The GoDaddy Auctions team is constantly striving to provide the best platform to buy and sell domain names, in a structured and secure way. A lot has been happening behind the scenes at GoDaddy Auctions. Here, we share some of the latest updates, including pricing and auction integrity enhancements.
The beta platform
GoDaddy Auctions is currently undergoing a revamp, with the platform transitioning from its classic look to the beta design pictured above. While this was launched to the U.S. market in 2021, it is being rolled out to more countries around the world to allow more Auctions customers to benefit from the improved user experience.
The beta platform includes easier searching, filtering and access to domain auctions. It also features a revamped domain details page, providing more information about each domain name at auction. Gradual testing and tweaking based on feedback has allowed us to provide a simpler way to buy and sell domains. Now, we can move forward with an international rollout.
Behind the scenes, the beta experience has also improved bidding speed and overall platform reliability for users, thanks to significant infrastructure work.
Expired auction pricing update
For more than a decade, GoDaddy Auctions has provided customers with access to a world-leading inventory of expired and backorder domain names. Despite the continued increase in demand and rising wholesale costs of domain names, GoDaddy Auctions has maintained the starting bid of $12 for expired auctions.
GoDaddy is dedicated to enhancing the Auctions platform by continuously investing in various aspects. This includes adding more domain inventory, improving site speed and reliability, and strengthening our team of designers, engineers, support and developers. These efforts are aimed at delivering the seamless experience you find on GoDaddy Auctions today.
Beginning Oct. 30, 2023, we will be increasing the starting price for expired domain name auctions. All new expiry auctions listed on or after this date will show the new $25 starting bid. Domain auctions already underway prior to that date will not be affected.
This price change will not affect Closeouts and third-party aftermarket domain name listings, where terms and bid amounts will remain unchanged.
More expired inventory & registry premium listings
We have added more expired inventory in 2023, where we introduced new domain extensions to the platform, resulting in more domains available to buy.
Some of the noteworthy domain extensions added were .xyz, .club and .vip. These additions brought a design change, where the renewal fee is now displayed on the auction bidding panel.
Powerful back-end tools supporting auction integrity
Customer feedback has been instrumental in guiding our enhancements and prioritization, especially around domain auction integrity. GoDaddy Auctions takes this matter very seriously.
Since July, we have been diligently planning and implementing various adjustments to maintain the integrity of our domain auctions and uphold GoDaddy Auctions as a trusted environment.
To begin, we increased the resources of our Auctions task force, responsible for regularly monitoring and reviewing auction activity.
This team has been successful in identifying that a specific subset of inventory at GoDaddy is being affected by potential shill bidding or instances where the top bidder doesn’t submit payment for their domain name.
Accounts suspected of potential shill bidding are being permanently suspended and we are rolling out powerful back-end tools to support the manual work currently being done. We are confident these tools will aid the work being done by our task force by further increasing the accuracy of identifying affected auctions and taking action faster. System upgrades supporting this work are also being updated.
These tools will be complemented by a couple of Front of Site changes that will be visible to customers registering a new account at GoDaddy Auctions. There is more to come as we continue to focus on auction integrity into 2024.
GoDaddy Auctions is unwavering in its commitment to the integrity of its platform, to maintain a safe and trusted environment for domain name buyers and sellers.
More to come
GoDaddy Auctions has several things planned for the remainder of this year and for 2024, including domain investors seeing improved access to domain auctions from the GoDaddy Investor app and a watchlist revamp – this will enhance the way that bidders use and interact with the watchlist.
As always, the feedback from our domain investor community is welcomed and appreciated by writing to domaincommunity@godaddy.com, and to auctions@godaddy.com for support issues.
