Is Namebio creating more harm than good for Domain business

[dhyinc]

Buyers are looking at namebio for past sale price of a domain and are negotiating with that price in mind...The feeling of paying more for a domain which was bought at a lower price is putting off many buyers...

what is your view on this

 

[Weber]

Don't worry. They'll block your ip if you aren't a paying customer.

 

[MapleDots]

Don't worry. They'll block your ip if you aren't a paying customer.

Funny how we always expect services to be free.

 

[Weber]

Funny how we always expect services to be free.

Experienced users know that the internet was built on "free". However, that is not the basis of my comment.
It's more about how one can mismanage user experiences on the website. Limiting free searches is fine. Falsely accusing a user of being a bot is no bueno.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

95%+ of endusers don't use NB and WHOIS.

 

[MapleDots]

Buyers are looking at namebio for past sale price of a domain and are negotiating with that price in mind...The feeling of paying more for a domain which was bought at a lower price is putting off many buyers...

what is your view on this

Traditionally namebio reports end user sales. In most cases the sale is to a buyer who ends up using the domain for an end purpose. The odds of the exact same domain coming up for sale again are only on the reported wholesale deals. A domainer/wholesaler would not report to namebio if it sold from one domainer to another.

If you are comparing similar domain names then there is no real way of establishing value because even similar domains can have far different values.

Personally I am finding my clients are quoting Estibot and Godaddy appraisals far more often than namebio.

 

[equity78]

Personally I am finding my clients are quoting Estibot and Godaddy appraisals far more often than namebio.

Exactly and the bigger point most people think you paid $10. No end user is like I want to offer you $25,000 because I am sure you paid $20,000. They think you paid $10. Either people want and can afford your name or they can't.

What @Michael has done for the business is more than anyone else in my opinion.

 

[Michael]

Experienced users know that the internet was built on "free". However, that is not the basis of my comment.
It's more about how one can mismanage user experiences on the website. Limiting free searches is fine. Falsely accusing a user of being a bot is no bueno.

An end user would never get blocked by our system unless they were using a VPN. They wouldn't be doing enough searches to end up accidentally looking like a bot.

I'm not sure if you have a technical background or not, so I'd like to point out that it's impossible to distinguish between bot traffic and human traffic in any definitive way. That's why CAPTCHAs exist. I went into great detail about what we do to mitigate bots and why in other posts, so I won't do it again here. But I think it is better than having to constantly solve CAPTCHAs, only being able to do a small number of searches per day, or having the prices hidden in images so that you can't copy/paste the data. All are bad UX, but I think what we do is the least obtrusive.

It does sometimes get things wrong, and I'm happy to fix it if you contact me like it says on the page. If we didn't have the system in place we wouldn't be able to afford our hosting and 99%+ of our traffic wouldn't be human. The data we have is valuable and people will never stop slamming us with bots trying to take it. I would love to not need this system, but that isn't realistic.

Just out of curiosity, when Google's NoCAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA decides to make you click all the images with bridges instead of letting you skate by because of how you moved your mouse or something, do you get mad that it "accused you" of being a bot? It's the same thing as us looking for small clues in how you search, only we make someone talk to us instead of solving an image when something seems off. And it's much harder to trigger than twitching your mouse in a weird way.

95%+ of endusers don't use NB and WHOIS.

This is the correct answer, although the percentage should be higher. To the OP:

I've been a domain investor for more than 12 years, and NameBio has existed for longer than that. I've never once had an end user cite a NameBio record. I'm told it does happen on very rare occasion, but when it does they're just grasping at straws trying to get some leverage on you and probably wouldn't have paid your price regardless. What you paid is irrelevant, it only matters what it is worth.

If you bought a Picasso at a garage sale for $50 and it made national news, do you think you're going to have a hard time selling it for millions because the buyer knows what you paid? That's what you're doing going through the drop lists every day, it's no different than picking at garage sales.

Only in the case of domains, if the buyer doesn't know what you paid they always assume you paid $8 instead of the hundreds or even thousands that you actually paid. Which is worse? I've actually told buyers what I paid and sent them the NameBio record to help get them up in price.

On the other end of the spectrum are the end user sales we track. Those records have been cited by domain owners and brokers countless times over the last 13 years to help them get higher prices. Our biggest power users are the major marketplace brokers, and they cite us because it works. Collectively we've helped sellers increase their final sale prices by millions of dollars.

Traditionally namebio reports end user sales. In most cases the sale is to a buyer who ends up using the domain for an end purpose. The odds of the exact same domain coming up for sale again are only on the reported wholesale deals. A domainer/wholesaler would not report to namebio if it sold from one domainer to another.

If you are comparing similar domain names then there is no real way of establishing value because even similar domains can have far different values.

Personally I am finding my clients are quoting Estibot and Godaddy appraisals far more often than namebio.

Actually our data is overwhelmingly wholesale (mostly expired auctions but also domainers auctioning off names). But we do have a substantial number of end user sales as well.

I disagree with your statement that comps don't help establish value. That's how it is done in physical Real Estate, and that's how it works in virtual as well. And for used cars, art, and a myriad of other assets with a secondary market. Wholesale prices are pretty predictable looking at what similar names have gone for, especially in highly liquid categories like short domains.

When it comes to retail sales I would agree though, they have no predictive value whatsoever. It's usually more about the strength of the seller and the financial position of the buyer than the domain itself. That's why something like iReport.com can sell for $750k... a seller who doesn't need to sell and a rich buyer with big plans. It says nothing about what my iWord.com domain would sell for to an end user, because I'm a much weaker seller than Rick and my buyer is not CNN. But if iReport.com sold for $1.5k on NameJet it would give me a pretty good idea of what iLearn.com might sell for if it were auctioned off.

Retail sales not having predictive value doesn't mean they're useless though. They basically act as "social proof" to get a buyer comfortable with the idea that domains sell for more than reg fee. And the closer the "proof" is to the domain they're trying to buy the more convincing it is.

End users finding automated appraisals is about the worst thing that can happen to a negotiation.

 

[MapleDots]

Thank you Michael for setting the facts straight

Your last statement

End users finding automated appraisals is about the worst thing that can happen to a negotiation.

Very true but unfortunately it is becoming more and more common for end users to quote automated appraisal services, more so since godaddy came aboard. I have even had a case where a broker contacted me and said...

I have estibot value on your domain, do we have a deal?

He never mentioned the price and since I was familiar with the estibot value I knew how much he was offering.

 

[carob]

End users finding automated appraisals is about the worst thing that can happen to a negotiation.

I think we're missing a trick here.

We need to create our own automated appraisal site that gives seriously high valuations . Being a paying subscriber might even let you help the estimates of your own domains go higher. With enough links to it from domain sellers it would do well in search results.

 

[MapleDots]

We need to create our own automated appraisal site that gives seriously high valuations .

It's been done, see here
https://www.nameworth.com/

My domains are worth a bloody fortune

 

[Dave]

As someone else said, stupid Estibot and GD appraisal are the things causing more harm than good.

I had an offer before for $100 and they wouldn't go higher because Estibot told them it was only worth $100.

 

[Michael]

Lol this is great Automated appraisals don’t just hurt by setting low expectations though. Sometimes the appraisals are much too high, and that could scare a buyer and they don’t even reach out to discover that your expectations are more realistic. And you don’t even know it is happening.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I've been a domain investor for more than 12 years, and NameBio has existed for longer than that. I've never once had an end user cite a NameBio record. I'm told it does happen on very rare occasion, but when it does they're just grasping at straws trying to get some leverage on you and probably wouldn't have paid your price regardless. What you paid is irrelevant, it only matters what it is worth.

This is spot on. The conversation should focus on the value the domain name would bring to that end user.

We have had a few proposed formulae that tried to estimate worth of a domain name to a business, but would be interesting if someone tried to automate estimates of worth to business, not that it would be easy to do. This would at least provide a second automated value, one not based largely on past sales, for those end users who are quoting appraisals.

NameBio is a valuable service to our community, and my simple answer to the question posed in title to thread is no.

Thank you @Michael for your detailed answers here, and especially for providing NameBio to the community.

Bob

 

[NYJimbo]

As someone else said, stupid Estibot and GD appraisal are the things causing more harm than good.

I had an offer before for $100 and they wouldn't go higher because Estibot told them it was only worth $100.

Estibot is the worst. Good names with obvious value often show as $0. I use Uniregistry landers for my higher priced domains and they offer Estibot appraisals. That is a waste of time and usually makes you think your domains have no value.

On the other hand there is Nameworth, which says DogBanana.com is worth $5450.
Hey it's not even registered yet ! Someone buy it now !

 

[carob]

We have had a few proposed formulae that tried to estimate worth of a domain name to a business, but would be interesting if someone tried to automate estimates of worth to business, not that it would be easy to do.

I think some of this is implicit in the discussions here about domain insurance, though that is maybe more about value lost when a domain is lost, rather than value gained when a domain is acquired.

 

[BrandEntrance.com]

Estibot is the worst. Good names with obvious value often show as $0. I use Uniregistry landers for my higher priced domains and they offer Estibot appraisals. That is a waste of time and usually makes you think your domains have no value.

On the other hand there is Nameworth, which says DogBanana.com is worth $5450.
Hey it's not even registered yet ! Someone buy it now !

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf...eq4B1sQBSgAegQICxAq&biw=1707&bih=784&dpr=1.13

 

[BrandEntrance.com]

Experienced users know that the internet was built on "free". However, that is not the basis of my comment.
It's more about how one can mismanage user experiences on the website. Limiting free searches is fine. Falsely accusing a user of being a bot is no bueno.

The internet was initially built mostly by funding from Porn sites.

 

[kite26]

I always use namebio. It's an excellent tool helping you price your names as successfully as possible. Also, many times I used to use it when I am negotiating. Obviously, it's a good way to understand the value of your name with a few clicks. All this process has a learning curve. For me, the key to use it correctly, is to avoid simplification. Yes, you can use namebio, but always keep in mind that it's only one piece of puzzle. One more example, I use estibot too. But never, never, never buy or appraise because of it. Every tool to be effective needs its smart user.

 

[xynames]

I mention namebio (and other) comparables in my sales spiel response to a domain inquiry in justifying my price. I don’t mention the origin as coming from namebio or wherever, but I do use namebio data.

It’s like chess - I always assume that my opponent will make the best move. I don’t underestimate. Therefore, I assume that my buyer has access to the same data as I, hence I mention namebio relevant comparables rather than assuming an ignorant buyer.

 

[Weber]

An end user would never get blocked by our system unless they were using a VPN.

My ip has been unblocked for weeks, so that's a non issue now.

However, the above statement is not true in my case. I was not using a VPN. I was also doing nothing malicious.