Is Estibot Forcing Membership Payment?

[studio500]

I and I'm sure many others have been a registered free user of Estibot for over a year now.

I was surprised on attempting to input a domain today that I was taken to a screen asking me that if I wished to continue to use the service I must upgrade to a paid Domainer Pro membership of $19.95 a month despite my free membership being valid untill 2012-12-01 ie 694 days remaining.

Unless I upgrade I cannt use the service.

Is Estibot no longer offering Free accounts?
Has anyone else had this?

 

[Sparhawke]

I have had it too, the only reason I ever used it was for the various stats, not the dollar appraisal and with the search values so out of whack because of Googles updated algorithm I don't see much point anymore

 

[jdk]

Just log out and do your search. It told me the same thing saying you searched x number of domains with your free account over the last year or so.

 

[RevolutionaryDomains]

I received a similar message for the first time earlier this week. It would appear they are forcing those who use their once Free Service into a paid membership. Following in their footsteps is the appraisal site Valuation, which is powered by Estibot as well.

Seems a silly move on their part. I personally enjoyed the sales list generated with each name checked.


-Regards

 

[DotWeekly]

From a site owners aspect, it is not free to run a service like Estibot. A lot of money is spent to keep many sites live and sadly with the internet, people expect things to be free.

If you like a service, paying a fee to use it is a way of saying you like it and want to continue to use it.

Based on what I read here, Estibot isn't forcing anybody to pay, but taking a different approach to try and get people to have a paid account.

I expect a lot of domain services that are currently free, adding some kind of fee in 2011 or you will simply not see many around any more!

 

[John Baron]

personally i think asking payment for this service is completely legit from their part - they are offering good service , besides the appraisal tool there are more cool tools such as the end user finder tool and more , i know its sucks for us - but hey - they are not here just for fun

 

[Corey]

we live in a user pays world

Cheers
Corey

 

[Sparhawke]

I have no problem being charged, but the issue I have is that I do not know what i am being charged for.

All is says is Domainer Pro for $20/mo and Business for $40/mo

No details are forthcoming, unless they have hidden them somewhere?

 

[John Baron]

I have no problem being charged, but the issue I have is that I do not know what i am being charged for.

All is says is Domainer Pro for $20/mo and Business for $40/mo

No details are forthcoming, unless they have hidden them somewhere?

you are right , they should place it in a more visable place , here it is : https://www.estibot.com/compare.html

 

[banners]

I am sorry $20 a month is a lot to ask for a membership on estibot. Hosting and bandwidth is pretty cheap these days.

They could ask even a few dollars a month for their minimal package and would probably get quite a few subscribers and make a lot of money still *Even if they are hosting with a dedicated server). There is NO WAY that I am going to pay $240/ year or $480/year to use their service as is.

Their is a big difference between charging a FAIR PRICE and HIGHWAY ROBBERY in my honest opinion. There is nothing fair and no value in their pricing if you ask me.

I think this move towards OVER PRICED Plans is going to hurt them in the long run and just makes them look GREEDY. I am sure that they will make a lot of cash due to uneducated consumers or people with a lot of cash to spare.

Sure, they will make some money, but they will also lose traffic and some loyal users (which could have still been monetized other ways to make more money).

Heck I am sure that enough domainers appreciate their tool that they would have donated to help pay for these "extravagant hosting fees".


I am waiting / hoping for someone else to step it up on the scene and offer a similar service. I highly doubt their script is that complex.


Just my 2 cents.

 

[Larry Fling]

I do agree that $20/m is really too much. Maybe that amount for a year. People are just going to go elsewhere. I wonder if that had to do with the increase of appraisal requests here...
I will not be paying for anything. Try Valuate.com..

 

[RevolutionaryDomains]

I guess for me personally, anytime a site says "pay for a membership or you can no longer use" it is essentially forcing our proverbial hand. In my opinion, it's a bit underhanded, especially since there was no advanced warning, email update, etc. Just one day normal, the next day PAY! Not a very appropriate method of doing business.

It would be like [for example] NP all of a sudden tomorrow, without warning, telling folks upon logging in "you've been using the site for x amount of time, now you must pay $20 per month minimum if you wish to continue using the forum."

Fortunately for me I do not use estibot often enough to warrant the, in my opinion, inflated cost. Don't get me wrong, I do like their site and I do wish them much success. I also realize they have a need to make some sort of income to support their site and services of which they offer. Indeed they have a right to charge if they so choose, and while I have found them to be a good tool from time to time, I will miss the use of their sales lists. Just the same, however, it would have been nice to have had some advanced warning and more affordable membership options, or even a donation/site support option.

Just my two cents...give or take a penny.


-Regards

 

[Debt.tv]

Estibot will make money because of new domainers....but they will definitely lose visitors, because $20/month is a lot. This is a $5/month service. Between google adwords, namebio, dnsaleprice and dnjournal, thats all you need.

 

[DU]

Estibot will make money because of new domainers....but they will definitely lose visitors, because $20/month is a lot. This is a $5/month service. Between google adwords, namebio, dnsaleprice and dnjournal, thats all you need.

Nail head.

The interesting thing is that there are a collection of tools available - but it appears that all anyone wants is a base evaluation - number of searches and comparison sales.

I would consider $5 but not $20. The dumb thing is that I bet I could find 5 people that would consider $5 for every one that would consider $20. I'm not sure how much analysis went on here.

Maybe it used Estibots algorithm to evaluate its own worth

 

[Name Trader]

I have had it too, the only reason I ever used it was for the various stats, not the dollar appraisal and with the search values so out of whack because of Googles updated algorithm I don't see much point anymore

could you please expand on this explanation, Sparhawke?

 

[Sparhawke]

Google has come out with their Beta, which shows much more realistic search numbers, for instance right now for "computerlaptops.com" estibot shows nearly 15,000 exact searches but Google only shows 1600...a ten fold increase.

We all know that Google massively inflated the search numbers and admitted it a few months back, yet estibot has not been updated to include this so one of the fundamental things that drives it is broken, and when was the last time you paid for a broken toy?

 

[Name Trader]

Thanks Sparhawke. I'm paying now Could you provide a link to Google's Beta Tool?

 

[RevolutionaryDomains]

PM sent to stub with link...

Additionally, just google keyword tool and it should top the list.


-Regards

 

[John Baron]

Google has come out with their Beta, which shows much more realistic search numbers, for instance right now for "computerlaptops.com" estibot shows nearly 15,000 exact searches but Google only shows 1600...a ten fold increase.

We all know that Google massively inflated the search numbers and admitted it a few months back, yet estibot has not been updated to include this so one of the fundamental things that drives it is broken, and when was the last time you paid for a broken toy?

are you sure about this ?

from my understanding and as discusses in many forums and blogs - the drop in search numbers is a result of removing all the search partners such as AOL , ask.com and more from the equation .
here is a quote from what google adwords Employee from the adwords team wrote :
"If you use both the previous and updated versions of the Keyword Tool to search for keywords, you may notice differences between the tools for statistics on Global Monthly Searches and Local Monthly Searches.
This is because the previous version of the Keyword Tool provides search statistics based on Google.com search traffic and traffic from search partners, while the updated version of the Keyword Tool provides search statistics based on Google.com traffic only. "
reference : http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdWords/thread?tid=5241a33035617b73&hl=en

so in that since the old numbers are still relevant for us to get a bigger picture of market interest and not only google.com

 

[Sparhawke]

"search partners" is a fairly loose term when you think about it, when you go to a bank manager groveling for a mortgage to buy a house you have to say how much you want; for arguments sake you say £100,000 plus maybe 20% for expenses, you don't go to him and say £100,000...plus I think I will have £550,000 for unforeseen expenses that I might randomly add as and when I see fit.

People only care about search volume in Google just like the bank manager is only interested in how much your house (or the banks) will cost, and since we do not know who these partners are I think they are the only relevant numbers anyone should be interested in.