At NamePros, we're newly committed to building the best member appraisals in the domain industry. I strongly encourage everyone, industry "newbies" and domain veterans alike, to put thought and take pride in your appraisals. You certainly need not be the most experienced domainer to be able to offer helpful appraisals to domain owners.
I've prepared a short guide for newbie appraisers as an introduction to doing quality appraisals.
Advice for newbie appraisers,
Don't:
- Use "cut & paste" appraisals
- Just copy what the poster before you said
- Offer up specific values if you're doing so solely by guessing
- Fill your appraiser profile with false information. There's no need to represent experience.
Do:
- Give your first impressions of the name (what did you think of when you first saw it?)
- Comment on the way the domains sound (verbally)
- Share development ideas and talk about possible uses
- Suggest possible end-user buyers who might have need for the name
- Comment on similar names that have sold or that are currently available for registration
- If appraising with a value, offer a brief explanation why
- Complete the Interview Q&A's for your profile so members can understand your perspective
- Explain your valuation methods in your Appraiser Interview Q&A's
- Learn from your fellow members. If you see appraisers that are consistently on-target with their appraisals, learn from them. Notice how they structure their appraisals and the kind of criteria they look for in a quality name. You will now have access to their appraiser profiles so you can learn what methods and tools he or she uses to appraise names.
- Keep in touch with currents in the domain industry by keeping up with domain-related discussions on NamePros.
- And finally, continue to build your own experiences in buying and selling names.
Thanks -RJ- for taking the time to establish these guidelines for appraisers (n00b or veteran), and the additions to our profiles are a great idea.
As always, "You da Man!!!"
Kenny
well ...hope this will keep "spamming" by those who have no experience in buy & sell..........perhaps an added feature for the Q&A profile is how many domains the person owns or have sold would be helpful??
I am very glad to see this happening. I can tell it might take a while for people to get this message though. I commented on a post and even inserted skyraiders link, and the very nest post was $xx and that was it. lol
But ultimately it is all BS because you can say anything you want. Besides, appraisals for domains are not like appraisals for homes or other property. The real value of a domain relies heavily on what the buyer is willing to pay and there are too many types of buyers for domains out there.
You can value a domain at XX,XXX all day long and it does not mean in the slightest bit that anyone would pay a price close to that. Or they may pay way more.
A house or a car on the other hand has a real value and will most likely sell VERY near the appraised price.
The only problem I see with the appraisal section is that most only take wholesale into consideration, but you cannot blame them too much as it is too hard to put a price on the future value of a developed domain. The degrees of "development" vary too greatly and are subject to too many uncontrollable factors.
the only way to put a real value on domains is if a standard is put in place that says...
$X amount for X amount of traffic
$X amount for certian keywords
$X amount for TLD in respect to the type of site it would fmost likely be developed for.
$X amount if under so many characters, -$X if over so many characters (which is very flawed way of thinking anymore becasue there are not as many short domains left and there are many keywords out there that are just long by nature and really do not have a popular abbreviation, but bring in BIG advertising dollars).
oooh.. so i don't need to have to go to overture and look it up beforehand?
My method is in the list you put up.. thinking about how it looks, what it sounds like, and possible uses for it, and the 'catchiness' ..i really don't like having to go offsite for more info on something because i'm always multitasking and don't really have time for that while also learning CSS and answering emails, ect.
(I'm asking this because.. i'm just wondering, if i put in my appraisal profile that i don't use overture, would it get accepted?)
I agree somewhat,But then again,You can only give an evaluation opion on DNs IMO.But the more the knowledge,The better opinion.And a more accurate DN evaluation IMO
Sorry, I have found no evidence that this is true. I have seen many who are suppose to be 'experienced" give too high or too low domain appraisals. that is to say, much higher or much lower than the domain actually sells for eventually.
And let's not forget somehting else. THe only way to truely appraise domains somewhat accurately at retail is to have a slew of "experts" from different backgrounds and industries as no one person can ever know everything about every keyword and its popularity/usefulness within a given industry.
One of the bigger problems I see in the appraisal section is folks that get opffended becasue they think their new domain it is worth more for whatever reason, justified or not, educated reasoning or not. But again, this is to be expected and not much you can do about it. You would have this even if the appraisal forum was only accessible for "expert" appraisers to post appraisals.
zquest, you're absolutely right it's improssible to know exactly what price a name is going to be able to sell for. If you read over my Do's and Don'ts above you'll see I value discussion about a domain's qualities over tossing out an arbitrary value.
Using the appraisal forum is not for everyone, but it is good for some domain owners to get a feel for how good their names may be. That said, I don't want to use this thread to debate the value of the appraisal forum. Thanks for your comments!
The key to this debate is not that there should be a given formula in appraising domains, more that a formula actually exists...
I couldnt care less if in through a appraising a domain of mine your criteria for valuation was based upon which day of the week it was or in fact which way the wind was blowing, so long as you had a criteria....
There is no such thing as a master appraiser or a solid valuation formula, for if there was, there would be no need for an appraisal forum....
And personally, I dont necessarily want to hear from expert appraisers. A newbies points (so long as there are some) are as relevant to me as an experts. Remember people, this market is liquid, whats prime domain estate today might be worthless plots tomorrow.
View Appraisal Methods and Profile for -RJ-
Something Witty This Way Comes... 
