Evaluating a domain name could be quite difficult and confusing. I have scoured the Internet trying to figure it out and while reading through the different article on how to evaluate a domain name, it became obvious that the articles swayed according to the writers position. Were they buyers or sellers, and there are different levels of buyers and sellers. Some sellers buy bulk…kind of crappy names trying to sell in bulk. Some buyers are looking to flip while others plan on the domain becoming their main domain. Determining where everyone is coming from makes the evaluation process difficult but originally when I purchased each domain I purchased in the hopes of developing it myself or seeing a lifelong business taking on the domain. I am not interested in click through websites, that seems disingenuous to me. Don’t get me wrong, I have tried it but I found my heart was not in it and I let it go.
Some of the things I look at when I am placing a value on a domain name is prior sales…most cases you won’t find an exact prior sale, so you will have to hunt around for a similar domain name. I have found the website NameBio.com very helpful. I also search around to see if a similar named domain are presently for sale at GoDaddy.com. That kind of gives me a feel for the value, what someone has already paid for a similar domain or what someone is selling a similar domain name for.
Then I start trying to evaluate using Google search. There are exact keyword searches and simple keyword search which is a combination of the words. Exact keyword search results holds a higher value.
Then I look at some of the search results. I visit the websites. I research the industry. How competitive is it? One for instance, my research for CART-cell Therapy & CART-cell.com. CART-cell Therapy was an amazing cancer therapy discovery and when I came up with the value of $80,000 I originally thought it to be too high but this was a multiple offering, so I had to weight that out. The domain names were exact and I later researched that one treatment cost over $400,000…FOR ONE TREATMENT. So with that I wasn’t feeling too bad, I probably could increase the sale price but I go with my first gut feeling of feeling good.
So there you have it…wrong or right, that is how I do my evaluations. I am always open to negotiations, just don’t insult me…you get no where.
