Need advice on building an automated tool for domainers

[redmaverick]

Hi Domainers,

I always wanted to build an automated domain name estimation tool. But I hope I can make it more accurate than the rest of the tools out there.

1. My tool would give an estimate that is one of the following

1. 0 ~ 100$ Low Value
2. 100 ~ 1K$
3. 1K ~ 5K$
4. 5K ~ 10K$
5. 10K ~ 100K$
6. 1 Million $ +


Limitations:
I will only be estimating for domain extension .com .net .org
The domain name must not contain numbers or misspelt words.

Would you be interested in using such a tool? Any other feature that would be useful to go with the tool? Please do suggest

 

[Kate]

Don't waste your time, there are several such tools available and they are all crap... for a reason. It's impossible to automate domain appraisals in an accurate and meaningful manner.

 

[Name Trader]

What? You are going to ignore all domains between $100K & $1M?

 

[alien51]

What? You are going to ignore all domains between $100K & $1M?

At that price range, you probably won't need automation appraisal tools anymore. And it is more likely some respected domain broker is handling price negotiations for you, while you are out watching a Lakers game.

 

[redmaverick]

@Everyone.
Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate it.

Alright, forget the domain name estimation part. Anything else that would be helpful.

I could aggregate
1. domain name history
2. number of transitions in the ownership
3. Backlinks
4. Number of google search results
5. similar keyword domains from the past historical data and its selling price.
6. Number of blog mentions
7. Alexa rank and graphs.
8. List of pending delete domain names for the day.

Would this be helpful or are there plenty of tools for these as well?

 

[alien51]

Yes, forget about the automated appraisal thingy. That's too subjective. Some people are promoting this appraisal stuff in an effort to set an "industry standard pricing" according to promoted metrics, partly to help boost the value of their own portfolios. Some of the domains that get sold for 8,000 dollars, i wouldn't even pay with my 99-cent Godaddy coupon.

Going back to your project, if you are just "aggregating", does that mean you have access to the databases of the other automation tools out there? Because if your tool is not that accurate, and timely, i would rather go directly to the source.

 

[redmaverick]

Yes, I will be using the api's provided by these services. So it will be accurate. You can even go the source to make sure.

Regarding the historical sales data. I will be manually collecting them from dnjournal.com and plugging them in a database. They release domain name sales every week.

But again, anything else that I could do that no other tool is doing right now? Any pain points that domainers have?

 

[biggie]

i would rather go directly to the source.

:talk:


that has always been my approach.

rather than using a "middle mo fo" who more than likely is datamining all your search query's and on top of that...you're probably paying a fee for some "advanced" or exclusive feature.

i can find more "productive" names with "duct tape" than many of these tools will provide.

 

[alien51]

Okay, here are my suggestions for your automation project:

1. DEVELOP a software automation tool that will AGGREGATE all the domain COUPON CODES that get posted in various blog sites, forums, facebook, twitter, email. Put a capability to send a TEXT MESSAGE whenever it detects a 1-dollar, up to 3-dollar coupon code that suddenly comes up.

2. DEVELOP a Domain Drop-Catch JAMMING software. This tool must have the ability to JAM the dropcatching algo of sites like SnapNames, to level the playing field for the rest of the domainers. If a domain is DROPPING, you should only PAY REG FEE for it. The fastest one gets it. Your tool should JAM those who don't play fair.

3. DEVELOP a software that can TRACE THE REAL-WORLD IDENTITY of all the domain solicitors sending spammy "domains-for-sale" emails using crawled whois data. The tool must be able to trace the real IP address, facebook/twitter/linkedin accounts, mugshot photos, physical home address and phone numbers from various government databases. Must also have the ability to auto-report to Google or Yahoo to block their email accounts.

Those are pretty much it.

 

[biggie]

okay, here are my suggestions for your automation project:

3. Develop a software that can trace the real-world identity of all the domain solicitors sending spammy "domains-for-sale" emails using crawled whois data. The tool must be able to trace the real ip address, facebook/twitter/linkedin accounts, mugshot photos, physical home address and phone numbers from various government databases. Must also have the ability to auto-report to google or yahoo to block their email accounts.

+1

 

[redmaverick]

I can do this.:bingo:

1. DEVELOP a software automation tool that will AGGREGATE all the domain COUPON CODES that get posted in various blog sites, forums, facebook, twitter, email. Put a capability to send a TEXT MESSAGE whenever it detects a 1-dollar, up to 3-dollar coupon code that suddenly comes up.

The other two are beyond my current abilities.

Any other suggestions by any other members?

 

[alien51]

.... and make sure your tool is free of charge to use. Good karma is worth more than gold.

 

[redmaverick]

I looking at a price range of $30 per month.

 

[lothos]

1. DEVELOP a software automation tool that will AGGREGATE all the domain COUPON CODES that get posted in various blog sites, forums, facebook, twitter, email. Put a capability to send a TEXT MESSAGE whenever it detects a 1-dollar, up to 3-dollar coupon code that suddenly comes up.

Shameless self promotion here, but you do realize I have a facebook page and twitter feed that posts codes all day long? (The twitter account is new however) And you can configure your twitter to receive notifications and text messages to your phone when I post new codes?

I can do this.:bingo:

Any other suggestions by any other members?

I looking at a price range of $30 per month.

I don't see anyone paying a monthly fee for a coupon site. There are way too many free sources already.


My suggestion? Spend a little more time learning the domaining world, and find a NEED that is not currently fulfilled by a current product.

Here's a personal example:

Every single day I see people on the forums asking "where is the cheapest .sh?" "where is the cheapest .us?" "where is the cheapest .co.uk?" ETC.

I'm spending personal time and money building a tool that will show EVERY EXTENSION with the cheapest price for each extension. Now, instead of having to ask on the forum, or go search through 20 registrars for the cheapest price, people can go to one site and with one click they get the cheapest price. The tool will be released in about 2 weeks. It'll be totally free to use, and if it becomes popular I might possibly be able to sell advertising and maybe even make my money back that I spent developing it

 

[Kate]

I looking at a price range of $30 per month.

You know, domainers are cheap (or broke), I actually don't think there is much money to be made making tools for fellow domainers :talk:
Others have tried that route and they have realized they wouldn't make a living easily selling picks and shovels to the gold diggers.

It seems to me that the features you are contemplating already exist in one form or another, more or less for free. Domainers are unlikely to pay for that, unless (maybe) they stand to make big profits from your services. But you need to deliver something huge that doesn't already exist.

I know it's not very encouraging but if you have developer skills I would look at a different niche.
I have developed my own scripts, and while they might be useful to somebody else I think I would be making less money if other people used my own tools to compete against me...

So the bottom line is this: if you have a great product, be your own best customer and reap the benefits :gl:

 

[redmaverick]

@lothos

I want to be a comprehensive platform for domainers. Just one feature of which is the coupon thingie. Obviously, I don't expect or hope to take money from people without giving them real benefit.

I was looking at the estibot site. They are charging $30 bucks per month to use their suite of tools.

I think I can do a much better job than them. Or atleast similar job with a flavor of my own.

Regarding making money from advertising, I feel that it is much better to rely on subscription based model. I do want to provide a service that is worth much much more than the $30 that the customer is paying for.

Also, note that leapfish is down. SwiftAppraisal is down and Domaintops is also not working. There is no real competition to Estibot. Then again, if people don't take any automated appraisal seriously, then I don't want to do it. Still thinking though. I do want to play around with historical sales data to see if automated appraisal is correct/useful.

All the best with your tool! I hope it succeeds

---------- Post added at 11:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:42 AM ----------

@sdsinc
yeah... it does not seems encouraging. But who are these people estibot is serving?

I will think about what you wrote. Maybe,I will make the tool free after all. I don't know.

 

[lothos]

I was looking at the estibot site. They are charging $30 bucks per month to use their suite of tools.

I think I can do a much better job than them. Or atleast similar job with a flavor of my own.

coupons are saturated. Coupons are also hard to automate, so unless you spend a lot of time on them then the other free sources will be much better than yours.

There might be a market for a comprehensive statistics site, though. There's a bunch of sources for stats, and a lot of them are free, but there's no real comprehensive site that has everything AFAIK. If you can do better than estibot, at a cheaper price, then I think you could make yourself a good market there.

 

[alien51]

Shameless self promotion here, but you do realize I have a facebook page and twitter feed that posts codes all day long? (The twitter account is new however) And you can configure your twitter to receive notifications and text messages to your phone when I post new codes?

Sorry to have offended you, lothos. I'm a big fan of your coupon website. My reco just popped-out of my head for a split second.

But yes, it doesn't make any logical sense to pay $30 on a coupon site hoping to get $5-off discounts. :D



---------- Post added at 07:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:44 PM ----------

You know, domainers are cheap (or broke), I actually don't think there is much money to be made making tools for fellow domainers :talk:
Others have tried that route and they have realized they wouldn't make a living easily selling picks and shovels to the gold diggers.

Ouchh!!! LOL



---------- Post added at 07:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:45 PM ----------

yeah... it does not seems encouraging. But who are these people estibot is serving?

Based on the various threads and posts i've read here, they are getting money from suckers. LOL

I think you are much better off using your skills to develop extensions used for Joomla or Wordpress. Eventhough many of these extensions end up in nulled warez sites, a lot of people do PAY developers for their honest work. You can make money there.

---------- Post added at 07:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:49 PM ----------

FORGOT TO ADD:

I doubt other tool developers would share to you their data. If you do succeed in your AGGREGATION TOOL project, it would make their own tools useless as you will take traffic AWAY from them. Not good.

Competitors don't necessarily like each other.

 

[Name Trader]

Beside Estibot.com you should look at DomainTools.com for inspiration.

Recently I tried to get people to say if they were paying for Estibot and what tools they used besides the valuations. I got precisely zero responses. Which either means they are shy to say publicly they pay for Estibot.com or nobody is paying for it. I was paying a discounted annual rate last year but at renewal time that went up 50% upon renewal and I could only pay monthly. It was still discounted, but I canceled my subscription and bought a VPS instead. So, I for one didn't think the tools were worth the money. But you only need one lead to pay off to recoup your money. So I would say it's not worth it if you don't sell a domain to one of the leads generated, and it is worth it if you do

I don't subscribe to DomainTools.com either, even though they have some nice tools. I'm a cheap charlie (I suppose), so if you can compete against them on price, then you might be onto something.

 

[mitok]

I cant speak for others, but can for myself. I prefer my own brain for finding and selling domains. I use tools, but many of them from many sources, for many purposes. Like Google AdWords Keyword Tool for exact search check, Namepros thread for GoDaddy coupons, Namebio and DNsaleprice for checking past sales etc.....
I dont need all them at the same time. Also, I like to think why some domain could be good and to whom. When I am harvesting potential endusers contacts, I MUST do that by myself! I cant use tools for that, or some other human. I must do that by myself as in that case I do know how to approach to that specific potential enduser as I learn something about him while harversting his/her/its contact info.

So, I really dont have any idea which new tools could be made. I adore domaining, but it is a job in which you need human intelligence and effort. That is my opinion.