Godaddy Dumps Sedo: Godaddy And Sedo Part Ways After Afternic Purchase

“ATTENTION: Starting March 31, 2014, Sedo aftermarket listings will no longer display on GoDaddy.com. If you currently rely on SedoMLS to manage your domain listing and want to ensure that your services are not interrupted, please list your domains on Afternic.com.”

This is the message that displays on the Godaddy homepage today. It was pretty obvious it  was just a matter of time. Once Godaddy bought Afternic and was in direct competition with Sedo, the partnership had to end.  Domain Name Wire talked to Paul Nicks about the change and said exactly as expected

“We’re all in with our vision of the aftermarket, which is Afternic as the single hub of all domains and the registrars just tie in,” said Paul Nicks, GoDaddy Director of Product Development – Aftermarket.

Domain Shane Translation:  Now that we own Afternic we really don’t want to support the competition

“We believe that a fast transfer system through all the registrars provides the security, the customer experience, and the ease of purchase that’s really necessary to grow the aftermarket,” he said.

DomainShane Translation:  And we could do that with Sedo but since we own Afternic……

As Godaddy gets larger and larger and expands their scope of domain related businesses it will continue to be more difficult for others to compete.  The purchase, the split, and the simple statement “to ensure that your services are not interrupted, please list your domains on Afternic.com” will take away tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars out of Sedo’s pocket.  But that’s big business and I’m sure that they’ll both recover from the divorce.