There is VASTLY too much inaccuracy and imprecision in valuation algorithms to ever rely on them for any specific domain.
Where they are good is when you're dealing with large numbers of domains and also sometimes when you want to compare relative values.
Purely keyword domains are a little easier if all you're looking for is search based revenue. Then it's mainly search volume x CPC adjusted by whatever time horizon and other tangible variables makes business sense to the buyer. But keyword based purchases are a small fraction of overall purchases. In fact, a lot of shorter simpler keyword domains can have significantly more value as a brand .. and definitely less for longer less radio friendly terms.
But that brings us back to "brandable" domains (including keywords marketed as brands) .. in these situations the only even semi-reliable accurate valuation is via an informed human perspective and analysis, as there are simply way too many fluctuating variables to ever create an algorithm to cover all the possible aspects of what makes a domain/brand attractive to a potential end user.
Note that by "Informed Human Analysis", I mean that the human processing the potential value has to have knowledge of not just the domain industry, but also the language of the domain .. and equally important, the industry/field of the domain.
That's why I think the best domainers longer time are more likely to have a broad range of knowledge and interests. They don't need to be experts in the industry in question, but they need to have enough of an understanding to be able to gauge the potential demand.
Because the one EXTREMELY IMPORTANT factor left out by all automated appraisals is "probability of sale", which is a crucial metric for domainers. Because GoDaddy could indeed be right that *IF* you ever sell a domain, it could indeed be for the number they indicate .. however .. as a domainer the two most important and EQUAL factors to your success are:
1- Average profit margin per domain sold
2- Percentage of your portfolio sold per year
From these two vital statistics you then factor in renewals and you can get a long term picture if you're moving towards profit .. or towards bankruptcy.
Probability of sale plays into the percentage of your portfolio you sell per year. Obviously every domain is a gamble .. but there are certain attributes and variables on all domains that make them less or more likely to sell (given optimal pricing .. which itself is often a mystery .. lol).
It's not all a mystery however .. there are still tons of domains where everything is fairly obvious. But there are many factors like wordflow and keyword imagery that's virtually impossible to plug into a domain valuation algorithm that ever hopes to cover the vast multitude of potential industries and niches in the world.
Most certainly GoDaddy's valuation service has improved significantly since it came out .. but it's still on a vastly lower tier than a human who has the proper knowledge to evaluate a specific domain.
That's why people really love and appreciate my daily auction lists .. because while I most certainly do use my own layers of filtration to cut the 50,000 expiring domains going to auction every day down to a more reasonable number, I still manually go through thousands of domains each and every night. Even then I stress that just because I listed a domain, I do so because it's of interest for any number of countless possible reasons .. people should use my lists simply as another layer of filtration and then gather whatever information they need to value the potential of any particular domain.
Every day you can go to NameCult to my closeouts list .. double click the "GD" the table header and the entire list will be resorted based on GD valuation. Today there are 25 closeout domains with $2000+ GD valuations that people didn't buy at auction for even $12. And since I only grab my $11 closeout list a few hours after the auctions close, it means that they were not even grabbed in the first few hours of closeout at $11. So of them are fantastic gems that slipped through the cracks due to multiple factors including luck .. but some of them also didn't get purchased because they have no real chance of ever selling for a multiple that makes sense to hold as a domainer. Even if in the very rare chance it did sell, it could sell for the valuation price.
Hope that all made sense? lol
Nice post and good points.I already said that about brandables.
A domain could sell for X valuation, but it would be great to know how long it takes on average to sell it. This number is hard for AI to determine because of so many factors involved in how active the seller is trying to sell the domain. But if you have such a figure, you could weigh it against the amount of time you hold and see if it will be worth it in the long run against renewals.
To me: the higher the average sale of a keyword == the more demand == more likelihood your domain will sell == more valuation from GD. So it's all related.
Let's look at a case where there's less sales but a high sold price to see if it inflated the average keyword prices.
Take for example Aktien.de which sold at $750,000 and only 23 total sales for that keyword on NameBio.
Now if you try to appraise something like AktienBuy.com it's only at $1400 valuation since it somehow knows that combining both german and english isn't so good. So it takes into account similar keywords sales and language as well.
But aktienkaufen com is appraised nicely at the 4k mark.
So I do believe it's quite sensible and even if your domain keyword had a huge sale price $750,000 to inflate the keyword, it doesn't mean it will make it *too* valuable. It might even take the amount of sales into account as a variable to lower the value as well.
I know a name that Gd values at under 8k while in the similar sales portion showing that this name has sold for $15k+ before.
Go figure how the algorithm works.
Aktien.de sold for 750k but it values it at only $5760. I think it still needs work for non .com domains to be honest.
here are some valuable names per GD that no one has claimed yet:
telpremium.com $3,154
makercities.com $2,633
populationhealthtech.com $2,615
imlfx.com $2,402
brasilvisa.com $2.3K
thinkamyloid.com (What???) $2.3K
CentralBullionExchange.com $2.3K (really? who is exchanging bullions? If they do, how many potential end users would there be? Wouldn't they have better alternatives, if they are setting up multi-billion business?)
LoanSamaritan.com 2.3K - there are no loan samaritans. Period. Period again.
Feel free to grab any of the above
or all. You are welcome ))
Again though, the argument was for you to come up with the $2000 valuation name yourself. This way you'll see just how hard it is to find one that's avail to hand-reg and how rare they are.
Telpremium is so good. When I woke up to see this comment, it's already gone sadly.
Also there are some names like thinkamyloid that I saw before I dont understand at all. Very strange, so yes it's not at 100% accuracy for some names.
Central Bullion Exchange makes sense for a business idea, but like you said it's unrealistic. So I guess human judgement will need to come into play here as well.
LoanSamaritan is explainable though. Helping someone in need of a loan...