Pricing a web address

[TheGuyFromThere]

I have a business idea and will need to acquire a domain name for doing so, though the one I want is currently owned by sedo.com and I need to make an offer for it.

 

As any business owners will tell you.. they won't tell you much, and for that reason, I won't say what domain it is I want. What I'd like to find out is, how can one approximate the cost of a domain name? What must be taken into consideration and are there any etiquettes involved in making offers on domain names?

 

Thanks for any help.

[uNi]

Depends on how many hits, back-links, searches it receives etc... The extension is also very important.

 

Domains with a few works only and no hyphens are usually more expensive as they're more easy to remember.

 

You can do that some of that search yourself with some of the tools available in the net, but if you really want it or a business will always be pricey I guess.

[ghost of delete key]

Three web tools picked at random:

 

http://www.adminstool.com/domain-value/

http://www.webarbiter.com/

http://www.dnscoop.com/

 

If you plug in a domain name, you'll see the broad range of value opinions based on web statistics; $102,000 to $191,625 for gtaforums.com as an example, using the engines above.

 

This might give you a fair idea of what you're dealing with, and many of these sites have webmaster and SEO communities and resources you can check out. Dig around some of their forums, I'm sure you can find answers to your "how-to" questions.

 

I used "domain value checker" as a search term to find those, there are tons of others as well.

[Toadyd]

Don't waste your time with sites claiming to estimate a domains potential worth, they can provide useful statistics but in reality they're just a gimmick.

 

For example one of those sites above said a domain I own was worth $3000, another just over $300 and the third $50.

 

Another domain - one site shows it's worth $0, another $70 and the third over $1000. In reality I bought it for $30 and a few months later sold it for $150.

 

The domain you're after is parked at Sedo too, so it'll confuse the valuation sites even more as you'll not have many backlinks, google won't see the domain as having unique content, it'll have a low PR rank etc... all the (in your case) irrelevant factors it uses to determine a sites value.

 

Just make an offer on Sedo. If it gets rejected try a little higher. It also depends who actually owns the domain, is it a company who specialise in buying and selling domains, or an individual? Individuals may be happy to sell for a slightly lower fee whilst companies are probably going to hang on until they see the offer they want.

 

I found a fantastic domain for sale on Sedo a few weeks ago, I offered £3000 but they were looking for offers above £7000. That was a 4 letter .co.uk dictionary word and would easily be worth £10k to the right company.

 

You might find it helpful to spend a bit of time lurking on http://www.dnforum.com/ in the marketplace sections. Watch what is selling, what isn't, for how much etc...

 

Feel free to PM me the domain you're considering, and i'll attempt to give you a fair evaluation based on what i'd pay.

[TheGuyFromThere]

Thanks for the help folks. I'll keep googling for other resources. Thanks for the offer Toad, but I'm sure you can understand why I won't be PMing you with the web address

 

If anyone has anything else that may assist in my pricing, t'would be good of you to share.

 

Thanks

[Lithium]

That was the most fun I've had in awhile searching up domains. I doubt anyone would pay 44 million for google tho...although ya never know.

[ghost of delete key]

Somehow I don't think 44 million is very accurate.

 

I tend to think Google would piss themselves laughing at such an offer.

Not that they would sell, anyway.