Plural vs. Singular...Values make no sense to me???

[Vito]

OK,

As I am searching and researching,

There is always one constant...

Nothing is consistent in domaining!

I figure that most domains should do better, and be more valuable in the plural sense.
Wrong.
Many domains that I am researching seem to do better in as singular domains.???

My question is...why?
Why would a domain do better singular rather than plural?

Look at the screenshot I think I was able to add to this Post...lol
It is a screenshot appraisal of 5 words, both singular and plural versions...

Car/s
Cup/s
Table/s
Tattoo/s
Horse/s

There is a discrepancy between both singular, and plural.
The values are all over the board.
But mostly it seems that singular appraises higher than plural.
That, I dont get.

Anybody that has any insight into this,
Please reply.
Thanks!

 

[-REECE-]

Like you said, it really depends on the term.

For instance, Beer.com sounds better than Beers.com and there's far more searches for "beer" than "beers", same for Pizza versus Pizzas. I can imagine it would probably be quite confusing for someone whose first language is not English. When looking at sales between singular/plural, it would be important to make sure they took place around the same time given that domain prices have fluctuated substantially over the years and remember that the buyer could always have overpaid or gotten a deal on one or the other.

 

[Vito]

Like you said, it really depends on the term.

For instance, Beer.com sounds better than Beers.com and there's far more searches for "beer" than "beers", same for Pizza versus Pizzas. I can imagine it would probably be quite confusing for someone whose first language is not English. When looking at sales between singular/plural, it would be important to make sure they took place around the same time given that domain prices have fluctuated substantially over the years and remember that the buyer could always have overpaid or gotten a deal on one or the other.

Thanx for your reply Reece.

I understand about the weird sounding plural domains, such as your examples.
But what I am talking about are the domains that make sense, and sound good in the plural sense.

Shouldnt everyone always take a higher value in the plural version?
I mean, it sounds like a no-brainer to me...but stats show me that I am WAY off...lol

If I wanted to promote anything at all,
Cars, Flowers, Horses, Outlets, Names, Guitars, etc...
Wouldnt most people search the plural version of whatever they wanted info on???

The values and search results I have come across,
mostly say singular is King.
I just dont know why???

Thanx.

 

[Domainace]

Some Perry Marshall discussions about PPC went into hamster vs hamsters.

It's not just the number of people searching for a term, it's how likely they are to spend money. In the hamster case, those who searched for the plural form were looking for general information about hamsters, often with no intention to buy anything. People who searched for hamster were more likely to have a particular need for their hamster, and were ready to buy. (I hope I remember that correctly)

So, as said above, this depends on the term - and it also depends on the likely intentions of the searcher.

And, just to muck things up, in Japan for example, there is no plural form - so the singular would normally be searched for.

 

[labrocca]

I understand about the weird sounding plural domains, such as your examples.
But what I am talking about are the domains that make sense, and sound good in the plural sense.

Many times domains are negotiated and it's rare a single seller has both plural and singular. Domainer A might want xxx,xxx for his singular and Domainer B wants $xx,xxx for his plural. Of course it's not unlikely that the opposite is true as well. Domains are sold based upon a domainer accepting a price from a buyer. It's what a buyer is willing to pay and what a domainer is willing to sell for. Discrepencies aren't the exception...they are the norm.

 

[h2o]

But then again with the basket.com case for $88,000, most people said that baskets.com is more valuable and I would have to agree.

 

[plaggypig]

It would be interesting to know whether Google/other search engines perform any lexical transformations on queries, to implicitly include results for both the singular and plural, no matter which was searched for explicitly.

Edit: Doesn't look like Google does this - some test queries produce entirely different result sets.

 

[snoop]

Varies depending on the term, in general I would say more brand focused names are often better in singular, product focused often better in plural. There is no rule though look at the popularity of keywords and excercise common sense.

It's not just the number of people searching for a term, it's how likely they are to spend money. In the hamster case, those who searched for the plural form were looking for general information about hamsters, often with no intention to buy anything. People who searched for hamster were more likely to have a particular need for their hamster, and were ready to buy. (I hope I remember that correctly)

That example makes no sense to me. My experience has been singular animal terms usually perform worse than plural, I think because alot of the time singular searches are looking for a site or company that has branded around the term eg the-hamster.com, hamsterdance.com. The again the singular animal terms get alot more enduser enquiries than plural because of that.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

There are as many reasons as there are buyers and sellers.

Sometimes singular or plural sounds better than the other, sometimes not. Sometimes the buyer only needs one name and pays dearly to get it. The other one may have been out of their price range. Once they get one, they aren't willing to pay the same for the other. Say I own the plural in .com, but want other TLD's. I might be willing to pay more for the one that matches the other TLD I have, but not value the other one even though as a stand alone it sounds better.

Sometimes timing can be a big thing too. A particular version may be sold before or after that keyword is hot, changing the perceived value in comparison.

 

[nameboi]

There is more than search results when determining name values. Singular versions just sound better to many buyers, and for a good reason. They sound more solid. Plurals sound like you always want to compare things.

 

[Domainace]

Varies depending on the term, in general I would say more brand focused names are often better in singular, product focused often better in plural. There is no rule though look at the popularity of keywords and excercise common sense.



That example makes no sense to me. My experience has been singular animal terms usually perform worse than plural, I think because alot of the time singular searches are looking for a site or company that has branded around the term eg the-hamster.com, hamsterdance.com. The again the singular animal terms get alot more enduser enquiries than plural because of that.

I found the reference. It is from the Perry Marshall adwords book, and it was guinea pigs rather than hamsters (I must have been thinking about Richard Gere...) In fact, I had the whole thing wrong. It was simply that people who searched for the singular tended to be those who were in the early stages of investigating guinea pigs, and needed to be handled with that in mind. This who searched for the plural form were further ahead in the learning curve, were looking for more advance info, and slightly more likely to buy.

Next time I'll check my quotes before posting!

 

[Vito]

As I sit here and read all of these educated comments
from many very seasoned domainers,
I still find many many reasons why plural domains should be more valuable than their singular counterparts.

I guess the way I look at it is...
When searching for info on any subject,
the plural version would sound to me,
as being much more informative.
If I wanted info on guitars, transmissions, hamsters, etc.
I want a wide array of topics, and the singular version sounds
like it would be very limited. Almost as if you were only going to get info on one particular guitar, transmission, hamster, etc.

Now, when i want to BUY a guitar, transmission, hamster, etc.
I definitely want a HUGE variety of them (comparisons). The only way to know that I am getting more than one choice, is to add an "s" to make it plural.

I dont know, maybe its just me?


Of course I do understand the arguement of someone spending tons of $$$ on one particular domain, and if the singular version is only available at that specific time, and if you have to beg, borrow, and steal to finance that killer domain, then it is highly unlikely that when the plural version is available, that you would be able to afford that one too making the perceived value as less,
(as AdobtableDomains mentioned).

But just for kicks say both are available, and you for some reason have to choose one, I would argue that most would want the plural version of that domain first. Hence, making plural more valuable.

I found the reference. It is from the Perry Marshall adwords book, and it was guinea pigs rather than hamsters (I must have been thinking about Richard Gere...) In fact, I had the whole thing wrong. It was simply that people who searched for the singular tended to be those who were in the early stages of investigating guinea pigs, and needed to be handled with that in mind. This who searched for the plural form were further ahead in the learning curve, were looking for more advance info, and slightly more likely to buy.

Next time I'll check my quotes before posting!

LOL,
Thanx for clearing that up DomainAce,
I swear, I was just going to go research that...

 

[Vito]

I posted this crazy question last night,
and got a lot of great commentary.

Here is a bump for the daytime NP crowd.
Any thoughts/comments/facts/info/opinions, etc.???

I'm not quite sure if there is a correct answer,
but the educated replies are very informative to me.

Thanks!

 

[DNProperty.com]

Domain ending in Jobs do better than Job domains typically.

One example where plural wins..