Inside the Magic

This page is designed to help you appraise domain names you own or are planning to register. Everything you need to know to get an accurate Free Appraisal is here, but the honesty is up to you. You need to be honest and conservative when you evaluate the subjective portions of the appraiser. The best way to get an accurate appraisal is to read this FAQ thoroughly, appraise your domain names, and then have a few friends appraise them for you using the appraiser as well. By having someone else appraise your names you get a more neutral response to the subjective questions and a better idea of what your domain name is worth.

The Key Components

Number of Words

This one should be fairly easy. Simply count the number of words that make up your domain name. Remember that prefixes, and numbers count as a word!
EXAMPLES:

bank.com	1 word
bankloan.com	2 words
ebankloan.com	3 words
DrLoan.com	2 words
bankloans2k	4 words

Number of Letter/Characters

All of you have enough fingers and toes to always get this one right. Just count up how many character make up your domain name. DO NOT count the www. or the .com in your name.

EXAMPLES:

www.togodotcom.com	10 characters
www.2godotcom.com	9 characters

Prefixes

Prefixes are a little sticky. By prefixes the domain name appraiser only looks at non-word prefixes. For example, Webbank.com is just seen as 2 words, the web is a prefix but it is a whole word and widely accepted. While marking this score, consider a prefix any single letter(e and i being the most common), combination of letters/numbers that do not form a word(A1, 2k), and any abbreviations (such as Dr. or Mr). In the case of ingrained abbreviations, the abbreviation can sometimes be treated as a word instead of a prefix. Here are some examples to illustrate the differences.

EXAMPLES:

www.netbank.com	0 prefixes
www.ibank.com	i prefix
www.ebank.com	e prefix
www.MrMortgage.com	0 prefix, 2 words
www.ABAplumbing.com	other prefix
www.A1plumbing.com	A/1/2/4 prefix

Number of Hyphens

Hyphen are generally bad. People don't naturally place hyphens between words so using hyphens is not a good idea. One hyphen in a great name may be acceptable, two hyphens would really be pushing it even on the best name. 3 or 4 hyphens makes a name virtually unsellable. Simply count the number of hyphens in your domain name, hopefully none, and mark up the score.

Generic Names

This one is the first subjective measurement. It is also perhaps the most difficult to score. A generic name is the best name because inherently it can appeal and apply to a wide range of businesses and services. Owning www.bank.com, is better than owning www.loan.com. Bank is more generic than loan, as a loan is just one of the things done by a bank. Likewise, www.loan.com is better than www.carloan.com. Again it is a case of Loan being more generic than car loan. The problems start to arise when you try to place a level on the generic level of a name. Many times you can think of a name more generic and less generic than your own so it is difficult to score your own name. The best way to think about it is like this. Think of your domain name on a ladder and think of names more generic than yours and names that would be less generic than yours, then try to decide where in the scale you fall. One of the quirks of generic names is you can get more generic by adding to your name length. www.loans.com and www.carloans.com are long gone, but fastcarloans, or instantcarloans may not be. By adding to your name length you gain generic points but lose points in name length. The benefit to having the longer generic name is in searches. By being more generic you show up in more searches as people tend to search for basic terms, not specific ones. So if you owned a bank named PNB Trust, you would be better off with a domain such as PNBbank or speedyloans, than ppnbtrust because your potential customers are more likely to search for bank or loan, than to search for trust. With key search words in your domain name, you will recieve better search placement and hence more traffic.

EXAMPLES:

www.food.com	fully generic
www.fruit.com	mostly(food is more generic)
www.tropical fruit	partially(more specific=less generic)
www.wine.com	fully generic
www.vineyard.com	Partially/Mostly
www.frenchwines.com	Mostly(specific but wine in name)
www.car.com	fully
www.usedcars.com	mostly
www.convertibles.com	partially/distantly
www.corvette.com	none, trademark violation

Frequency

Another subjective measurement but a little easier than gerenic scoring. How often is your domain name heard in conversation, on radio, on TV??? The more common and top of mind your domain name is, the more likely it is to be found in searches and stick in your customer's mind. When judging frequency, certains words and phrase are ingrained in our mind, while other we only hear now and then. This tactic is used alot on the web. Wisdom.com is a great short name, but how often are people saying and thinking of the word wisdom? More examples are www.restaurant.com and www.movies.com as being high frequency names. On the other side, inference.com and rosegarden.com are infrequent terms. However redroses.com would be an excellent and high frequency name.

Market Appeal

Simply ask yourself, what kind of business or businesses would be interested in my name. Domain names have more value if they can be used effectively by large, rich companies. Domain names applicable to banking, law, automobiles, and other major industries are worth the most money. Right below that level are the large companies and global names. A global name is a generic name that will fit many businesses, services, or applications. WWW.ecommerce.com is not only a large market name but also a global name making it highly valuable. WWW.frames.com does not appeal to major industries, but is global in that it could be used for framers, computer companies, film companies etc... The one key in determing where a global name falls is in its corresponding gerneric level. If something is highly generic and global it should be ranked high in market value. Use your most impartial judgement here and don't try to stretch the limits of your name to say it appeals to massive industry as few really do.

Memorability

Memorability is another key subjective measurement of a domain name's value. A short generic name could be worthless if it is obscure or not memorable, while a name that means nothing at all could be extremely memorable. Look at some of the biggest companies on the net. Yahoo, Google, Ebay...none of these names mean anything or seem to appeal to any industry, but there are extremely memorable. Now you can say they are memorable because they have had millions of dollars thrown into advertising, but beyond that the names themselves are a little wacky yet easy to remember, just the kind of thing that stays on top of your mind. www.babygames.com is not memorable. Conversely a site named www.peekaboo.com is a word ingrained in almost everyone's mind. It really doesn't matter that it is a baby game or sounds childish, the fact is that nearly every english speaking person has heard it, knows it, and can't forget it. This strange attraction and recall of certain words is the key to a good memorability score.

Spelling

Easy enough....Is your domain name spelled correctly? Does it use a common abbreviation or phrase? Does it use slang or web speak(cul8r, 2betonsports)? Is it difficult or confusing to the normal person to spell? Would it pass the radio test? The radio test is easy. Simply imagine your name being said on the radio and decide whether you could easily remember and input it correctly into a search or your web browser. If, when someone hears it they are confused or not sure how to spell it correctly it has failed the radio test. No good name should ever fail this test. You want you name to be spelled correctly and if there can be any confusion you are best off purchasing the alternate spelling domain names, or find an easier one to use.

Extensions

Last but not least is your extension. As we said before, far and away the most popular and valuable extension is .com. However .net names are fairly popular, and some of the newer extensions have potential(.tv and .us being the best 2). It is also wise to purchase the other extension of your name simply to protect your own interests. I wouldn't suggest buying all the extensions, but .com, .net and .us are cheap and easy to recall. You can easily link all your names to show the same page so that you won't lose traffic due to someone else stealing your name and placing a different extension on it.