discuss Estibot is a failure, why do domainers insist on using it?

[jamesosix]

Seriously, its such a flawed piece of software and yet all i see in domain circles is "estibot this" and "estibot that"

Why do domainers insist on telling other domainers what esitbot apprises something at? It is actually starting to make me question whether a particular domainer is serious or not.

I'm going to start saying "my folks appraised this at xxxxxxxxxx value, because they probably have a better insight to a domains value versus estibot!!

Is it just me that feels this way?

I say we should start considering NOT using estibot EVER because it is full of s***.

Discuss.

 

[S-B]

Seriously, its such a flawed piece of software and yet all i see in domain circles is "estibot this" and "estibot that"

Why do domainers insist on telling other domainers what esitbot apprises something at? It is actually starting to make me question whether a particular domainer is serious or not.

I'm going to start saying "my folks appraised this at xxxxxxxxxx value, because they probably have a better insight to a domains value versus estibot!!

Is it just me that feels this way?

I say we should start considering NOT using estibot EVER because it is full of s***.

Discuss.

I inquired about a domain that I really liked via email. He responded with with an Estibot price. I responded with: "I am no longer interested. I do not do business with anyone who quotes me a price based on Estibot."

Damn shame.

 

[Kate]

...
Even though Estibot is worthless, it can help with a sales pitch, especially when I know the domain isn't worth anything near what Estibot values it at. Sure most domainers know it's useless but you might find that one potential buyer who might be in awe at the valuation, especially if its priced way below it.

This is a double edged sword, because people are not all stupid, and they might think you have no clue or worse, that you're trying to con them. I would certainly not take you seriously. If you quote estibot, in my view you cannot appraise your own domains, and perhaps I should try to take advantage of your ignorance.
And the same approach can be used against you to dispute your asking price.

Once I dealt with an end user, who came with two appraisals (from unknown sources), that were below the price we quoted. We said no way, they eventually paid the price.

In fact, good domains speak for themselves. The sales pitch is not even necessary and should be kept to a minimum. The end users get it or they don't. The more you try to justify the domain value, the more it becomes questionable.

At least, don't use estibot for appraisals.

 

[kemjika11]

Also, some of you need to be fair! people always bitch about when estibot priced a name "too high", but tbh, ive searched some names i bought recently, or was about to reg or buy and the estibot price was often close to what i believe an end user to pay. i'm talking about LLL.ins.

Lets not only complain when estibot is off. what about the times when it was close? yea....humans love to dwell on the bad.

@ shane- tbh i am dissapointed you didnt counter offer. you acted emotionally which to me means you were not really serious about buying the name. Imo, ANYONE WHO IS SERIOUS OFFERS OR COUNTER OFFERS.do u wanna win or be right? you didnt like his initial answer? well guess what? its called being "professional"- u suck it up.we all deal with low ballers everyday but we still have to see whats possible. ur a pro, so keep being a pro.

 

[JB Lions]

What's wrong with Alexa numbers?
I've seen many time people use Alexa traffic estimations or SimilarWeb to analyze traffic, even in professional startup media, like Techcrunch. Do you think this companies provide incorrect numbers? Why someone would use their services then?

They've always been a joke for a few reasons. For me, I live in America. Most Alexa users don't. I've never met a civilian that has an Alexa bar, it's usually people with websites. Also, it's very easy to manipulate the numbers, hence it being a joke. I've seen people use Alexa numbers to talk about their traffic, well how about actual numbers. You know, uniques, page views etc. that's not something you have to guess it. Those are real numbers.

 

[Name Trader]

I inquired about a domain that I really liked via email. He responded with with an Estibot price. I responded with: "I am no longer interested. I do not do business with anyone who quotes me a price based on Estibot."

Damn shame.

If I liked the domain that much, I would still have countered his initial offer. You just never know.

 

[kemjika11]

I dont advise people to swear by Estibot but Estibot has its place. I'm not an estibot hater. It has alot of info on it, so use what you need.

 

[Name Trader]

Half of the domainers I've dealt with are unrealistic. Estibot says it's worth 65k so they want 100k. It's not worth the time.

More than half of the domainers I deal with are unrealistic, which is one reason I don't visit the Make Offer thread. How do you know they used Estibot price, when the Estibot price and their asking price were different? He may have been hoping you were an end user. I for one, don't sell to other domainers (intentionally), so I always price to the end-user price (but I don't own any domains worth $100k). If I am interested in a domain I usually counter.

As an aside. I once was an end user for a domain that was on DNS. They quoted me a crazy price, way above end-user pricing (approx 10+ times the price of similar sold domains). I just ignored any email after that. I would say though, I wished I owned the domain and had it for sale on DNS. They were very professional, very thorough, very polite, very logical. They wouldn't leave me alone for about 2 months. In fact I just received another email from them about the domain, which is about a year later. That was all from an initial inquiry, to which I never replied. People who use DNS and broker their domains thru them, get a very good service, imho. If seemingly expensive, they do get good prices. And I can see why. I was very impressed with their service.

 

[cocaseco]

It's flawed of course but whether a seller used it to validate a sales price or a buyer used it to justify a purchase price, you can be sure that it has contributed to a significant number of deals being done over the years.

@Paully is right on. I know I am guilty of making assumptions that buyers use all of the same tools and have the same knowledge as I do. The fact is that many people, perhaps most, don't really know and will see value in Estibot or other online estimators. If you are working in a large organization and are spending someone else money you often don't do as much research as if it was your own. If you manage a product and had budgeted $20K for a domain and the domain you found is listed at $20K, that may be the end of the research. The fact that the domain might have been only worth $6K doesnt even factor in. I have people submitting specific requisitions to my department all day and we don't shop around. If the buyer says buy xyz from this domain we do it. There is a tremendous amount of waste in most medium and large size corporations.

 

[D Haynes]

Your right that the valuations are generally a load of waffle but I find it fairly usefull to use sites like estibot and domainindex etc to find out the rough searches and visitors to a domain but yeah you could pick a number out of a hat and compete with their valuations.

 

[S-B]

If I liked the domain that much, I would still have countered his initial offer. You just never know.

Half of the domainers I've dealt with are unrealistic. Estibot says it's worth 65k so they want 100k. It's not worth the time.

 

[distlej]

My motto...

Use it when it helps you...trying to sell that dog to an end-user at $x,xxx
Ignore it when it doesn't

 

[ulterios]

@accelerator - What does the inexperienced domainer do when the valuation is too low.

Come here, post an appraisal in the forum. THEN, create a couple of new accounts and say how great it is and quote an unrealistic price!

 

[S-B]

What am abt to say might start world war 3 up in here but I have to say it.

It seems some people are in denial of estibots relevance or status in our industry. No one is saying live by estibot but you still have to acknowledge its presence and use of it validates it as a positive for the users and our industry. Also Its not really free...someone said that.

It is definitely have 1 positive benefit... Essentially it acts as a suicide deterrent for novices who drop 4-figures on worthless hand registrations.

 

[Kate]

I think a lot of newbies are misled because some leading blogs continue to pimp or advertise estibot, without mentioning its shortcomings when it comes to appraisals.

 

[jamesosix]

I find it useful for relative values as a quick snapshot. Since it does factor in some good objective information, if domain A is $100,000 and domain B is $150,000, I can generally be safe assuming the search volumes etc are better for B. Since I use their Chrome widget I can take a quick look without even leaving the page I'm on. As for absolute values it is useless as said.

Here is a snapshot that made me write this thread.

A seller was asking about his .co.uk domain on NP that everybody in the thread agreed it was reg fee (and not what esitbot said at xxxx).

I run an adult site I own, through estibot that is actually earning money and it returned a zero value.

How is it a lonely domain doing nothing that domainers value at reg fee can come with an estibot value vs an a live site that makes actual money having no value?

I'm with Shane on this, if somebody even mentions estibot in a potential sale I will more than likely not take them as serious and probably walk away.

 

[Paully]

It's flawed of course but whether a seller used it to validate a sales price or a buyer used it to justify a purchase price, you can be sure that it has contributed to a significant number of deals being done over the years.

 

[ulterios]

Also, some of you need to be fair! people always bitch about when estibot priced a name "too high", but tbh, ive searched some names i bought recently, or was about to reg or buy and the estibot price was often close to what i believe an end user to pay. i'm talking about LLL.ins.

Lets not only complain when estibot is off. what about the times when it was close? yea....humans love to dwell on the bad.

@ shane- tbh i am dissapointed you didnt counter offer. you acted emotionally which to me means you were not really serious about buying the name. Imo, ANYONE WHO IS SERIOUS OFFERS OR COUNTER OFFERS.do u wanna win or be right? you didnt like his initial answer? well guess what? its called being "professional"- u suck it up.we all deal with low ballers everyday but we still have to see whats possible. ur a pro, so keep being a pro.

You are absolutely right, in that you MUST NOT let emotions get in the way of acquiring or selling a domain. You must just separate emotions from business. I also agree with what you said "ANYONE WHO IS SERIOUS OFFERS OR COUNTER OFFERS", this is one factor that I take into consideration when buying or selling a name.

However, I understand how Shane felt and I have done the same thing myself. Sometimes it's hard to deal with people when right away they start doing things like quoting estibot. That taken with some other things they may have included in the conversation can really lead a person to question if their is a realistic chance of getting a name you want at a fair price.

I think most domainers at one time or another have let emotion dictate how and if we respond. Anything from paying more for a domain than what it's worth because we really like the name ourselves, to feeling insulted by offers that some people give us. I was upset once last year when a buyer offered me $50 (what I paid) for a name I know was easily worth 4 figures. I took a couple of hours to think how and if I was going to respond. I did respond and eventually sold the name for $2500 to the same buyer. If I had let emotions get the better of me then I would have missed the sale.

Anyway, as to the OP's topic, to most domainers (that aren't new or haven't acquired more knowledge yet) estibot is a joke for the most part. It can be useful as a sales tool though when dealing with an end user who doesn't know better though, especially when they have been dealing with other sellers that have been using it as a sales pitch.

Do I think it's values are accurate? Hell no, I have never seen an accurate estimate ever. There may be some that are, I have just never seen any.

Can it be a useful tool? Yes, when dealing with people who do think it holds value.

 

[Name Trader]

@ulterios -Happens to all of us, from time to time At least it shows I am actually reading the messages

 

[accelerator]

Inexperienced domainers will like quoting Estibot if it gives them false hope. Anything that gives unrealistically high appraisals will be popular.

 

[gilescoley]

Yeah, never use Estibot for anything

 

[jamesosix]

I understand they do a premium service, which is fine if its stats and facts, but yeah, my beef is with the free appraisal service (just to avoid any confusion)

I say we start a campaign for domainers to stop using estibot when discussing values. haha

 

[iAchilles]

Your right that the valuations are generally a load of waffle but I find it fairly usefull to use sites like estibot and domainindex etc to find out the rough searches and visitors to a domain but yeah you could pick a number out of a hat and compete with their valuations.

It's usually way off on those stats too, I only rely on Adwords and the Keyword Tool.

Even though Estibot is worthless, it can help with a sales pitch, especially when I know the domain isn't worth anything near what Estibot values it at. Sure most domainers know it's useless but you might find that one potential buyer who might be in awe at the valuation, especially if its priced way below it. Every little helps, I don't take domainers any less serious who quote it and it's not just newbies who do it, but I also know they know Estibot is useless.

 

[cocaseco]

I find it useful for relative values as a quick snapshot. Since it does factor in some good objective information, if domain A is $100,000 and domain B is $150,000, I can generally be safe assuming the search volumes etc are better for B. Since I use their Chrome widget I can take a quick look without even leaving the page I'm on. As for absolute values it is useless as said.

 

[thekiller]

I appraised one of my domain using Estibot and it gave me $50K, That domain was worth low $xxx.So I don't trust these appraisal websites.