet template it doesn't recognize the capitalization of multiple words. I convinced the guy on the phone (marketing/support) to bring it up at their next company meeting.

 

[Donnyd]

Take control of your domains and put them with uniregistry aka domainnamesales. You have full control and know where every lead is coming from.

 

[passini]

Hi, thanks passini. Congratulations on your success, well done. What sort of domains where they and can you tell us the name?

Apart from those twou , have you sold any others?

Both names were dot com in English. US buyers. I started to list again domains at Afternic about one year ago after a long time and I sold these 2. I sell my names usually via sedo or whois.

 

[Magicpig2]

I've decided to park the majority of my domains (400-500) with Afternic and have set multiple BIN's and added the fast transfer option as an experiment to see how I fare. Began this process a week ago and had my first sale after three days ($899). I'm quite optimistic that what with the large number of registrars they have onboard, I'll hopefully make numerous sales this year.

 

[SpareDomains]

@SpareDomains: once again, thanks for the reply - how much of the traffic you get to your own domain landing pages is direct navigation or typein traffic?

Total stats so far this year, I don't advertise or link names anywhere and have very aggressive botnet filtering in place to remove junk traffic which is quite a bit.

Date Unique Visits

January 2016 70,316
February 2016 57,910
March 2016 57,582
April 2016 14,012

Have you sold many domains directly to end users who sought you out via a landing page?

Majority of my sales since 2003 have been direct as I prefer name, email, phone, ip address, full server side statistics, ability to backlink some of my other sites along with building 14+ year database of end user buyers and some have made more than one purchase over the years. Some past buyers are now friends that just contact me when they need something which won't happen from an anonymous auction house. Sedo etc... is large because domainers fed it free traffic for parking quarters, now that those quarters have turned into nickels more domainers are doing their own thing or using places that don't shield buyer info. Short term pain for long term gain, build your own recurring $ future not someone else's. If ya don't have the skills to do your own thing then use someone that passes the leads untainted as negotiating blind not so great for ROI or building your future business. Majority of leads will happen from wherever ya point your names so why not make that direct and avoid paying someone else for doing basically nothing. Only one you'll see advertise on TV/Radio to bring in more end user buyers is GoDaddy the rest are profiting from domain sales created from free domainer traffic and if they do advertise it's on domaner blogs which doesn't drive in end users and their snagging a portion of your parking income as well, great deal for them anyway. Can ya tell I'm not a Sedo or Anonymous market fan?

 

[kaz2]

Funny. I don't think of myself in those terms. At all. You make good points. I was referring to inputting thousands of domains into Efty. It is quite time consuming to load just 1 domain and get it setup correctly. IMHO. If they had some kind of bulk upload facility my opinion would be quite different. I like Bodis landing pages too. And you can bulk upload as well. I think their offering is quite good option.

Why does a private portfolio site have to look unprofessional and not employ Escrow.com? I will admit, that a lot do look unprofessional and don't employ Escrow.com. But that is changing (not fast enough) and it doesn't have to be that way.

It's not hard to setup one landing page for multiple domains. But does require a tiny bit of PHP knowledge. If you don't have that knowledge, you could get it done quite cheaply on places like fiverr or freelancer. Most domainers are not designers, so personally, I'd look at the contracted out route, for a better looking page. They could easily add Escrow.com to the mix. But personally, I prefer to sell at Make Offer prices. Which is why I've been slow to add Escrow.com.

For me, the biggest advantage of a personal landing page, is that it is easier to find out more about your potential customer.

Hi stub, fantastic reply, this is why Namepros is such a great forum, you get seasoned pros like yourself making time for newcomers and learners.

I agree with your point on the time it will take to load up a large portfolio of domains to something like efty etc.

I do like, in fact prefer, the option of having my own landing pages and portfolio site for the very reasons you have mentioned - more control over design and finding out more about your visitors.

The reason I don't do that is because I am worried that mu domains names will not get any traffic or visitors as they are not the greatest names - if they were generic, high traffic keyword domains I would be more inclined to put up my own landing pages and field my own enquiries.

What is your experience on getting traffic/visitors to your landing pages? How do you market your domains?

Many thanks!

 

[kaz2]

Total stats so far this year, I don't advertise or link names anywhere and have very aggressive botnet filtering in place to remove junk traffic which is quite a bit.

Date Unique Visits

January 2016 70,316
February 2016 57,910
March 2016 57,582
April 2016 14,012



Majority of my sales since 2003 have been direct as I prefer name, email, phone, ip address, full server side statistics, ability to backlink some of my other sites along with building 14+ year database of end user buyers and some have made more than one purchase over the years. Some past buyers are now friends that just contact me when they need something which won't happen from an anonymous auction house. Sedo etc... is large because domainers fed it free traffic for parking quarters, now that those quarters have turned into nickels more domainers are doing their own thing or using places that don't shield buyer info. Short term pain for long term gain, build your own recurring $ future not someone else's. If ya don't have the skills to do your own thing then use someone that passes the leads untainted as negotiating blind not so great for ROI or building your future business. Majority of leads will happen from wherever ya point your names so why not make that direct and avoid paying someone else for doing basically nothing. Only one you'll see advertise on TV/Radio to bring in more end user buyers is GoDaddy the rest are profiting from domain sales created from free domainer traffic and if they do advertise it's on domaner blogs which doesn't drive in end users and their snagging a portion of your parking income as well, great deal for them anyway. Can ya tell I'm not a Sedo or Anonymous market fan?

Thanks SpareDomains, yes I can tell you are not a major market fan : ) you are right though, I have often thought the same as you; ie most market places do not do much if anything to actively market your domains so any traffic makes it's way to your domain will do so regardless of where the domain name landing page is hosted - I really do get that (it took a while...)

Hope you have time to to check out a coupleof questions I have after reading your fantastic post:

(1) you said that you have aggressive botnet filtering in place - how exactly do you do this as this is definitely a big problem (with everyone seemingly a webmaster and offering to build you a website most of the time).

(2) you said that you like to capture full server side statistics - is there any reason for this rather than just getting the name, email and phone number?

(3) my concern in having my own landing pages and contact forms is that I may not get any traffic for most of my domains - do you find that you get direct traffic even for domains that don't get much search traffic (or none)?

(4) you don't have to answer this if it is proprietary but those unique visit stats are amazing - I mean 70,316 in January alone! Are these mostly from people navigating directly to your domains without active promotion and how many of those visits ended up in enquiries (as a %)?

Thanks, look forward to hearing from you!

 

[kaz2]

I've decided to park the majority of my domains (400-500) with Afternic and have set multiple BIN's and added the fast transfer option as an experiment to see how I fare. Began this process a week ago and had my first sale after three days ($899). I'm quite optimistic that what with the large number of registrars they have onboard, I'll hopefully make numerous sales this year.

Hi Magicpig2, congrats on the sale, how long had you held this domain names for and do you hand register your domains?

 

[kaz2]

Both names were dot com in English. US buyers. I started to list again domains at Afternic about one year ago after a long time and I sold these 2. I sell my names usually via sedo or whois.

Thanks passini, when you say you sell them via whois do you mean via people looking you up on the domain whois and emailing you?