analysis Number of searches for name in Godaddy not an indicator of sales potential

[markfromslo]

I have nearly all my names registered at Godaddy, and listed at Afternic with the nameservers set to Afternic.

Godaddy, and now Afternic, lets you see the following numbers for each domain name:

• 30-day total searches
• 30-day unique searches
• 60-day total searches
• 60-day unique searches
• 90-day total searches
• 90-day unique searches

You can see all these stats if you export (all columns) your Godaddy or portfolio to a csv. And recently Afternic started showing all these columns on their portfolio display, and allows you to sort on the columns.

The search numbers seem to be a way better indicator than the visits column (which could be bots and previous site visitors), because they are people actually keying the domain name into the search bar at Godaddy or at an Afternic partner. So I’ve been using the 30-day searches numbers to determine how much interest there are in a domain name. I sort the 30 day column in descending order to see which names are the hottest. I download the portfolio to a csv every week. Since I keep older weekly files, I can ask an AI to check which names have the fastest rising 30-day searches over the last week. Hot names get price increases if I think they are underpriced.

I thought I really had a good system going. Until I evaluated recent sales and their numbers of 30-day searches prior to the sale.

When a sale is made, the name is instantly removed from Godaddy and Afternic so I cannot look at the Godaddy or Afternic sites for what the search numbers were for that name. But since I had saved the files downloaded from each week, I can go back to the most recent file just before the sale to see what the search numbers were. I thought I would see very high numbers, but I was shocked that this was not the case.

I looked at the search numbers for the last dozen sales I’ve made, and 8 of them showed zero 30-day searches, and the remaining 4 has search numbers from 1 to 3. Meanwhile my names with the highest 30-day search numbers (getting up to about 80 searches) remain unsold.

Conclusion: there is no correlation between the number of searches for a name and it’s likelihood of selling. At least for my last dozen sales. And this is kind of blowing my mind.

Any thoughts?

 

[biggie]

Conclusion: there is no correlation between the number of searches for a name and it’s likelihood of selling. At least for my last dozen sales. And this is kind of blowing my mind.

Any thoughts?

Hi

I could have told you same thing and saved you a lot of analyzing.

it’s the same for me at sedo


it’s those one or two visits out of the blue on a low volume name that raises my brow.



imo…

 

[AEProgram]

the data is likely another gimmick to get domainers to renew names, just like the bot sales inquiries.

 

[NameGroove]

I've been tracking GD searches too. Here are my last 5 sales with annual searches.
24
33
<5
8
32

Also Josh at DNX shows number of GD searches when he sends his newsletter showing names and what he considers "bargain pricing". He's an old timer, and seems to find the stat valuable.

Of course none of this means correlation... but I do find it interesting. Remember, there are many levers, of which searches are just one. If your prices are too high, they may not sell regardless. If they are too low, you may sell even on the first search.