Domain appraisal

[MGDesigns]

Hi,

I have a few questions...

I was wondering what methods are used to appraise domain names?
How often domains sell for or above their appraisal price?

Thanks,
Moddy

 

[dotnom]

Well nearly everybody use a different set of criteria to judge
There are some basic as the popularity, type-in traffic, length, tld.... but i will tell you the most common everybody use

Their eyes
If a name compiles ok to each domainer's brain then it's ok

However there is a trap here. Domainers are professionals or at least they know a lot for this business
So if you try to get an estimate would be only an opinion and doesn't reflect the actual price you can get from an end-buyer

Also in many forums will say that your domain is worthless just because the user that place his post... doesn't own it
So take the appraisals as a trigger to discuss the opinions of people in the industry and not a bounding price range

"How often domains sell for or above their appraisal price?"
All the time

 

[MGDesigns]

Thank you dotnom, I find the whole process extremely interesting but very confusing at the same time.

 

[sanatana]

In my albeit limited experience, I find that professional domainers are similar to wine afficionados. For the most part, they value only the finest grapes and (sort of) poo-poo everything else.

I have all too often seen domains sell for magnitudes of what the "pros" felt they were worth. That doesn't invalidate the pros viewpoint, but it does confirm that there are alot of "less sophistciated" buyers out there.

Not offered as criticism..................only an observation.

 

[MGDesigns]

Thank you for your insight sanatana

 

[dotnom]

Thank you dotnom, I find the whole process extremely interesting but very confusing at the same time.

Not quite. Try to find buyers and ask their top bid. Any bid above your registration fee is a profit.

To have a jewel in your hands and don't know (so that you can loose if you sell it low) it is very rare

Additional help : if you have domains registered until 2003 you may try to search if they raised their value. If you have fresh registered domains will most likely fall into the rule above

 

[MGDesigns]

Thanks again dotnom

Few more questions if its ok?

How important is Page Ranking?
...unique hits?
...returning visitors?

 

[dotnom]

Returning visitors ?
This is the holy grail for all webmasters. If you offer something so good so that the visitor will return you have a loyal user. 200% important

unique hits ... good

pagerank good too but not associated with the search rank for your site in google