Valuation of websites, blogs and domains

By Jason Drohn

Valaution of intangible assets is always a tricky proposition. There are numerous online valuation tools, many claiming to value your site or domain for free. And several that charge for the privilege. Are any of them any good or is a site/domain worth just what someone will pay for it?

Value is really in the eye of the beholder but the strange thing is that for certain types of sites their value is uncannily predictable. Put them up for auction to the right audience of competitive bidders and you could pin point to within 10% where the bidding will end. I must emphasise that this doesn’t apply to all sites but just to developed sites with steady earning streams.  Sitepoint has an article on how to value such sites. It’s a fairly in-depth look at the valuation of a variety of sites, blogs and domains and it examines the accountancy and maths behind the valuations (a shorter version of site valuation here).

But you just want a quick value of your site, right? Head on over to the tool Sitepoint recommends for valuing your website.  It gives you not just a valuation but a detailed report on your site age, links, PageRank of pages, DMOZ entries, site’s security status, uptime and performance, various traffic metrics and lots more. Plus links to other information like your server technology, server uptime etc. Run some valuations for your own site, other sites; use some dummy figures to see how your valuation would change if your figures changed. Or get yourself a trillion dollar valuation and post their widget on your site. ;)

Topics: Domain Name Auctions, Domain sales, The Art of Domaining | No Comments »

The places to buy domains

By Jason Drohn

A Make Money Online site, specializing in the monetizing of sites and domains has posted a collection of the best places to buy domains. They also have a list of the main outlets for buying and selling of all kinds of internet properties, from domains to sites to mailing lists.

Topics: Domain Name Auctions, Domain Name Registrars | No Comments »

Top Domain Sales in 2007

By Jason Drohn

As we approach the end of 2007, it is interesting to note some of the top domain sales of the year.  DailyDomainer has a very good list of the top domain sales, as well as what they are being used for.

Here are the top twenty or so:

For the complete list, check out Daily Domainer.

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Three Domain Tips

By Jason Drohn

Seth Godin has a nice post about domain name tips:

Tip three is perhaps the most important of all, especially for domainers.  When you start searching for keyword specific urls, make sure that people in the niche you are targeting will get it.  If not, you won’t get any type in traffic and next to no resale value.

Don’t be too close to the trees to see the forest.

Topics: Domain Name Tips | No Comments »

Domain Name Drafting

By Jason Drohn

This particular terminology is new to me, but it makes sense.  Domain name drafting is nothing more than registering misspelled domain names of high profile competitors, and forwarding them directly to your site.  When the user gets there, they might be slighly confused, but as long as your product or service offering is closely comparable - they don’t go anywhere.

The strategy is named after the NASCAR racing term that describes the technique a driver uses to follow the lead vehicle, thereby reducing the impact of wind resistance to maintain racing position and decrease fuel needed to maintain high speeds. “Together, these new online marketing strategies will drive apartment renters nationwide to the communities listing with www.EliteRenting.com, allowing the company to spend less on paid search results placement and increasing access our many online listings,” says David Israel, www.EliteRenting.com Owner.

For more, head over to Domain News.

Topics: Domain Name Tips | No Comments »

Expired Domain Name Sales

By Jason Drohn

Here are some interesting statistics on expired domain name sales I just found:

Singapore December 4, 2007 – Everybody is after the proverbial ‘golden niche’ when it comes to online businesses. And for the past three years, the expired domain names market has been this niche. In 2005, sales of 5,851 domain names generated almost US$29 million. In 2006, sales surpassed the US$100 million mark. To date, there have already been six expired domains bought for over US$1 million each (one of them was sold for almost US$10 million!). And these statistics cover just the public domain name aftermarket. Private sales of expired domains are said to be bring in higher figures.

The expired domain name has long been a source of almost free income, but turning a domain name into $10 million dollars! That is pretty extraordinary!

Interested in learning how? Check out our domaining ebook!

Topics: Domain Name Tips | 1 Comment »

Recent Development In Domain Tasting

By Jason Drohn

There is an interesting article at Australianit that paints a pretty distasteful picture of domainers, and their apparent ‘unethical practices’ as cybersquatters and typosquatters.  I generally look past most of those issues because I don’t condone, suggest, or register trademarked domains myself, but there are those people out there that do.

I was more interested in this statement:

“…domain tasting in conjunction with more sophisticated typosquatting, where people use character generators to register millions of new domain names with all conceivable variants of a legitimate domain name in the hope of capturing misspelt entries.

They typically point them to a landing page populated with click-through advertising links or pay-per-click advertisements in a bid to generate sales.

During the five-day grace period on new domain name registrations, they test the level of traffic each name attracts and then relinquish those that have not reached a threshold of revenue generation and either abandon them or register them again to give them more time for testing. In July, 35 million domain names were registered, and 33 million of them were abandoned within the five-day grace period.

Domain tasting is creating a huge load on the system…”

Only two million legitimate domain name registrations?  To me, that figure is amazing.

Topics: Domain Tasting | No Comments »

Video Gaming Domain Names To Rise

By Jason Drohn

Steve Smith, over at Inside Domaining, has an interesting post regarding video games.

The above graph shows that by 2011, gaming will encompass $48.88 Billion dollars with the majority of that being on the Internet. What does that mean? Buy them up…

Video Gaming Domain Names To Rise

One thing I have seen work well for people, really well in fact, is when they set up an informational site or a forum around a game. Lee Dodd does this really well. As long as the game has some draw, and is reasonably addictive, it can generate some pretty decent revenue.

Think Final Fantasy, Zelda, World of Warcraft and Guild Wars…

Then, when you are tired of doing the moderation thing, just sell the site off for a quick buck!

If developing domains isn’t your style, you can always hold out for the end user who DOES want to develop the name, or dump it on some of the domain name selling sites for a quick buck.

For more at Inside Domaining, click the link!

For more information on domaining, check out The Art of Domaining!

Topics: Domain Name Tips | No Comments »

Hinging On A Domain Name

By Jason Drohn

My friend, Rob, sent me an interesting link to an article on BusinessWeek titled, “Does Success Hinge on a Domain Name?”

The fact of the matter is - it does!  Domain names are no different than having a store on 5th avenue in New York City.  You want your site to be extremely accessible, easy to remember, and easy to market!  The only thing is lacks is having the other world class businesses as neighbors.

Think about it.  If I want to check out Rockefeller Center, I will most likely check out Tiffany & Co. as well!  Why?  Because it is right next door.  The internet lacks that as of right now.  Social bookmarking services and everything else are trying their hand at drawing a straight line between like minded sites, but it is a long way off.  Other than that, domain names are brands, businesses, logos, and real estate!

In the end, there will be two types of people - domainers and business owners.  The domainers had the foresight to snatch up the good domain names, while the business owners will be trying to discover ways to use them..  Which side will you be on?

Check out The Art of Domaining to get your feet wet in this ever growing profession!

Topics: The Aftermarket | 1 Comment »

The 21st Century Real Estate

By Jason Drohn

It’s always nice when our profession gets mentioned in USA Today.

If anyone is on the fence about whether domaining is a great industry to be in right now - DON’T READ THIS ARTICLE!

My bet is you will jump right in…

But just to whet your appetite:

“This industry is like the wild, wild West right now and people have no idea how fast it’s growing,” said Jerry Nolte, managing partner of Domainer’s Magazine, a new trade publication devoted to this little-known world.

Some believe the industry’s market value could reach $4 billion by 2010 as people continue to purchase approximately 90,000 names a day and the number of domain registrars swells.

 

Topics: The Aftermarket | No Comments »

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