Moniker Silent Auction Needs Fixing
Platform needs major changes to accommodate extended auctions.
Over the past couple days I’ve sorted through Moniker’s domain names in its TRAFFIC extended online auction. There are some great domains at relatively low prices. But be forewarned: participating in the auction may result in a migraine.
The first problem is there are too many domain names (over 5,000). Many of them are great domains, but there’s a lot of crap in there. Low priced crap, but crap nonetheless. Moniker needs to appease its clients, but ought to seriously consider limiting the extended auction to 500 domains or so. Otherwise it’s doing a disservice to both its sellers and buyers.
But the biggest problem is the SnapNames platform. It simply wasn’t built for this type of auction. Moniker’s old marketplace platform was much better for this purpose. Here are my gripes:
1. You have to click through 57 pages to see all of the domains, even if you extend each page to the maximum 100 domains. You also can’t sort by category. Moniker has a spreadsheet available for download that includes categories, but it uses reserve ranges for pricing rather than the actual price. When you’re looking at a domain with a reserve range between $0-$5,000, it matters if the domain is $300 or $4,500. The SnapNames site includes the actual price.
2. Can’t “jump to” page. As I clicked through to the 32nd page of listings, I got a server error. There was no way to pick up where I left off since there’s no feature to “go to pay 32 of 57”. I ended up starting at page 57 and working backward.
3. Adding a domain to the watch list refreshes the entire page.
4. When you view your watchlist, the domain prices aren’t visible.
5. The SnapNames interface requires you to add a domain you want to bid on to your cart and then check out. It makes no sense for an auction like this.
Moniker has a good thing going, but it ought to prioritize making fixes to its SnapNames site for extended auctions.
