Roger Collins of Afternic — Conversation with

Domain exchange Afternic is steadily improving its solid domain trading platform.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Roger Collins, president of domain exchange Afternic, during Domain Roundtable in Seattle the prior week. Afternic is one of the two major domain name brokerages and competes mainly against Sedo.

Collins stated Afternic is working on a couple site enhancements. One is a complete facelift and graphical design. The other is something that I’ve griped regarding for a while: the speed of Afternic’s site. Collins stated they’ve pinpointed the bottleneck to its backend databases and is working on ways to speed up the site. Users ought to start seeing download speeds increase in phases. Afternic is considering changing databases and using caching to improve the user’s experience.

I asked Collins what Afternic is doing to ensure that domains on the site are listed by their actual owners. I tried to buy a domain on Afternic a few months ago only to find that the person who listed the domain no longer owned it. (I must admit I probably have listings on Afternic for domains I no longer own. I ought to also note that this problem isn’t specific to Afternic – other exchanges have the same issues.) Collins stated Afternic uses a number of techniques to improve listing quality, counting various Whois checks and sending automated emails to users with domains that are regarding to expire. The firm is working on enhancing its Whois verification practices.

Collins emphasized the value of having your domains in the “Closing Soon” section of the web site. Domains are automatically added to this section if the reserve has been met. You can lower your reserve to a buyer’s bid amount to automatically be added to Closing Soon. Your domains will get excellent exposure on the Afternic home page for the 7 days ahead of it closes. As an example, an auction for Saddam.com is ending today and is right now $2,001. This domain entered the “Closing Soon” section at only $315 and has received 18 bids since then (as of time of posting).

It’s worth noting that Afternic makes the majority of its money from domain sales. Some other exchanges profit most from domain parking. Collins attributes much of his firm’s sales success to registrar partner relationships such as Register.com (Register.com used to own Afternic). To see this partnership in action visit Register.com and search for ITaustin.com. The results page will show that the domain is taken but allows you to click a button to buy the domain at Afternic.

Sales that involve a partner or affiliate are denoted with an asterisk in Afternic’s “Recent Sales” section. Roughly half of these sales are from partners and half from people that park their domains at Afternic (and a buyer clicks a domain link on the parked page). A modest portion of referrals are from affiliate banners and links.

Over the next couple months I’ll test a few domains on Afternic’s parking service (which uses DomainSponsor and Fabulous) and try a domain in the “Featured Listings” section of Afternic. I’ll share results as soon as they’re available.