Why do Sedo's auto appraisals differ so much from Estibot's?

[sky]

Yesterday I saw flask dot pro available at EnCirca, with an Estibot appraisal showing that it is 'worth' $1300. I'm not under any illusions that anyone would pay $1300 for that domain name, or that it is a reliable valuation. But I have a pretty good feel for Adword Keyword tool and Estibot's appraisal engine, and I know that if Estibot says a domain is worth $1300, when Estibot appraises most arbitrary .pro keyword domains for well under $100, and Estibot appraises somewhat hot .pro keywords for $570 that Estibot finding that one $1300 means it has stronger selling points than average - e.g. factors that make it pragmatically worth more, in terms of traffic or monetization.

Sedo appraises the same domain, flasks dot pro, for only $600 with their automatic appraisal tool.

I own a much stronger single keyword .pro that I scored a several years ago when the getting was good. Very generic key word covering a big market product, that appraises for $4000 on Sedo, but appraises for for much less on Estibot. But I don't know why. If I had to guess based on the feel of the keyword, I tend to think Sedo is more realistic and if over-valuing it, not by that much.

I know any decent automatic appraisal engine bases itsvaluation on a number of metrics including SERP hits, # of searches, # of exact searches, how well the keyword does in other TLDs, related domain sales, Alexa rank, Overture and others, ad competition, average cost per click etc... So that when a domain is appraised at a higher value than others, it theoretically has some quantifiable value. ... Eg. it can bring in money if developed well, or sold into a niche. Much more so than an arbitrary keyword (or worse, a 'brandable' name).

What I don't understand is the discrepancies between the Estibot and Sedo appraisal engines - why one goes high when the other goes low. I know that automatic appraisals can't really indicate the proper asking or selling price for a domain - that's pretty much determined by who you approach, if the time is right, and what they're willing to pay or just dumb luck, to some degree. You might know a domain is 'worth a lot', like Casino.com, but you could never really predict the selling price.

BTW: I don't consider "flask" a monumentally strong keyword, especially for .PRO, but I'm just trying to understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of Estibot's and Sedo's appraisal engines, particularly with respect to one another.

 

[dompro]

When at their best, domain appraising system can show a relative value of one domain compared to another. Not the selling price of the domain.

The .pro as any new TLD is highly speculative, one can say .pro dictionary domains worth at least $x,xxx because of that one $xx,xxx sale, another one say they all reg fee crap because there are lots of other TLDs as worthless as pro to choose from.

 

[sky]

When at their best, domain appraising system can show a relative value of one domain compared to another. Not the selling price of the domain.

The .pro as any new TLD is highly speculative, one can say .pro dictionary domains worth at least $x,xxx because of that one $xx,xxx sale, another one say they all reg fee crap because there are lots of other TLDs as worthless as pro to choose from.

I'm with you on the relative appraisals, and even the reason for the discrepancy, however in this case, my point was that Sedo *does* appraise some .PROs high and some low, and Estibot appraises other .PROs high and some low.

And regarding your claim of "worthless"... Worth less [than .COM] doesn't mean worthless. Not every business brings in money through big margins, some do it through volume. At $3.49 a pop for .PRO (until the sail ended) one could afford to do some tasting and even make some profit from it.

I sold a .PRO I paid a little money for, for $400. Am I supposed to feel cheated because I didn't make 25,000, or merely because I made over 1000% profit? I see a bunch of pro sites that are doing nicely and a bunch of .pro sales for a lot more than people paid to reg.

Many people make far less on stocks and consider it a good ROI. So what's the problem? That they don't sell like hotcakes? Regardless of what you say, or how you try to lump all the TLDs together, they have differences. PRO looks and sounds good. It has more appeal to end users than other TLDs, other liabilities aside. It looks a lot better than .BIZ or .WS, or for example. So what's the worthless part?

 

[JB Lions]

"my point was that Sedo *does* appraise some .PROs high and some low, and Estibot appraises other .PROs high and some low."

Right, so what are you trying to figure out? Different systems are going to have different appraisals. To truly understand it, you'd have to actually look at the formula they use, that's all it is. You're trying to understand something most people don't take too seriously.

 

[sky]

"my point was that Sedo *does* appraise some .PROs high and some low, and Estibot appraises other .PROs high and some low."

Right, so what are you trying to figure out? Different systems are going to have different appraisals. To truly understand it, you'd have to actually look at the formula they use, that's all it is. You're trying to understand something most people don't take too seriously.

Because understanding it is the key to using it effectively.

 

[JB Lions]

But why would you use it for anything, when you can simply check out what other domains are selling for in the same neighborhood and come up with a number, kind of like the type of real estate most people are familiar with, homes and such.

You touched on some of the metrics these types of tools could use, it's the other metrics you might not be aware of, that would cause the discrepancies. Unless you crack the formula, or it's been posted online somewhere, nobody can really tell you specifically why there are differences, besides them simply being different formulas.

"Because understanding it is the key to using it effectively."

Need to know the formula.

"Yesterday I saw flask dot pro available at EnCirca, with an Estibot appraisal showing that it is 'worth' $1300."

That to me is a ridiculous appraisal from estibot. You just have to check out other generic product sales in .pro.

When you have laptops.pro going for $900, lingerie.pro $1275, premium type generics. Flask? Wouldn't even hand reg that.

 

[Archangel]

Everyone and every thing uses different metrics. Not 100% different but we all value things differently. Hell, some idiots actually think PR is a factor of value. Estibot, SEDO, nameboy etc. have their own things they look at, thus they spit out different figures. That's it and nothing more.

 

[Kate]

The .pro as any new TLD is highly speculative, one can say .pro dictionary domains worth at least $x,xxx because of that one $xx,xxx sale, another one say they all reg fee crap because there are lots of other TLDs as worthless as pro to choose from.

Correct, if there is not enough sales volume and liquidity in a TLD, attempting to appraise domains in that TLD becomes a pointless exercise.

Because understanding it is the key to using it effectively.

There is nothing to understand, because there is nothing scientific behind automated appraisals. The only thing to understand, is that they are a waste of time and should be ignored completely.

 

[dompro]

"my point was that Sedo *does* appraise some .PROs high and some low, and Estibot appraises other .PROs high and some low."

different systems use different algorithms that look/emphasize different aspects of domain.

For example, it might be that Estibot prefers domains shortness over search volume, thus may value flasks.pro higher than some more searched but longer word.

Or one of them has more tolerance for plurals (flaskS) than the other.

Or Sedo may take into account some secret sales data that Estibot does not have access to.

Who knows...

 

[JB Lions]

I know, that's what I said in my posts above. You quoted me quoting sky

 

[sky]

Correct, if there is not enough sales volume and liquidity in a TLD, attempting to appraise domains in that TLD becomes a pointless exercise.


There is nothing to understand, because there is nothing scientific behind automated appraisals. The only thing to understand, is that they are a waste of time and should be ignored completely.

That's an absurd statement. That just sounds like regurgitated pablum from the echo chamber..

Of course well-designed appraisal engines have value, particularly if you understand them. Because, by definition, they represent the distillation of various factual metrics. Using them, you can see at a glance whether enough of the relevant factors are in place to warrant further consideration. Of course you have to use common sense and the 'human' touch because computers tend not to perceive certain things that we can - like if something just sounds cool, or has some special secret handshake or special relevance.

But other than some obvious major thing an appraisal engine might miss because it's not human, if it tells you a domain is worth about nothing, it probably is worth about nothing, unless you want to build it up from nothing and brand it and do every little bit of SEO, and even then it will probably be a liability. Whereas if an appraisal engine rates a domain highly, then you know that domain has a lot of hardcore stats going for it, compared to other domains.

You still need to be astute enough to do additional valuation and appraisal, but an appraisal engine is a great place to start. Especially if you're comparing one domain to another with the same engine. The question I have gets into how what I would tend to think are probably 'good' appraisal engines, like Estibot and a high-profile site like Sedo work and why they disagree widely in the value of some .pros. (Sedo would tend to probably under-price domains to kick-off sales, but I could be wrong).

 

[Kate]

You mean you cannot appraise a domain for yourself ?

 

[dompro]

There is nothing to understand, because there is nothing scientific behind automated appraisals. The only thing to understand, is that they are a waste of time and should be ignored completely.

there is no rocket science behind that, some kind of proprietary formula (different for every appraisal system) making weighted average of price derived from TLD popularity, shortener, search volume, adwords bids, alexa rank, page rank, related sales, etc, etc

So it may be far more scientific and unbiased than some appraisals here, but totally not taking into account user friendliness aspects of the name that hardly can be quantified. Thus machine appraisals should not be trusted blindly, but good source of info or why it thinks it might be valuable. Of course I am talking about appraisal systems that print out all the info about domain they used in appraisals, and not just:

The value is $8954 <SEAL>

 

[Archangel]

I've read recent studies where Estibot was shown to be fairly accurate with many domains. Read through www.thedomans.com & you might find it

The only thing to understand, is that they are a waste of time and should be ignored completely.

 

[Kate]

Plenty of newbies use automated tools and they end up with a pile of junk domains, regardless of how much they are appraised at. Many of those domains don't even make sense in English, just have a look at the appraisals subforum.

Obviously a bot cannot tell you with if sticking two keywords together is going to produce a meaningful domain.

Coming up with a realistic appraisal is one thing but what is the likelihood of a sale ? That is another thing no bot can tell you, that's where actual knowledge of the market helps.

Simple question: do you register, purchase on the aftermarket or sell based on what appraisal tools ?
And why should you trust one over the other since they don't all report the same results ? Isn't it scary to purchase domains when you don't even understand how the price was derived ?
If it was as easy as punching numbers into estibot anybody could do domaining.