poll As a buyer on a scale of 0 to 10 how important is the value assigned by an automated appraisal

[equity78]

Estibot and GoDaddy are the two dominant forces in the automated appraisal space, there are some other players in the game as well. No matter which service is providing the value, how much weight do you give to these services when making a purchase?

 

[Rich]

I don't identify as a buyer, but if I did, somewhere in the 0-1 range because I'm going to low ball them anyway. Now you want to talk about the seller side, I will quote that price every time it exceeds my BIN/asking price.

 

[dirk]

I've been buying domains as an end-user for as long as I can remember and I have never ever used an appraisal whatsoever.

 

[pb]

0, obviously. It's just a toy. But Akinator is more fun.

 

[wurdd]

Ray, could you add an 11 to the poll for me?

 

[Hypersot]

As a domainer-buyer I would choose 0

If was to go back in time however, when I had absolutely no idea about domains, then my choice would be 9-10.

 

[Samer]

0. Dont let the machine do the thinking for you.

Samer

 

[biggie]

Hi

on namejet,
doesn't matter how much weight you give it "personally"....
it's the other bidders who see the bot value posted right there below the name and if they believe in the bot, then they may bid prices up to and over such amounts.

ie: like when trump said to drink disinfectants, then some folks actually did it.

there is a significant portion of the population who are gullible enough to rely on, and make decisions, based on insufficient information.

and those would be people who use such tools exclusively, to make domain purchases.

imo...

 

[Anne L.]

Zero.

I look at Keywords Volume (SEO-intuitive domains) and Google Trends (for emerging trends) instead - unless they're brandables.

 

[enterscope]

It's important for me to gain as much information as possible when buying a domain, so I will use the appraisal tools as an added variable. I know that appraisals generally undervalue domains and if there is some value to the automated appraisal, then it's worth something.

 

[karmaco]

I look at it but it has no bearing on my desire to obtain a name or selling price.

 

[Peak.Domains]

0, and when people approach me with names for sale and they cite some inflated bot value, it detracts from the amount I'm willing to pay, it's a strike against them because I just assume they're trying to bamboozle me. It hurts the credibility of the seller, in my eyes, to cite ridiculous automated valuations.

Also, it signals to me that they have very unrealistic expectations, so there are times I won't even bother making an offer on a name I otherwise may have been interested in. Now that I think of it, this happens fairly often. There was an okay 4L listed here the other day, but the seller made a huge deal out of pretending it was a real word, talking about how they think it's worth 5 figures etc, so they kind of shot themselves in the foot in terms of getting an offer from me. Which is fine, if they genuinely only wanted xx,xxx for it then it saves us all some time - but if they were just trying to pump the name up, it had the opposite effect.

There have been plenty of names I've been interested in but if someone's telling me they think their 3 week old handreg is worth $2000 according to this or that, it's hard to even get to the table.

So, I guess I actually assign negative value, less than 0.

Just my 0.02, tho.

Edit: I hope the results here are eye-opening from a seller's point of view, nobody cares about these tools except the registrars who sell a bunch of janky domains to newbies who think they can turn $8 into $2000 because some robot told them so.

 

[Samer]

0, and when people approach me with names for sale and they cite some inflated bot value, it detracts from the amount I'm willing to pay, it's a strike against them because I just assume they're trying to bamboozle me. It hurts the credibility of the seller, in my eyes, to cite ridiculous automated valuations.

Also, it signals to me that they have very unrealistic expectations, so there are times I won't even bother making an offer on a name I otherwise may have been interested in. Now that I think of it, this happens fairly often. There was an okay 4L listed here the other day, but the seller made a huge deal out of pretending it was a real word, talking about how they think it's worth 5 figures etc, so they kind of shot themselves in the foot in terms of getting an offer from me. Which is fine, if they genuinely only wanted xx,xxx for it then it saves us all some time - but if they were just trying to pump the name up, it had the opposite effect.

There have been plenty of names I've been interested in but if someone's telling me they think their 3 week old handreg is worth $2000 according to this or that, it's hard to even get to the table.

So, I guess I actually assign negative value, less than 0.

Just my 0.02, tho.

Edit: I hope the results here are eye-opening from a seller's point of view, nobody cares about these tools except the registrars who sell a bunch of janky domains to newbies who think they can turn $8 into $2000 because some robot told them so.

Post of the year. Just my 0.02. Well said!

Samer

 

[wurdd]

I love it when a tire kicker responds, "That's ridiculous, the estibot fair market value of this domain is $XXX!"

Truly makes my day. I love appraisals. Check 11 for me.

 

[7363824]

I don't identify as a buyer, but if I did, somewhere in the 0-1 range because I'm going to low ball them anyway. Now you want to talk about the seller side, I will quote that price every time it exceeds my BIN/asking price.

Personally I won't even do that. Instead I quote real comparable sales from Namebio, specifically ones that are clearly not wholesale so I often sort from sale from Afternic or BuyDomains ect.

PS There are 6 people (as of now) who have not taken this poll seriously and said something other than 0....

 

[D Haynes]

Hi

on namejet,
doesn't matter how much weight you give it "personally"....
it's the other bidders who see the bot value posted right there below the name and if they believe in the bot, then they may bid prices up to and over such amounts.

ie: like when trump said to drink disinfectants, then some folks actually did it.

there is a significant portion of the population who are gullible enough to rely on, and make decisions, based on insufficient information.

and those would be people who use such tools exclusively, to make domain purchases.

imo...

Thats natural selection at work in front of our very eyes.

 

[DomainRecap]

The specific dollar value - 0

The relative ranking of the domain - 7

For example, if you ran a Stock Market-like game on GD auctions, and I picked 100 domains with valuations of $5K or greater, and you selected 100 domains valued at less than $1K, I can guarantee mine will sell for far more in the open market than yours ever will.

The individual dollar values are spurious, but I always keep an eye on where the domains rank on the relative scale.

 

[pb]

The specific dollar value - 0

The relative ranking of the domain - 7

For example, if you ran a Stock Market-like game on GD auctions, and I picked 100 domains with valuations of $5K or greater, and you selected 100 domains valued at less than $1K, I can guarantee mine will sell for far more in the open market than yours ever will.

The individual dollar values are spurious, but I always keep an eye on where the domains rank on the relative scale.

Your example does not in any way relate to the original question. Sure, if I browse a list of crapthousand drops, sorting by appraisal value can be handy. But if I want to buy a specific domain, I don't care if it's auto-valued at $0 or $10000. All I care is how much I feel it's worth for me and for how much the current owner is willing to part with it. Any side of the transaction using bot's appraisal as a leverage would be laughable.

 

[DomainRecap]

Your example does not in any way relate to the original question.

Well I would counter that the original question is insipid and self-serving.

Anyone who believes that every currency-based domain valuation will be exactly spot-on when it's resold is insane, 100% nuts, and is probably still looking for the Easter Rabbit. I'm getting tired of these stupid questions that are expressly designed to elicit a negative response.

The rational and logical answer to the question will always be 0, so why ask it?

Rather than rehash the same crap, when anyone with an IQ over 2 already knows that any domain valuation system is inherently inexact, I was attempting to demonstrate that valuations can still be useful if you stop ruminating on every single dollar, and instead look at the bigger picture.

 

[DomainRecap]

Another example of how domain valuations can some in handy.

I had a set of domains I was bidding on, and just to be sure, I ran them through the GD tool. One was a longer foreign word I was familiar with, but it got a "less than $100" result, and turned out to be a slight misspell.

That probably saved me some cash, and while everyone should logically ignore the *exact* dollar value, I have found these to be incredibly useful on other ways.

In another example both GD and Estibot screwed up on a domain I'm going after, rating it around $200, and it's obvious they were unable to separate the 2 words properly. Ooops.

So no system can ever be perfect, even for basic ratings, but I'd rather have them available to me than not.

 

[bmugford]

0.

While tools like Estibot might be good for sorting large lists of domains, I don't put any stock in the actual appraisal value as a buyer or a seller.

Brad

 

[OnlineBusiness.com]

As a buyer it’s valuable as it gives me a starting point for my research.

And as a seller probably the same.

But ultimately pricing domains for max selling price is a bit of art and a whole lot of luck...at least that’s my experience.

 

[YairDD]

0-.

 

[mrm_1]

I use GoDaddy only to see comparable sales, Estibot also provide nice info except price.

 

[Robin Hablani]

Appraisal tools just give me an idea of the value of a domain... Then I start analysing further and realise that they overrated the domain...