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Chapter 3: Domain Names Revealed: Estimating Domain Name Values:
Now that you know some of the factors that make a domain valuable, you can learn to estimate the potential value. However, before learning techniques to estimate the value, remember that the true value of a domain is the price a person is willing to pay. Person A may be willing to buy your domain for $5,000 while Person B may be willing to buy your domain for only $20. The key is to pick good domains, & find the “right” buyer (this will be discussed in detail later). While these techniques I am about to mention can be a great way to get an estimate of the value, you should not consider the estimate authoritative. You could get more or less from your particular domain. These methods are a good starting place & I use these methods on a regular basis to get a general idea of my buying or selling prices. They include: Domain appraisals and completed sales search.
Domain Appraisal Services
There are several domain name appraisal services on the web. These services range from free automated domain appraisals that you can perform yourself, to paid “human” appraisals. Appraisals can be a good tool to get an idea of the estimated value when buying or selling a domain, but just remember that the true value is the price a person is willing to pay. Also, an appraisal service will be more accurate if it considers multiple factors such as length of time registered, potential market, keyword popularity, back links, number & type of characters, future potential, etc.
You can find several free (automated) domain appraisal services on the web. These sites use a simple algorithm to achieve an estimate based on different factors. A couple of sites that you can use for appraisals are: www.urlbuyers.com/valuation.com, www.swiftappraisal.com, www.websiteoutlook.com.
These sites can be great to get a quick figure, but the “do-it-yourself” automated appraisals are going to be less accurate than a professionally evaluated appraisal. But for speed & price, they can be great to add as a selling point or for a quick check.
There are also several companies that offer paid domain appraisal services. Paid domain appraisals are usually more accurate than automated appraisals because you will have an actual human looking over your domain and evaluating the value based on multiple factors. Here are some websites that offer paid domain appraisal services:
www.Godaddy.com
www.Sedo.com
www.Afternic.com
www.Zetetic.com
Of course, paying for a domain appraisal service can get quite expensive. This is especially true if you are paying for appraisals of multiple domains. The only time I will actually pay for a domain appraisal service is when I have a really good domain that I think will fetch in the high thousands. This way, I have an independent company’s appraisal to show potential buyers the true value of the domain. This can gain buyer’s confidence & help “sell” the domain. Prices for paid domain appraisal services range from $5.99-$100.00 depending on the company. If you expect to flip the domain for a couple of hundred dollars or less, then I would probably not worry about paying for an appraisal. Instead, just use one
of the free services or forget about it entirely.
Search Completed Sales
Searching completed sales is very important when it comes to estimating value for domains. This gives you an inside opportunity to check the following things:The actual selling price, if it had a website with it, when it was registered, if it had any traffic (and approximately how much), & much more. This can be a great indicator of how other domains with similar spellings, categories, or traffic might be worth. Also, it can generate ideas for new (unregistered) domains that can be flipped for a profit.
To search completed sales, I would recommend checking some of the top domain selling sites listed below. These sites will let you access recent sales price.
www.Sedo.com
www.Afternic.com
www.eBay.com
Once you go to these sites, you can usually see the recent sales prices on the home page in the lower corner (except for eBay.com). Below is an example of the recent sales price section on Sedo.com & Afternic.com. It also shows the incredibly high prices a good domain can reach. This information is updated on a daily basis.
To check the completed items on eBay.com, you must first click on the link for“advanced search.” Then, enter the word or category for “domain name” and then select the “completed items” box. This will display the completed sales price for all recent sales. Below is an example of the completed items search:
Completed Items
This will then bring up the results for the recent domain selling prices on eBay.com. Next, you should refine your search by selecting “highest price first.”
This will sort the results by price from the highest price to the lowest price. This allows you to search faster & you won’t have to sift through the “junk” domains listed for next to nothing. You can then find the quality domains that have sold for reasonable prices. Once you have this information, you can use it for research. Just plug in the domain to one of the tools mentioned earlier (such as Alexa.com, dnscoop.com, etc.) to find more information about the domain. You can then compare those stats with the stats of the domain you plan on selling, or use it for ideas to register similar domains to flip.
Using completed sales search is also great because this is a possible indicator of profitable unregistered domains. You can use this information to register similar domains. For example, let’s say you find see a domain sell for $2,000 called FastCash.com (not an actual sale–just hypothetically). You do some quick research & find that it has little or no apparent traffic rating, & it only has a couple of pages and/or back links indexed. Also, you see that there is no website established that is being sold with the domain. This tells you that the individual basically purchased the “name.” So you can use this information to put together other possible domain combinations. A neat way to do this is to use a thesaurus. Most word processors will have a thesaurus built in, or you could find a free thesaurus online. You can then generate possible similar words for each domain world & come up with similar domains. For example, you might come up with domains like QuickCash.com, FastMoney.com, QuickMoney.com, etc. which you could quickly register & flip.
Chapter 4: Making Money with Domains
How to Make Money With Domain Names-Intro
What Is a Domain Name Exactly-Chapter 1
How to Find Profitable Domain Names-Chapter 2
How to Estimate and Appraise Domain Value-Chapter 3
How to Make Money and Profit from Domains-Chapter 4
How to Make Money and Profit from Domains-Continued
Domain Name Tips & Tricks-Chapter 5
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This post was written by Ben on May 31, 2009
