I’ve appraised domains professionally for 4 years or more, and I always follow a simple rule… appraise at a value that the seller should NOT sell below, as opposed to the “HIGH” value of the domain the seller should expect.

This is because no person can accurately state the highest possible selling price of ANY domain. So if a domain can make $100,000 if the right buyer came along, but the domain has a “liquidable” value (selling it fast) of $35,000, then the appraisal value at “liquidable” pricing would be the latter price. It wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) make the seller upset if they paid registration price for the domain, or even $20,000 for the same domain a few years earlier, because the success of a domain sale is that you make an “expected appropriate” profit for the domain, that you used all professional avenues in offering your domain for sale, and that hopefully you have more than one bidder.

If you’d like to contact me at successclick.com to discuss this further, I’ll be happy to help you.

On valuation, that’s an age old questions that’d difficult to answer. Was iReport.com worth $750k? Few people would have said so before CNN bought it for that much. I believed it **had** to have that specific domain. In general, when companies have options they also have negotiating power.

My other question is valuation. If the domain really is only of use or value to a couple of companies in an industry, how do you assign a monetary value to it? From what point can you bargain when there is just one interested buyer?

I’ve heard such mixed (mostly negative) comments about appraisal services I’m reluctant to pay for a service that might give me a figure below an outstanding offer or so high that it intimidates a potential buyer. It is really more of an art than a science.

I predict that a lot of keyword domains will sell for no less than 10 million $ us, over the next few years. Most good keyword domains are rediculously undervalued from a strategic stand point. Thanks again for the concept. Jeff Schneider

Until we domainers start pumping promotions and marketing into this area, doing everything we can to show the value of our domains to the companies that will build them out or use them to brand their current products/services, we’ll always be scratching our heads, and talking about domain values “will they go up or down this year”.

They’ll go UP if we do like David does and promotes to end users. Period.

Nice article, Andrew.

http://www.successclick.com

Another example: A couple years back, some “top” domainers laughed at my Healthify … yet last month General Mills happily grabbed it for $15,000.

Oops.

…and how much would any of us have said iReport.com was worth; tops? (1k? 5k? maybe 25k?) … yet Rick was able to negotiate a sale for 750k.

Monster double oops.