BrandBucket Experience

[xtremex]

hello

I am new to BrandBucket. Before getting my hands on this

I wish to experience about brandbucket from my fellow members


Thanks

 

[Grilled]

The algorithm will pick up on the keyword if it's in any part of the name. If someone searches the word Tech it will pick it up on keywords like technology, technical, technician, techie etc......Your name Tech/Trapper hits all 5 points. Tech is in the description, possible uses, categories and keywords plus has the keyword in the name. There are two things that are part of the algorithm that keeps you off of page one. Price and Length. You're pricing it at $1,995. Out of the 48 names on page one only 3 are priced under $2,000. Those 3 hit all five points like yours but are shorter in length. Length obviously plays an important role in placement.

Does the below example match up to your hypothesis regarding higher position if 'searched keyword' is in the domain?

Having said that I still do believe that in the higher searched categories that names are manually manipulated to some degree.

https://www.brandbucket.com/names/search=stack&page=6

As you can see, Sales/Rack (does not contain 'stack' in the domain) is positioned in front of (see below domains) for search=stack:

Ahead of below domains on page 6:

Ahead of below domains on page 7:

To be clear, I'm not screaming glitch or conspiracy (22/33 domains containing 'stack' positioned below Sales/Rack are staff/ambassador owned), just trying to gain a better understanding of the algorithm.

 

[Arca]

I have zero names listed at BB. Some very bright minds own and run the brandable marketplaces and by studying their systems and getting into their brains a bit it gives me a much better understanding of how the brandable market ticks, and in turn gives me an advantage when buying and selling brandable domains.

I don't really see how studying how BB's algorithm works has any benefits to you if you have zero names listed. Seems like that time could have been spent more profitably on other things. Care to share how all the time you spend analyzing how BB 'ticks' helps you buy/sell names outside BB?

IMO:

Loss of customer feedback = a missed opportunity to advance / stay on top.

Though, monetarily, I believe the current system to be in their best interest, so technically no immediate losses. The only real longterm impact would be if another company picked up on their shortfalls and gained market share.

But is seller retention a main priority? Because that's the main thing they are missing out on. No company is going to surpass BB in the brandable market space - there just isn't the inventory left for it. BB was built on hand regs. This space has been mined so heavily that the opportunity to hand reg good brandables has long since ended. Relatively few names show up on dnbolt that were recently hand regged. Slightly older, higher quality names outsell them by far. So little chance for hand regging left, and prices in auctions for brandables going through the roof, and it's very expensive to buy brandables. Brandsly is spending huge amounts of money on her inventory for her marketplace, but she is nowhere near BB's size, and will probably never be. BB preceded this major focus on acquiring brandable names that we see these days, with all other marketplaces (brandroot, namerific, branddo, etc) pretty much just copying their model. No other marketplace will ever be as well positioned as BB was to dominate this niche, so it's going to be incredibly hard for anyone to overtake them. So they are probably not going to lose out on their position as #1 brandable marketplace. But they are going to lose more and more sellers the way they are operating these days, so that seems to be one of the main things at stake - however, it may not be a big priority for them at this point, and not really something they consider a "loss".

 

[hookbox]

Does the below example match up to your hypothesis regarding higher position if 'searched keyword' is in the domain?



https://www.brandbucket.com/names/search=stack&page=6

As you can see, Sales/Rack (does not contain 'stack' in the domain) is positioned in front of (see below domains) for search=stack:

Ahead of below domains on page 6:
Show attachment 52154
Ahead of below domains on page 7:
Show attachment 52155
To be clear, I'm not screaming glitch or conspiracy (22/33 domains containing 'stack' positioned below Sales/Rack are staff/ambassador owned), just trying to gain a better understanding of the algorithm.

To me it seems like the only reason it shows up is because of the ACK ending and the keyword Stack listed in the keywords section plus the high price of $12,995 is the main reason it shows up at all in this search which is why I say that pricing is a huge part of the algorithm. IMHO I don't think this was manually placed. Why manually place something on page six. Doesn't make sense to me. To be honest I'm not even sure if I am answering the correct question.

 

[Grilled]

To me it seems like the only reason it shows up is because of the ACK ending and the keyword Stack listed in the keywords section plus the high price of $12,995 is the main reason it shows up at all in this search which is why I say that pricing is a huge part of the algorithm.

This makes a lot of sense as the high value domains that typically fall after Sales/Rack aren't there for search="stack' as they do in search =an&page=31.

I had first assumed that there were no domains containing 'an' included after page 31 for search=an but that assumption was proven incorrect when scrolling to the last page (search=an&page=654). Plenty of domains that contain 'an' are on the last page search=an.


Price, Length, Categories, Keywords, Exact match, must all have different weights instructing their algo not to automatically place domains containing 'searched keyword' over domains that are related in description, but doesn't contain 'searched keyword' in the domain.

IMHO I don't think this was manually placed. Why manually place something on page six. Doesn't make sense to me. To be honest I'm not even sure if I am answering the correct question.

I agree, in not thinking Sales/Rack was manually placed. I used this domain as a study reference because it is positioned highly throughout. Price and what not must play a huge factor in positioning this domain.

 

[hookbox]

This makes a lot of sense as the high value domains that typically fall after Sales/Rack aren't there for search="stack' as they do in search =an&page=31.

I had first assumed that there were no domains containing 'an' included after page 31 for search=an but that assumption was proven incorrect when scrolling to the last page (search=an&page=654). Plenty of domains that contain 'an' are on the last page search=an.
Show attachment 52158

Price, Length, Categories, Keywords, Exact match, must all have different weights instructing their algo not to automatically place domains containing 'searched keyword' over domains that are related in description, but doesn't contain 'searched keyword' in the domain.

I just ran a search for ACK on BB. In the number two slot is SalesRack. In the number one slot would be the partial exact match Ackox. So we know it weights pricing at a high level and reads partial keywords in the search function. It puts Ackox at number one because it believes ACK is an actual keyword so lands it in the number one slot since it has no exact competition.

 

[Grilled]

But is seller retention a main priority? Because that's the main thing they are missing out on. No company is going to surpass BB in the brandable market space - there just isn't the inventory left for it. BB was built on hand regs. This space has been mined so heavily that the opportunity to hand reg good brandables has long since ended. Relatively few names show up on dnbolt that were recently hand regged. Slightly older, higher quality names outsell them by far. So little chance for hand regging left, and prices in auctions for brandables going through the roof, and it's very expensive to buy brandables. Brandsly is spending huge amounts of money on her inventory for her marketplace, but she is nowhere near BB's size, and will probably never be. BB preceded this major focus on acquiring brandable names that we see these days, with all other marketplaces (brandroot, namerific, branddo, etc) pretty much just copying their model. No other marketplace will ever be as well positioned as BB was to dominate this niche, so it's going to be incredibly hard for anyone to overtake them. So they are probably not going to lose out on their position as #1 brandable marketplace. But they are going to lose more and more sellers the way they are operating these days, so that seems to be one of the main things at stake - however, it may not be a big priority for them at this point, and not really something they consider a "loss".

I suppose I could rant off my "I have a dream" speech how there's powers in numbers and equality, but without development, I'm not sure what effect it'll have. As much as I'd like to disagree with your conclusions, it's hard to ignore the facts and valid points you bring up. I appreciate your perspective, thank you for the enlightenment.

 

[Grilled]

I just ran a search for ACK on BB. In the number two slot is SalesRack. In the number one slot would be the partial exact match Ackox. So we know it weights pricing at a high level and reads partial keywords in the search function. It puts Ackox at number one because it believes ACK is an actual keyword so lands it in the number one slot since it has no exact competition.

If you search with just a - you'll see which names are positioned first. These domains are typically heavily weighed for their given descriptions / etc in both searches and organic categories linked by search engines.

https://www.brandbucket.com/names/search=-

 

[boker]

I don't really see how studying how BB's algorithm works has any benefits to you if you have zero names listed. Seems like that time could have been spent more profitably on other things. Care to share how all the time you spend analyzing how BB 'ticks' helps you buy/sell names outside BB?

But is seller retention a main priority? Because that's the main thing they are missing out on. No company is going to surpass BB in the brandable market space - there just isn't the inventory left for it. BB was built on hand regs. This space has been mined so heavily that the opportunity to hand reg good brandables has long since ended. Relatively few names show up on dnbolt that were recently hand regged. Slightly older, higher quality names outsell them by far. So little chance for hand regging left, and prices in auctions for brandables going through the roof, and it's very expensive to buy brandables. Brandsly is spending huge amounts of money on her inventory for her marketplace, but she is nowhere near BB's size, and will probably never be. BB preceded this major focus on acquiring brandable names that we see these days, with all other marketplaces (brandroot, namerific, branddo, etc) pretty much just copying their model. No other marketplace will ever be as well positioned as BB was to dominate this niche, so it's going to be incredibly hard for anyone to overtake them. So they are probably not going to lose out on their position as #1 brandable marketplace. But they are going to lose more and more sellers the way they are operating these days, so that seems to be one of the main things at stake - however, it may not be a big priority for them at this point, and not really something they consider a "loss".

First of all, the main reason for selling lately more older names it's because they have changed the search algorithm so that they will advantage older names, because the owners of names listed 7-8 years ago were complaining that the old names are buried at the end of the search. Second, there are still hand regs that could be valuable as brandables, there are tens of millions of combinations, so it's hard to think that you can not find other 50k names that could be valued over 2k. From 13 submissions from last week in my case, all hand regged, 4 were accepted, 2 of them with recommended price between 3k and 4k. Third, brandroot has around 13k names I think, so with a shift of 10-15k names from BB to BR, they will have the same number of names, but BR has around 4% sales. Fourth, brandsly average portofolio value it's way higher than BB, BR and NR, but with smaller portofolio. It doesn't take a lot to change the trend and after that it will be way harder to stop the change.

 

[Grilled]

But is seller retention a main priority?

Sales inequality (added to my response after your response) IMO should be a priority to them as it relates to seller retention. IE if a handful of people are making mid to high XX% of sales leaving the majority of sellers with low to mid XX% of sales, it will lead to unequally distributed profits, thus causing those who aren't making sales to drop or sell their domains cheap just to cover renewals. Rinse and repeat, and without change, the inequality will continue to grow...

I believe the reseller market has been a big factor to BB's growth. They are technically in scale one of the best appraisal services for brandable domains. If it's bb approved, it must be good was the way of thinking for a number of years. Now that the reseller market is changing, it'll be interesting to see how all this plays out over the next few years.

 

[Haykay2005]

Whoever thinks no company can surpass BB is fooling himself. Time will tell

 

[Arca]

Whoever thinks no company can surpass BB is fooling himself. Time will tell

No marketplace with a strict focus on brandables will surpass BB. Just isn’t the inventory available for it. While BB can be quite uneven in what they accept and list, they are far more focused than any other brandable marketplace, and the vast majority of their names are indeed what is considered "brandable domains".

Namerific is no longer a brandable marketplace in my view. They accept any kind of name now, not just brandables, so they have simply become a domain marketplace with logos, not a brandable one. Here are some of their listed names:

JetBoatRepair.com
MotoWorkshop.com
Loan2Rescue.com
2G0.com
801213.com
838384.com
Cooper-tition.com
Md23.com
Learn2Travel.com
4KRV.com
Shirts4men.com
Hookah4Less.com
Ski-Rentals.com

Are these brandable domains? No, they are not.

Any marketplace that exclusively focuses on the kinds of names you see on BB is going to have an incredibly hard time surpassing BB. The brandable hand reg gold rush ended a long time ago. Limited inventory available at GD/NJ/drop for such names + expensive prices for names that do come up for auction are significant bottlenecks to expansion in this domain niche.

 

[Abdillahi Abdillahi]

No marketplace with a strict focus on brandables will surpass BB. Just isn’t the inventory available for it. While BB can be quite uneven in what they accept and list, they are far more focused than any other brandable marketplace, and the vast majority of their names are indeed what is considered "brandable domains".

Namerific is no longer a brandable marketplace in my view. They accept any kind of name now, not just brandables, so they have simply become a domain marketplace with logos, not a brandable one. Here are some of their listed names:

JetBoatRepair.com
MotoWorkshop.com
Loan2Rescue.com
2G0.com
801213.com
838384.com
Cooper-tition.com
Md23.com
Learn2Travel.com
4KRV.com
Shirts4men.com
Hookah4Less.com
Ski-Rentals.com

Are these brandable domains? No, they are not.

Any marketplace that exclusively focuses on the kinds of names you see on BB is going to have an incredibly hard time surpassing BB. The brandable hand reg gold rush ended a long time ago. Limited inventory available at GD/NJ/drop for such names + expensive prices for names that do come up for auction are significant bottlenecks to expansion in this domain niche.

Arca, I am not following your argument really of no names available and also no marketplace to challenge BB. You do understand that there are many sellers with huge names on BB who left ? Even last week one left with 1000 plus names. Now are you telling me if a company provides equal and great service then that seller wont submit his names ?

The real inventory are the sellers. They have the names that didnt get the chance to sell on BB so a new marketplace could be flooded instantly by such names. Now...who needs to handreg to start building a marketplace inventory ?

 

[Arca]

I am not following your argument really of no names available

I didn’t say there are no names available at all. But the time of consistently being able to hand reg decent brandables is pretty much over (you might get lucky once in a while), and good brandables coming up for auction each day is quite limited. And those don’t go for cheap. The hand-reg driven growth BB have pursued (together with a healthy dose of auction bought names at much lower prices than now) is not possible to replicate for a newcomer, in my opinion.

You do understand that there are many sellers with huge names on BB who left ?

Roughly how many sellers/domains?

It's also important to consider: Why did they leave? Assuming they were disillusioned with marketplace model BB offers, are most of these sellers now actively looking to list their names with yet another brandable marketplace? (who offer pretty much the same model as BB. What's the point of doing that?)

I can only speak for myself, but when I stopped growing my BB portfolio, it was because I wanted to pursue more sustainable and self-sufficient domain sales strategy. The last thing I would want to do is to get involved in a dependent relationship with another brandable marketplace, where my results hinges on the decision of their owners.

My non-BB brandable portfolio is larger than my BB portfolio of brandables by now, but those names are not going to be listed for sale on another brandable marketplace in the future. It's not something I have even considered. I have not talked to BB sellers who say they want to remove their names from BB, and then go list them with other brandable marketplaces instead. They all say they want to build their own marketplace/use efty/list with Afternic/Sedo.

I don't think it's valid to assume that most of the names that have been, and are going to be, removed from BB will be listed with a new BB competitor in the future. Yes, a lot of names have been removed from BB, but that doesn't automatically make them easily "available inventory" for a new marketplace.

Now are you telling me if a company provides equal and great service then that seller wont submit his names ?

Do you mean “equal and great service” to BrandBucket? I think to even be considered, it would have to be an entirely different fee/commission/review model, different exclusivity terms, more control over pricing, no unfair rating system, no listings by owners to avoid conflict of interest, etc.

The real inventory are the sellers. They have the names that didnt get the chance to sell on BB so a new marketplace could be flooded instantly by such names. Now...who needs to handreg to start building a marketplace inventory ?

Yes, and for that reason no other marketplace will ever be as well positioned as BB was to dominate this niche. Didn’t someone mention a few pages back that BB has like 10000 sellers in total? A few very large portfolio holders, most of who built the majority of their portfolio with hand regs, and a ton of tiny portfolio holders, and in that range it's also heavily dominanted by hand regs.

So what you are suggesting is essentially that the brandable marketplace that will surpass BB in the future don't really depend on the availability of decent brandables that can be hand regged, since they can build their inventory with BB rejected names and the removed portfolio's of disillusioned BB sellers?

 

[Brandworthy]

Yes, and for that reason no other marketplace will ever be as well positioned as BB was to dominate this niche.

The inbuilt assumption is that only hand-reg names can support this particular market model. With ~35% of average transaction going to the marketplace I suspect that commentary is fairly representative of reality. But let's say the rules change - we've seen that Undeveloped.com has a viable model with just 15% commissions, albeit they are not focused on this narrow niche. I think that leaves space for some disruption to the BB model that could fundamentally change the competitive landscape. From what I can see there's increasing demand from sellers for something new. Platforms like Efty are probably highlighting one possible direction things may go, although I doubt they will ever be viable for a pure brandable marketplace. However, there's lots of potential positioning for something to disrupt what's there now IMO.

Sellers will go where the returns are. There is virtually no loyalty in this sector.

 

[Sinh]

Any new sales updated?

 

[4pm]

i can see a lot of BB members selling their listed domains here... the question is if i buy from them but do not want to keep the name at BB (i dont even have an account with them and am not planning to) will that damage their account status?
i dont want to wait for 30 days or whatever BB requires for them to remove their listings without infractions as per BB rules as i understand them.
so do the sellers only sell to other BB members and require them to keep sold names in their BB accounts or they just dont care about BB going after them?

i as a buyer have no obligation to keep a name at BB since i'm not a member there.
but how do sellers cope with that?
selling only to other BB members is drastically limiting the number of potential buyers when you need to dump your stuff fast to resellers on NP, isn't it?

anyone care to explain that to me please

 

[Nerevar]

Sellers who care about their BB standing will not sell to those buyers who do not have a BB account. They state it clearly on their auction descriptions. When you bid on their auctions, by doing so you accept their auction rules and thus claim that you have a BB account. If you do not have one, the bid will not be valid and there might even be a Namepros forum infraction issued to you. It is the seller's responsibility to ensure that the name ends up on another BB account and not given to a non-seller.

Sellers who do not care about their BB standing for some reason (e.g. because they are closing their BB account or leaving domaining) will sell to anyone. Once you have bought names in an auction without prerequisites, seller's BB standing are is not your problem.

At least this is how I see things

 

[Justin Matmor]

Based on your scenario if a BB seller sells you a 'published' domain and you don't list it on BB the seller will be required to pay BB 30% commission based on the BB listed price plus the logo fee.

The only way to avoid paying BB commission is if the seller gives BB 30 days notice intending to remove the name from BB.

 

[Nerevar]

This is why many sellers push the name to buyer's BB account first, and only after seeing that the name has left their account do the registrar push / transfer. This is the right sequence to protect yourself.

 

[boker]

i can see a lot of BB members selling their listed domains here... the question is if i buy from them but do not want to keep the name at BB (i dont even have an account with them and am not planning to) will that damage their account status?
i dont want to wait for 30 days or whatever BB requires for them to remove their listings without infractions as per BB rules as i understand them.
so do the sellers only sell to other BB members and require them to keep sold names in their BB accounts or they just dont care about BB going after them?

i as a buyer have no obligation to keep a name at BB since i'm not a member there.
but how do sellers cope with that?
selling only to other BB members is drastically limiting the number of potential buyers when you need to dump your stuff fast to resellers on NP, isn't it?

anyone care to explain that to me please

You can buy anything that it's accepted, but not listed. If the domain its just accepted, there is no contract between seller and BB for that name yet.