Namebio inaccurate

[Southtexas81]

I'm trying to find a legit data source for looking up domain name history. Namebio is about unreliable as godaddy. I need real time accuracy.

 

[xynames]

NameBio doesn’t list all domain sales - only sales reported to them or that they picked up (scraped) from other sources like dnjournal or the marketplaces like godaddy Sedo dropcatch namejet Uniregistry BuyDomains flippa etc. When I report sales to namebio all are either verified or subject to verification. There are examples also where namebio will remove data that are shown to be inaccurate. So what data are on namebio, especially what is reported directly to them or from the marketplaces, are generally reliable - versus say:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/ar...d-domain-sales-accurate-or-even-true.1113246/

OP’s posts are as full of vitriol as they are full of inaccuracy. If you wish to be taken seriously get your facts straight as well as your analysis. Putting down a database (namebio) just because it does not include data that were not reported to it is out of line.

 

[Southtexas81]

NameBio doesn’t list all domain sales - only sales reported to them or that they picked up (scraped) from other sources like dnjournal or the marketplaces like godaddy Sedo dropcatch namejet Uniregistry etc. When I report sales to namebio all are either verified or subject to verification. There are examples also where namebio will remove data that are shown to be inaccurate. So what data are on namebio are generally reliable - versus say:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/ar...d-domain-sales-accurate-or-even-true.1113246/

OP’s posts are as full of vitriol as they are full of inaccuracy. If you wish to be taken seriously get your facts straight as well as your analysis. Putting down a database (namebio) just because it does not include data that were not reported to it is out of line.

Cry much? If a site advertises to provided true data then it is expected to be reliable or else it is misleading the public. It's like saying " oh I have the best hamburgers but cant tell you where in the world are they literally the best but they are the best" moron

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I don't use such services at all...
If you can't appraise your domains - try another business.

 

[xynames]

Jurgen’s post is the other end of the extreme. Stuffing your ears with cotton and not using any comparable closed sales? Is that what he’s saying?

 

[alcy]

I'm trying to find a legit data source for looking up domain name history. Namebio is about unreliable as godaddy. I need real time accuracy.

look its simple... when 1 guy out of 1 million complains about a thing.. he's always wrong

its like the law.

 

[xynames]

If a site advertises to provided true data then it is expected to be reliable

Namebio does consist of true data that are reliable. That’s exactly what it is - true and reliable.

You’re just apparently incapable of comprehending what the terms “true” and “reliable” mean and keep complaining about missing (unreported) data. Which actually there isn’t really even much of that. All I’ve heard you complain about is that some apparently penny ante buys you yourself made aren’t in namebio - so, contact namebio, provide the proof, and if they meet the threshold they’ll be added!

 

[Kate]

I'm starting to back away from domaining. I dont see how it will ever be profitable without some accuracy and without an expectation of selling a name at least within 10 to 20 years at worse case.

There is no such thing as accuracy. Domain sales are quite unpredictable unless you own top tier domain names.
Comparable sales are useful but only to a certain extent. And many sales are one of a kind too. So you can't really make predictions just based on reported sales but it's data that can be helpful.
I should also stress that some of us have been domaining long before such tools were available, publicly and for free (smile).

 

[Michael]

As others have mentioned, you seem to be confusing accuracy with completeness, which are two very separate things. Is the data we collect perfectly accurate? No. Sometimes auctions are rolled back to the next highest bidder if the winner didn't pay. Sometimes auctions are completely cancelled after they close.

There's not much we, or anyone else, can do about this for venues who don't share data or only share the headline sales. For some venues like DropCatch the domains get re-auctioned, so we can automatically remove the original one. The main takeaway is that we track the closing prices but we can't guarantee they completed, however only a small percentage don't complete (around 1-3% depending on venue).

Is the data we collect complete (which is what I think you meant)? No. We obviously can't track sales that happened in private where neither party reported them to us... neither can anybody else. There are a *lot* that fall into this category. But we capture an extremely high percentage of sales that are possible to track.

The main exception to that is public GoDaddy auctions, because the way we track doesn't allow us to see if a name had a reserve or if it was met, so we have to exclude them all. Public auctions that had bids and met reserve are an extremely tiny fraction of their auction activity though, most of their volume is expired inventory. We should be capturing almost all of their expired auctions, except sometimes their expired inventory from partner registrars doesn't show in their expired list (or at least that used to be a problem - I haven't checked if they fixed that recently).

Also for NameJet you have to place a back order to track their non-public auctions, and while we place 50k+ back orders per year there we can't be in every single auction to be able to record the results. Other than those exceptions we should be recording pretty much everything there is to record at all the major venues.

We also record a *lot* of sales under $100 but we don't make those public, generally there are 4-5x as many sales under $100 in a day as there are $100+. I'm guessing most of the "missing" data you were looking for falls into this category and you just didn't realize that they are not shown to anonymous/free users.

We're just about as complete and accurate as it is possible to be in this industry. Again the data isn't perfect, but it's not really possible to do much better considering all of the challenges and the general lack of transparency. Let me know if you have any questions, or if there is an actual inaccuracy you would like me to correct (i.e. a sale is in the database but not at the right price or it didn't actually complete). And if you have sales/purchases $100+ that you would like to report shoot me an email and I'm happy to add them.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

We are very fortunate in the domain community that NameBio exists. It is a powerful database with a superb interface that allows us to do analysis easily and ,if one chooses not to use one of the subscription plans, without cost.

As with any data source, the user should realize what is and is not included in the database. The fact that some major sales venues, including Afternic, Undeveloped, smaller sales on Sedo, Efty sites, etc., do not report to NameBio must of course be taken into account when making conclusions derived from the data. But the fact that it does contain more than 1.3 million domain sales totalling more than $1.7 billion dollars total volume, with sales going back through many years, provides a measure of how significant it is.

As others have said, the OP seems to be confusing lack of completeness with lack of accuracy.

Unless or until we have a legislated system for domain name sales disclosure like we have in many parts of the world for real estate transactions where all sales information must be public, any domain sales system will show us only a portion of the data.

If one is looking for sales in a niche, the free GoDaddy GoValue appraisal tool often provides excellent comparator sales that are not in the NameBio database. I always use both NameBio and NameValue when I am trying to find sales from a niche.

If the OP is interested in small value sales data, the subscription plans do provide that (at least the top two tiers). \I am amazed how many small value transactions occur each week.

The OP may find this guide to starting with NameBio helpful, since I do talk about what is included and what is not in the database, as well as lead through the steps of basic searches. I hope to publish the next in the series (to deal with compound word searches) soon.

Investing in domain names is quite dissimilar to selling automobiles. It is quite easy to set a fairly narrow range on prices for a used car of a certain model, year, options and mileage. Also, inventory will essentially all sell before too long. Domain name prices are not as well defined, and the majority of names will not sell even in a 10 year holding period, if ever. In that way I think that investing in domain names is more like investing in startup companies. Intelligence can help you make better choices, but only some of them will pay off. But just a few can pay off enough to make it overall worthwhile.

Bob

 

[MapleDots]

I think there should be a rule that you have to have a minimum of at least 100 posts before you're allowed to criticize services you know nothing about

 

[Addison]

I'm trying to find a legit data source for looking up domain name history

NameBio is superb, but there is also: DNPric.es.

 

[Bernard Wright]

I have been using Namebio quite a bit recently and I find it incredibly valuable.

It is exceedingly common, at least from my experience, for the listed names to resolve to landers even months to years post-sale. I am beginning to hypothesize that the reported sales on Namebio tend to pertain to sales between investors (or inexperienced parties), and that end users often ensure to keep the purchase price unreported. And here is how this is possible:

If someone receives an offer via their Efty page, or a site like @MapleDots, for instance, I presume the transaction usually goes through channels such as Epik, Escrow, or Undeveloped. Such sales are not commonly-reported to Namebio. And, most experienced investors probably tend to operate such personal sites, hence the inability to provide exhaustive sales reports. Is this the case? Still learning and just want to confirm.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

transaction usually goes through channels such as Epik, Escrow, or Undeveloped. Such sales are not commonly-reported to Namebio.

Yes those sales would not be in NameBio unless one or the other party reported them individually and provided documentation on it.

Here is my understanding of what it includes (from this Intro to NameBio I wrote) ....

"The venues that report to the database have varied somewhat over the years, but publicly reported sales currently include 4.cn, Bido, BuyDomains, DropCatch, Dynadot, Fabulous, Flippa, GoDaddy auctions, NameJet, ParkIO and Sedo. A variety of other venues, including some of the registries with premium domain sales, periodically report."​

Because which registry data is in has varied over the years, one has to be careful doing longitudinal stats.

Or if your query was does that bias the data since many high value private sales are excluded, I think it definitely does have that bias (on the other hand Sedo only report their $200+ sales in most cases so that biases in opposite direction, which may partly compensate).

I would also stress that it is important to periodically look over an extended period, and not simply look at each day's Daily Market Report. That is because many private and Asian sites miss the deadline, and appear in no daily report even though in database. So the daily reports have a bias in favour of the sources like GoDaddy and NameJet auctions that are automatically entered promptly.

We are so fortunate to have such a wonderful database. The subscription plans make it even better.

Bob