Domain investors share their favorite tools.
What are your go-to tools for domaining?
I’m guessing DomainTools is one of your most frequented sites.
45% of people who took this year’s Domain Name Wire Survey said DomainTools was the “software or hosted application that is most valuable to their domain name business for research and management.”
Nearly 14% said the same thing about domain pricing and sales system Estibot.
After that usage drops off significantly. Between 4%-6% of survey respondents selected one of the following:
Domain Research Tool
Wordtracker
WatchMyDomains
Fresh Drop
NameBio
DNSalePrice
No one system seems to manage everything that a domainer needs for business. Perhaps that’s good; most tools focus on a core competency and do it rather well.
Rob Sequin says
For me domaintools is #1 then WatchMyDomains is #2 then maybe estibot way down on the list.
If you are not using WatchMyDomains or Domain Punch Pro to manage and research domains, you should be. (I have no ties to the company)
Josh says
Obviously domaintools is a vital tool for what it is I do but dnsaleprice is a for sure #2 on my list. How a tool such as estibot even made the list shows the quality of domainer that voted.
Any serious money needs to know sales history, dreamers and children love fantasy land numbers which is what estibot provides.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Josh, I’ll admit that when Estibot it first came out I felt similarly. And I still feel people put too much weight on the tool. But Estibot uses lots of sales history and even displays it next to your domain searches. It also has tools for end user sales prospecting. It’s become lots more than just an automated appraisal service.
rob says
@josh
spot on there about estibot. i think it’s designed for the end user and not the astute domainer who has a better idea of values. many of the “valuations” are so far out that you’ve got to wonder who owns it and why they are pricing some domains so outrageously.
actually, who DOES own/operate it and what are their connections?
i’d really like to know the answer to those! anyone?
Josh says
I hear ya Andrew, I still think dnsaleprice allows you to go deeper though, play with comparables.
I think the issue is most still use estibot for its free appraisal tool, sadly.
You are correct though there are other tools they offer that are valued.
M. Menius says
Without knocking Estibot, it’s a novel concept. To their credit, they have expanded their service which is admirable and also very useful.
But automated appraisals, all of them, are bull. And detrimental to the market. Over and over again I have sold domains in the .biz, .us, and .info space at substantial fair-market prices and estibot grossly undervalued them consistently. The estibot algorithm rather arbitrarily sets a ratio of other tlds’ value in comparison to .com, and I have proven, not just speculated, proven … that it fails to maintain validity and reliability in its value estimates. It’s quite irritating to have one’s assets misvaluated and ultimately misrepresented in the marketplace.
Estibot still hasn’t updated itself to even account for the single letter .biz sales from well over a year ago. Think about that. “Comps” are the only computation variable available to them (albeit limited in significance), and they’re not accounting for single letter sales.
If a company want to claim fame around their “appraisal technology”, then they need to get serious about it. Far too many folks blindly support automated appraisals. At least estibot aren’t charging for appraisal. Those that are should carry a clear disclaimer as to tthe validity of their results. So not really against estibot, just appraisals built on simplistic metrics.