closed how to appraise

jtr · Oct 6, 2002

Hi , I am wondering what you guys look for when you appraise a name. Could you please post some tips on how you determine the value of a name?

Thanks

Donna Mahony · Oct 6, 2002

Originally posted by jtr
Hi , I am wondering what you guys look for when you appraise a name. Could you please post some tips on how you determine the value of a name?

Thanks

I generally ask 2 years income

NoFolio · Oct 7, 2002

Hi jtr.

I am very new to this whole thing, and still have tons to learn. However, I decided it couldn't hurt for me to tell you what I have learned, just from reading this forum for a week or two. If anything I state here is incorrect, or could be better said, PLEASE correct me.

I think the first thing is to ask yourself "How is the buyer of this domain going to make money off of it?" Think about it from the end user's perspective, not the resellers view. Think about exactly how you would develop the site and be able to make money off of it. Afterall, if you can't make money with it, you don't want to put money into it!

Another important thing is how many people are searching for what this site could possibly offer. Use overture's suggestion tool (here at the moment), type in the keyword(s) of your domain and see how many people are searching these words. If nobody's searching for it, then you're not going to get much traffic, and everyone knows traffic = money. Putting up a little site with stats is even better. See how many type-ins you actually do get, and see how many people are linking to you (referrals).

.com .com .com. I've learned that if it's not a .com, it's not worth nearly as much. Granted, if the name is great, you can still get money from the .net, but not as much as the .com. I don't think anyone is really sure on the .info's yet, and the other TLD's usually aren't worth registering.

H-y-p-h-e-n-s --- avoid them. I've heard that if used with keywords (domain-name-forum.com) can be good for search engine optimization to drive traffic, but for the most part I've seen that they just ruin an otherwise good domain.

Length is another thing to consider, but if it's a great name, with lots of traffic, and unlimited revenue possibilities, it doesn't matter quite as much. Abbreviations are good, especially if they're well known (dns, ppc, etc).

Numbers are almost always bad (or, at least, not good

). For example, g0lf.net, where the 0 is the number zero, is being appraised at $0 on this forum. Substituting numbers for letters (0 = 0, 3 = E, etc) or words (4 = for, 2 = to, etc) isn't good, and can be confusing when telling someone your URL.

The "radio check" as I've seen people talk about here is another good thing to consider. The point behind this being; imagine trying to advertise your domain on the radio. This generally has to do with numeric, and hyphenated domains. Imagine trying to advertise "web-sitesdesigned-4-you.com" in a 30 second ad slot on the radio, and having the listener actually remember it.

Memorable is good. You want your visitors to be able to easily remember your URL after visiting it once or twice, or even just seeing an ad banner for it. People are lazy.. they don't want to have to search for a URL every time they want to go there.

Go back to the first thing I stated. Try to estimate how much money this site has the potential of making. This part takes experience, I'm sure. Finally, you come to something I just learned (thanks winfreecash

); you decide how much of that potential income you want to receive up front for the domain. wfc's happens to be 2 years. Factor in everything else I stated that affects a domains value, then basically make an educated guess on how much you would expect to receive for the domain.

I don't think you can come up with a standard set of rules to apply when appraising all domains. With all these factors to consider, each situation is going to be very different. I think what it comes down to is experience. Most of these fine people at this forum know what they're doing, and it's very evident. I suggest you do like me and pay attention and learn from the masters.

I apologize, I tend to ramble on. I don't think I REALLY actually answered the very question you asked, but I hope my organization of all this useful information was helpful to someone - it sure was helpful to me.