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Hi All
Not long back I was among the ones who was struggling to learn the basics of apprasing a domain. Nevertheless I learnt it the hard way by registering the names which were'nt worth even the Reg value. I though I would share my learnings with few new people here and help some of them make a wise decision.
The content Posted below is not my original but the one which I found while googling for my questions.
If the content helps you please do add some rep points . 8^X
Domain Appraisal Guide
The goal of Domain appraisal is to find the current market value of a domain name. Appraising real estate, commodity or any type of asset is always a challenging procedure. When it comes to domain names it is twice as difficult because the tendencies of the internet marketplace changes continuously. There are almost no rules to stick to or are there? Do you want to know how domain appraisal works? Due to an increased amount of valuation applications we receive, we have decided to share some tips so that you could pre-evaluate your domains before submitting them to us.
If you decide to sell a domain name you will still need (or at least it is recommended that you have) a domain appraisal certificate. This free guide will give you the basic ideas of how to evaluate your asset. This will be especially helpful in case you own multiple domain names. In the end it will save you money and save us time. And both sides will be happy.
To make things clearer, we have outlined 20 important domain name appraisal criteria and sorted them into six main groups. The criteria are listed in descending order by the importance. The first being the most important. If you have some time to go through this domain appraisal guide, it will help you to understand how much is your domain name worth. So let’s start!
Group 1 - Market situation and your domain names
It is very important to understand that the domain name industry and the internet as such is not an entity existing outside time and space. The internet is closely linked to the business world, shops, stock market, fashion, buyer’s mood, etc. If collectable porcelain is not popular in your high-street shop, don’t expect to sell many dishes online!
• 1. Industry popularity - this is the penultimate criterion in domain appraisal. Your domain name may be short and cute but it will be hard to sell it if people don’t think it is in fashion. Do you fancy registering plasticbuttons.com? That’s a nice domain name, however, you must answer a question: ”How many people will come online to buy plastic buttons?” This is the first and the most important question in domain valuation. Even if there are no specific keywords in your domain, you have to ask yourself if you can apply the name to a certain market.
• 2. Niche situation - if your domain applies to a certain niche within a market, how active is the niche? Isn’t it too narrow? What level of competition would you have? Is it likely that the potential buyer would be able to base his business around this domain name? If not, you could still sell it to a speculator but we usually preach that you get an optimal price if you sell to a business owner!
• 3. Search engine keyword popularity - the best way to explore a market or a niche is... to carry out an extensive market research, to have a poll, to buy a report? Oh, no! Doing a market research is free and easy. All you need is a Google Adwords account. You can obtain it with a welcome coupon (it means that opening your account will be free and you will have a couple of quid to test PPC if you wish).
Click here for an Adwords coupon. Once you have a Google Adwords account, proceed to Tools -> Keyword Tool. Type in the keyword or key-phrase of your domain name and click the button. You will be given all the statistics you need. The list will show you the number of searches performed during a period of month (mobile phone 2,740,000 searches, plastic button - 2,900 searches; see the difference) and the level of competition. Learn how your DN works in the context of the actual market situation
Group 2 - Name specific criteria for domain name appraisal
After your domain name has passed the niche popularity test, you will have to dissect the name, cut it in parts and put it all under the microscope. Well, almost!
• 4. Some call it marketability but we like to call it seriousness or substantiality of a domain name. You don’t have to be a genius to tell a good genuine domain from a foolish combination of words, digits and hyphens. Credit-card-comparison-whatever.com may be good enough for an ads based info web site (another one of the bunch) but you will not be able to sell this name in the aftermarket. It just looks bad, it is not attractive, it doesn’t touch the imagination.
• 5. Dot TLD value. Is .COM TLD (top level domain) still the king? Yes it is when it comes to selling domain names, because with .COM tld you also buy a bit of respectability. No it is not when it come s to web site development. If you are an SEO (search engine optimization) expert, you can easily outrank keywordexample.com with keywordexample.cc.
However, you cannot make an impact on domain name aftermarket just by being a good SEO. The fact is that .COM sells better. Then comes .NET and .ORG extensions. This domain appraisal diagram will show you the power of different TLD extensions. For top tier you can expect a million, midfield extensions have the potential to sell for $100,000 (we are still watching the .IN and .CN but it seems that Asian internet grows like a squid). Lower end sells in $XX,XXX figures. The struggle zone can hardly break into thousands of dollars. When you base your domain name appraisal on TLD, remember that a bad .com can be bought for $50 while a brilliant .NAME can be sold for $2,000 (live.name was sold for $2,356).
TLD is not a value by itself. It only can add to a value of a domain name that is already great!
• 6. Phone test. In domain valuation it is very important to determine how easy the name is to pronounce or spell. As most of the companies generate business both off-line and on-line, it is crucial that you can dictate your domain name over the phone and be sure that you are not misunderstood. To carry out a phone test, ask a friend to help you. Dictate him the DN and ask him to write it down. If he can do it without re-iteration, you probably have a good domain. However, if you need to spell it letter by letter going like Rambo: “C for Charlie, A for Alpha, T for Tango”, it may mean your name is not worth a lot.
• 7. Memory test or child test. To be sure about the domain appraisal let’s see how memorable your name is. Tell your friend about your domain name and after a day, ask him to repeat it. If he can do it, your DN is easy to remember. You can also ask a child to do domain appraisal for you - tell him the name and ask if he can repeat it. Long domains that make no sense will make no big money in the aftermarket!
• Domain name length. The aftermarket has changed a bit. There was a time when you could get lots of money for any four-letter nonsense, even if it was especially stupid. BDEQ.com could easily go for thousands. Now, even though the bubble hasn't yet burst, these days are slowly fading and you have to consider it when performing domain appraisal. Two or three letter domain names are still good commodity because they usually stand for some kind of abbreviation. Anything more than three letters? Then it needs to make at least some sense! Basically it is easier to sell a name that is up to 10 letters long (not counting the TLD extension). If the DN contains two dictionary words that make mutual sense, and it has less than 15 letters, it still stands a good chance to go for decent money. Anything longer than 15 letters may struggle. For various reasons... It doesn’t look any good, it is not memorable, etc.
Domain Branding Criteria.
Branding is still a major point in domain appraisal. Looking into trademarks and branding can determine the value of a domain. Cybersquatting is out of the fashion and out of law, so don’t go there. Your DN must not contain established brands, yet it may contain a name of a certain product or a product group.
• 9. Product recognition. Let’s go back to the plastic button example. So, a button is a product but it is not branded or copyrighted. You may use this name the way you want, the only problem being that its recognition is very low. A mobile phone or a cell phone is another product. As you can imagine its recognition is much higher. Include this criterion in your domain appraisal. The bigger the product, the more money your domain can fetch. Turn back to point #2 to remind yourself how to figure out the product popularity. Let’s go back to the products now. iPod and Playstation are products too, but they are branded. It means that it is not a good idea to include branded product names into your DN. If you would ask us for buyipod.com domain appraisal, we would say, hey, its not a good idea! Buycellphone.com - just another story - it would probably go for $20,000 or more.
• 10. Brandability and domain appraisal. So you have come up with a nice and short domain name that makes no sense? You can still make good money on it... In case it is brandable - meaning that the buyer of this domain will be able to register it as a trade mark. For example, Flickr.com - it may be one of the strangest word ever. Yet, it was brandable and it was short - a certain part of aftermarket players love brandable domain names and buy them. I am not saying you have to dash away and get pringslop.com registered. Make-no-sense DNs are hard to market and hard to sell, however, don’t abandon a domain name before you have checked it against brandability factor. To do so go here http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=tm8msv.1.1 for USA and here http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tm/t-find/t-find-text/ for UK to check if the name you have is not a registered trade-mark or brand.
• 11. Exact Keyword. All those SEO (Search engine optimization) mad people think that it is an advantage to have a single keyword or keyphrase domain name. Again, it depends and you have to be careful about domain valuation to include keyword factor. If mobilephone.com does well in aftermarket, it doesn’t mean so will debtconsolidationexpertagency.com. If the keyword doesn’t affect the Memorability or length of your DN, count it as an advantage.
Wording and Grammar
Did you love grammar at school? No? Now you will need some. So bring out your old copybook and let’s get started. Wording criteria may be very important when it comes to domain appraisal.
• 12. Domain Language. I am proud to say that English is the most frequently used language across the internet. Think about the vast English-speaking auditorium in Great Britain, USA, Australia, etc., then comes Asia where almost anyone can speak decent English, all this emerging market of Eastern Europe where children eagerly learn English at school. So, if your DN is in good English, put yourself a high mark. Spanish language goes well too in the aftermarket. If watches.com could possibly make $500,000 or more, expect that reloj.com will still fetch something near $100,000. Then if you can think of a good domain that makes sense for German speaking people, expect to attract some interest too. Don’t bother with other languages - your success may be unpredictable.
• 13. Consider grammar in domain appraisal. Some people had made good money on typos (wrong spelling f a common word) still it gets harder and harder to sell typos. You cannot expect a well-regarded company to use typo for their web-site. A typo is good for domain parking and even if the popularity of parking is increasing, it is harder to make money there, because people just don’t click these stupid parked page ads. Another language criterion in domain appraisal is the way how the words make sense together.
We are often asked to appraise strange domain names. Well, vodkadairy.com is a bad idea. Get your wording stick together and you will be winning! There is a separate class of names that plays a wording trick together with the TLD extension, i.e. the extension is a word in English language. For example, buy.at - it is great! The DN and its TLD works together. Although .AT (TLD of Austria) is not a high value extension, buy.at will be much, much expensive than buy.sk or buy.cc. Other sensible TLDs are .IN, .AT, .TV, .AM, .FM, .BE, .US, .IT and .ME!
How On-site and Search Engine Based Criteria Affect Domain Valuation
If you are trying to get domain name value for a blank (never been used before) domain, on-site work is not an issue because there is no web site. However, DN age is a major factor for people who are buying a name for development. Having a good quality web site (even if it is a basic one) is a good way to get more money for a domain name. Having a bad or a blacklisted or copyrights infringing web-site is a good way to keep the buyers at a solid distance from your DN. So its up to you!
• 14. Domain Age. As DN age is a factor in Google Search engine algorithm it is also a factor in domain appraisal. In fact, an older domain may help a web-site to rank higher. If there are two similarly SEO-ed web-sites with a similar backlink weight, the one with an older domain will almost certainly outrank the other. Allegedly other search engines such as Yahoo and MSN also consider domain age as a ranking factor. An older DN usually means more respect. However, sometimes it can spell trouble - i.e. be blacklisted or had hosted a linkfarm previously. If your DN is clear and mature, be sure to add more to your selling price.
• 15. PageRank as a criterion o domain appraisal. PageRank is a factor invented by Google that assigns value to a page (or domain root) depending on how many other pages link to that page and how important (quality) these backlinks are. Nowadays it is extremely hard to obtain a decent PR. So, if your domain name is parked or it has a start page (in other words, it is already online) and you have obtained backlinks and PR, your name carries more value than one without PR. If a $100,000 domain has PR od 2 or 3, be bold and add some $5,000 to the sale price. Add more if you have a backlink coming from DMOZ.org directory. In certain webmaster communities a site with PR5 or more sells only because of its PageRank even if the domain is hideous. Crazy world!
• 16. Site traffic via type-ins. They say that type-in domain names come on sale extremely seldom. A type-in is a domain name that is so obvious that a web visitor would type it into his browser’s address bar without going to search engines. For example, diamonds.com - if you are looking for diamond rings, you are very likely to type this domain in without hesitation. Another live example is ezinearticle.com (singular) - they are getting a steady stream of free traffic just because of sounding similar to the popular ezinearticles.com. Type-in traffic is very, very, extremely valuable because you don’t compete with anyone and the customer is probably very keen or even desperate. In domain name appraisal type-in traffic is a very important factor. You must, however, bear in mind that a good level of type-ins is only possible with one word .COM domains! Anything else is just too insignificant to base the valuation on.
• 17. Search engine and other sources of free traffic. If you decide to sell a developed (a website of a decent size and SEO work) or a pre-developed (a quaint keyword rich minisite with some backlinks) domain, you can ask for more money. Include search engine traffic as a factor in your domain appraisal. PPC (Pay per click) traffic doesn’t count! One doesn’t need much brain to pay people so that they would visit his site.
• 18. The level of development and domain valuation. To be honest, development can both boost and hinder the chances of selling a name. People buying expensive domain names usually don’t care if there is a web-site on offer. They will have a team of developers and SEO experts to do the job. It is usually the lower end of domain aftermarket that gets sold developed. Let’s put it this way - if you have an established website, you want to sell, go for it. If you have a blank domain name that is really, I mean really good, don’t bother with development unless you know what you are doing.
Money matters in domain appraisal
Everybody like this bit when we speak about the money. If domain appraisal expert can back his valuation with some real money facts, it is lucky and can help the sale. A good sales point is a fact that DN is already making money via contextual ads or there’s been some other sales of similar domain names before, a precedent, as we like to call it. Read on to learn more.
• 19. How much revenue the site generates. To determine if there is an added value to your domain, just write down all forms of revenue you are generating now. Adsense, affiliate marketing, selling products, etc. If your DN makes money, let your potential buyers know. To determine the answer to the old question “How much should I ask?” just multiply your yearly revenue by 2.5 and add to the domain price. So, if after a careful domain appraisal you determine that the estimated price would be $1,000 but the website associated with this domain generates $2,000 per year, you will want to set your total price to $1,000 + (2.5 x $2,000) = $6,000! You will have to prove your revenue, though.
• 20. Compare other cases of domain appraisal and sales. Explore DNJournal.com for the domain sales reports, go to SEDO, search for similar names and sort the results by “number of bids” to see what appeals to people and how much are they ready to pay. Visit DP Forum, DNF and NamePros forum and explore the previous threads or even post yourself asking to appraise your DN. This is a very important point, which will allow you to make sure you aren’t asking too much or (what is much worse) too little.
Link to article:http://www.3appraisal.com/domain-appraisal-guide.html
Not long back I was among the ones who was struggling to learn the basics of apprasing a domain. Nevertheless I learnt it the hard way by registering the names which were'nt worth even the Reg value. I though I would share my learnings with few new people here and help some of them make a wise decision.
The content Posted below is not my original but the one which I found while googling for my questions.
If the content helps you please do add some rep points . 8^X
Domain Appraisal Guide
The goal of Domain appraisal is to find the current market value of a domain name. Appraising real estate, commodity or any type of asset is always a challenging procedure. When it comes to domain names it is twice as difficult because the tendencies of the internet marketplace changes continuously. There are almost no rules to stick to or are there? Do you want to know how domain appraisal works? Due to an increased amount of valuation applications we receive, we have decided to share some tips so that you could pre-evaluate your domains before submitting them to us.
If you decide to sell a domain name you will still need (or at least it is recommended that you have) a domain appraisal certificate. This free guide will give you the basic ideas of how to evaluate your asset. This will be especially helpful in case you own multiple domain names. In the end it will save you money and save us time. And both sides will be happy.
To make things clearer, we have outlined 20 important domain name appraisal criteria and sorted them into six main groups. The criteria are listed in descending order by the importance. The first being the most important. If you have some time to go through this domain appraisal guide, it will help you to understand how much is your domain name worth. So let’s start!
Group 1 - Market situation and your domain names
It is very important to understand that the domain name industry and the internet as such is not an entity existing outside time and space. The internet is closely linked to the business world, shops, stock market, fashion, buyer’s mood, etc. If collectable porcelain is not popular in your high-street shop, don’t expect to sell many dishes online!
• 1. Industry popularity - this is the penultimate criterion in domain appraisal. Your domain name may be short and cute but it will be hard to sell it if people don’t think it is in fashion. Do you fancy registering plasticbuttons.com? That’s a nice domain name, however, you must answer a question: ”How many people will come online to buy plastic buttons?” This is the first and the most important question in domain valuation. Even if there are no specific keywords in your domain, you have to ask yourself if you can apply the name to a certain market.
• 2. Niche situation - if your domain applies to a certain niche within a market, how active is the niche? Isn’t it too narrow? What level of competition would you have? Is it likely that the potential buyer would be able to base his business around this domain name? If not, you could still sell it to a speculator but we usually preach that you get an optimal price if you sell to a business owner!
• 3. Search engine keyword popularity - the best way to explore a market or a niche is... to carry out an extensive market research, to have a poll, to buy a report? Oh, no! Doing a market research is free and easy. All you need is a Google Adwords account. You can obtain it with a welcome coupon (it means that opening your account will be free and you will have a couple of quid to test PPC if you wish).
Click here for an Adwords coupon. Once you have a Google Adwords account, proceed to Tools -> Keyword Tool. Type in the keyword or key-phrase of your domain name and click the button. You will be given all the statistics you need. The list will show you the number of searches performed during a period of month (mobile phone 2,740,000 searches, plastic button - 2,900 searches; see the difference) and the level of competition. Learn how your DN works in the context of the actual market situation
Group 2 - Name specific criteria for domain name appraisal
After your domain name has passed the niche popularity test, you will have to dissect the name, cut it in parts and put it all under the microscope. Well, almost!
• 4. Some call it marketability but we like to call it seriousness or substantiality of a domain name. You don’t have to be a genius to tell a good genuine domain from a foolish combination of words, digits and hyphens. Credit-card-comparison-whatever.com may be good enough for an ads based info web site (another one of the bunch) but you will not be able to sell this name in the aftermarket. It just looks bad, it is not attractive, it doesn’t touch the imagination.
• 5. Dot TLD value. Is .COM TLD (top level domain) still the king? Yes it is when it comes to selling domain names, because with .COM tld you also buy a bit of respectability. No it is not when it come s to web site development. If you are an SEO (search engine optimization) expert, you can easily outrank keywordexample.com with keywordexample.cc.
However, you cannot make an impact on domain name aftermarket just by being a good SEO. The fact is that .COM sells better. Then comes .NET and .ORG extensions. This domain appraisal diagram will show you the power of different TLD extensions. For top tier you can expect a million, midfield extensions have the potential to sell for $100,000 (we are still watching the .IN and .CN but it seems that Asian internet grows like a squid). Lower end sells in $XX,XXX figures. The struggle zone can hardly break into thousands of dollars. When you base your domain name appraisal on TLD, remember that a bad .com can be bought for $50 while a brilliant .NAME can be sold for $2,000 (live.name was sold for $2,356).
TLD is not a value by itself. It only can add to a value of a domain name that is already great!
• 6. Phone test. In domain valuation it is very important to determine how easy the name is to pronounce or spell. As most of the companies generate business both off-line and on-line, it is crucial that you can dictate your domain name over the phone and be sure that you are not misunderstood. To carry out a phone test, ask a friend to help you. Dictate him the DN and ask him to write it down. If he can do it without re-iteration, you probably have a good domain. However, if you need to spell it letter by letter going like Rambo: “C for Charlie, A for Alpha, T for Tango”, it may mean your name is not worth a lot.
• 7. Memory test or child test. To be sure about the domain appraisal let’s see how memorable your name is. Tell your friend about your domain name and after a day, ask him to repeat it. If he can do it, your DN is easy to remember. You can also ask a child to do domain appraisal for you - tell him the name and ask if he can repeat it. Long domains that make no sense will make no big money in the aftermarket!
• Domain name length. The aftermarket has changed a bit. There was a time when you could get lots of money for any four-letter nonsense, even if it was especially stupid. BDEQ.com could easily go for thousands. Now, even though the bubble hasn't yet burst, these days are slowly fading and you have to consider it when performing domain appraisal. Two or three letter domain names are still good commodity because they usually stand for some kind of abbreviation. Anything more than three letters? Then it needs to make at least some sense! Basically it is easier to sell a name that is up to 10 letters long (not counting the TLD extension). If the DN contains two dictionary words that make mutual sense, and it has less than 15 letters, it still stands a good chance to go for decent money. Anything longer than 15 letters may struggle. For various reasons... It doesn’t look any good, it is not memorable, etc.
Domain Branding Criteria.
Branding is still a major point in domain appraisal. Looking into trademarks and branding can determine the value of a domain. Cybersquatting is out of the fashion and out of law, so don’t go there. Your DN must not contain established brands, yet it may contain a name of a certain product or a product group.
• 9. Product recognition. Let’s go back to the plastic button example. So, a button is a product but it is not branded or copyrighted. You may use this name the way you want, the only problem being that its recognition is very low. A mobile phone or a cell phone is another product. As you can imagine its recognition is much higher. Include this criterion in your domain appraisal. The bigger the product, the more money your domain can fetch. Turn back to point #2 to remind yourself how to figure out the product popularity. Let’s go back to the products now. iPod and Playstation are products too, but they are branded. It means that it is not a good idea to include branded product names into your DN. If you would ask us for buyipod.com domain appraisal, we would say, hey, its not a good idea! Buycellphone.com - just another story - it would probably go for $20,000 or more.
• 10. Brandability and domain appraisal. So you have come up with a nice and short domain name that makes no sense? You can still make good money on it... In case it is brandable - meaning that the buyer of this domain will be able to register it as a trade mark. For example, Flickr.com - it may be one of the strangest word ever. Yet, it was brandable and it was short - a certain part of aftermarket players love brandable domain names and buy them. I am not saying you have to dash away and get pringslop.com registered. Make-no-sense DNs are hard to market and hard to sell, however, don’t abandon a domain name before you have checked it against brandability factor. To do so go here http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=tm8msv.1.1 for USA and here http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tm/t-find/t-find-text/ for UK to check if the name you have is not a registered trade-mark or brand.
• 11. Exact Keyword. All those SEO (Search engine optimization) mad people think that it is an advantage to have a single keyword or keyphrase domain name. Again, it depends and you have to be careful about domain valuation to include keyword factor. If mobilephone.com does well in aftermarket, it doesn’t mean so will debtconsolidationexpertagency.com. If the keyword doesn’t affect the Memorability or length of your DN, count it as an advantage.
Wording and Grammar
Did you love grammar at school? No? Now you will need some. So bring out your old copybook and let’s get started. Wording criteria may be very important when it comes to domain appraisal.
• 12. Domain Language. I am proud to say that English is the most frequently used language across the internet. Think about the vast English-speaking auditorium in Great Britain, USA, Australia, etc., then comes Asia where almost anyone can speak decent English, all this emerging market of Eastern Europe where children eagerly learn English at school. So, if your DN is in good English, put yourself a high mark. Spanish language goes well too in the aftermarket. If watches.com could possibly make $500,000 or more, expect that reloj.com will still fetch something near $100,000. Then if you can think of a good domain that makes sense for German speaking people, expect to attract some interest too. Don’t bother with other languages - your success may be unpredictable.
• 13. Consider grammar in domain appraisal. Some people had made good money on typos (wrong spelling f a common word) still it gets harder and harder to sell typos. You cannot expect a well-regarded company to use typo for their web-site. A typo is good for domain parking and even if the popularity of parking is increasing, it is harder to make money there, because people just don’t click these stupid parked page ads. Another language criterion in domain appraisal is the way how the words make sense together.
We are often asked to appraise strange domain names. Well, vodkadairy.com is a bad idea. Get your wording stick together and you will be winning! There is a separate class of names that plays a wording trick together with the TLD extension, i.e. the extension is a word in English language. For example, buy.at - it is great! The DN and its TLD works together. Although .AT (TLD of Austria) is not a high value extension, buy.at will be much, much expensive than buy.sk or buy.cc. Other sensible TLDs are .IN, .AT, .TV, .AM, .FM, .BE, .US, .IT and .ME!
How On-site and Search Engine Based Criteria Affect Domain Valuation
If you are trying to get domain name value for a blank (never been used before) domain, on-site work is not an issue because there is no web site. However, DN age is a major factor for people who are buying a name for development. Having a good quality web site (even if it is a basic one) is a good way to get more money for a domain name. Having a bad or a blacklisted or copyrights infringing web-site is a good way to keep the buyers at a solid distance from your DN. So its up to you!
• 14. Domain Age. As DN age is a factor in Google Search engine algorithm it is also a factor in domain appraisal. In fact, an older domain may help a web-site to rank higher. If there are two similarly SEO-ed web-sites with a similar backlink weight, the one with an older domain will almost certainly outrank the other. Allegedly other search engines such as Yahoo and MSN also consider domain age as a ranking factor. An older DN usually means more respect. However, sometimes it can spell trouble - i.e. be blacklisted or had hosted a linkfarm previously. If your DN is clear and mature, be sure to add more to your selling price.
• 15. PageRank as a criterion o domain appraisal. PageRank is a factor invented by Google that assigns value to a page (or domain root) depending on how many other pages link to that page and how important (quality) these backlinks are. Nowadays it is extremely hard to obtain a decent PR. So, if your domain name is parked or it has a start page (in other words, it is already online) and you have obtained backlinks and PR, your name carries more value than one without PR. If a $100,000 domain has PR od 2 or 3, be bold and add some $5,000 to the sale price. Add more if you have a backlink coming from DMOZ.org directory. In certain webmaster communities a site with PR5 or more sells only because of its PageRank even if the domain is hideous. Crazy world!
• 16. Site traffic via type-ins. They say that type-in domain names come on sale extremely seldom. A type-in is a domain name that is so obvious that a web visitor would type it into his browser’s address bar without going to search engines. For example, diamonds.com - if you are looking for diamond rings, you are very likely to type this domain in without hesitation. Another live example is ezinearticle.com (singular) - they are getting a steady stream of free traffic just because of sounding similar to the popular ezinearticles.com. Type-in traffic is very, very, extremely valuable because you don’t compete with anyone and the customer is probably very keen or even desperate. In domain name appraisal type-in traffic is a very important factor. You must, however, bear in mind that a good level of type-ins is only possible with one word .COM domains! Anything else is just too insignificant to base the valuation on.
• 17. Search engine and other sources of free traffic. If you decide to sell a developed (a website of a decent size and SEO work) or a pre-developed (a quaint keyword rich minisite with some backlinks) domain, you can ask for more money. Include search engine traffic as a factor in your domain appraisal. PPC (Pay per click) traffic doesn’t count! One doesn’t need much brain to pay people so that they would visit his site.
• 18. The level of development and domain valuation. To be honest, development can both boost and hinder the chances of selling a name. People buying expensive domain names usually don’t care if there is a web-site on offer. They will have a team of developers and SEO experts to do the job. It is usually the lower end of domain aftermarket that gets sold developed. Let’s put it this way - if you have an established website, you want to sell, go for it. If you have a blank domain name that is really, I mean really good, don’t bother with development unless you know what you are doing.
Money matters in domain appraisal
Everybody like this bit when we speak about the money. If domain appraisal expert can back his valuation with some real money facts, it is lucky and can help the sale. A good sales point is a fact that DN is already making money via contextual ads or there’s been some other sales of similar domain names before, a precedent, as we like to call it. Read on to learn more.
• 19. How much revenue the site generates. To determine if there is an added value to your domain, just write down all forms of revenue you are generating now. Adsense, affiliate marketing, selling products, etc. If your DN makes money, let your potential buyers know. To determine the answer to the old question “How much should I ask?” just multiply your yearly revenue by 2.5 and add to the domain price. So, if after a careful domain appraisal you determine that the estimated price would be $1,000 but the website associated with this domain generates $2,000 per year, you will want to set your total price to $1,000 + (2.5 x $2,000) = $6,000! You will have to prove your revenue, though.
• 20. Compare other cases of domain appraisal and sales. Explore DNJournal.com for the domain sales reports, go to SEDO, search for similar names and sort the results by “number of bids” to see what appeals to people and how much are they ready to pay. Visit DP Forum, DNF and NamePros forum and explore the previous threads or even post yourself asking to appraise your DN. This is a very important point, which will allow you to make sure you aren’t asking too much or (what is much worse) too little.
Link to article:http://www.3appraisal.com/domain-appraisal-guide.html
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