Hello,
I recognize your concern.
I'm sure that for some of your domains, we appraise higher than what you'd be willing to sell at, while for others, we appraise lower and you don't want that publicized.
We don't publish ANY appraisal data. If someone links to their appraisal page on estibot from a site, then yes, google could crawl it, but that's the ONLY way. Usually, the people that link to the appraisal are those satisfied with the appraisal and want to have it crawled.
I think the compromise here is to allow YOU to submit a list of domains which you do not want crawled by the SEs and we can add a no-index meta tag on the fly when the appraisal is generated. This way, even if someone else links to your appraisal, it won't be picked up by the search engines.
We don't have a system setup for that. If this solution is acceptable please let me know and we'll add it to the work queue.
Thanks,
Luc
Hi Luc, personally speaking I'm very happy if the appraisal results do not get indexed in the search engines and thanks for already dealing with that side of it, I'm not that bothered if the odd person did link to a name as it would'nt make alot of difference either way to my asking price so I don't think I need to take you up on your second solution, but thanks for offering. :tu:
Gazzip, I'd like to add one thing - in response to the above, I want to refer you to my previous comment (quoted below). Thus I don't believe we can hurt domainers. On the contrary, if we create more business by facilitating contact between buyers and sellers, and by helping to set a starting point for negotiations, we will help domainers. This is what we intend to do.
Originally Posted by estibot.com View Post
Whether our valuation engine really poses the risk to the market some people claim it does is really of no concern to us. If we are influencing market prices, then the market prices needed to be influenced by us, because the market is always right. Saying that Estibot is somehow hurting the market is like saying that some stock analyst's reports are hurting the stock market. It makes no sense.
Now that is a couple of scary statements
.... and by helping to set a starting point for negotiations, we will help domainers.
I must be confused...what qualifies you to set a starting point for negotiations on our behalf ? ...I must be missing something ?
"If we are influencing market prices, then the market prices needed to be influenced by us, because the market is always right."
So, A person who does not buy domains therefore "probably" does'nt have domains to sell either ?? is going to set the "market prices" for selling domains because the so called "market prices" are always right !
To be very clear >
I sure am NO DOMAIN EXPERT by any stretch of the imagination and I'v
NOT SOLD that many names but I have never really understood people using the term "market prices" when it comes to domains so please explain how you expect to be able to
influence them by crunching a bunch of very misleading numbers coming from different models ?
Here's a few of my reasons why I think using the term "market prices" does'nt make sense when it comes to domains:
1) Two people are in a drop for an expiring domain with bags of potential in a new expanding market which is very important to a certain place, one is me with a couple of hundred bucks to spend the other is FS who I think most people would agree is HUGELY TALENTED AND AT THE TOP OF THE DOMAIN INDUSTRY TREE.
(ps - I'm not shouting)
So the domain sells for just under $200, do you really think this is "the market price" for the domain ? I'd say add a couple more zeros and it would still be worth more to an end user.
Great names go cheap in the drops everyday because the selling price also depends on how many people knew it was expiring and how well funded those individuals are....but it does'nt always mean that its the "true market price" or correct value of the domain.
A name may sell better in a sedo auction than somewhere that has far less viewers than a smaller reseller site for instance.
(I assume) Your appraisal system crunches the numbers of domain sales (
+ other stats) most of which are shown in places like DNjournal, Namejet, Snapnames, Afternic, TDNam etc
Consider this:
2) The majority of domains that are bought in the drops at Namejet, Snapnames, TDNAM or by private drop catchers are bought for RESALE or PARKING by domainers who beleive they are WORTH MORE than what they paid for them... I tend to look at them as mostly buys not sales.
Sure enduser shop there too and buy names like CityCenter.com($72,250), Necktie.com ($70,250) etc but they are in the minority and when endusers are in bidding against a determined, experienced or well funded domainer then prices usually end up higher and closer to their real value to an actual business.
I don't think you can build an accurate domain valuation system based on how much most these drop names have sold for. I'v been in hundreds of drops ranging from $60 up to $500,000 and I often check to see what's happening to the name afterwards, more often than not its parked for resale.
If your system uses these sales prices
and ads a plus or minus x to the price I doubt you are doing the seller any favours in getting a much better return anytime soon.
Eg: 6 random names taken from this weeks dnjournal:
G olfZ one - sold for $50,000 -estibot says > $ 51,000
O rbi on $25,000 - estibot says > $ 26,000 USD
R ussia callin g - sold for $20,240 > estibot says $ 21,000
Cry stal Blu e -sold for $11,300 > estibot says $12,000
L isten ToM e - sold for $10,000 > estibot says $10,000
Sh ej i - sold for $10,000 > estibot says $ 10,000 USD
Rav io li - sold for $10,501 > estibot says $ 10,000 USD
ku waitne ws - sold for $2,300 > estibot says $ 2,400 USD
clin icalo ndres - sold for $1,400 > estibot says $ 1,400 USD
...easy to say after the fact !
...now I'm not saying that all these (or any) were bought to resell but if they were and an enduser uses your appraisal system before making an offer then its not exactly going to make it easy for the reseller to make a profit on them if they are armed with an appraisal which is pretty much what they paid for it......do you see what I mean ?
3) Many of the sales listed on dnjournal, namebio are from Afternic/Buydomains sales, more likely end user buys but BuyDomains is primarily a
high volume mass scale quick flipper who knows from years of experience that it is far easier to sell a domain quicker to a small to medium sized business if they price it somewhere in the 1,000 to < $4,000 range .....or maybe its just a strange coincidence so many of their names are priced or sold at $1,088 - $1,288 - $1,500 - $2,388 - $3,388 !
They have so many thousands of names for sale its a model that seems to work well for them but remember they have huge overheads and can't always sit around waiting for the perfect enduser buyer to come along....on most their names any buyer will do ! Its not the model thats used by most the top domain sellers as far as I can tell.
4) how many high priced names get sold to real endusers that never report the selling price to DnJournal, namebio or anyone else....a crutial missing part of your appraisal system.
5) your domain appraisal system does'nt take into account many of the things that are very important to endusers, brandability, memorability, mindshare, feel good factor, fit for purpose, market size/share, market value for sales and probably a dozen + more things I have no idea about
I really do try my very best to stay out of all the MANY estibot threads but you scare me when you say things like,
"If we are influencing market prices, then the market prices needed to be influenced by us"
There is no accurate "market price" as each domain is unique and there is NO ONE SINGLE MARKET , prices will always depend on variables that your system does not (and can not) take into account at all. IMHO
Seems like logic to me but maybe you think I'm talking a pile of sh1t ?
Phew ...any thoughts on the above Luc ?
.