Domain valuation tips

[noelius]

Hi! I'm a newbie, and I would like to know how much domain names are valuated, because in this forum I saw cool domains selling for less than worst domain (worst and better in my opinion, of course).

What I want is to say me some tips for valuating domains, because I will register some domains to give reselling a try, and I would like to valuate them correctly.

I know that there are websites which sell all their domains for a fixed price, like $100 or $150. Do you think this is profitable of it would be better to only putting them a different price?

Thanks for your help

[BidNo]

Valuation is part art and part science and can take years to develop. Valuation factors to consider include:

Empirical:
TLD (top level domain)
Length
Words (number of)
Numbers
Hyphens
Misspelling

Soft:
Commercial potential
Brandability
Memorable and pronounceable
Ease and ambiguity of spelling
Search engine potential (page rank)

Other:
Site content
Current traffic
Source of traffic
Current Revenue
PPC rates

If you don't have expertise, a proven approach is to determine relative value based on actual sales of comparable domains (called comp's). You can pay a professional appraiser for this or do it yourself at the site in my sig. There is lots of additional material out there, so keep reading on the web and here at DNforum.

Cheers,
BidNo

[noelius]

Thanks for your reply. However, how can I know how much is valuated each part of your mentioned factors?

[BidNo]

It's the intersection of all those factors that determines the value. For example you can have the perfect domain except that it's 63 char's long and it will be worth next to nothing. .com's are generally considered to have 800% the value of other TLDs. 11 characters is considered the "sweet" spot for length as these tend to be the most memorable. Anything over 15-18 characters is considered long. And so on, and so on...

You can estimate value based on traffic or name value. Traffic can be the actual traffic or estimated based on tools such as Overture or Alexa. If you're looking at name value, your best bet to quickly estimate a domain's relative value is with comp's i.e. the sale price of comparable domains. Go to the site in my sig for more info and to research comp's (it's the only searchable source on the net).

Cheers,
BidNo