Confused

[kmp]

Quick question for everyone. Besides being brandable, name length and exact search, what makes a name more valuable then the next?

For example: The word "System" gets 100,000 exact searches on google. The word "source" gets 135,000 exact searches. Both great keywords, but for some reason "system" is valued at over 15 times more then "source" on all the valuation sites with all extensions. Im just using these words as example but there are many more like these. Why the big difference? They seem equal in value to me. What am I missing here? Thanks for your thoughts.

[Bill F.]

At first glance, I would choose "source" as the best domain. The valuation sites really aren't all that useful in evaluating by price. They depend on past sales, and try to quantify things that are very hard to quantify.

The real question for any name is "can you build a business around it?" That's why I see more potential in "source" than in "system." But for names of that calibre, even more important is whether there is a hungry buyer for the name at any given time. And that changes all the time. Who would have thought that "cloud" or "tablet" would mean what they do 10 years ago?

Huge numbers of searches, by the way, are only valuable if they are actually searching for the same thing. Both the keywords you mention are so vague that there is no way make any real market out of the people searching for it - they are too diverse. I'd rather have a fraction of those searches looking for "security system" or "organic source," for example, because then you'll have some idea who you are selling to.

[silentg]

Rule #1: Don't rely on paid and automatic appraisals. Why they value one domain more than the other? You'll have to ask the developers of the website.

Best place to start is the forums. Check out each sales threads and see how much certain domains sell for. And You can use one of the sites below to find how much a similar domain had sold for and you can get an idea about how much to ask for.
http://namebio.com
http://dnsaleprice.com
http://domaintools.com/domain-sales-history

[Mark Talbot]

... what makes a name more valuable then the next

Its like a baseball card.

Demand or desire, makes for value.

If there is no demand, then no matter the name it aint worth nothin.
Its only worth what someone WANTS to pay for it.

At least not at the moment.

[kmp]

Its like a baseball card.

Just before I started this thread I said the same exact thing to myself, "maybe its just like baseball cards." Good analogy. Thanks for all the quick replies everyone. I guess it really comes down to whats in demand at the time. I was told to always use the appraisal threads and not the valuation sites. This is a prime example. Thanks again