Domain Worth

It is important to set a fair market price for one's domain name for the benefit of both buyers and sellers. A professional domain name appraisal can be the first step towards making a good sale.

How much can a domain cost? One domain name can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, while another name can only be sold for around $10. Since determining a domain's worth is not like checking currencies — in which there is always a standard value for each currency — appraisal services research is useful for evaluation and enables a seller to receive professional opinions regarding the domain name's worth.

Companies with domain name appraisals offer assessment services which range in price from $10 to $50 for each domain name. Since there are no values set for domain names, these companies assess your domain based on several factors, including top-level domains, length or number of characters, generalism, spelling, memorability and market potential. They also query the major search engines such as MSN, Google and Yahoo! for results.

The domain worth of "top-level domain names", such as .net and .org are drastically more valuable compared to country code domains. With almost twice the price of .info and .biz domains, top-level domain names are widely known among internet users.

Another important factor in determining a domain's worth is the number of characters a domain has. Since the values of domain names follow the law of supply, a domain name with shorter characters is worth much more. Domain names with four to six characters are 4 times are more valuable than twelve-character names in the same top-level domain category. This is related to how memorable a domain is — the shorter, the easier to remember.

A memorable domain name also drives more traffic to a website. As a result, domain names such as ebay.com or yahoo.com, which are easily remembered by visitors, are priced higher than, for example, shopping-online-now.com. A domain name needs to catch people's attention so that when they hear or see the domain on TV or in magazines, they can recall the website when surfing online.

Generic domain names are worth higher than narrow-subject names. A general rule in evaluating a domain's price is the more generic or broad a domain name is, the higher its value. For instance, "perfume.com" will be priced higher compared to "top-perfumes.com". Similarly, the spelling of a domain can also determine its worth. The trvlr.com has lower values than trav3ler.com because the first domain has no meaning. However, traveler.com has the highest value between the other two domains because not only is it easy to spell, it also has significant meaning.

A professional domain appraiser can help you determine a domain's worth and arrive at an appropriate pricing that can benefit both you and the buyer.