Hey guys, First off, I'm a complete noob at selling sites and domains which is why I am happy to have stumbled upon this awesome community. Brown-nosing aside, I have been doing some extensive digging into the pivotal question: What's my website worth? This is really complex to solve and you have to treat it like you would any objective decision and distance any emotional connection you may have made with your time owning the domain. This is even more true if you built a website on that domain and personally feel like it should sell for more than the market will offer. I'm a real estate developer, so I can tell you first hand that psychology is everything when pricing out anything that will provide value. After 8 months of blood & sweat developing a property and putting in my extra touches I feel like I should get something in return above market value. The fact of the matter is that you have to kill those thoughts immediately. Bottom line is: the market will pay what it wants to pay, end of story! Just because I think this masterpiece should sell for $600k when all the neighbors are going for $400k, I am smoking crack and need to realize the market will only tolerate within a few thousand dollars of what they know just sold. This easily applies to selling domains & sites. There's always a rare exception when you happen to have the EXACT domain that someone else absolutely must have. So how do I value a site? I personally let the 2 big boys do all the heavy lifting and choose what I think is the best value from their assessments. I got an assessment form Flippa and another from Sedo using their algorithms (SEO moz, Analytics, etc) and found 2 totally disparate values (Sedo actually valued a bit higher than Flippa). I ended up just valuing closer to Flippa because I want a quick sale and believe my time is worth more than squeezing out a few extra bucks by holding out for several weeks. Didn't want this post to get so long, but I would love to hear others' approaches on valuation especially for newcomers. Thanks!
I agree about the smoking crack bit; there can be a world of difference between what a property (whether it's a house, domain, or whatever) owner wants and the actual market value. Sometimes domains are listed at a price to the point of making the owner look stupid and not even worth the time. However, negotiation is always worth it. Some won't budge, or need time to. What I would say is though avoid valuation services and anything automated. Do your own research on the current market: what comparable domains are selling for (across TLDs); is it available in other TLDs; has it been for sale several times in the past and never bought; does it keep changing hands and never been developed; are the back-links toxic looking. And many other things like that. Things to avoid - just because it's a dictionary word doesn't mean it has value. AdWords is a good indicator - medium/high competition and cost-per-click can give you an idea of commercial value. Low competition - never mind how many searches - can be indicative of very low commercial value. That isn't always true, but often it can be people are looking up the definition of the word and no commercial intent was involved in the search. By commercial intent I mean if someone is looking to buy something (even if it's just for reviews), searching for a service, etc. Brandables - they are worth what the buyer is willing to pay. Daydream all you like, but can you really afford to turn down a decent offer, even if it's far from your greatest fantasy? Reclaim those reg fees. When you are considering a domain to buy for resale (either handreg or aftermarket) or have one to sell already, imagine its purposes. All too often, people ask for an appraisal - or trying to sell a domain - at a stupid price without even considering what purpose the domain can even have. If it reads terribly, then it doesn't matter what keywords are stuffed in the name, it can suck. If it's more than one word, it needs to make sense. And as for brandables that are claimed to be "pronounceable" - is it really!? In which language, who is your target market? Far too many people trying to sell domains (or websites for that matter) are (metaphorically) "smoking crack".
Great insight Ryan! I completely agree that you have to do your due diligence and really dig into the Adwords information (competition, local searches per month, etc) at the very least prior to committing to an automated valuation model. Thanks for the perspective.