Since the very early days of the internet, good domain names have held far more value than most people think. In fact, really good domain names are basically like owning a nice piece of internet real estate. If you own a sought-after piece of internet property, there are probably some individuals and businesses out there whom are willing to shell out a significant amount of money for it. While the chance of you owning one of these premium domains is likely thin, it’s possible that literally anyone out there might be sitting on a relatively profitable commodity. So, how can someone tell exactly what they’re domain name is worth? That’s where domain appraisals come into play! A while back I wrote a blog post titled The Best Free Domain Appraisal Services where I listed several places you could go online to have professional domain appraisals done. In today’s blog post I am going to focus on one of the most popular companies people turn to for appraisals: The completely FREE Domain Name Value & Appraisal Tool from GoDaddy. It is accurate? How are prices the tool gives compared to what the name actually sells for? These are a few of the questions I’ll be answering below!
First, a domain value calculator (or appraisal service) can never be 100% accurate because a domain is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. That means domain names can always sell for more or less than what an appraisal service quotes. Also, several different factors (such as current market conditions) cannot be factored into appraisal tools. While these tools can be extremely helpful in giving you some pricing ideas, you can’t expect any domain appraisal tool to be 100% accurate and giving you a selling price. That being said, when GoDaddy released their new appraisal tool to the public a few years ago it was actually one of the best free one’s you could find online. It offers comparative sales and valuation rationale that I’ve found to be pretty accurate and similar when compared to the domain name entered. If you have the name listed for sale through GoDaddy or Afternic then you will also find that it’ll show the domain name is available to purchase right from the appraisal page. Although there is currently no bulk version of the appraisal tool available at the moment, with GoDaddy’s brand recognition, I could see this tool being extremely valuable when negotiating a sale with someone. For example, if you are in talks about pricing with someone, giving a link to the appraisal could certainly help sway a potential buyer or seller. That could also work the other way around a frustrate some domain sellers when a potential buyer sends them a link to the GoDaddy valuation that is much lower than the asking price. This would be a time when you’d need to explain the limitations of automated systems to them.
I’ve seen stories about the GoDaddy Domain Appraisal tool that were both good and bad. One guy received a $1500 offer for a two-word .COM because the GoDaddy appraisal tool said it was worth $1450. He turned that offer down and countered with a much higher figure because it was more accurate for the domain name in question. He provided other similar figures to back his claim up in wanting more money, but needless to say, the domain sale never took place. This is an example of when the popular appraisal tool was not accurate. On the other hand, I heard another story about a man who was trying to purchase a specific domain and offered 60% of what the GoDaddy appraisal tool said the name was worth and the buyer accepted. This is a perfect example of the GoDaddy evaluation tool doing it’s thing and coming up with an accurate price that sounded fair to both the buyer and seller, even though the buyer was able to get it at a lower price because the seller was eager to get rid of it.
In conclusion, if you’re wanting to get a free appraisal done on your domains GoDaddy’s tool is helpful. It’s not going to be 100% accurate, but for most names you can at least get a decent idea of what you should be asking or offering. With the brand recognition behind GoDaddy, this tool can be very useful for including when discussing prices with someone. I’ve also seen the tool come up with prices that were pretty accurate and not accurate at all. That means you’ll want to use your own judgement when deciding whether to make or accept any offers that come from it. While it might not be the most accurate appraisal tool out there, there is no such thing as a 100% accurate domain appraisal tool online. For what’s out there and available at no cost, this one is surely one of the best!
