The price a seller is willing to sell a domain is mostly mistaken to be its value. On the contrary, the price a buyer is willing to pay for the domain is its true value.
Appraisal sites are mostly used to get an estimated value of a domain name. You should, therefore, seek to find out the value of your website in the market if you are planning to sell it. The good news, however, is that there are numerous appraisal sites that you can use. Each one will most probably give you a different value, so it is best that you use several appraisal sites so that you can get several price estimates. You can then use these estimated prices to finally decide how much you will sell your domain.
It is also important to keep in mind that the prices in the appraisals are only estimates and do not guarantee that your domain will sell for that price.
What determines the value of a domain?
There are a number of facts that certainly determine how valuable a domain is. A successful site will most probably continue with its successful streak irrespective of whether ownership changes hands. In fact, chances are high that some of the previous users will move to the new site. This means that most domain buyers will go for a domain that is already successful because of the obvious benefits.
What to look out for when appraising a domain name:
When trying to figure out the value of a domain name, there are a number of things that you need to seriously consider. Failure to do this can mean that you are stuck with a domain that has little or no value.
Length of the domain: Generally, a domain name is more expensive if it is short. Consequently, it is important to take note of the length of the name as this will have a direct effect on the price.
Age of the domain name: How long the domain has been “alive” is another factor you need to consider. Older domains rank better in search engines compared to newer ones. This has the effect of increasing their value. A downside of such domains is that they are very rarely, if ever, for sale. Trying to convince the owner to sell can prove to be quite a challenging task and even if you were to convince them to sell, they would do so at a higher price.
Domain words and their spelling: You will pay a higher price for a domain that uses common and easy to spell words. This is because they are much easier to remember that those that use difficult or ambiguous words. Users prefer these simple domain names because they are less likely to forget them.
Domain extensions: It is more expensive to buy domains with the .com extension. This is the oldest domain extension on the internet and therefore users default to it. It also ranks higher in search engine results compared to other domain extensions like .net, .org and more.
How to improve the value of your domain
The same effort that goes into increasing the value of a website is the exact effort needed to improve the value of a domain name. In fact, the more popular a website is, the more popular a domain name is. This is because the website is accessed through the domain name.
Improving your SEO: Your site will be visited by more visitors if they can easily find it in their search results. You can also market your website through social media and other channels. This is quite effective at driving traffic to your site. You should also ensure that your site has enough pages for your clients to visit.
Unfortunately, there are some things that are beyond your power and influence but still greatly affect the value of your domain. They include:
Age of the domain: While the age of a domain name has an effect on the domain’s value, maintenance is needed to ensure that it is even worth anything. This means that a poorly maintained domain name with no visitors will still value poorly no matter how old it is.
Domain usability: Owning a domain name that is too long, has difficult words or non-alphabetic characters will give you a lower value irrespective of how long it has been alive.
Domain extension: Once registered, the domain extension cannot be changed. This means that you are stuck with it no matter its value.
That all, hope can help you understand what determines the value of a domain. Wish you success with your own domain names and don’t forget to subscribe my site 🙂
