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Thread: Assessing the value of a domain

  1. #1
    Senior Member Kyle's Avatar
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    Assessing the value of a domain

    The following are some tips to remember when trying to assess the value of a given domain name.

    • Wait for the buyer to come to you - Added: 8/29/07 - Not always the case, but yields the best sale most of the time. While showcasing your domain on places like DNForum or large webmaster marketplaces will probably result in a quick sale, the most revenue will come from the end-user finding you!

    • Wholesale vs. retail prices - Added: 8/29/07 - I like to call wholesale prices the price a domain will go for on DNForum. Retail is what the end-user will pay, the person actually using the domain. Again, if you can afford to sit on domains, do it. You want to wait for end-users to come to you.

    • Type-in traffic - Added: 8/29/07 - One of the most important variables when determining the value of a domain. Granted, most domains people use for development these days have no type-in traffic, but if your domain does, it will significantly change the price. People are paying up to 10 years worth of type-in traffic revenue these days (revenue from people taking their domain, and pointing it to an advertising page through a network like Sedo or Fabulous).

    • Some of the most valuable domains don't have a predictable price. - Added: 8/29/07 - The easiest (originally i said easiest... wrong choice of words. i mean cheapest) way to make money in this business is to buy unique, obviously brandable names for cheap that you plan to hold onto indefinitely. You sit on these domains, waiting for the buyer to come to you. Lets say for example you owned AffiliateConnect.com (i dont even know if this is taken or not, just the first example I could think of). Now lets say a major company comes along and creates a software product called AffiliateConnect. Gold mine... an easy 5 figure sale when they inquire as to whether you are willing to sell the name. This is a good example of a domain that is worth nothing to most people, but $10,000 to others.

    • Its all about .com - Added: 8/29/07 - The difference in value between the .com and the .net of a given name is usually exponential. Lets take a generic product like laptops. Laptops.com is definitely a 7 figure domain. While laptops.net is probably in the $25,000 - $50,000 range. You can generally assume the value difference from a .net to a .com starts at 10x. A $1,000 .net means the .com is at at MINIMUM $10,000.

    • The reality, prices are insane - Added: 8/29/07 - .com domain prices are going through the roof. Three letter .com's with good letters (no Q's, Z's, X's, etc.) NEVER sell for less than $10,000, and that is the wholesale price. Two letter .com's with good letters generally start at 50-60k and go up, wholesale. So what can you do as a new domain investor? People may disagree with me, but my opinion is to go after .info's. .info in my opinion is the best of the new TLD's, and a good long-term investment. At the same time, you can slowly save money from your web projects and attempt to purchase solid .com's as often as you can. But again, the market is quite insane at the moment, and not showing signs of slowing down.

    • The issue of .info's being used for spam - Added 9/10/07 - People worry that the spam abuse with this TLD have permanently hurt their value. Why do I think .info reputation can rebound in time? Because from what I've seen with search engines. How recent was it that being penalized or banned in Google was the end of the world? Now you can at least inquire about the situation, and get some kind of response/acknowledgment. What I'm getting at, is the value there is obvious. A .info is a very friendly TLD that would sound great in radio/television ads. Even if a given domain was previously banned or penalized, it can still be resolved back to neutral status. Given the speed at which things are changing, considering a .info a 5+ year investment is extremely safe in my opinion. ESPECIALLY with what the alternatives are (biz? .name?), and the speed at which things are growing and changing.


    I will continue to add pointers and advice to this thread over time.
    Last edited by Kyle; 09-10-2007 at 02:04 PM.
    Kyle

  2. #2
    Senior Member agua's Avatar
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    .info - did I read that correctly?
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  3. #3
    Senior Member Kyle's Avatar
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    Ya, what do you mean?
    Kyle

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    Registered Billyray's Avatar
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    Agree on the .info's (yeah what do you mean Agua?).

    Not sure about waiting for the buyer to find you.

    http://www.conceptualist.com/?p=313

    Plenty of opportunists willing to take advantage. Perhaps a premium auction with reserve would be better?

  5. #5
    Senior Member Kyle's Avatar
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    Oh I agree, I sell lots on webmaster marketplaces.
    But I've seen unique names sell for quite a bit of money. Unique names that didn't yield good offers when posted on marketplaces. Had to wait for the buyer to find you.
    Kyle

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    Site Contributor KLB's Avatar
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    The bit about waiting for the right buyer was helpful advice.
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    Administrator Chris's Avatar
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    I don't much like .info's because of the massive sales registrars have put on them they have become the favorite domain for spammers. It is so bad that on most of my forums I ban all .info emails.
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    .info's are definitely notorious for spam currently, and I wouldn't suggest developing a site of any important on one at this time.

    However, Kyle makes a good point that right now decent .infos can be gotten for extremely cheap (compared to the skyrocketing .coms). If you look at it as a long term investment, thinking say 10 years down the road, there is definitely potential for them to become more popular as fewer .coms are available. Sitting on a few premium generic .infos for a few years might not be a bad idea.
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    Last edited by rpanella; 03-17-2011 at 11:01 AM.

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    Yeah .info's are stinky because of the spam fest due to the pricing but for seo they rock. If the pricing changes (ie normalizes) what do you reckon will happen to .info credibility in the long term?

    Plus keyword.info just intuitively makes sense for a content site.

    Gettng back to valuations. I think if you look at Fabulous (Dark Blue Sea) you can get some valuable insights (especially their investor reports).

    http://au.finance.yahoo.com/q/aca?s=DBS.AX

    They essentially have two portfolios, valuable type-ins (gold) and brandable non profitable generics (inventory for sale).

  10. #10
    Senior Member agua's Avatar
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    .info domains are associated with spammers - I don't think this is going to change much in the future, price rises or not - the damage has been done IMO.

    The theory behind info domains is great - type in "yoursubject" .info to get a great information site - IMO they were released to late and pushed too cheaply.

    I just can't see large corporations putting anything valuable on a .info domain... Maybe they would buy them for brand protection... but I don't think they will pay high prices for them.

    .info sales will be kept within the domainer's market - I don't think they will attract much commercial activity.

    (and thats coming from a man who doesn't normally have an opinion, or is normally too busy/lazy to write it )
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    Quote Originally Posted by agua View Post
    I just can't see large corporations putting anything valuable on a .info domain... Maybe they would buy them for brand protection... but I don't think they will pay high prices for them.
    In just the last month there have been some large sales of .info domains:

    travel.info 116k
    newyork.info 70k
    chinese.info 37k

    So there is a market for them.

    You are right about the extension being a spam haven due to registrar's practically giving them away initially and as I said I would almost never personally choose to use a .info when developing a site.

    I'm not trying to praise .info's or anything like that. All I am saying is that the .info extension does have a lot of potential upside so as a domain investor, you shouldn't ignore the extension completely because of its currently spam issue.
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    Last edited by rpanella; 03-17-2011 at 11:02 AM.

  12. #12
    Senior Member Kyle's Avatar
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    Start of opinion.

    By the way, one sentence of my initial post was about .info's. That they were a good long-term investment, especially with how cheap some of them can go for.

    I'm simply saying it's a market you can still get involved with, where the quality domains appreciate more than the renewal fee each year.

    End of opinion.
    Kyle

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    could you guys recomend a good site were you can buy and sell domains and get info on sites being sold ?

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    Registered Billyray's Avatar
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  15. #15
    Senior Member Kyle's Avatar
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    Some additional .info thoughts...

    So all these companies are going ape over the user-generated content world. It is creating massive amounts of competition, and flooding the search engines with more and more pages of content. From wikipedia, to the garbage wisegeek sites, to howstuffworks.

    Whats going to happen when a new company comes along in 5 years and wants to rank #1 on 'ski jackets'. Sure, they could attempt to buy the com/net/org, which will probably "more than taken". By more than taken i mean, it will be 2013, and those domains wont likely be for sale at any reasonable price. Why not use the .info?

    SkiJackets.info could turn into an unbiased, informative site covering the product with a combination of technical information on jacket material options, reviews, and manufacturers/brands. With a proper marketing campaign, proper link value could be obtained. More so than some sub-page at howstuffworks.

    .info reputation still needs to be fixed, but time will do that. It may take some years, but the prices now are so insanely cheap its worth it.

    I could see .info providing the image .org gives today, but in the future.
    Kyle

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