What a difference a hyphen (-) makes!

[TheBaldOne]

I have just been watching an auction on NameJet for the domain 'TuscaloosaCounty.com'. The name sold above my ceiling at $2,601.

Now let us look at this sale a little, yes Tuscaloosa is a nice county, situated in Alabama with a poulation estimate in 2009 of 164,875.

Now let us compare that with larger counties which contain a hyphen (-). Recently I advertised 37 such US counties on here first as an auction and then 'for offers'. Each county had a population ranging from 100,000 - over 1,000,000. I did not even get a sniff of interest even when the individual asking price was less than $45 each when bought as a single lot!

So let us assume that the counties I offered were of equal quality (apart from the hyphen) to TuscaloosaCounty.com (indeed they were better), that means that a hyphen knocks off more than 98% of the value of a non-hyphenated domain! What is more remember mine did not even get any interest so indeed they must have been regarded as over priced.

Now according to generally perceived wisdom the general order of valuing is:

.com > .net > .info > .org > .biz

(yes I know .org and .info can be exchanged).

Well it would now seem that hyphenated .com has a value on par with a .biz. The world has definately gone crazy.

 

[bmugford]

County domains are not exactly huge sellers. I think that just proves how overvalued some .COM are to be honest.

TuscaloosaCounty.com for $2601 is not any major bargain.

I sell hyphenated domains all the time, several in the mid $X,XXX+ range. In general they need to be directly tied to commerce (Products or Services) to find buyers (reseller or end user).

Brad

 

[TheBaldOne]

I have sold three hyphenated county .coms for $xxx each this year.

There were 18 bidders listed for the auction of TuscaloosaCounty, but valuing a hyphenated .com as being on par with .biz is ridiculous no matter basically what the domain is.

Just unfathomable to me.

 

[bmugford]

I have sold three hyphenated county .coms for $xxx each this year.

There were 18 bidders listed for the auction of TuscaloosaCounty, but valuing a hyphenated .com as being on par with .biz is ridiculous no matter basically what the domain is.

Just unfathomable to me.

You need a better term for an accurate comparison. The low end does not translate well.

When a .COM is only worth $2,000 another extension is usually almost worthless. The same goes for hyphenated domains.

If you put a domain like Credit-Cards.com vs CreditCards.biz, I have no doubt the .COM would sell for significantly more.

Brad

 

[TheBaldOne]

Brad that 'the low end does not translate well' should surely indicate that the hyphenated should go for a higher percentage not less!

 

[bmugford]

Brad that 'the low end does not translate well' should surely indicate that the hyphenated should go for a higher percentage not less!

If a domain is only worth a few thousand in .COM it is barely worth owning in hyphenated .COM to be honest.

A small county name doesn't have the upside of a popular product or service.

I have sold domains like Wedding-Dress.com for good money, but they would be worth $XXX,XXX in .COM.

Brad

 

[infosec3]

HealthcarePaymens.com sold in April for $35,000

Healthcare-payments.com sold in May for $200 with only one bidder.

It is only one case, but I have seen similar situations many times.

 

[TheBaldOne]

Brad so according to your line of argument a domainer paying $2.6k for a .com means that the hyphenated is not worth registering?

The problem with this line of argument is that with the evidence at hand it would mean that the all other unhyphenated gTLD extensions are worth more than a hyphenated .com. At what point does a .com (domainer value) then make the hyphenated .com worth more than other unhyphenated gTLD extensions? Is it $5K, $10K, $25K, $50K, $100K, .....?

Here we have as near comparable as is possible without it actually being an exact comparable, and your view is that the .com is too low a value for it to be taken as evidence. That does neither seem logical or born out by the market results (and with special reference to geo-domains).

 

[bmugford]

HealthcarePaymens.com sold in April for $35,000

Healthcare-payments.com sold in May for $200 with only one bidder.

It is only one case, but I have seen similar situations many times.

Another example of an overpriced .COM

The term has 1300 broad searches, 73 exacts.

HealthcarePayments.biz is not even registered.

I wouldn't even want the hyphenated .COM. It really doesn't mean anything.

Brad

 

[Debt.tv]

Look, lets be honest....

You were selling to domainers here and you've found an end user for it....hence the final outcome. Congrats on your sale and good luck in the future.

Eric

 

[TheBaldOne]

Look, lets be honest....

You were selling to domainers here and you've found an end user for it....hence the final outcome. Congrats on your sale and good luck in the future.

Eric

Debt.tv, ???????????

What are you on about? This was a deleting domain drop of a domain (not mine) that was bought in an auction by a domainer on NameJet!

 

[bmugford]

Brad so according to your line of argument a domainer paying $2.6k for a .com means that the hyphenated is not worth registering?

I don't think the domain is worth anywhere near what is sold to be honest. I would not even want the hyphenated version for free.

It doesn't surprise me that you did not have bites on hyphenated domains from domainers. Hyphenated county domains are not exactly in demand.

This is not a GEO like Myrtle-Beach.com or something. That would sell for big bucks even with a hyphen.

The problem with this line of argument is that with the evidence at hand it would mean that the all other unhyphenated gTLD extensions are worth more than a hyphenated .com. At what point does a .com (domainer value) then make the hyphenated .com worth more than other unhyphenated gTLD extensions? Is it $5K, $10K, $25K, $50K, $100K, .....?

I would put quality hyphenated .COM around the NET/ORG range, maybe a little lower. They are certainly easier to sell than most other secondary extensions.

Many end users will entertain having one well placed hyphen in .COM over a secondary extension.

Brad

 

[TheBaldOne]

I don't think the domain is worth anywhere near what is sold to be honest. I would not even want the hyphenated version for free.

Hyphenated county domains are not exactly in demand. This is not a GEO like Myrtle-Beach.com or something. That would sell for big bucks even with a hyphen.

I would put quality hyphenated .COM around the NET/ORG range, maybe a little lower. They are certainly easier to sell than most other secondary extensions.

Many end user will entertain having one well placed hyphen in .COM over a secondary extension.

Brad

Obviously 17 other domainers besides me would disagree with you on the value of county domains. But again I will ask at what price (domainer pricing) does a .com mean the hyphenated is worth registering?

 

[johname]

Simple, developers salivate at the authoritative look of a non hyphen on a county. Can make it seem like an official site. They dont care is it not where they live, just that it known. So they bid it up on namejet, even trying to make the other bidder pay more! Seems a bit high in this case. But those same people dont want a hyphen version in county. Which leaves people that are from a county to buy a hyphen version. And you probally ran in a few of those.

 

[Sparhawke]

The whole idea that a domain could be worth $100M is madness to me, it is like footballers here in England that take 90% of ticket sales and don't really care what happens to the club or the people in the hometown..

All that money is nice but people value type in traffic a little too much even when there is none at all anyway. The only thing that matters is the keywords and once people get over their snobbiness about a word spacer the better we will all be.

A domain that could sell for $50,000 like DogFood.com may have type in traffic naturally since it is short anyway and possibly in a high volume niche, but to put that same standard with something like ElectricalAppliances.com is just either naivety or stupidity. I haven't figured out which yet.

The time of the type in domain finished years ago in its heyday before Google when everyone had to typ everything in, now we follow links therefore hyphens do not matter but to a few diehards that seem to think that because a domain could get 2 people stumbling on it by accident each year it somehow bumps up the value to ridiculous levels.

Sex.com, Dogs.com, Cats.com all may have naturally high typ in traffic but they are special cases because they are short, punchy and descriptive AND internationally based. People know exactly what they are going to find there.

Memory-Chips.com has the advantage too that everyone knows what they will likely find and people are unlikely to type in "Memory Chips" into the search bar because of locality issues; people are not looking for a corner shop halfway around the world so will go on Google to find a shop in the next town.

It might simply be better to put this question to bed once and for all and quietly buy up good hyphenated domains while you can because one day all the stupid people will suddenly realise that people cannot be bothered coming to their parking pages anymore :p

 

[bmugford]

Obviously 17 other domainers besides me would disagree with you on the value of county domains. But again I will ask at what price (domainer pricing) does a .com mean the hyphenated is worth registering?

Every domain is one of a kind and value is subjective. There is no easy formula.

The bottom line is high quality hyphenated .COM will have buyers (reseller and end user). Low quality won't.

Brad

 

[JB Lions]

"The whole idea that a domain could be worth $100M is madness to me"

That and the rest you wrote, you're thinking more parking pages/type in traffic. I look at DogFood.com and think nice keyword for branding, seo etc. That amount is nothing compared to the kind of revenue some sites generate. I can't think of one that has a dash. Wouldn't even bother developing anything with a dash (as a company, affiliate or something like that, dash ok). Again, I'm thinking advertising. Not only branding, seo but TV, newspapers, radio etc. With that I'm thinking a little bigger, companies and such. If you're more looking for seo and don't care about the other stuff, you can get by with a dash.

That was for the first think I quoted and this: "therefore hyphens do not matter but to a few diehards that seem to think that because a domain could get 2 people stumbling on it by accident each year it somehow bumps up the value to ridiculous levels."

 

[Sparhawke]

I should probably qualify that JB, a domain that is "worth" $100M compared to something that is only worth $2000 because of a hyphen.

They may even get the same amount of traffic essentially too, meaning that the unhyphenated version has no type-ins, I know that some of them look better for branding but I think it is short sighted for the most part.

So long as you don't buy a extension that has little credibility in the eyes of the public there is really no real problem I don't think.

If type-in was taken out of the equation completely there would be absolutely no difference in value, hell...some hyphenated domains are FAR easier to read in adverts :p

 

[JB Lions]

With that and using DogFood.com as an example, compared with Dog-Food.com

To me, it's not even in the same league. Both great for seo. Got your keywords in there. On the internet as a link, it's a link. You click either one, they'll go to the intended place. But after that, I can't see the dog-food.com being used on radio, tv, branding, newspapers etc, what I mentioned above. You'll end up driving a lot of traffic to dogfood.com. The dash just adds confusion. We can think of major .coms all day long without a dash. How many can you name with? So I can see the big value difference between the two and understand why there would be such a big difference. Even with my own sites, never registered a domain with a dash. One of my competitors, a couponer, has one with a dash and it's one the biggest things he regrets. Kills any chance of offline marketing.

 

[Sparhawke]

That is certainly true and I cannot dispute that and never was, but it seems to me that people have got the warped idea that since a hyphen is not present in a domain then it whacks up the value of every domain in each, when it doesn't.

People have clearly lost all sense of reality somewhere along the line, it is like that Pawn Stars:

Just because something is old does not make it valuable ~ Rick Harrison

People seem to think that "WOW! I have an unhyphenated domain here, it must be worth loads!!!!" when in fact it is simply just crap, and cannot really be used for any kind of branding either.

The big company explanation doesn't really work either because the key to branding is by its very definition to keep it short and simple.

If you are branding a company then yes, a unhyphenated domain can be good to make it easier for people but for product domains LOCALLY then probably not.