Estibot - Great example of why it fails.

[tpruby]

According to Estibot...

motherhood.com = $110,000
motherhood.ca = $720
motherhood.in = $350
motherhood.co.in = reg fee

Here is the issue.

Canada's population is about 32 million.

India's population over 1 billion +.

If only 4% of India's population surfs the net, they have already crushed 100% of Canada's capacity for it's population to surf the net. However, there are only about 22 million canadians between the ages of 10 and 65.

So, only 2.2% of Indians need to surf the internet to reach Canada's realistic capacity.

Why does Estibot overvalue Canadian web sites, what with their being such a tiny population on the net. Yes, I am aware that statistically Canadians embrace technology faster than just about any other population in the world and more Candadians per Capita have broadband than anyone else on the planet....but these numbers are so tiny.

Then Estibot undervalues, or completely and absolutely ignores one of the largest National population centers in the world?

Is there a reason, if anyone has ever thought about this and has come with the answer...I'd love to hear it.

If know one has the answer, then long live .ca tld!

 

[DJZ]

Are you disappointed in Estibot, or disappointed in World economics? Per capita annual income in India is $820 USD where Canada is $35,200 USD.

Someone from India is less likely to pay a large USD amount for a domain name because the money would go much further being spent in their own country. A $1000 domain would equate a year of income in India, where it's less than two weeks income in Canada. Makes sense that the values would reflect this.

 

[Michael]

If everyone took your lead, nothing would ever improve, as no one would ever complain....sometimes great innovation can come from a developer being made aware of flaws, complaints or general beef's.

I would recommend doing your homework before you call something a flaw. Your analysis of the ccTLD market is oversimplified, and doesn't even take into account the most important factors regarding their value. The most notable of which are probably sales comparables and per capita income as mentioned earlier.

Not to mention the fact that you don't really have any numbers to back up your statements. Some statistics on percentage of internet usage and internet spending would be valuable, but your analysis is severly lacking in that respect.

Essentially you are making uneducated guesses and generalizations regarding something that has little effect on the value of a ccTLD anyway. Then you are bashing a piece of software that was written by someone who has infinitely more experience analyzing the market and has spent hundreds of hours researching trends versus your 8 seconds of checking Wikipedia for the population of India.

Sorry for the rant, but the Estibot bashing is getting a little old. Constructive criticism when you notice a significant discrepancy is one thing (bugs will happen), but thinking you know more than someone with a Ph.D. is quite another...

 

[John Doe]

Are you disappointed in Estibot, or disappointed in World economics? Per capita annual income in India is $820 USD where Canada is $35,200 USD.

Someone from India is less likely to pay a large USD amount for a domain name because the money would go much further being spent in their own country. A $1000 domain would equate a year of income in India, where it's less than two weeks income in Canada. Makes sense that the values would reflect this.

2006 GDP per capita was actually $3,800 in India and $35,700 in Canada. GDP growth yoy India 9,4% vs Canada 2,8%. Total purchasing power parity GDP $4.164 trillion India vs $1.181 trillion Canada.

 

[seeker]

quiet a few people have already said it, but yes, you can not compare the $ value of a ccTLD by population (if that were the case, what would .CN go for???).

Look at per capita income, and how much people in the respective countries are willing to pay for the domain as well as the online spending of each country.
You can not compare a 3rd world country to an industrialized one in terms of spending power, and hence $ value for domains within each countries' economies.

I see no relevence here, nor any constructive criticism of estibot. Just unrealistic bashing.
for ccTLDs, no one said estibot is to be taken for its exact $ value. Heck it even says that the prices for any TLD are indicative.
Estibot does its job fairly well, and better than any other automated system out there.
as for motherhood.in, Id say $350 is pretty accurate, if on the optimistic side.

 

[sashas]

first of all, I wouldnt read too much in the per capita income. the people who actually buy domains in india have a much higher income. the per capita is bought down by the huge number of poor in India (close to 330 mil). remove tem from the equation and you would have a per capita income of about 20k USD.

btw, India does happen to be the among the largest economies in the world (4th? correct me please if im mistaken), poised to become the 3rd largest in some years (after usa and china)

 

[Michael]

first of all, I wouldnt read too much in the per capita income. the people who actually buy domains in india have a much higher income. the per capita is bought down by the huge number of poor in India (close to 330 mil). remove tem from the equation and you would have a per capita income of about 20k USD.

btw, India does happen to be the among the largest economies in the world (4th? correct me please if im mistaken), poised to become the 3rd largest in some years (after usa and china)

According to the International Monetary Fund, Canada has the 8th largest economy in the world by nominal GDP, and India ranks 13th. If you want to talk about GDP (PPP) per capita, Canada is ranked 9th while India is a dismal 118th.

Also, if you remove the same percentage of poor people in Canada that you do from India in your "scenario", the per capita income in Canada will surely rise as well. I don't see the point of that argument.

Finally, we are not talking about people who are buying domains, we are talking about the value of a domain in terms of potential traffic/revenue. Just because there are a few rich people in India buying domains (probably .coms btw), doesn't increase the value of the .in ccTLD. There are likely just as many rich people in Canada buying domains.

 

[John Doe]

btw, India does happen to be the among the largest economies in the world (4th? correct me please if im mistaken), poised to become the 3rd largest in some years (after usa and china)

You are right if we consider GDP at purchasing power parity - India is 4th after US, China, Japan and could overtake Japan this year. In consideration of absolute numbers at official exchange rates Indias GDP was only $800 billion compared to $1.1 trillion Canada. Potential of course is huge.

 

[Domagon]

Estibot is often amazingly accurate for .COMs ... I've run a bunch of domains of mine and others through ... and for many, the value is in-line with actual offers / sale prices.

I just wished more buyers felt the same way ... ie. I have one domain (quality generic; auto-detected keywords which identically match) that estibot has valued at varying high amounts ... now topping at $220,000!

With that said, for some TLDs, estibot has a long way to go ... for example, it gives the value based in large part on the .COM when one puts in say the .ORG version.

Ron

 

[NameCharger]

there's something called feedback and there's something called unnecessary complaints.

My sentiments exactly.

To the OP: have you tried sending an email to Josh pointing out your [sic] "beef's"? Estibot's developer is open to and listens to suggestions and implements them.

 

[cybertonic]

Read here about the impact of each TLD and why today the Indian Cc TLD has a lower value than the Canadian:
www.DomainExtensions.com

 

[Michael]

You are right if we consider GDP at purchasing power parity - India is 4th after US, China, Japan and could overtake Japan this year. In consideration of absolute numbers at official exchange rates Indias GDP was only $800 billion compared to $1.1 trillion Canada. Potential of course is huge.

I just wanted to add one thing, I don't agree that PPP should be brought up in a debate about a global marketplace where goods are not priced differently based on the location of the buyer.

For the sake of simplicity, lets say the per capita income is $2 in Canada and $1 in India. Lets say you can purchase a book from a local bookstore in Canada for $2, and the same book from a local store in India costs only $1. The countries would appear the same when adjusting for PPP, because the same basket of goods could be purchased by an individual.

Now lets relate it to the online world using the same per capita incomes. If Amazon.com is selling a book for $1, you can buy 2 of them if you are Canadian, but only 1 if you are Indian. The prices are not lower on Amazon because it detects your IP address as being from India and adjusts for your PPP. You can buy less if you are Indian, even though your per capita income adjusted for PPP is exactly the same as your Canadian counterpart.

Therefore I believe we should leave PPP out of this discussion, because it is pretty much irrevelant in the context of the online marketplace.

 

[seeker]

btw, India does happen to be the among the largest economies in the world (4th? correct me please if im mistaken), poised to become the 3rd largest in some years (after usa and china)

Are you forgetting the European Union?????????

 

[John Doe]

Are you forgetting the European Union?????????

EU is not a country level competitor. Germany, France and Italy are in top 10 anyway.

 

[sashas]

my point is, India's potential is much greater than Canada's. As someone pointed out, India's growth rate is a steady 8%+, while Canada's rate is around 2-3%. Anyone who doesn't agree that India and China will be among the two largest economies (along with Japan and USA, of course) within the next 50 years is surely mistaken.

Anyways..I think that point is irrelevant for this discussion. Canadian domains are valued much more also becuase of the simple fact that they happen to be used so much inside the country. Its near neighbor, United States doesn't even compare to Canadian domain sales, even though it has the largest economy in the world.

So for domains, the value depends a LOT on the amount of usage. Thats why .de has overtaken all extensions (except .com).

 

[estibot.com]

You are right about the TLD's in EstiBot, they are largely based on the .com values, but I have also added further rules for valuating as many TLD's individually as possible. For instance, LLL /CCC domains are valuated based on the current market value prices individually for each TLD (at least the more significant TLD's).

What I'm trying to do with V2 is have a separate algorithm (and market keyword relevancy analysis) for each TLD. Not only is this an incredible amount for work, but it is also impossible for the vast majority of ccTLD's, because there is just not enough sales data to achieve any statistical significance.

This is the case with .co.in and .in as well. EstiBot relies on the NameBio database. There are only less than a hundred .in sales and even fewer .co.in sales in there. Thus, the market is not very active, or the sales are not publicized.

With these numbers, it is impossible to achieve any such reliable algorithm that would be based on true sales figures, so I have to go for the second best approach, which is to compare the overall price potential to that of .com, and give the valuations based on that.

As we get more data, thing will get better. Also, v2 will be more dynamic and the past sales will be directly factored into each domain valuation. I will probably implement this feature into the current version soon, too. Expect to see some changes again, and please feel free to comment/criticize. The OP is correct that feedback is essential for me to improve EstiBot according to domainers' wishes.

I welcome all criticism although I wish the OP had titled this thread slightly differently. Negative feedback is indeed a big driving force for me, but the main reason I'm still trying to improve this tool is the encouragement and positive feedback that i get from you guys, so keep it coming

Josh

 

[seeker]

EU is not a country level competitor. Germany, France and Italy are in top 10 anyway.

it is a competitor in the economic scale.
It is a Union of nations or States (sound familiar??)

 

[John Doe]

it is a competitor in the economic scale.
It is a Union of nations or States (sound familiar??)

Seems a bit more comparable to ASEAN, LAIA etc. United States is however one counrty, EU incorporates 27 countries

 

[seeker]

this is going completely off topic. But it is *1* economy.
the US incorporates many states and common wealth entities such as the common wealth of Masachusets and Virginia..etc...etc...
It does NOT compare to ASEAN nor to the US (for now) politically.
Again, this is going off topic, but it is 1 unified economy, which goes back to the OP in calculating the value of domains based on the inherent $ value which in turn is based based on the economy.

 

[barcode]

India is perhaps the second fastest growing economy in the world (correct me Sashas!)

The Indian rupee is growing stronger against the US Dollar (making domains cheaper as I type this post)

Having said all of the above.

Motherhood is not a word I have seen anyone using. Same goes for parenting, creche, day care etc!

Estibot is a great, fantastic, fantabulous tool to check on statistics. It works on past data, cannot predict the future!

 

[tpruby]

First of all, my apologies for having used the word "fail" in my first post. When you read my entire post, what I am actually trying to express is that I was confused as to how estibot can estimate a .ca at xxx amount, yet a .co.in at a reg fee....I did use the word fail, but in retrospect, I should not have.

I am Canadian, Mmmm Molson, and I believe that India and China are the future of the World...no question in my mind. That is why I was a little thrown off by .in and .co.in low end prices. Canada's population is actually shrinking ( but immigration keeps it steady) and India's population is ever growing.

Motherhood not used often...just like parenting? There is a market for both those names.

Finally, what automated domain appraiser do I default too? Estibot, who doesn't, it is the best out there.