Buying and selling of estibot valuations

Hey all,

I've been looking recently at getting into domain flipping though normally cant find the right domains for sale. Normally there is no margin for profit going off estibot valuations.

I've just tracked down a one word .com domain (original owner) and have agreed a potential price.

The domain is over 20yrs old, one word, gets 49.5k exact searches per month and according to estibot has a value that is x5 higher than what I can purchase it for.

Is it unrealistic of me to think I could flip this for x3 my buying price which would be half of the estibot valuation.

Essentially my question is, when you guys purchase, do you ever use estibot valuations as a guide for how to price your domains?

 

Never use automated domain appraisals tools. (Godaddy, Valuate, Estibot etc) Its like picking a figure out of a hat. Its the biggest mistake new domainers make in this industry.

 

What you can use the tools for is to appraise the traffic value searches etc previous names sold . You can disregard everything or you can use the information provided just don't let the price be everything about it.

 

So how would you put a value on a one word dictionary domain? I dont want to reveal the domain yet but its good, and I wouldn't have used estibot if it was a low value one, i.e. $,$$$ but only because its a high end $$,$$$

 

How long is your piece of string as worth between reg fee and above the number you quote if a desirable keyword.

 

Not really sure what you mean.

I get estibot should be ignored for low value domains as it will give value to anything even if its worth nothing.

But when it values a domain at say $100k, you're saying completely ignore it rather than it would sell for at least a certain percentage?

I would have assumed a $100k domain value from estibot would be worth at least 25k etc. Maybe this is why so many domains for sale on platforms dont sell.

 

Is it 100k at estibot or is that a build to arguement? If 100k yes it isn't likely rubbish.

 

Just under.

 

What is cpc and how many broad and exact searches?

 

No.

 

No one can tell you anything without knowing the domain name. You have to understand that.

Discussing estibot valuations and search volume is useless. Estibot is garbage and often puts out fake info (for example youtbe will have billions of searches according to estibot)

We cannot help you if you don't want to share the name and price.

 

Thanks but I'm having it valued professionally now.

 

As mentioned above, one very common mistake new domain investors make is to try value domains using automated valuators. They all use a one-size-fits-all system, applied equally to all domains being valuated. They apply the same algorithm/s to a brandable with no searches, as they do to a domain with tons of searches. According to those algorithms the brandable may show up with an almost worthless valuation... and the keyword domain with searches may show up with a huge valuation.

Now for the reality: that brandable domain may be very, very valuable, even if it has little or no searches or other metrics going for it; and that keyword domain may be almost worthless, because it may be a term that gets tons of searches and have other good metrics going for it... but is simply not the kind of domain any end user would purchase, use, pay a high $ for.

Forget the automated appraisals, they are wildly inaccurate. Also note: there are many, many systems offering domain appraisals these days (automated), and they all create their own algorithms! So one auto-appraiser may give a $200 value to your domain, another might give $2500, and another might give $15K. And they are changing their systems all the time, so next month each valuator might give you a much different appraisal.

Also, don't pay for any human appraisal. There's simply no point - you'll pay for one person's opinion, or maybe a small 'panel' of two or three people, who say they are experienced. And they might be, but they are also giving you an appraisal based on what works for them.

If you already own a domain, best to simply put it up for appraisal here. You have a wide field of domainers to listen to, from newbies with no sales, to sellers who dabble, to sellers who do well enough to make this their sole income source (that's my own category, btw), to some sellers who are wealthy and sell mainly premium domains. And it's all for free

The most important part: it is way, way too early for you to be investing in expensive domains. If you don't even know a rough value of a domain and have to think about auto-appraisals, or paid human appraisals... you're going to lose a lot of money. I have seen a lot, a LOT, of people start domaining with a big chunk of money - thousands $, even tens of thousands $ or more... and totally blow that money on bad domain decisions. Just because you pay a lot for a domain, and the auto- and human appraisers say it is worth a lot, does not mean you will ever sell that domain for a lot. Or that you will sell it EVER. Or that you will sell it even for what you paid for it.

You need more time. You need to really study domains, before you throw away a lot of cash into them. Here's what I say to newbies who have a lot of money to invest in domains:

It doesn't matter if you're rich and you can afford big money to purchase domains; it is unwise for ANY wealthy person to throw money away on investments you don't yet have a clear understanding of. First, educate yourself, get a very clear understanding of how domains are valued, what kinds of sell-through rate there are depending on the kinds of domains you buy/sell, what kind of ROI you can realistically hope for (not 'get', but 'hope for', because there's no sure thing in domaining, except that you can lose a lot of money if you domain unwisely). To sum it all up:

'Experiment small', rather than experimenting with big bucks. Right now you are dabbling and experimenting; don't make huge mistakes. Take small steps, learn from the many small mistakes you make (and you will make them, even with small domain purchases). When you've got a lot of learning and mistakes under your belt... you'll be glad you saved all your cash, so you can then make much wiser investments with your larger expenditures... LATER.

Hope that helps

 

It helps a lot. As for experience, it's new with premium domains but not with small.

I'm confident on value but as its a first big purchase... you have the fear of getting it wrong.

I did speak to someone senior at dan, and they gave me their estimate which was in the region I was thinking so that was reassuring.

As for posting it on here, I don't want to do that before its purchased as someone else could track down the owner and buy it themselves.

Its not listed online for sale.

Thank you very much for the detailed response. Is appreciated @Bannen

 

&&&& - make sure, if you are spending a decent amount of $, you are looking at the domain history: Previous owner, site/content, is it BLACKLISTED, etc..

DomainIQ, NameBio, Archive.org, SEO tools you trust, etc.

 

you can easily find out if this is really a killer,
check in how much tlds this domain is registered,
if it is above 20 you are good,
if it's above 100, order a bottle of champagne when you get the domain

i just checked on two dictionnary words domains, and it gave me 37 and 221
just go to dotdb/com and check it

 

100

 

Did you pay to get this appraisal? Come on now. Place minimum emphasis on automatic appraisals —DONT LET MACHINE THINK FOR YOU

 

No dont depend on Estibot please!
There are several auto appraisal tools most famous are: Godaddy appraisal, Estibot and NameWorth.

Now try all of these 3 to valuate your domain and you will find big difference between them. My question is which one of these 3 you think is correct?

I have domains that have high GD value but 0 Estibot, I have domains that are the opposite very high Estibot and low Godaddy, I have a name that is valued at $300,000 at NameWorth but only $8000 at Godaddy.

I think you got my point.

 

Find one or two of the best heads here on NP, there's around 10 or 12 around - ASK them first via PM if they would be willing to give an opinion ( Don't base best-heads on Likes or posts - just sales history)

These guys wont try to trip you up - I'm sure you'll find some 'Willing direction'
Be magnanimous in your approach and willingness to listen

 

Estibot is counting search terms. So it is accepted if high price domains valued by Estibot have a good value. But not all high search keywords are high demand, some keywords heavily search because scandal, and the keywords have good value in Estibot.

Domaining is complex. If you see Mike Mann Domains, some are have low values in Estibot but he can sell the domains for a whoping price. It means search is not the only thing to consider in domain value.

If you have tried some online valuator, some domains those are valuated high on Estibot, valuated low on other valuator like Godaddy Aprraisal, Domain Index, Name Worth or other. Every valuator has it owns algorithm.

The conclution is, valuator is good to use, but we can't count the value of domains from a valuator.

 

I ditched Estibot as a valuation filter quite a while ago. Let's be clear, online estimators are somewhat unreliable. All you can use them for is to filter out the worst of the names in your search. But estibot is now so unreliable as to be worthless. It was even mentioned as such recently on a DomainSherpas discussion, having been a DomainSherpas sponsor just a few years ago. It values high premium domains, for instance, for next to nothing in too many instances. But it does the opposite too. Its algorithms are so far out of date as to be useless.

Do your own research. Value it for yourself based upon that research.

As you don't even own it yet you have to do your own research. Our guesses without a name to go by can't even give you reasonable guidance.

 

Estibot is worthless lol. It takes the average of NB sailz... which would be reliable, to tell you the truth... if NB could distinguish between aftermarket acquisitions by domainers and investors vs. legit end user sales.

Often, end user sales are not reported because, understandably, they happen privately or through some kind of escrow. For example, Dan doesn't automatically report its sales, and that's awesome of them to respect our privacy.

To determine a domain's value... it's something that requires either industry knowledge in that field or actual domaining experience. Some people never even try to pinpoint a price, but rather "wing it" by keeping their domains in "make offer" then being surprised at large fish that bite. I've seen lots of people with the PRO badge with that kind of story... they had no idea, then they put make offer, then suddenly a five-figure inquiry comes in and they're like, "wOAj!"

 

Wow. I thought trying to outdo all other contributors by blinding them with hideous text and colour or outshouting them had died eight or ten years ago at least. @Jv1999 your moniker dates you well but I'm still not going to try to read that purple monstrosity.

 

The ones that don't like estibot will religiously look at same data on other sites to determine the cpc value. Eg seo performance.