I am confused!!!

[playergrant]

Hi everyone I am new and am very confused as to what makes a domain valuable. Just when I think I understand I see something to throw me. under the high priced domains section there is a domain; HollywoodBars.com. I do not know how acurate they are but I did a estibot appraisal and keyword discovery search and according to both of them hardly nothing? If anyone can help me to understand what makes a domain valuable PLEASE HELP. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[tkstark]

very open-ended question. difficult to answer. best thing you can do is read, read, read. then, after you get through, read some more. automated appraisals like estibot are good for statistics but it takes a human to look at a name like HollywoodBars.com and recognize it, immediately, as a kick-ass name, no matter what the appraisal sites say.

think of the kinds of sites the name might be used for, the ways those sites might be monetized, the number of potential buyers.

i'm building a minisite now for the neighborhood i live in - a booming community with bars and restaurants sprouting like mushrooms for miles and expensive townhomes going up everywhere. each one of those restaurants and night spots and the realtors who sell homes here all are potential advertisers on my site. each of those townhomes houses a potential user or two, not to mention the folks all over the city who don't live in the neighborhood but who flock here to eat and to party and the out-of-towners who visit and hear about the neighborhood hot spots or who maybe read the recent nytimes travel piece touting this as an entertainment destination.

see where i'm going? the size of my neighborhood, its density, its fame and the number of businesses is nothing compared to hollywood. and the domain name i'm using isn't as succinct or immediately graspable as HollywoodBars.com.

estibot doesn't know how cool hollywood is or the money-making potential of a well-developed website that has that domain name. takes a human being.

 

[Ray]

To make a domain Vaulable, requires traffic, advertising, site devoplment. Rarely can one just hand reg a domain and try to sell if for xxx+

 

[randyhenson]

Just like any other speculative investing and/or market. There will always be people who think their s**t is made of gold! If you want to be successful in buying and selling domain names. You must learn to think for yourself. Anybody can say there domain is a high dollar domain or That it is a premium domain name but Most of the time it's not. The domain name above, You looked at it and wondered how that can be a high dollar domain right? Well that is your first clue that it probably isn't and Then you did the research and did not find any hidden value right? Then that means he/she thinks his s**t domain is made of gold lol. Which I'm not saying it isn't but what is it worth to you? Do you think you could sell it? Do you think you could make a great website with it?

Advice for you. Just because some say's it shines like gold. Doesn't mean it is gold. Second, Quite using estibot it's crap! Very unrealistic domain values. Third only take value opinions from people how "AREN'T" trying to sell you something.

 

[playergrant]

Thank you all very much! I think I sort of get it.

 

[MicroGuy]

Second, <quit> using estibot it's crap!

Crap? Actually, I find estibot to be quite useful in many ways. You should educate yourself a bit more before making such ridiculous statements. IMO.

 

[-Adam-]

estibot is exactly that a estimation and for a free service I don't think it's to bad to be honest. The newer domainers if you will take it's evaluation as the final word and that's when you see domain names like xyzgoodies.com being listed for 10k or more.

 

[randyhenson]

Crap? Actually, I find estibot to be quite useful in many ways. You should educate yourself a bit more before making such ridiculous statements. IMO.

I have seen people post domains on here and post the estibot appraisals which was in the thousands. For a name most people would not even take as a junk name. So if you think estibot is a useful tool. I think you're the one who needs to be educated.

Junk appraisals like estibot is one the reasons people like "playergrant" get confused. He knows a name is worthless but wonders why someone is asking so much for a domain. It probably because some were a long the line someone or something give him a junk appraisal. That he took too be the truth.

 

[gafadi]

I have seen people post domains on here and post the estibot appraisals which was in the thousands. For a name most people would not even take as a junk name. So if you think estibot is a useful tool. I think you're the one who needs to be educated.

Junk appraisals like estibot is one the reasons people like "playergrant" get confused. He knows a name is worthless but wonders why someone is asking so much for a domain. It probably because some were a long the line someone or something give him a junk appraisal. That he took too be the truth.

Who doesnt get confused ? When i first entered this domain field all those crap that i registered at first i thought were very powerful and good domains about 30 of them , i ended up selling like 4-5 and all other dropped or expired. My point is sites like estibot isn't entirely to be blamed for such confusion and high expectations of the beginners.
Yes they do add the dreams but when people first enter the domain industry they dont see the market values , stats and all that but they see the prices of sold domains, in sedo , np, dnf and so on and we do know sometimes crap domains also go for high price.

I am not trying to defend estibot or anything but those bots arent only to be blamed , its also the ignorance of people when they first enter the industry with rags to riches dreams lol

And one thing , when i first came to the domain business i also listed my domains for XXXs and XXXXs lol , there was no estibot ( well it was there but i didnt have clue of its existence )

It happens , but estibot is also aint that bad , i use it sometimes for the data it gives, such as pr , ppc, alexa rank ...

But you are right too , estibot creates too much confusion for the beginners and some people rely on it so much they become complete ignorant.

@ thread opener

Well you should read , read and read on , follow the market ,learn more about what kind of word , keyword makes the domain more valuable .
And before registering anykind of domain , research it first , how popular the word or the keyword is , use google keyword to find how much searches the word/keyword gets monthly and so on. Like someone first replied all you can do is read and read and it never ends.

 

[playergrant]

Great thank you all very much!!! Tons of great tips!

 

[JoshuaPz]

Estibot, for all its flaws, is an extremely useful tool. Its appraisals fall in the right order of magnitude about 80% of the time and it can pool together keyword/PPC statistics in bulk. Obtaining this data on your own would be either very expensive or very time consuming.

If you're looking to appraise the RESALE value of a specific domain and obtain end-user sale leads for it, PM me and I'll offer these to you for free.

 

[intheflow]

I agree, I like estibot. It's a nice easy way to get some data and a guesstimate on a domain. It is simply a tool and should be treated as such.

The great thing, and also the frustrating thing about domains is that there are no solid 'written in stone' rules to domain evaluation. You can get a very good idea of a domains value, but the bottom line is that the actual value depends on having a buyer willing to pay that much. I think we have all seen domains sell for way more than they 'are worth', and vice versa.

 

[jeffoverman]

hollywoodbars.com is an amazing name and great potential...how is this crap lol...

perfect for a directory, private advertisers, drawing traffic for a review site for each bar in hollywood...

if your saying hollywoodbars.com is a crap name, then i guess hollywoodbar.com is bad and guess who owns this...the man himself-frank.. then hollywoodclubs.com is owned by marchex...

name can easily be x, xxx range..

 

[Jingles]

Thank you Jeff

Ohh how tempted I am to tell who actually DOES see value in this name.....but I'm not going to :p
To each their own I suppose.

 

[tkstark]

hollywoodbars.com is an amazing name and great potential...how is this crap lol...

perfect for a directory, private advertisers, drawing traffic for a review site for each bar in hollywood...

if your saying hollywoodbars.com is a crap name, then i guess hollywoodbar.com is bad and guess who owns this...the man himself-frank.. then hollywoodclubs.com is owned by marchex...

name can easily be x, xxx range..

finally...

this thread had me thinking i live in a topsy turvy twilight zone where i see things upside down and don't know it. the name has excellent potential.

 

[Day Dreamer]

Everyone in here is an expert on domain names, that's the first thing you need to know about names.

No one knows anything about names, and that's the second thing you need to know about domain names.

Most of the "real" players, making 2-10 Million a year no one knows about, and we like it that way. About 80% of the industry is wanna-bees holding
onto crap names trying to be a player.

Most of the large domain sales by the leaders, are not registered. I never tell DNJ my sales for obvious reasons but sometimes some slip like christians.com but other than that, dont ever brag about your sales. It puts you on Google and when people search you they see that you sell names. Big turn off. 89% of people dont get that, and they like to brag, so they only get one big sale maybe.

I have www.findlandattorney.com sold for 125K, and am waiting for the wire on Monday, but most everyone is just trying to sell names. Problem is, most of the names make no sense. Think of it like real estate.

Hollywoodbars.com by itself is not worth the reg fees. But, if you put up a creative forum, where drunk lil wannabees can spill the beans on who nailed who, what fight they saw, etc... and then charge bars a fee to advertise, then charge the taxis a fee to advertise, and riddle it with adsense you might make around 200.00 a week.

Sell it for 5000.00 and be done with it.

I recently ran an ad looking for one worders and two worders and all I got was strange names that made no sense and everyone wanting 50000 or better for them. When you tell them it's worthless, they cry to the admins.

So if you want to know about domain names, just start doing your own thing and make money at it and keep your mouth shut.

 

[jeffoverman]

In regards to estibot, I use there service and its nice. I use couple others as well but I don't really value a name based on what they say imo.

All it takes is that one buyer to make things work.

I mainly like estibot because its very organized imo

Now is hollywoodbars.com a bars.com. Nope. But you can do very well on this name and outside of ppc parking imo and its a nice name.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[MicroGuy]

All it takes is that one buyer to make things work.

Yes. Buyers do seem to make things work. I found a buyer recently and now things work. Working buyers, buyers that make things work, etc., etc. I like the idea. Rep++

 

[4u-domains]

Hi everyone I am new and am very confused as to what makes a domain valuable.

Umm, well, in the most basic terms, it comes down to simple economic fundamentals:
Demand and Supply.
If enough people perceive value in a domain name then it becomes valuable by default.
A typical example of this is LLL.com. There is always demand for these in the reseller market and this keeps the bottom line price bouyant.

Where it gets complicated is once you move outside of the inherently and obviously valuable domain names. The vast majority of names are only seen as valuable by the person who registered that domain. If nobody else sees value in the domain then it is, by definition, valueless.

Therefore, and this is the simple bit, your strategy should be to acquire domains that you 'know' at least one person would find valuable. In the case of hollywoodbars.com its not a great leap of faith to believe somebody out there would find it valuable as there are uses for it.
Conversely, hollywoodpeanutwrappers.com is really no good to man or beast.

Throwing a spanner in the works is deleted, old-traffic domains. These can be valuablefor obvious reasons. Experience in domaining will help sift through the crap to find the gems.

Saying all that, though, achieving a great sales price for a non-obviously valuable domain is often down to luck and circumstance.

 

[Jingles]

Last year, around this time actually, I reg'd eCenterfold.com for $7 or $8 I don't remember. The response in the appraisal section was less than impressive. I then turned around and sold the name for $2,500 alittle over a month later.

I find that if I stick with my gut I do ok. My buyers don't seem to really care what other domainers say...Just my experience....