Domain Appraisal Guide

If anyone has followed domain auctions at all, I'm sure they've noticed that some of the top selling auctions are for names unfamiliar to Americans, but famous in other countries.

 

Nice jobs done here, but the valuation methods explained in this thread, as well as overall on the WWW, are not absolute and certainly not scientific.

The arguments are only valid within the group of people that accept them, and to believe or not by outsiders.
Concerning domain appraisals, it should be understood that the players in the Domain Industry are mainly:
- Regulators (ICANN, IANA, Etc.) who determine what is allowed and what not.
- Registrars who handle the lease of domains.
- Resellers who mainly sell domains to each other and seldom to an end user.
- End users who have some reason to get a specific domain that fits their need and budget.
- Agents who participate in domain trade by making available listings for sale, auctions, value estimation and etc. commission-based service activity.

Resellers usually accept the valuation methods as described.
End users usually don't take advice: They pay whatever it takes.

It is okay to accept domain valuation standards.
But appraisers usually price downward.

Let us face it:
Underpricing and overpricing don't exist.
It is all between the ears.
Let us ask what we want.
We shall see what we get.
The domain after market is not a flea market.
It is a Market with a capital M.

 

It is always about personal opinions. If you really want to know real price of your domain name you should start an online auction and you will see.

 

http://dotprice.org/digitalpoint.com/
estimated price of domain name


$ 544,998,219 - $ 633,718,859

 

Thanks I forgot to add that don't fall for appraisal scams

You can get appraisals for free from experienced domainers. There is no need to fall for those type of scams if you receive any emails regarding getting your domain appraised.

 

Hi,

I am impressed with your guidelines.

Based on above have a question in my mind say for example if a Domain name is 2 PageRank but meeting all other criteria squarely, besides, it also has more number of backlinks, in this case what are the probability of fetching higher price for such domains?

may i request for your comments please?

thanks and regards,

siiddharth.

 

It will fetch thousands of dollars if it is sold to a guy who is looking for that kind of domain name desperately.

This guide is for appraisals in general. It cannot help you pin point the prices of your domain name. If the domain name price is to be based on its revenue or its backlinks then it might slightly also fall into website appraisal. Where websites with revenue goes for anything around 24 to 36 months of revenue normally. But sometimes it even goes for 5 to 10 years or revenue. Moreover it also goes for 1000 times its revenue based on its potential and userbase.

One guy purchased a domain name for Mid $xxx,xxx that was not based on anything but just the domain name keyword itself. But he expects that he will get the money back in 5 to 7 years even without doing anything. i.e. by parking or by just putting a lander page of some affiliate on it.

 

My guess is no it appraised by domain christianireland.com at 23,091 - $ 26,850

I will except a 10th of that

 

it gave my useless site over $1.5 million, so i'm happy

 

First of all I commend the selfless initiative in producing this guide. So it is with due respect but complete disagreement that I allow myself the following reply:

Appraisals are very important...for people selling them to newbies who do not know any better and part with their money to receive a worthless piece of information.

There are lots of metrics and formulas that make reasonable assumptions, not appraisals. Most of the time they are wrong by a margin of 100% or more. Do you can this an appraisal?

For established sites, Cashflow valuations are made on past results, using past SEO talent, older technology on a web world that has changed.Vegas is a much better option for you.


Every top domainer knows they are all but meaningless.
You can repeatedly break all of the 10 rules in this guide and still have a 10-15,000 USD domains.

It all depends on how much one willing to pay and the TRADERS ABILITY to pitch the sale to the right buyer, in the right time!!!

Don't ever fall for this brandable name notion. Do you have 5 thousand dollars to run worldwide brand name search? If not, you may very well be getting yourself in a legal mess that will cost you lots !!! Every person who has over 5-6000 domains has received letters from trademark attorneys. Most have no interest in making this public. I received a single one from Germany (do you know all brand names registered in Germany?) and frankly, never again.

Go to the DN journal website and monitor the actual domain sales and there you will see how things work in the real world. Assuming you are of legal age, get yourself a beer, take the amounts paid in the real world, "appraise" the same domains sites using these formulas and rules and have a barrel of laughs. It's fun and unlike appraisals, its free.

 

Welll I have been in domain market from a long long time. And This were the points which took me slowly but steadily towards the success. I wanted to share it with other users. And Admin also thought it looks neat so it is stickied.

You say in most cases plural is more expensive then singular. And I totally disagree with it. You can go and have a tour on some domain name forums and you will see that most domainers have that kind of feeling in their mind that singular is more costly then the plural one. That's Why I have mentioned it there.

Point number 10 is useless as I have already mentioned in the guide itself. But still whenever a domain is placed for sale the seller puts the number of results it get in google search engine. It has nothing to do with the popularity of the domain name. But still 50% of buyers go for it.

And yeah overture is not overure It is overture.

 

Can you also use software to get a good appraisal to get an idea of what type of money you should be asking for..

 

Automated softwares are usually quite inaccurate for domain appraisals IMO. Also, I agree that domain age should definitely be a point. Most people register a domain and think they can sell it a week later for huge figures. It's the older domains that have been registered for 5+ years with all the other factors that can turn a nice profit, not recent regs.

 

There are many sites that will help you checking the value of your site. But be careful often these sites will charge you up to a hundred dollars anmd later they will tell you that your site is worth less than that.

 

Response to this --> http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=2182916 ?

 

Hi!
I think This site will be helpful to you, www.ZippoZap.com You can get WHOIS data here from domain info.Check this site dude!

 

Hyphens can be a pain when telling someone the name of your site. However, google sees them as spaces, and when all the domain names that you want without hyphens have been taken, I think it's quite an good SEO tactic to use hyphens. If the main keywords someone will type are the exact name of your site, your site is likely to appear at the top of google's search results. Maybe you could have a domain with hyphens optimized for google and another domain without hyphens that is easier to remember. Then of course you use a 301 direct.

 

Thanks! This is a very useful guide - I have a domain name that I think is highly valuable and your guide will help me to get the price right

 

What about Yahoo/Google SERP?! or pagerank?! or even alexaraning?!

 

Sorry, a "google" is and always has been, the number one with one hundred zeros. I learned that in the early '80s. Its relative, the google TO THE POWER of a google is a "google plex", considered to be the largest number realiistically calculable, i.e. anything bigger would be said to be infinite or tending towards infinity.
I'm gonna have to see if googleplex.com is registered now LOL and sorry, I always have to be a smart-ass. The guide is a very well written, useful one for newbs, obviously. Still, must try harder