discuss GoDaddy vs Estibot vs NameBio

[gomikeright]

I feel like GoDaddy's domain appraisal tool is better than Estibot. Estibot looks at searches of a domains words together, but I think it doesn't take into account the value of the keywords individually. I know GoDaddy's tool is free and Estibot costs money after a few appraisals, but that doesn't automatically make it better.

I think it makes sense for GoDaddy to separate the words and recognize their value individually. Also I think NameBio has better comparable sales than Estibot. It seems like Estibot finds the worst comparable sales it can for a domain compared to GoDaddy and NameBio. GoDaddy's comparable sales are more average. What do you think?

 

[BrandAptly.com]

Yes.

I would not expect big ticket sales here in NP, as most are resellers. But you can have some publicity for the name, which is not a bad thing.

How would one capitalize on such publicity? What if a Google search turns up low-ball offers for your premium name...how does that give you leverage?

 

[BrandAptly.com]

Never mind, but I totally disagree with your statement.

It's the total opposite in actual. The domain is worth what the domain owner is willing to sell it for. There are plenty of buyers who're interested in buying domain but the seller rejects the highest received offer which doesn't mean that highest offer was the actual value of that domain.

The domain owner have to understand the value of it's domain and set price accordingly. How can someone else dictate or set the value of my domain!

If you don't mind my asking, what is your process for pricing your domain names? What factors do you take into account?

 

[lock]

Higher price but no information so the only influence you want to see is price. I can give a lot more details.

 

[koolishman]

Never mind, but I totally disagree with your statement.

It's the total opposite in actual. The domain is worth what the domain owner is willing to sell it for. There are plenty of buyers who're interested in buying domain but the seller rejects the highest received offer which doesn't mean that highest offer was the actual value of that domain.

The domain owner have to understand the value of it's domain and set price accordingly. How can someone else dictate or set the value of my domain!

Disagreement is OK and needed. It spurs conversation.

Domain value is subjective, just like art. But with some objective parameters like dictionary words, length, extension etc. I don't believe it can ever be 100% objective.

The domain is worth what the domain owner is willing to sell it for.

From the sellers viewpoint, that is true.

Other side of this coin is that domain is worth what buyer is willing to pay. It is implied that there is negotiation involved and an understanding is reached.

Otherwise seller will have to hold long term, just like any other asset.

Will you sell your 1 week old 90K Tesla for 3K, unless the world is collapsing? So the current market circumstances matter in pricing.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Disagreement is OK and needed. It spurs conversation.

Domain value is subjective, just like art. But with some objective parameters like dictionary words, length, extension etc. I don't believe it can ever be 100% objective.

The domain is worth what the domain owner is willing to sell it for.

From the sellers viewpoint, that is true.

Other side of this coin is that domain is worth what buyer is willing to pay. It is implied that there is negotiation involved and an understanding is reached.

Otherwise seller will have to hold long term, just like any other asset.

Will you sell your 1 week old 90K Tesla for 3K, unless the world is collapsing? So the current market circumstances matter in pricing.

You can't compare a Tesla or anything in this world with a domain. It's the uniqueness of domain which increases the value unlike everything else which is common and easily available.

 

[BrandCollectors.com]

There is nothing accurate about both appraisals. Chocolate.com for 4K. Really?

I don't use appraisal tools. Comparable sales is better in my opinion but not 100% seeing as no two names are equal.

Chocolate.com is worth millions. I have Chololate.com

 

[Reddstagg]

I had an offer this week (2 for 2 domains) for a domain that was hand registered in January 2020. The domain name is Vodka.Direct which is valued at €1887 by GD. I feel that this is a good name and can't think of many better vodka domains other than vodka.com. The offer received was for €35 which was rejected. I countered this offer of a minimum of €500 with some wiggle room built in. This was after all a €50 hand reg.

I was told in no uncertain terms that the domain name scored zero on backlinks, seo, referring domains and domain strength and was therefore worth practically nothing and that the price is was quoting was totally unrealistic.

However, out of my entire portfolio this was the one that the offer was made on and the person making the offer was prepared to make a 35 x value offer on it.

Now, I'm a newbie still wearing learner plates and I can't see what I did wrong. I would have negotiated further if pushed and probably would have allowed it to be sold for €300. This would have given me a good ROI and left some meat on the bone for the offeree.

What would your strategy have been in my position and what should I have done differently?

I'd appreciate any feedback as I happen to believe that appraisal tools are more valuable to end users than they are to us domainers and although they are a guide only there must be some merit to them and maybe we can't see the wood for the trees and we are passing up a selling tool that is free to use.

Regards,

Reddstagg

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Also I think NameBio has better comparable sales than Estibot. It seems like Estibot finds the worst comparable sales it can for a domain compared to GoDaddy and NameBio. GoDaddy's comparable sales are more average. What do you think?

Having used both a lot, I agree that in terms of comparator sales GoDaddy do a better job and in general with dual words they find significant sales with both words. They have the advantage of the huge database of GD/Afternic data. What Estibot seems to do is to first evaluate the worth mainly not looking at comparator sales (based on for example search stats, whether a dictionary word, how much registered in different TLDs, and other factors) and then show you a few sales that are similar in value to what they propose, rather than the names being similar in niche.

I think it depends on the kind of domain name which is better. If you are buying a name with a strong interest in search stats, that is where Estibot do best and it is really handy to have the search stats and CPC and advertisers data including a historical graph all in one place.

In terms of new extensions, GoValue still does not yet very properly address how appropriate the match of the word to the TLD is. Estibot slightly better, but because it is so search focussed, depends on type of word how good it is.

So the approaches are rather different with GoValue much more focussed on comparator sales. I find it worthwhile to look at both, but you really need to do a full analysis yourself, and view either of them as a second opinion.

I agree with you that GoValue is good at evaluating the word value separately in compound words, although you can trick it into big valuations for silly combinations sometime.

Bob

 

[BrandEntrance.com]

Compared to some of my more dubious domains I think it is one of the better ones.

This line made me laugh out loud.

 

[NameBuyer.com]

I had an offer this week (2 for 2 domains) for a domain that was hand registered in January 2020. The domain name is Vodka.Direct which is valued at €1887 by GD. I feel that this is a good name and can't think of many better vodka domains other than vodka.com. The offer received was for €35 which was rejected. I countered this offer of a minimum of €500 with some wiggle room built in. This was after all a €50 hand reg.

I was told in no uncertain terms that the domain name scored zero on backlinks, seo, referring domains and domain strength and was therefore worth practically nothing and that the price is was quoting was totally unrealistic.

However, out of my entire portfolio this was the one that the offer was made on and the person making the offer was prepared to make a 35 x value offer on it.

Now, I'm a newbie still wearing learner plates and I can't see what I did wrong. I would have negotiated further if pushed and probably would have allowed it to be sold for €300. This would have given me a good ROI and left some meat on the bone for the offeree.

What would your strategy have been in my position and what should I have done differently?

I'd appreciate any feedback as I happen to believe that appraisal tools are more valuable to end users than they are to us domainers and although they are a guide only there must be some merit to them and maybe we can't see the wood for the trees and we are passing up a selling tool that is free to use.

Regards,

Reddstagg

I'd suggest buying the audiobook version of "Negotiation Genius". I'd then suggest listening to "The Secrets of Power Negotiating" and listen to chapter 4 at least 2-3 times. Throughout this book you'll find tactics that others use on you and you'll find why you shouldn't budge much from your price and if you do accept a counter offer, you should do so with adding some kind of conditions even if they are insignificant (for example that the buyer pay the escrow fees).

Set a well thought out anchor price and don't budge much. If you don't set a price on your domains, then the buyer leads with the anchor price. If you have a price in mind, it is much better to put it out there and set the anchor price before negotiations begin. I would target the most ideal buyer when setting the BIN price on the domain.

If you are getting $50-$100 offers on a domain it is either a domain investor or a jerk buyer. In either case, you should ignore. I would also set a minimum offer of $450 or so for all your domains. This will weed out the offers like this.

You'll get offers from serious buyers with money, serious buyers that are cash strapped, buyers with a potential future use, dreamers with money, dreamers without money, and domain investors. If you price your domain and offer lease payments that are visible, you'll cover all the buyer types and can make the domain affordable even for buyers that are cash strapped.

Most importantly, don't limit your prices based on what you think someone will pay. Most domain investors, including myself, have a habit of limiting their prices based on their own values. If you are not willing to pay $5,000 for a domain, don't project that "value" of yours onto your buyers.

Back in 2013, I sold ImLonely(dot)com for $5,450 as a BIN. Chances are no one reading this would pay that much for the domain, but you have to envision what it could be worth to the right person at the right point in time. The domain still sits parked at the parking page it was pointed to 7 years ago. So the point is, don't limit your asking price based on what you think someone would pay. Visit DNJournal and study the prices there. Get into the habit of asking prices as if you were selling to the ideal buyer.

Below is a video with good examples of not projecting our "values" onto our buyers.

 

[cooljub]

Don't fall for the bs

 

[Name Trader]

Sorry, replied above but forgot to choose "reply"

No problem. I read it

 

[The Durfer]

your missing the point of overall value, seller, buyer, gd appraisal, estibot appraisal, namebio previous sales, but also, branding like brandpa, brandbucket, etc. All these chip away at the roughness and leave a beautiful statue price of your domain. Your masterpiece is thru time, not regging.

 

[The Durfer]

and dont forget the opportunities at namescon or knowing someone either, a professional appraisal also helps in pricing too. Desire, platform, trends, brands, timing, gosh so many things. Good Luck!

 

[frank-germany]

guys this topic ha been discussed so often...

just because it's behind a professional interface
or the company behind the estimate is huge

doesn't make the estimate
anything neither correct nor uncorrect

it just bocus
hocus pokus

 

[Shojib]

GD is valuable, if over 3k+

 

[frank-germany]

I found out that Estibot gives results that don't make sense. If you insert cryptowatch.io Estibot says it's value is around $4,000 but when you insert cryptowatch.com Estibot says the value is less than $100. Everyone knows a .com is worth more than any other TLD. I didn't spell it wrong or anything. Put them in for yourself. I can only conclude that Estibot does this because while both of them have no search traffic, cryptowatch.io was sold in the past for around $4,000. Now this looks very bad and I haven't seen anything this bad with GoDaddy's free valuation tool.

What do you think?

Just incase they are paying attention and fix this difference in valuations before you test it out. I encourage you all to look up recent sales on NameBio and see how estibot valuates the different TLD's compared to the .com versions using the same words. Try it with two word domains. That's how I found this.

drop the idea that an automated tool can help you to evaluate a domain,
if even you can't do it

 

[BrandAptly.com]

Just remember, any Godaddy "govalue" under $2k are garbage. (most 1-2k)

GD is valuable, if over 3k+ some 4k+ range.

The value lies in how you use the tool.

Samer

A lot of my domains fall within that price range. When I buy a domain for reg fee and sell it within 6 months to a year for $1k+, I'm happy with that.

I have some geo-targeted domains that appraise for between $1k - $2k. I may not sell any of them for about 3+ years because those areas are still sparsely populated. I know what development is coming up in that area within the next 3-5 years and how it will affect businesses. I am happy holding these 'garbage' domains till then.

 

[FolioTeam]

I like the Estibot it's more accurate (google searchers per month, ads, etc) than godaddy.

Chololate.com - Estibot value $4,100. Godaddy is not good for brandables - says Estimated Value: $574

There is nothing accurate about both appraisals. Chocolate.com for 4K. Really?

I don't use appraisal tools. Comparable sales is better in my opinion but not 100% seeing as no two names are equal.

 

[FolioTeam]

I like the Estibot it's more accurate (google searchers per month, ads, etc) than godaddy.

Chololate.com - Estibot value $4,100. Godaddy is not good for brandables - says Estimated Value: $574

double post

 

[Save Breach]

OKAY, since you have taken up this topic:

Every service has a different approach (algorithm) to assess this value. No algorithm is actually perfect: so I simply take out the average, I may be silly but this is actually a good way to assess the real value of a domain you own, to negotiate with the end user (as a reference/citation)

Side note: For actual acquisitions/reg/drop catch, I use my own scripts and use paid APIs (of DNS history, for example), to correlate with a set of parameters of what can be considered valuable and what not (in reseller and end user space) and its considerably better (more practical) than Estibot or, GD but needs more development to become productive i believe.

 

[Reddstagg]

Bullying or anything remotely resembling that offends my sensibilities. I would stand firm. It's my domain name and that's my price. You either pay it or move on. I don't care what the 'machines' say. There's a fine line between negotiation and manipulation, and I see buyers flirting with it far too often.

Thank you for your kind words.

A Bully can only bully if the person they are trying to bully can be bullied.

I don't think it was a case of that in this instance. However, I think that some people need to re-think their buying strategy. On one hand they tell you that your domain in worthless and then they offer you 35 times the value they place on it. That makes no sense to me.

Imagine if you will that the best two letter domain name in the world had never been registered and potentially to the right buyer it could be worth millions. If, after all that time I happen to find this two letter domain name and hand register it. Does this automatically make the name worthless as it has no history. No, obviously not, but you just can't explain that to some people.

I'll carry on doing what I'm doing and I'll get there eventually.

Enjoy your journey.

Regards,

Reddstagg

 

[frostify]

There is no fool proof way for an automated system to evaluate the potential value of a domain but a good rule of thumb I normally use is:

"Estibot Price and then remove a zero"
If your name has Estibot $3,000 then I would value it at around $300.

There's obviously exceptions to the rule, some worth much more, or much less, but Estibot minus a zero at the end seems pretty on-point for a lot of names I'm checking.

 

[Reddstagg]

I'd suggest buying the audiobook version of "Negotiation Genius". I'd then suggest listening to "The Secrets of Power Negotiating" and listen to chapter 4 at least 2-3 times. Throughout this book you'll find tactics that others use on you and you'll find why you shouldn't budge much from your price and if you do accept a counter offer, you should do so with adding some kind of conditions even if they are insignificant (for example that the buyer pay the escrow fees).

Set a well thought out anchor price and don't budge much. If you don't set a price on your domains, then the buyer leads with the anchor price. If you have a price in mind, it is much better to put it out there and set the anchor price before negotiations begin. I would target the most ideal buyer when setting the BIN price on the domain.

If you are getting $50-$100 offers on a domain it is either a domain investor or a jerk buyer. In either case, you should ignore. I would also set a minimum offer of $450 or so for all your domains. This will weed out the offers like this.

You'll get offers from serious buyers with money, serious buyers that are cash strapped, buyers with a potential future use, dreamers with money, dreamers without money, and domain investors. If you price your domain and offer lease payments that are visible, you'll cover all the buyer types and can make the domain affordable even for buyers that are cash strapped.

Most importantly, don't limit your prices based on what you think someone will pay. Most domain investors, including myself, have a habit of limiting their prices based on their own values. If you are not willing to pay $5,000 for a domain, don't project that "value" of yours onto your buyers.

Back in 2013, I sold ImLonely(dot)com for $5,450 as a BIN. Chances are no one reading this would pay that much for the domain, but you have to envision what it could be worth to the right person at the right point in time. The domain still sits parked at the parking page it was pointed to 7 years ago. So the point is, don't limit your asking price based on what you think someone would pay. Visit DNJournal and study the prices there. Get into the habit of asking prices as if you were selling to the ideal buyer.

Below is a video with good examples of not projecting our "values" onto our buyers.

Thank you very much for your wise words.

The IP address was revealed to me so I knew exactly who the perspective buyer was. They didn't reveal themselves until after I had rejected their offer and had made my counter offer.

They are a domain investor and were probably looking to just flip they name. They have experience with branding and marketing so probably already had a client in mind.

I've over 30 years experience myself in insurance and finance and I'm fairly well versed with compromise and negotiation.

However, I also have quite a fluid selling strategy and it varies from day to day. I might have been more accommodating if they had been upfront with me and not tried to steal the name from me.

I know it's not worth thousands but I'd say to the right end user it is easily worth mid $xxx.

We live and we learn. Each day is a new experience and this was actually a validation of sorts of my ability to spot a reasonable hand regging opportunity.

There will be others so I will just sit and wait.

Good luck with your journey.

Regards,

Reddstagg

 

[NameBuyer.com]

I know it's not worth thousands but I'd say to the right end user it is easily worth mid $xxx.

I guess my point was that an "end user" would be paying $10,000 to $20,000+ at minimum to get a business like this off the ground, so this type of end user would probably more willing to pay $x,xxx for the domain.

In the low $xxx range you are likely getting domain investors like you mentioned, and that is ok. But if you are paying $50 per year for the domain, you'd need a sell through at 16.7% just to break even at that price range.

With a .com domain, if you have a sell through rate of 1%, then your average sales price needs to be $850 to break even. If you have a sell through rate of 2% then your average sales price needs to be $425 to break even.

For the .direct domain you mentioned with a $50 renewal, if you have a sell through rate of 1%, then your average sales price needs to be $5,000 to break even. If you have a sell through rate of 2%, then your average sales price needs to be $2,500 to break even.

If you are achieving beyond 4% it is likely that you are selling to domain investors.

No matter what level you are going for, just make sure you have a plan for the sell through rate you want to achieve vs the asking price and adjust/improve that over time.