Should Automated Domain Worth Tools Be Extension Specific?

Automated Domain Worth Estimation

As those who follow my posts on NamePros and elsewhere will know, unlike some domain investors, I do see value, despite their  limitations, in automated domain name appraisal tools such as Estibot and GoDaddy GoValue.  Even though these should never be the only or even primary estimates of worth, I think that domain investors and potential purchasers should know the values for domain names they are considering. Therefore, in most cases I show these values in my listings at NamesThat.win (along with the caveat that values are not static, and potential purchasers should check for the most recent estimates if this information is important to them).

As artificial intelligence, and in particular machine learning, progresses, these automated tools will become even better. I simply do not accept that a human is always better at the task of evaluating the worth of domain names and always will be. Even today Google Maps does a pretty amazing job of finding a good route from point A to point B in a complex city, whether I want to go by walking, public transit, car, or bicycle. Is evaluating a domain name inherently a more complex task? A tool that has access to all of the data on past domain sales, Google searches, etc. is well placed to make a good estimation of domain name value.

As behavioural economists remind us, humans are subject to numerous cognitive biases and blindspots. Yes, I value the opinion of domain name investors, occasionally asking for them on the Appraisal section of NamePros, and not infrequently leaving my opinions for others. But I also place value on objective estimates from automated tools. Both human and automated estimates are sometimes very wrong, or at least predict values far different than sale prices.  That is because ultimately the worth of a domain is what someone will pay for it, and that will never be an exact science.

As a scientist I know that an estimate is improved by taking into account multiple independent values, and that is how I see automated tools and opinions of experienced domain investors co-existing. This is a long lead in to a post on a new extension specific approach to domain name evaluation.

New APP Specific Domain Name Estimation Tool

NamePros user un1 on July 6, 2018 posted an offer to use an Excel based tool developed to estimate the worth of APP extension domain names.  The tool works only for the single extension APP, since it takes into account

• how related the domain name is to the names of apps on Google Play or the iOs App Store
• how many downloads those apps have

Among the other aspects of the evaluation the poster lists the following.

• search result performance
• TLD penetration (how many extensions the word is registered in)
• traffic rank of the most similar domain with the highest rank (for example, for the appraisal of abc.app, the traffic rank of abc.com)
• synthesis of appraisal results from different services (the poster does not specify which, but I presume at least GoValue and Estibot, possibly others)
• length of the domain name
• trademark strength  
• meaningfulness

The scale is a mix of quantitative measures automatically assigned, and ratings assigned qualitatively.  For example, the developer explains that the trademark strength is assigned using the following Likert scale.

1 -> generic phrases or random letter combinations which are not used as trademarks (except possibly in a very regional micro company). .
2 -> deformed versions of strong trademarks (e.g. "itun") and/or out-of-context trademarks (e.g. "kandle")
3 -> well-known trademarks with no relevant apps released and/or no "mobile", "app-related" orientation (e.g. "baze") or generic names of mobile apps (e.g. "squadd", "dancingline" etc.)
4 -> well-known trademarks with apps released (or at least app-related orientation): e.g. "virgingames", "storspelare" etc. Rule: The sole activity is not the mobile app; the app is just the extension to the existing business.
5 -> well-known "mobile-first" trademarks (i.e. the main area of activity is 'app-related' services): e.g. "heimlich", "bambo", "xpro" etc.

Dollars or Scores

A number of people have commented on NamePros at various times that they find the automated tools worthwhile in expressing relative worth (i.e., whether name A is better than name B), even though they have no confidence in the dollar values given by the tools.  One aspect of the new tool is that it does not try to give a dollar figure for the evaluation, but rather a score on a 5 point scale, with a more valuable domain name being near the

1. host.app = 4.73 (reported sale: $14,162) 
2. RN.app = 4.42 (reported sale: $15,000) 
3. HedgeFund.app = 3.13 (reported sale: $251) 
4. YouProductive.app = 1.63 (reported sale: $1,300)

He does point out how his tool ranks those APP domain names that already have a NameBio recorded sales price.  As .app extension domain name sales increase, there will obviously be more data points both to evaluate the quality of the tool and also to convert points ratings into dollar value ranges.

Concluding Thoughts

I see a lot of value in a domain extension specific approach to automated evaluation.  GoValue currently rates (almost all) new domain extensions equally, and clearly this can't be right.  For example, when I checked just now it told me that pepperoni.pizza and pepperoni.science are worth exactly the same, $566.  That is clearly wrong!

Estibot do try to evaluate different extensions differently.  Although they do not disclose their detailed methodology, at least the way they structure their reports seems to indicate that in some cases (e.g., extensions like science) they span the dot and for their search statistics look at searches for the two parts together.  That is, for a word like planetary.science they would look at how searched (and advertised) "planetary science" was (as well as simply the word planetary).  While this is sensible here, for the new .icu (I See You) extension they seem to be doing the same as for extensions like science and spaace, and searching on the combination across the dot.  This does not make sense for this extension.

If the automated tool restricts itself to one extension, it can look at parameters important to that extension only.  For example, when evaluating .loan or .loans, it could look at how frequently that type of loan appears in commerce.

With well over a thousand extensions, even if country code extensions are not included, it would become chaotic to treat all individually of course.  However, some could be grouped together, and for some other extensions with limited registrations and sales, it is perhaps not sensible to try an automated worth estimate.

I welcome this new contribution to semi-automated domain worth, and look forward to seeing results from its application. I think several of the features, concentration on one extension only, use of a hybrid automated and human approach, and use of a scale rather than a dollar value, make it innovative and interesting.

Original post July 7, 2018.

Additional information added July 9, 2018.

Slight formatting change July 30, 2018 (no content change).

I have no association with the developer of this, or any other, automated domain value tools. The information on what parameters are used is taken from the original post.  You are responsible for your personal use of the information from any of these tools. This post is for information purposes only. The image that accompanies this posting is by Pixabay user geralt.

Namecheap Marketplace for Domain Sellers

I recently noticed that the Namecheap (NC) Marketplace (NCM) now allow BIN as low as $1 (used to be $5, the maximum remains at $1000).  I have found the NCM a good place to sell value domains at low prices, and this change makes it even more flexible in trying to get a few dollars for domains about to expire (or otherwise). I thought this might be a good time to explain the main features, and to give some tips for domain name sellers.

Main Points:

For those unfamiliar with the NC Marketplace;

1. The NCM is only for domains registered with NC.
2. Listing process on NCM is easy (can list price, term, categories, text description). To list a domain log into your account, select Domain List and then Manage (for the domain you want to list).  Then scroll to near the bottom, and click on the Sell Domain. Fill in the information, and your domain is up and for sale immediately.
3. They charge 10% commission with no minimum or other charges.
4. NC act as effective escrow on NCM transactions, taking buyer payment, then automatically transferring the name and changing contact information (purchaser must have NC account but they are free).
5. NC essentially push the domain to new owner, so there is not an automatic need to add a year registration.
6. You accumulate funds in your account, which you can transfer in any amount to be used to purchase NC domains (or I presume other services like web hosting).  If you want to withdraw them to your PayPal as money, need to have $100 minimum. Although NC do not add any fees for a PayPal payout, depending on your country, PayPal may add 0.5 to 2.0% fees on the money transfer.
7. Purchasers can buy you domain by putting it in the NC cart and use any of their standard payment options that include credit cards, Paypal and Bitcoin (as well as others).
8. You do NOT need to wait for the 60 day ICANN period, since the sale is essentially a push to the new owner.
9. It is not an auction site - you set a BIN price and the purchaser has only that option.  Also, there is no direct route for potential purchasers to interact with you.
10. When you click on the name of a domain name for sale on NCM it will show you both the day the current for sale listing expires, and the expiration date for the registration of the domain name.  Don't confuse the two!

    I have both bought and sold domains there, and have found the process smooth and fast (longest wait was a few hours). I have found NC support very responsive, when it is needed.

Search Notes:

One important point to note is that in general domains registered on the NC Marketplace do NOT show up in the general NC domain search (the one used for hand registrations).  To see listings on the NC marketplace you need to go to Domains tab, and then down to Marketplace.  The search is slow though.  You can turn off options by price or category on the left but response is slow. 

     Some names on NCM DO show up in the general NC search.  I have not figured out which ones get there, but I think that the name must be listed for some small multiple (or more) of registration cost for that extension, and be listed, and not expired for an extended period.  If anyone knows more precisely, please add in comments.

Tips:

A few tips for those selling domain names through the NCM:

• Although you can list up to 5 categories for each domain (e.g. technology, business, advertising, computers, etc.), only the first two alphabetically get listed beside the domain name.
• You can re-list a domain name that has not sold.  I sometimes use longer periods (simpler), but I sometimes use the shorter duration listing and re-list, since many of the sales seem to come when the domain listing is about to end when the name will be near the top of their list.
• I find that to be very successful you need your own website or social media presence to post to your listings.  People will in general not find your domains through the NCM.
• I find some who list on NCM do not realize how easy it is to have a single link which always shows your updated NCM listings.  Simply find one of your listings, then click on your username (in blue on left - mine is fundybob), and then get the URL from that page.  As an example, here is mine:  https://www.namecheap.com/store/domains/marketplace/buy-domains?seller=fundybob 
• If desired, you can also link to any particular domain name.  To do that find the domain name in NCM, then copy the URL.  Note that when the listing period expires and you re-list you will need to change the link.  An example: https://www.namecheap.com/store/domains/marketplace/listing/56000093
• You can use that along with a DNS redirect to make the NCM listing a landing page. For example, if you click the link expertise.space you will see this set up for one of my domain names.  One advantage of using NCM as your lander, is that the potential purchaser is immediately in an environment where they can instantly purchase the domain name and implement it with a hosting package.
• I use both types of links on my website.  On my main page https://NamesThat.win/ (see second line of icons), I link to all my NCM listings, while on the following page you will see links to individual NCM entries (these I need to update by hand). https://namesthat.win/domains.html
• While you can't change a price once the domain name is listed, you can delete it and then re-list it right away, so that is how to edit the NCM price if you made a mistake or have second thoughts. To delete your listing, log in to NC, go to Domain List, select the name, then click on Manage.  At the bottom right, where it tells you it is for sale, click on Cancel and enter your password again.   

Final Thoughts

     The NCM can be one option to easily and inexpensively sell domain names.  Because there is no minimum commission, it is particularly good for low cost domain names (I recently sold one for just $2.00 there, and the commission charged was only $0.20).  While most of my buyers seem to first find my domain names through my website (or social media, perhaps), many prefer to purchase them through NCM.  

     One big advantage of the NCM in my opinion is that NC generally have cost competitive renewal rates for most  extensions, and also excellent value in shared web hosting.  The new Stellar Plus shared hosting with unlimited domains and storage is an especially good deal. Therefore, if your end user has plans to use the domain they are buying to set up a first website, it is fast and easy.  The new owner can literally have their website up the day they purchase the domain from you.  

     While other registrar marketplaces exist and are great (Namesilo comes to mind), I like NCM a lot.  If you decide to list there, I wish you all the best.

Happy Domain Investing,

Bob

ps While I won't be able to edit this one, I am planning to post a version that I will update on my blog at this link: https://agreatnameforyou.blogspot.ca/

pps Disclosure:  I have no association with NC, other than as a user and an affiliate account, and was not compensated or encouraged to create this post. 

Price Categories Added

Our goal at NamesThat.win is to offer innovative domain names at great prices, and to make finding, acquiring and using a domain name as easy as possible.  Someone suggested to us that they would like an easy way to find domain names on our site within a certain price range.  While the discount section of our catalog has offered a listing of our significantly reduced domains, it did not offer an easy way to, for example, find a domain name at $40 or less.  We are pleased to announce that we have now rectified this and now offer a By Price listing.

At the top of each page at our  website you will now see a By Price (see diagram) link.  When you click it you will go to listings divided by price.  For example, one of the categories lists all domains we have available in the price range from $69 to $88. The lowest price category starts at domains just $8 or less!

Within each price category the domain names are listed alphabetically in our standard catalog format with a bit of information on the domain name along with links where it can be purchased. For example, we show the listing for DreamSmall.co below.  The top line shows our initial and current price ($49), where it can be purchased (in this case either on Undeveloped. com or our Efty Marketplace listing), along with a brief description usually including possible uses, automated estimates of worth, and the date that the expiry date of the current registration that goes with the domain name.

In the lowest price category ($8 or less) the only purchase options are normally the Namecheap Marketplace.  Since you can open a Namecheap account for free in just a few minutes if you don't already have one.  Namecheap handles your payment and the transfer of the domain name to you, which normally happens within hours or less. They offer various payment options including credit cards, PayPal, and Bitcoin (among others).

In the $9 to $18 we normally offer two purchase options, Namecheap Marketplace or the Efty Marketplace.  We recommend that you use Namecheap Marketplace, as they act as essential escrow agents, moving the name from us to you.

In the price categories starting at $28 purchase options will depend on the domain name, but normally include Undeveloped.com, along with Efty Marketplace and possibly others. Normally the price will be the same in all options, but check with the domain name that you want as occasionally minimum requirements or other costs make it necessary to list a higher price with some options.

We will continue to offer our other choices for searching on our site.  All of the domain names we have for sale are listed alphabetically in the List section of our site.  If looking for a specific name this is the easiest place to find it (although it does not include detail like a description).

Our domain names are listed by category in our catalog, for example if you want to search for domain names related to the Internet of Things or Nanotechnology you can go to that section of our catalog. We show a portion of the catalog in the image below, but go to our site for the full catalog.  The catalog starts with a Featured link to some of our favourite domains, but after that the categories are listed alphabetically.

Still reading?  Thanks!  We have a little bonus for one engaged early reader.  To celebrate our new By Price categories we have listed one domain name in the $8 (or less) category that we think is a pretty great deal (it is up for renewal in a few weeks so you will have to renew it after purchase).  You will have to go to our website to find the domain name, and check if it is still available, but here is a teaser of information on the domain. Why not go see what the name is, and pick it up! I will update this listing with sold after it is gone.

• single common dictionary word applicable to the financial industry
• uses a popular ngTLD extension that makes sense with the word
• about 40,000 exact term Google monthly searches 
• about 2.7 million broad term Google monthly searches
• advertisers pay of order of $3 per click for both the exact and broad search term
• automated Estibot® worth estimate $2000, GoDaddy GoValue® $700
• we originally offered the domain name at $475
• registration expires May 17, 2018 (renews standard rates)
• buy it now on Namecheap Marketplace for $8 to one lucky buyer

A Canadian Site: Excellent Domains

We recently came across the ExcellentDomains.ca site that sells a good selection of Canadian linked domain names, as well as showing the prices paid for some that have sold. While there is a pretty strong bias in favour of .ca versus the nTLDs, it is really nice to have this single site with so much Canadian content. According to their reported prices, CreditCards.ca sold for $650,000 followed closely by Jobs.ca at $600,000.

The business is maintained by Ilze Kaulins-Plaskacz and members of her family from a site in Ontario. Her personal story is a very interesting one, that you can read about here. She is an award winning member of the domain name community, and is frequently a keynote speaker.

Domain Names as Real Estate

People sometimes ask me to explain the whole domain name - web hosting business, and I find the following analogy helpful. While I know that the comparison of domain names with real estate is widely used, I think the following account has some unique characteristics.

I tell them that owning a domain name is like owning land (well really it is more like leasing land for a certain period of time). You need that land before you can build a house (see next paragraph). Just like the price for land varies greatly, so does the price for domain names. An important criterion for the price of land is the location - land near a city normally sells for more than land way out in a rural area. The similar idea to location for domain names is the top level domain (TLD), some are more valuable (like .com, .org or .net) and others less so. But just like not any piece of land in a city will demand a good price, just because it is a .com domain by itself does not mean it is valuable.

The new top level domains (nTLDs), things like .site or .xyz or .design, are sort of like new subdivisions that are being developed. Initially land there commands a lower price, even if the long term prospects look positive.

Some country specific domain names require you to be from that country to use that domain name. For example, I live in Canada, and .ca domain name holders must reside in Canada. That is sort of like regions that have rules about foreign ownership of real estate. For the most part the nTLDs don't have specific requirements; you can own a .science domain without being a scientist (I don't think it should be that way, but that is a topic for another post!).

But while location is important, it is not the only thing that matters. Perhaps you really want a site with a nice view or forested property or privacy, these may matter more to you than location. In the same way you may be able to get just the perfect name with one of the nTLDs, so that name will be valuable. Just as we have observed with many cities, land further out has become increasingly more valuable over time, I expect that the nTLDs will increase in value gradually as acceptance grows. The acceptance will require that some people build good reputable websites on the nTLDs.

If you want both a great location and special features, for example waterfront property on a large lot near a city centre, that will indeed cost a lot. That is why a few domain names, mainly .com, go for such high prices.

The land analogy to domain names suggests another truth. Land is only valuable if it serves the needs (and desires) of someone. A domain name is only valuable if someone will desire it and find it useful for their purposes. While various factors enter into an evaluation of domain name worth, for example, is the TLD respected, is the name easy to remember and spell, does the name reflect your organization positively, etc.

After you purchase land you usually have a house built, and the analogous concept is to build a website. While you need land to build a house (well if we exclude strata developments, mobile homes or house boats!), the land by itself is not enough for a place to live (unless you want to live in a tent permanently!). Also, you don't need to build the house right away, and that is like those who hold domain names, hoping that they will become more valuable in the future. A good domain name without a good website is a wasted opportunity, so it does not make sense to build a poor website on a premium domain name.

In life our needs change, and most of us live in several homes, in different locations, over our lifetime. That may happen for your organization or business needs. You may need to purchase additional domain names, or may decide to rebrand yourself with a new domain name.

You also don't want people to confuse you with an unsavoury person who lives in the same city. Let's say there is someone who lives in the same area that has almost your name, and he has been in trouble with the courts. You want to take whatever steps are possible to protect your own good name, so people won't be confusing you with him.

For people to find your house they could use the GPS location that you give them (that would be like the IP address in the world of websites), but most will look in some sort of directory to see where you live. The domain name server (DNS) has this role, linking a specific numerical address to the domain name that you have registered. There are actually many DNS on the internet, but they rapidly share the information, so if you move your website to a new location they will be able to find you at the new location.

Just as you can sell land alone (domain name by itself) or land with a house (website with the domain name), both domain names and complete websites are sold in the market. While there are domain name advisors, and others who will act as agents for a domain name purchase or intermediaries in the sale, a standardized domain name agent like a real estate agent is not firmly established.

If this analogy is helpful, feel free to use it. I hope you find just the right domain name!