The first time Afternic has offered a parking rebate — This isn’t

Afternic offered a “Park & Sell” rebate until GoDaddy purchased the business.

I was looking through the Reglike archives the prior week when I came across an article I wrote in 2014 regarding changes GoDaddy made to Afternic following acquiring the firm the prior year.

One of the changes was discontinuing the “Park & Sell” program. In 2010, Afternic introduced the program offering a 15% commission on any domains parked with Afternic when they sold. This compared to the regular 20% commission.

Afternic likely started the program for two reasons. First, the “for sale” banner at the top of parked domains increased sales. Second, the firm was able to generate revenue from the pay-per-click ads on parked domains.

The offer was similar to GoDaddy’s fresh commission structure in that it rewards people for pointing domains to the firm’s landers. Parking ad revenue isn’t a driver this time; it’s all regarding capturing sales that originate on the lander. Oh, and the default commission is now 25%.

While 25% may seem steep, GoDaddy previously charged more. The domain sales service it offered ahead of acquiring Afternic took a 30% cut, and the domains had to be registered at GoDaddy and were only sold on GoDaddy.