Over the course of two years, I have had great success with Dan.com but was disappointed by its acquisition by GoDaddy.



Prior to the acquisition, the Dutch start-up was preparing to launch their own domain registrar in partnership with Metaregistrar BV. Combining a domain registrar and marketplace had the potential for great success but posed a threat to GoDaddy as Dan.com was already taking business away from its subsidiary, Afternic.

In addition, the acquisition of Uniregistry by GoDaddy resulted in the Uni Market and Uni, the domain name registrar, being shut down. There was a smooth transition to GoDaddy, but there were pricing inconsistencies that were resolved once an account manager was assigned.

However, there is a potential issue when sales of former Uni-registered domains, now managed by GoDaddy, occur on Dan.com. This issue arose when I recently sold a domain registered 20 years ago. During the exchange, Dan.com's "bot" took over and offered the choice of pushing the domain at Uniregistry or transferring via an auth code. The problem was that the domain was managed at GoDaddy, not Uniregistry, but Dan.com believed it was at Uniregistry.

This issue arises due to the fact that after the Uni to GoDaddy transfer, the domains are still listed under Uniregistry on the WHOIS, but they are managed by GoDaddy and do not have a Uniregistry account controlling them.

To avoid potential complications, it is suggested that if you sell your former Uni domains now managed by GoDaddy on Dan.com, select the "transfer out" option. Despite this issue, the automated completion of domain sales on Dan.com is efficient and beats other existing models.