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GoDaddy will display new valuations on GoDaddy Auctions

by — Expired Domains 9 Comments

What’s that expired domain name worth? GoDaddy has a good idea…and is about to let domain name investors know.

GoDaddy (NASDAQ: GDDY) is rolling out its new valuation system to a much wider audience: bidders on expired domain auctions at GoDaddy Auctions.

The company started using the valuation tool internally and in auction highlight emails to customers late last year. Starting within the next day, the valuations will be displayed next to all expiring domains. This is the first “public” use of the new system.

GoDaddy already shows valuations next to some of the expired domain inventory, but this is based on an outdated and poor valuation methodology.

GoDaddy’s new valuation system creates a wholesale valuation, predicted sales price and predicted list price. The auction data will include sales price valuation, which is essentially GoDaddy’s prediction of how much the domain name will sell for to an end user.

Domain names with valuations under $1,000 will be denoted as merely < $1,000. Valuations over $25,000 will be denoted as > $25,000.

The valuations are based on reams of actual sales data and machine learning. Bidders should keep in mind that these are anticipated end user sales prices, so they need to leave some margin for reselling the domain.

It will be interesting to see how the domain community responds to the added data. While it can be helpful, some people who use algorithmic methods to identify domain names might be frustrated when others identify hidden gems with the new GoDaddy data.

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GoDaddy gets two patents for domain appraisal

by — Domain Registrars 21 Comments

Paul Nicks’ inventions related to name spinning and appraisals get patent protection.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office today issued two patents to GoDaddy related to name spinning and appraisal.

U.S. Patent number 8,447,701 is titled “Appraising domain names using comparative data” and 8,447,702 (pdf) is “Domain appraisal algorithm”.

The patents have lots of overlapping material. They cover name spinning to create permutations of domain names as well as multiple aspects of automatically generating a domain name appraisal.

Here’s a summary of some of the aspects of domain valuation that the patent describes:

The appraisal may be accomplished by breaking the valuation of the domain into five logical groupings, possibly including evaluation of “5 P’s” related to the domain name. Evaluation of “precision” may include the number of distinct keywords found, the length of the name and the number of keywords found in the dictionary. Evaluation of “popularity” may include various search engine search result metrics and tracking of words searched per month. Evaluation of “presence” may include the age of the domain, and the rank of the web site according to web ranking services or software. Evaluation of “pattern” may include the number of premium characters, the part of speech (such as noun, plural noun, verb, adjective, etc., possibly considering if the domain is a one word domain), the relationship of vowels and consonants etc. (possibly considering if the domain is a 4-5 character word). Evaluation of Pay-Per-Click, or PPC, may include the maximum number of pay-per-click bids from various advertising tracking services or software, and the number of ads returned within search engine searches. A dynamic multiplier based on registration statistics for each of several top level domains (TLDs) may then be applied to the domain evaluation. This multiplier may be used to give a very accurate measure of domain scarcity to let a user or evaluator know how rare a domain name is.

Paul Nicks, Director of Product Development GoDaddy.com’s Aftermarket, is listed as inventor on both patents.

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Patent granted for automated web site valuation method

by — Domain Services 4 Comments

Patent describes system for generating automated appraisals of web sites.

There are a lot of automated web site valuation and appraisal tools out there. Now the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a patent covering a method of automatically valuing a web site.

U.S. Patent 8,214,272 (pdf), issued today, covers “Web Site Valuation”. The patent’s abstract reads:

According to the invention, a method for automatically determining an appraisal value of a web site is disclosed. The method may include obtaining machine observable information from the web site and determining a machine observable characteristic of the web site based at least in part on the machine observable information from the web site. The method may also include storing at least one of the machine observable information from the web site, and the machine observable characteristic of the web site. The method may further include determining the appraisal value of the web site based at least in part on at least one of the machine observable information from the web site, and the machine observable characteristic of the web site.

Let’s make that simpler: plug in a web site name, a system runs stats on it (e.g. traffic, domain name value, etc.), and spits out a value.

The patent is assigned to Rafael Sosa, who maintains this blog.

Brian Scott Glassman is also listed as an inventor. According to this page, the patent came about for work on WebsiteWorth.com. But it looks like that never took off; the domain just leads to a dead blog.

The patent was filed in 2006.

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Estibot 2.0 is a Domainer’s Dream

by — Domain Services 3 Comments

Estibot 2.0 public beta offers better valuation algorithms and new tools.

Frequent readers of Domain Name Wire know that I’m not always a fan of automated appraisals. It’s not the appraisals themselves that I dislike; it’s how domainers misuse the numbers. The best part of automated appraisals is less the final number, and more the data used to get to that final number.

Consider the time I wrote about a big domain sale, and a reader promptly emailed me to say the seller got a horrible deal because an automated appraisal said it was worth twice as much.

Perhaps the most popular automated appraisal service is Estibot. A couple months ago Estibot started its Estibot 2.0 beta. Today it switched the DNS to unveil 2.0 to all visitors. It’s a huge improvement over the previous Estibot, and goes way beyond the appraisal. Later today I’ll write about Estibot’s “Domain Leads” system for selling domains to end users. It’s incredible. But first, let’s look at the appraisals.

Compared to Estibot 1.0, the appraisal numbers seem quite accurate. I ran a few of my domains in the system today:

estibot-2

Now, do I agree with all of the numbers? Of course not. But that’s why you get to see the underlying data, and that’s what’s important. Take a look at IdentityAlerts.com, for example. This appraises low. As you can see, there are no ads for the term, it has few search results, and basically no searches. It’s a brandable name, though, so of course I wouldn’t sell it for $50. The domains that do have some advertisers and data fall in line with my expectations.

Here’s how I would used Estibot’s bulk appraisal tool:
-Scan auction lists to look for outliers where the appraisal is much higher than the reserve. Investigate to see why this is, and if you’ve found a good buy.
-Scan dropping domain lists to look for potential diamonds in the rough. (Estibot pre-downloads and scans these lists for users.)
-Review your own portfolio to see if there are domains you should consider developing (due to advertiser demand) or should be moved to the top of your sales queue.
-Use underlying data and appraisal as guidance when buying or selling a domain.

When using the service, keep in mind that Estibot 2.0 is still in beta.

Estibot remains free for basic services on a limited basis, with upgrade options for bulk users and advanced tools. One tool that requires an upgraded membership — the End-User Lead Generator — is so powerful you’ll want to spend the money. More on that later today.

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