What determines the quality of a domain???

[rexvnus]

I wonder how Parked, SedoPro, DomainSponsors... estimate the quality of the domain.
Anyone knows about that?

To me, I go for:
1. Generic name
2. Traffic
3. TLD
4. Age
6. Ranks

 

[Sleepys]

I think that if you have a premium enough generic, like sex.com or something like that, then you get a good amount of credit for them. Other than those, I think that the companies use mostly backlinks and PR, maybe even Alexa or other ratings, stuff like that. They have to use metrics that they can quantify, which does not inlude the actual traffic numbers, because they do not know them yet. They are trying to figure out the traffic the same as you when you apply. The above theory is only if you just apply with names, obviously if you provide screenshots or something like that, it would change everything.

 

[netmeg]

I think that probably quality of traffic and most importantly, likelihood of conversion are pretty high on the list. I know Google has all kinds of algorithms worked out as to how likely it is a click on an ad will convert for the advertiser (hence smart pricing). I'd be surprised if Yahoo and MSN didn't as well. Well, maybe not MSN.

 

[Sleepys]

Are you asking "How do the parking companies determine the quality of a domain when someone is applying?" or "How do the parking companies determine the quality of a domain after someone has applied and parked the name with them?"

If you are asking about when someone is applying, I don't see how the parking company could possibly know something like the conversion rate without testing the traffic first. If you are asking how do they determine the traffic quality once it is parked with them, then I think that it is pretty easy. Conversion rate, coupled with location of visitors, and maybe a few other factors that they can quantify from seeing the traffic. My first response was to how they would determine traffic quality on an application. I think that they do this similar to us, and that they often times assume wrongly that domains without PR or any backlinks will get negligable traffic. That is why people with mostly hand regged portfolios seem to get rejected more, and often times have to come on the message boards asking why they are not approved, getting Donny or some other account manager to approve them (not always the case of course).

I could be wrong about all of this. It would be nice to hear from one or two of the parking companies about what they actually consider when determining traffic quality of a domain whose traffic they have not had the benefit of analyzing.

 

[blaknite]

I would fathom a guess that click through rate is probably the biggest factor in quality score. Assuming were talking about after you're accepted in. If people come to your name and actually find what they were looking for the chances of them clicking are pretty good. The higher the percentage of people clicking through the more likely that your name is delivering quality traffic.

If were talking before the fact then without a traffic test their options are only to look at your portfolio and guess. I bet they do it by looking for junk names mostly. If your portfolio has lots of names like 7forex5.com and 17realestate.com they're more likely to reject you. Its hard to guess at the value of some of the better names you may have but the junk names stick out. They're probably judging the portfolio owner just as much as his or her names. If you've got a spiffy clean portfolio chances are you are well educated (at least as it applies to domaining) and someone worthwhile to deal with. If your portfolio is full names that make you look stupid, they probably expect little of you.