Brokers who have sold domains that brought millions, or made millions for their buyers, note 5 characteristics, which we call the "five R's" of value:
1. Rarity 2. Relevance 3. Romance 4. Recall 5. Record
Rarity
Since all alphanumeric domains with three or four letters are now taken, a good rule of thumb is that three letter domains fetch well over $100,000 and four routinely fetch over $25,000, especially if three or four of the "TLD's" are represented. A TLD is a Top Level Domain: .com, .net, .org and .biz. These are the ONLY four normally allowed on reputable auctions, so DO NOT be talked into another unless it is a domain like "ICE.eskimo"! Companies buying other-country "sponsored" domains like Overstock.co are doing so to protect and promote IP they already own-- this WON'T work unless you're already big! If you have one of these, and it is especially RELEVANT and RARE (such as France.us.com), it is the exception, not the rule.
Following closely behind 3 and 4 letters are 5 letters with "Association" potential such as AA, then two and three word urls that go very well together (see Relevance below) in a high demand (usually consumer) SIC. Rarity is about supply and demand-- the supply is limited, the demand intense, resulting in very high appraisals. Our example below is YCRO.com-- see that section for a discussion of merits and reasoning.
Relevance
Relevance is of course "relative" but if you have an intense consumer interest area (like cancer) and couple it with cancercure.com, it is a formula for great wealth in acquisition, disposition, and use. Relevance can refer to topic, industry, business, product, service, etc. It is a close second behind rarity, and when both are there, it is not unusual to see hundreds of thousands change hands. From a common sense frame, relevance is the intersection of what you think is important and what your customer thinks is important and interesting.
Romance
This is in the eye of the beholder, but a domain selling consumer patterns called Fabriclick.com is cute, memorable, relevant to the female audience it targets, and blends the topic with it's internet base. Romance can be cute or profound, but the common denominator is intelligence. Flowers.com tells it like it is, but the site design can enhance the value by remembering the romance factor!
Recall
Memorable is what it promises: the domain is easy to remember for what you're seeking. If you're in the Contract Research Industry and companies are commonly referred to as "CROs" and the "Y axis" is particularly meaningful, YCRO.com becomes memorable without a dime spent on PR, advertising or promotion! Second to that immediate recall is "easy to teach" recall. If you're selling photos that have a very skillful and witty flavor, and you use SnapWit.com-- the connection is easy to make!
Record
New, perfect domains can fetch as much as the tried and true if they have the 4 R's above, but you can't beat proven performance. URLs that have been pointed to sites for years and have garnered high SEO positions on Bing and Google often bring more than the newbies, even if they are then pointed to other landing pages after purchase. The track record itself has value. If the site goes WITH the domain (except for generic parking), the combination is as much the sale of a business as the domain itself, even though the price is normally asset based; the asset BEING the domain in this case. A short, sexy, relevant, rare domain coupled with an outstanding business opportunity or website is called a "Bundle."
Click HERE if you'd like us to appraise your domain(s), website(s) or internet related business(es). Our reports can double or triple the amount you'll get without a detailed analysis of potential, performance and proven promo power-- but that's getting into the P's, which is a story for another day...
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