About Appraisals

**Donna Mahony** · 11-28-2002, 07:55 AM

I found the discussion under the other thread interesting so I thought it might be fun to have a thread with some of the psycology behind appraisals and appraising.

It appears that most appraisals are posted by newbies and appraised by newbies. It's not easy today to get a good name and newbies rarely have the resources to find them..that said... a newbie who sees anything that remotely resembles anything with meaning thinks it's great compared to what they are able to get themselves....hence high appraisals!

A seasoned domainer with some time and skills views them with a very different eye.

It seems most folks asking for appraisals are looking just to sell and think cute and catchy domains have value. As a general rule, only newbies think you can survive in this game by reselling only. There again, newbies appraising newbies will give very different appraisals than seasoned domainers.

Seasoned domainers know the only way to survive is to USE a domain. They view domains for appraisal with a VERY different criteria in mind...hence, mostly low appraisals.

Desi · 11-28-2002, 08:21 AM

Win, I agree with most of what you say. I also have a good deal of respect for your experience and my impression that you're always willing to help newbies.

In my observation, most of the discord in appraisals, at least recently, is caused by the differing opinions of ".commers" and those who have strong faith in the potential of new tlds. Often, there're strong sentments on both sides. I believe its an incorrect assumption to equate new tlds with established ones but at the same time there're old-timers who would give $0-type appraisals to (.info/.us/.biz) names that would easily command 5 figures in .com. That, imo, is not only irrational and clrealy biased but also somewhat irritating. Many of us already know that many of the decent names in these new tlds are already commanding very good resale prices. A case in point, the owner of Cigars.info is not willing to sell the name even for $5K! So, I think if the experienced folks, who have had all of their experience with .coms & .nets, become a bit more objective about new tlds the situation would improve. Just my $0.02.

**Donna Mahony** · 11-28-2002, 08:27 AM

Desi...we had hopes too, for .cc, .ws, .tv etc and found our .coms were CONSISTANT money makers rather than the "now and then" successes of the others. Again, it's experience speaking.

**Kid Kool** · 11-28-2002, 08:38 AM

Originally posted by winfreecash
Desi...we had hopes too, for .cc, .ws, .tv etc and found our .coms were CONSISTANT money makers rather than the "now and then" successes of the others. Again, it's experience speaking.

but .cc .tv and .ws are all ccTLDs.

.info etc are already popular in europe in asia with their growing online presence. These are not equivalent of .cc etc. I don't remember anyone seriously thinking .cc would be big. they were always a joke. .tv even had some limited potential until they instituted the outrageous "premium fees" for any name remotely valuable.

I have nothing against $0 appraisals. However i generally don't find the people giving out these appraisals to be pros of any sort.
Just take a look at their names.

they are mostly illiterate philistines without even the least bit of decent manners. There is a huge difference between saying "this name has no resale value in my opinion" and "sorry its crap". The appraisals on this board usually tell more about the appraiser than the name.

**Duke** · 11-28-2002, 08:44 AM

.cc .ws and .tv have absolutely nothing in common with .info and .us. The former three are minor country codes the registrars are trying to foist off as global TLD's. Very few people have fallen for that.

.info is a real ICANN approved global TLD and .US is the official country code of the largest market on earth (equivalent to .de which is wildly popular in another major industrial nation - Germany - in fact bigger than .net and .org COMBINED!).

Edited to add: I see kidkool was posting while I was writing. I am in total agreement with him (this time

)

**Donna Mahony** · 11-28-2002, 08:54 AM

My opinion remains the same. I lump them all together. It takes too much time and effort to promote ANY of them..I am lazy and a tech moron. It is MY opinion that if you added up what you spent on them, you could have bought a decent easily converting .com.
My point in this thread was not to compare tld's but to compare appraising methods and mind sets.

**Duke** · 11-28-2002, 09:12 AM

Originally posted by BigFart
We have plenty of experience with .net and .org's and we already know that it is very unusual to sell one for a decent price.

We are and rightfully so applying that logic to the new tld's.

I agree with the first sentence but not the second. .net and .org have no more in common with .info and .us than .cc and the rest do.

.ORG was branded from the very beginning as an extension for non-profit organizations. .NET was meant for service providers (though due to a lack of viable options - many have used it as a catch-all for everything).

.US has no such pre-ordained branding on its use. The only strike against it is that it is new. It will no longer be new several years from now....and it will make far more since to put a commercial enterprise on it than on a .org.

.INFO could be argued to have some similarities to .NET and .ORG in that it would seem to be meant for specific kinds of sites - those providing information (perhaps as opposed to pure commerce). With .info I think it is much more important to match the root name with the extension. You have more latitude with .US (if your market is the US - and virtually everyone worldwide attempts to market to the US).

In today's market there is no doubt they all have a fraction of the value of .com but getting good names, properly matched to their extension now, while you can, is hardly a waste of money in my view.

**Duke** · 11-28-2002, 09:16 AM

Getting back on track and winfree's original post - there is not one word I disagree with in her opening post. I routinely value domains at $0 too. It is true that seeing good ones offered up for appraisal is a very rare occurrence.

In her followup post I would only point out that a lot of people play an entirely different game with their domains and are successful at it. I have no affiliate sites whatsoever (though I am interested in exploring them). I buy and sell my own inventory. There are a lot of technical whizzes here who can build great sites and derive great benefit from a solid name in any major extension that does a good job of describing what their business is all about. They know how to get high search engine placement and the name attracts interest when people see it in the SE listings - then they are off to the races. A valuable name for those purposes does not have to be a one-word generic .com.

**StockDoctor** · 11-28-2002, 09:24 AM

With the appraising methods theme in mind, I don't wonder why few .com die hards always seem to try to quash the .biz .info and .us names. Their interest comes across as defending what they see as their turf and it's value. The other gTLDs threaten to take a BIG bite out of this market, and they don't like that.

Saying that any other extension is worthless is misleading the newbies. Some of the other extensions (not counting the cc type stuff) are bringing substantial offers from those that know that it's the KEYWORD and it's popularity (typeins) in the search engines, and not just typeins in the url bar with a .com attached.

I've gotten many offers over $5000 so far for several of these "worthless" names, that I have turned down. If Ford wanted to buy Trucks.com, they would be looking at some pretty hefty fees. They are buying the revenue potential from the traffic that that name can produce. Now, if Trucks.com (developed) can bring in X amount of traffic, Trucks.us (developed) can also bring in a % of X. Since the search engines account for the majority of the traffic on the Net, and search engines don't know a .com from a .us, why isn't this concept understood?

Don't get me wrong, I know who the king of gTLDs is, and I own a bunch of them, but by not hedging your bets on the future, I feel people are increasing their opportunity risk. Times change and the Net changes, and I can see competition for the .coms coming. Hell it's already here.

**Duke** · 11-28-2002, 09:41 AM

I totally agree Doc. Automatically giving every .info .us etc a $0 appraisal is completely misleading. No different than telling someone to put ALL of their money in one stock. A lot of people did that - with Enron - but people seem to have short memories.

.com has the power of positive perception on its side today. If that perception shifts and ALL of your investments are there, you are in trouble. And a change in perception is all it will take for that to happen. All of the other extensions deliver exactly the same experience. A web site that resolves in your browser window.

Not saying that will happen - in fact I don't expect that it will. I think what you will have is a more ordered name space with SEVERAL viable options. It's what the marketplace needs and as in all other areas, products will be made available to meet the market demand.

**Donna Mahony** · 11-28-2002, 10:20 AM

But the point remains...if you ask for an appraisal here and somebody says "anything but .com is a zero", that is a valid appraisal in the mind of the person who appraised it. Isn't the point of forum appraisals to get varied business plan, geographical, ethnic etc opinions?

**StockDoctor** · 11-28-2002, 10:41 AM

Originally posted by winfreecash
But the point remains...if you ask for an appraisal here and somebody says "anything but .com is a zero", that is a valid appraisal in the mind of the person who appraised it. Isn't the point of forum appraisals to get varied business plan, geographical, ethnic etc opinions?

I agree with you on that point WF. It's a barometer of what the market here believes today. From my stockmarket experience, I can tell you that if you act on a snapshot of what the market believes today, and not act on a vision for tomorrow, you will always lose.

It's quickly identified that the appraisers here saying "anything but a .com is a zero" is not only uneducated about the current market, but also blind to the future.

Not to say that everyones opinion of value is not welcome. I say the more the merrier, harshness included. Bring em on. It's important to gage the errors of others to make correct decisions of your own.

**Duke** · 11-28-2002, 09:32 PM

Originally posted by winfreecash
But the point remains...if you ask for an appraisal here and somebody says "anything but .com is a zero", that is a valid appraisal in the mind of the person who appraised it. Isn't the point of forum appraisals to get varied business plan, geographical, ethnic etc opinions?

I also agree with your point there Winnie. Too bad we don't all have a signature line that tells people what our approach to the business is as several different models can be profitable. Then the appraisals would make more sense to the viewer.

A lot of people want only a one-word dictionary name, even if that name has no apparent commercial meaning. I have no interest whatsoever in a name like that. For my purposes I would much rather have a two-word name that accurately describes what my business is about. Then you have guys that think hyphenated 5-word domains are great because they claim they can get them placed high in search engines.

So, without a doubt, the value an appraiser places on a name is going to be heavily influenced by the value of that name to his own particular business model. People having names appraised should keep that in mind.