It's interesting. I'll be testing it some more, maybe come up with a few more comments. I'm not a fan of auto-appraisers, but I do appreciate some of the things they do. I'll mention some of those, see if any of this helps you out:
-- I do like the appraisers that collate a variety of information about the domain. In fact, I use appraisers for that more than for the actual appraisals themselves. It's so much more handy and time-saving to get the most info I can at one stop, rather than having to visit five or ten different sites to get all the info I want. So:
a) an appraisal range is okay (I know, this is actually a must-have, since it's actually an appraisal site);
b) a list of other extensions taken (many sites do this, I use DotDB);
c) any past sales (with amount, year sold, and venue) of that exact keyword/phrase (I use Namebio for this; Godaddy appraisor tool used to show some past sales but they've removed this);
d) any search engine metrics, like SERP results numbers, monthly search numbers (I use Goog for this);
That's the basics for me. I know people like a whole list of other things, like lead suggestions (mining actual company names and email addies), ad information (CPC, competitors, etc), trademarks, a whole list of other info. I know that much of that would be beyond you as you would have to pay for access to that info... which in turn would mean you would have to BE paid by us, in some way.
Still, the takeaway here is that
the more stats you can include with each appraisal, the better. Each stat you include means one less other website we have to go to in order to find the same stats.
A couple things that seem to be well done with your AI:
-- I tried to 'trip it up' by entering a few less-obvious domains. You know, domains that AI would have to do a little more 'thinking' about, ha ha. For the most part, your AI seemed to figure it out quite well. I'll give those examples below.
-- I also liked the larger valuation ranges. I've always thought it's pretty slim when auto-appraisers just shoot out a number. The whole domain game is about ranges. Shooting out a number just confuses end users and gives them false info. You know, if they want my domain, then they find an auto-appraiser for it and it spits out $2,950... if I'm asking 5K, the end user thinks I'm ripping them off; if I'm asking 1.6K, the end user thinks they're getting a great price; and in either case, they may be wrong. But if the auto-appraiser spits out a wide range (which is the only accurate way to do it, really), then that gives a lot more leeway between resellers and end users to negotiate with. If I'm asking 5K for that domain, and they visit your tool and it says a range of 3K - 10K... that's much easier to work with than if they visit another tool that appraises my domain at $2,950.
-- I also liked the suggested uses your AI found for the domains I tested. An AI tool can look at so much more info than my own brain can look at, and it does so instantly. So it can mine a lot more possibilities from the net than I can simply by searching Goog myself.
I may enter some of my more obvious, normal names another time, but at the moment, since this is AI after all, I wanted to see just how smart your AI is and whether I could stymie it. Here's a few of my domains that I tried to flub up your appraisal tool with:
Middl (dotcom) - being the final letter short of 'middle', I wondered how an obvious typo would be treated. Your AI was not stymied and clearly saw it as a brandable of middle. It gave a value range of 5K - 50K. I mentioned that I do like ranges... but perhaps some ranges are a bit TOO wide... still, since it's technically a typo, but of a very common word, and it's short and attractive... your AI had no choice but to leave a larger than usual range variation. I guess. This is where including other extensions taken might help aid your AI bot in boosting valuations a bit. For example, 'middl' is taken in 38 extensions, which makes it a pretty strong term.
PetFuel (dotcom) - I wanted to put two unlikely words together to see if your AI could figure out what the heck 'fuel' had to do with 'pets'. But it saw right through that immediately, and suggested that this would be a good name for some service or product providing 'energy or nutrition to pets'. Gave a value range of 5K - 10K. Much tighter range than the name above, the kind of range I feel is just about right. Note that this name did sell for 10.5K about 10 years ago. Such prior sales (found mine through Namebio) are nice to see, when I'm getting appraisals for a name I might want to bid for at auction (which is how I bought this one a couple years ago).
OutTheMud (dotcom) - this one tripped up your AI. But then, it trips up all the auto-appraisers. "Out the mud" is pretty much an anthem in the rap/hip hop world, for raising yourself up to success by hard work. DotDB shows 3 pages of domains that use this in their domain strings. Dozens or hundreds of companies built around this term. Huge term, but niche. I didn't expect your bot to 'get it' with this domain, but then no bot has ever gotten it, ha ha. Very very niche slang. And your appraisal range was $500 - 2K. However, though your AI think tank didn't pick up just how popular this term is in its niche... it did pick up some info from the engines, obviously, as your appraisal says: "The phrase might attract a specific audience searching for content related to motivation or success stories."
So this term had mixed results. Not a success, but not a total failure either.
Envolver (dotcom) - I wanted to see how your bot would treat an unusual non-English language term. Not only that, but a term that is not particularly common in that language's usage... but has become a common word for another reason (name of a huge hit song). I thought this one might stymie your AI. Like OutTheMud above, it got mixed results. Not a success, but not total failure. It said:
- The word 'envolver' is a meaningful word in Spanish, translating to 'wrap' or 'involve' in English, adding value due to its relevance in many industries.
- The domain is versatile for businesses, potential uses ranging from packaging companies to social initiatives.
So it picked up some vague meanings of the word, and some vague uses, but didn't really hit the nail on the head. Estimate range was 10K - 25K. Not a too-wide range. Workable. Domain is worth more, but it's not a bad valuation considering it's a difficult word to get a read on.
And finally (for today):
Watergy (dotcom) - I wanted to see how a portmanteau word would trip up your AI. But your AI was not fooled by my nefarious scheme. It immediately said that this was a blend of 'water' plus 'energy', and could be used for green technology, energy efficiency, etc. Gave an estimate range of 15K - 25K. Also not bad, though a little light. But AI can only read and collate what is in the now... though I am sure that AI developers are hard at work refining how AI will be able to predict future trends and probabilities.
I'm a mixed fan of AI. I would say that 90% of what it is being used for... I hate and am scared of, ha ha. Another 8% of what it is being used for... I'm mixed, not hot or cold, just waiting to see if those get better or worse. And the last 2% of what it is being used for... I love.
Okay, enough playing around. I may try to keep confusing your bot later with more outside-the-box names. Regardless of whether or not I agree with the results of your tool's appraisals so far, I can see that you've done really well with this AI tool you're developing. For what it does, it seems to work better than most, in my opinion. So: Nice work!
