Appraising a Domain Name
By Domain Social's Amol Hatwar
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So you are looking to sell that domain name you bought a couple of years ago – the only problem is: At what price? There are a plethora of market places with agents, mostly shady, that will help you decide a price and sell. But then again, unlike real-estate domain names are abstract and are difficult to put a price-tag on. However, you should have a clear indication of how much you are expecting to get or pay for it. Want to fid out how to get a realistic indication? Read on.
Think, how much amazon.com would cost if it were for sale. Now think about the cost before Amazon began selling books and other stuff. The difference would probably involve millions of dollars, because amazon.com is now a developed domain and has a huge mindshare as a brand. Developed domains cost more, and can get really expensive if they have a well established user base or a community around it. The fact whether a domain is developed and/or has users becomes the single-most factor that influences the price.
That said there are other factors that affect the price of the domain. For example .com domains cost more than .net or .org simply because people are more accustomed to .com. You don’t hear them talk about a .net business, do you?
Also, users tend to be lazy. Giving them too much to type just to reach your Website is not good at all. And yes, even a single character matters after the golden threshold of six characters. Unlike most things on the Internet, it is shorter the better for domain names.
And like you guessed it, memorable domains will cost more. For example, yahoo.com is more memorable than msn.com. But then, remember msn.com two characters shorter. This is where you’d use your judgment to decide what you or your business values more.
An oft-forgotten fact is the relevance of the domain to your business. Take for example amazon.com and buy.com. Who would have thought that Amazon is about books, electronics and other non-perishable items? For me, it is difficult to link Amazon and e-commerce. But today, almost everyone on the Internet knows of the service. That’s because Amazon has done a lot of hard-work and spent equivalent sums in money to get to the current position in the user’s head. How much would buy.com com have to do? The very name says it all!
Lastly, another important but misunderstood fact is the reach and appeal of your domain name to your users. The more users across businesses and industries your domain name appeals to, the more the price. For example, lotus is a sweet sounding name. But on the Internet, lotus.com points to a feature-rich messaging and collaboration application suite developed by IBM. It appeals to technology heads of many businesses. But most technology heads are also parents, and there more parents than technology heads out there. Naturally, toysrus.com appeals to more people than lotus.com and is thus more valuable.
Once you have played the domain name you are looking to buy or sell through these facts, you should be more equipped to make that crucial decision of price. These days, almost every registrar runs a secondary domain name market; but here is a list of some popular players to help you get started.
1. DomainSocial.com
2. DomainAftermarket.com
3. NetworkSolutions.com
4. Sedo.com
5. GreatDomains.com
6. DomainMart.com
Article 2: Appraising a Domain Name
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