Domain name appraisal service — GoDaddy launches
The world’s biggest registrarGoDaddy has launched a domain name appraisal service. The firm offers two services:
1. Express – receive your appraisal within 2 hours. This appraisal is based on top-level domain (TLD), length, number of words, number of hyphens, numeric characters, and desirability. The cost is $9.95. My opinion is that this service is a waste of money. You really can’t tell the value of a domain from just looking at these factors. Desirability is highly subjective and with multiple appraisers will likely be inconsistent–or worse yet, the service might be done solely by a computer.
2. Certified – receive your appraisal within 2 business days. These are reviewed by “firm experts”. The cost is $19.95. My concern with this service is that GoDaddy doesn’t have a sizable database of its own domain sales (which is a great benefit to appraisers like Sedo). The reliability of this service is minimal unless GoDaddy has access to such a database. GoDaddy just launched its TDNAM service recently and does not have a sizable database of sales.
The domain appraisal market has seen its ups and downs. I appraised thousands of domains in the late 90s. I eventually stopped appraising domains as firms like Sedo started offering domain appraisals based on reams of sales data. I decided that with that data Sedo could offer a better appraisal than I, and I only like to offer services when I can provide the best possible product.
If you get a domain appraised by GoDaddy, please e-mail me details and I will post it here.
