Who owned what that was sold at Afternic.com DotWeekly.com Domain Name Blog

Who owned what that was sold at Afternic.com

posted by Jamie Zoch in December 31st, 2008

I have done several posts on this in the past. All have shown that 80% + have always been owned by Afternic aka BuyDomains aka RareNames aka NameMedia. The first one I did showed that Afternic owned 96% sold, the second showed 85% and so on. Afternic has always pushed "Many member sales are confidential" as part of the reason the % shown sold are owned by them self, member listed domains are Not Priced, do not have categories and are not parked with Afternic etc.

It is also important to note that Many people DO the things Afternic claims members do not. I myself have all my domain names Priced and with categories. I have used their parking system and wrote about that here which did not work for me. Let alone now they closed my ActiveAudience.com account earlier this month because of my "traffic quality".

So has anything changed since Afternic offered it’s advice to it’s members of what they needed to do to improve sales at Afternic?

This data is from this weeks (12-31-2008) DnJournal.com’s reported domain name sales for AfternicDLS.

From the Big Boad

Modern.com Member Owned (iReit), buyer was PetsUnited, LLC

MastersDegrees.com Member Owned

SJM.net Afternic

Those numbers are pretty impressive for Members at 75% to Afternic’s 25% but that is also the Big Board. The next reported are as follows.

BabyBuy.com Member Owned
StocksPicks.com Member Owned
HousePro.com Afternic
CatalogsOnline.com Afternic
CouponsBlog.com Afternic (whois still shows Afternic as well, so I am not sure if this one sold or not?)
PetCostumes.com Member Owned (iReit), buyer was PetsUnited, LLC
Next3D.com Afternic
TestQ.com Afternic
MaleIncontinence.com Afternic
Isoflavones.com Afternic
AsiaPacificGroup.com Afternic
CrazyBike.com Afternic
TheStartingGate.com Afternic
Golff.com Afternic
VideoBio.com Afternic
JollyDay.com Afternic
BitMaster.com Afternic
Gabinetes.com Afternic
GeekMobile.com Afternic
NetBalance.com Afternic
GrannyAnnie.com Afternic
ThanksTo.com Afternic
ImportPartner.com Afternic
GiftAbility.com Afternic
CompareTool.com Afternic
ChildCareToday.com Afternic
UrbanTales.com Afternic
Floor-Heating.com Afternic
HerbalAid.com Afternic
NovaStudio.com Afternic
Cadeiras.com Afternic
ThanksForComing.com Afternic
ConsumerCar.com Afternic
WarMemorials.com Afternic
DigiCube.com Afternic
CallForLess.com Afternic
MembershipManager.com Afternic
MoMusic.com Afternic
Sarcon.com Afternic
NewHomeDesigns.com Afternic
SaveGreat.com Afternic
ThisIsAmerica.com Afternic
Snow-Blower.com Afternic
WaterChemistry.com Afternic
TexasTime.com Afternic
SmarterSites.com Afternic

Wow, I was getting tired typing Afternic near the end.. So, the numbers are: 49 total domain names. 5 were owned by Members with 44 being owned by Afternic them self. That totals 89.7% domains reported sold were owned by Afternic them self.

Afternic can say what they want, but I can also say that Numbers do speak volumes. One thing that has ticked me off this year are these results and Afternic not owning up to giving their domain names an Advantage over member listed domains. IMO, these numbers are very clear that Afternic is offering it’s own domain names Before member listed domains. They can use Member Listed domains to draw in a buyer, but then offer up a domain they own. Classic really! Very Smart. Then to top it off, charge the "members" $19.95 per year to sell. Classic!

Leonard Britt

Thanks again for these stats as I realize it takes some effort to do the research. I see the weekly DNJournal sales on Afternic and often ask how such a large number of so-so domains are selling for $1500-$3000 when I have “several” of comparable quality. I understand that a business which provides a service normally has to charge for it or have some means of covering its costs. But why pay for listing if the odds are stacked against making a sale? Note that two of the five “member owned” domains are IREIT.

December 31st, 2008

RegFeeNames.com

Number Dont Lie Jamie!

Great Post!

I have used them before and didnt really click with them – I still have an active auidance account but never use it and I probally still have names listed there but havent optimized!

I obvious that most of the 500,000 names that NameMedia own / BuyDomains are going to try and sell through Afternic they need revenue and this is one way to gain that and also prove that they can sell name even though they are there own names.

Happy New Year When It Arrives Jamie!

All The Best For 2009!

Warm Regards,

Robbie

Another great post and we appreciate the research and the statistics. Charging members $19.95 and with little or no intention to sell members’ domains, I couldn’t think of any words other than a scam.

Paul

Or maybe it is simply that their names are of a better over quality and the quantity of their holdings means that a small percentage volume selling results in a large number of sales in actual terms.

IT, it sounds like you think that they can turn a sows ear into a silk purse for $19.95 – if they could do that, they wouldn’t need your domains would they?

**Jamie Says**
I think the “Quality” is no factor what so ever. Afternic owns over 850,000 domain names and we all know they are all not “Gems”. Look at the domains I posted sold… All of those sold for $2,000 or Greater and you can’t tell me TestQ.com or Isoflavones.com or GrannyAnnie.com or GiftAbility.com or CompareTool.com or SaveGreat.com can not be matched or bettered by member domains.

Also to note, do not forget about the 10% or 20% Afternic get’s for selling a Member Listed domain. So it’s not “Just” a $19.95 yearly membership fee to offer your domain names for sale.

Jamie, do you think that they just have a stream of people coming to the site with no specific domain in mind and afternic funnels them to their own names rather than people either determining what names they like via searches on afternic or coming to afternic after already having determined the domain they have an interest in from the whois?

When you have 850k names, even a tiny _percentage_ of names sold can equate to what seems an initially impressive number of _actual_ sales. 100 sales a week would only be 0.6% of their inventory a year. Only selling 0.6% fits in with the idea that not all their inventory consists of gems.

**Jamie Says**
I know one thing, Afternic pushes their Phone Number very hard. This is what I think happens and often ~ Somebody may call with a specific domain in mind but if that one is not priced right, not listed or agreements do not come, “other” names are passed around, which will very likely be Afternic owned domains. These callers may also call with their “idea” and pass around several keywords and try to match up the idea with the proper domain. Again, Afternic owned. If nothing comes of those, the last ditch effort would be to pass along “member” listed to see if they can still get 10-20% of that sale. Since Afternic advertises to end-users, I would bet the vast majority have no clue what whois is and have never used it.

Kat

“Too much tin foil hat wearing”

I believe he is equating you/your theory/findings to paranoid individuals and/or those believers in conspiracy theories and cover ups — think aliens, UFO’s, faked moonwalk, JFK’s assassination, the Knights Templar, the Masons, the Illuminati, etc…

Some of these believers are also sure that some people/aliens/black-ops organizations are capable of reading minds, hence the tinfoil that prevents the scanning of one’s brain.

Good luck with protecting your gray matter, thanks to the TSA & Homeland Security, they now have sidescanning technology that can come from below to read your brain waves thus bypassing a head based tinfoil wrap. Now one must wrap the entire body with tin foil to avoid a scan… Hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

January 1st, 2009

David

The nice URL landing page which announces at the top the name is for sale and gives a toll-free number which is answered by professional sales people goes a long way in getting sales. That’s especially so since they are flexible on the pricing and willing to lower the price if asked. An example is a name I just purchased from BD for less than 50% the asking price.

August 4th, 2009

Who owned what that was sold at Afternic.com

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