What is the value of your domain? You may have already asked yourself this question or you may have received an offer from a buyer and you do not know how to estimate this value. This process is not easy and even web services designed for it can miss their estimates. Your domain is unlikely to be worth a million dollars, like lasvegas.com, which the travel agency vegas.com bought for $90 million in 2005. Still, it’s possible to make a nice profit selling your address.
In this article we tell you the most important things about the value of a domain and we explain what to take into account to evaluate the value when buying a domain.
Domain value: what to do if you receive an offer
If you want to sell your domain, you will need to determine its value. What should you do if a buyer contacts you to buy your domain?
In any case, the most important thing is not to rush . If a company or individual is really interested, you will have time to think about whether to sell it and calmly determine the value of the domain. Before even thinking about the price, the most important thing is to talk with the buyer. Make sure it’s a serious offer before making any decisions. If you have a positive impression and don’t mind selling your domain, you have two options:
- Ask the interested party to make you an offer .
- Indicate to the interested party your sale price .
Both options have their advantages and disadvantages. If you go with the first option, you can start researching the value of the domain right after you’ve made the offer. However, in this way, you give up the advantage of setting a higher selling price. If you have put your domain for sale, it is recommended that you indicate its value.
How to determine the value of your domain
Domains are unique. The reason potential buyers contact you is to convince you to sell it. However, the uniqueness of an address is also the reason why determining the value of a domain is so difficult. The type of domain, such as top level domain, second level domain, ccTLD or gTLD, play a big role in the valuation of this (some domain extensions already cost a lot of money on their own). However, the combination of name and extension , which can only be registered once, is the deciding factor in assessing the address.
Several free and paid online tools and services are offered on the web to find out the value of your domain. We highlight the following:
- Nominalia.com : with the nominalia.com service you can receive professional advice on the value of your domain within 10 days of making your request. The service costs 79 euros.
- EstiBot.com : With the online tool estiBot.com you can get a free estimate of the value of your domain based on numerous factors. Among them, its length, the number of words, as well as other attributes such as the popularity of your searches or its age.
- Sedo.com – The provider sedo.com offers domain valuations to buyers and sellers, sending the report by email within five days after receipt of payment. The ten evaluation criteria include the suitability for search engines and the advertising impact of the domain.
- GoDaddy.com – GoDaddy.com online tool values your domain immediately and easily through a search engine. To perform the analysis, it is based on comparable domains sold and their prices, brevity and originality.
It is easy to find out the value of your domain with any of these solutions or with the alternatives available in the market. However, the different evaluation criteria mean that the value of the domain differs greatly from one service to another, especially with free services.
Evaluate the value of a domain: what factors to consider
Paid services to determine the value of a domain usually take into account many more criteria, so the result is usually more accurate. But is an investment of 50 or 100 euros necessary to find out the value of your domain? In the final part of this guide, we present the most important evaluation criteria. With them, you will be able to make a first assessment of the value of your domain on your own .
Domain name and length
As a general rule, the shorter the domain name, the higher its value. However, this rule is subject to some conditions. Otherwise, string domains like ababcd.es or abcde.es would be very valuable. The deciding factor of domain value is therefore whether the domain (which should be as short as possible) has a meaningful name or contains well-known (unbranded) abbreviations, puns or the like that might interest buyers. On the contrary, the value of a domain is usually lower if it contains cryptic names and endings or combines several words or terms.
linguistic criteria
In addition to the length and popularity of the domain name, there are other linguistic aspects that can decisively influence the value of a domain. For example, it is important if the central term of the domain is a noun, an adjective or a verb. In most cases, nouns are the preferred solution. These can be decisive for the value of the domain, taking into account the plural and the singular (for example, shoes.es or shoe.es). For words like groceries, nuptials, and vacations, it’s obviously irrelevant.
The characters , figures or words that are part of the domain but have no relation to other possible web pages also have a lower value.
Availability of alternative top-level domains
With the new TLDs , the possible combinations of name and extension in the address have increased considerably. Therefore, if you want to determine the value of a domain, you have to take into account the availability of alternative top-level domains. If you own the domain.com address, but the alternative domain.org is available, the chances of getting a high selling price for your address are reduced. If you buy and register domain names with a wide variety of endings from the beginning, your business will be more profitable, especially if you focus on the most popular domain addresses .
Domain age and other SEO aspects
The age of the domain is the time elapsed since its registration. If you registered your domain in 2011, for example, in 2021 it will be 10 years old. It is not known if the registration date really influences the ranking of engines like Google, but if the domain has been active for years, it will undoubtedly have an effect on the ranking and therefore also on the value of the domain. The content and the number of backlinks determine the reputation of a web page. The reliability of the pages that have been published under a certain domain is also important for SEO.
In relation to SEO, the keyword potential of the domain is also important. If the address contains terms with a high volume of searches on Google and other search engines, this will strengthen your negotiation when it comes to selling the domain. However, if the name of the address is too obvious presenting the keywords, as is the case with “what-is-seo.es”, it tends to lose value, as search engines tend to consider it a negative aspect . Already in 2012, Google adjusted its algorithm to penalize this type of domain, which used to be associated with spam or low-value content.
commercial potential
Can you make money with a website? And if so, in what sector? In order to determine the value of a domain, you must know how to assess the commercial potential of the address. Domains from Internet-related industries are very popular, so their value is significantly higher than addresses from other industries. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that companies that are active in a booming industry want to get noticed with a suitable and powerful domain. On the other hand, it can be beneficial to advertise on pages with great commercial potential, which makes the domain interesting for entrepreneurs.
If the domain has already been used for web pages in the past , this can help assess its profitability: the number of visits, impressions, clicks, ads, subscribers to paid content and other factors can indicate if the domain It is recommended to sell products or services . However, the importance of the page or store that was hosted under the domain should also be taken into account.