Future Value of Domains Sell Now Or Wait

[Chris.C]

I was just wondering how people see the future value of already common term domains.

Just as an example, if we use the domain AssistedLiving.com.au which dropped today and was purchased for $208 (not by me). How much do you think the value of the domain itself will increase over the next 1, 2, 3 years?

You wouldn't call it a "great" domain, but it's "reasonably good" with the sort of metrics that would support some minor development and would yield some results that would be valuable to a business in the industry.

I'm asking because I often look at some of the domains I have purchased and realise that at current "realistic" prices they are probably only worth $100 - $250 and they also in hindsight might not have the development potential I hoped. And I wonder to myself if I'd be better off getting rid of them via something like the new netfleet auction system.

Then another part of me thinks, that now probably isn't the best time to be off loading Australian domains. The market is still so new, so many businesses, even online businesses and internet marketers aren't up to speed with many domain's inherit value and so I tell myself I should wait a year or two and reassess.

What's everyone else's thoughts?

 

[snoopy]

In my view the amount of money to be made speculating in .com.au is limited. Would be focusing on names that you have a definite and serious plans for (which probably means a few names realistically), and for speculation personally I think once you factor in AUDA transfer fees, $10/yr renewal costs etc it is probably better to look at names with higher capital value than $200.

 

[Chris.C]

In my view the amount of money to be made speculating in .com.au is limited. Would be focusing on names that you have a definite and serious plans for (which probably means a few names realistically), and for speculation personally I think once you factor in AUDA transfer fees, $10/yr renewal costs etc it is probably better to look at names with higher capital value than $200.

I don't make a habit of buying domains that I think are only worth $100 - $250. I normally go for bigger fish with an eye for development.

However sometimes you can look at the stats in Google Keyword Suggestion Tool, and it's a winner domain worth registering one week and a so so domain the next... damn Google.



So yeah basically I now have a number of domains that on the original stats I was looking at would have thought they'd be low $XXXX, but after the revision now look like low $XXX... damn Google.

A good example of this might be djturntable.com.au (dj turntable) which according to my records, when I bought it (March 2010) it had 2900 exacts and CPC of $1.35 and with dj turntables selling for between $250 - $2500 I was thinking it was a good buy and worth developing based on those figures.

However now you do the same search 6 months later and it comes up with only 110 exacts and 390 phrases.

So based on my valuation (being largely based on stats and figures) the domain went from being likely to sell for somewhere between high $XXX to low $XXXX (in todays market) to now only being worth low $XXX at best.

(feel free to comment if you think my valuations aren't reasonable)

So these are the sorts of things that can happen and when they do I'm torn as to what to do. Cut my losses and flip em off or just sit tight.

Thoughts?

 

[snoopy]

I don't make a habit of buying domains that I think are only worth $100 - $250. I normally go for bigger fish with an eye for development.

However sometimes you can look at the stats in Google Keyword Suggestion Tool, and it's a winner domain worth registering one week and a so so domain the next... damn Google.

Would recommend using multiple sources for keyword information, eg wordtracker, old overture stats etc.

So based on my valuation (being largely based on stats and figures) the domain went from being likely to sell for somewhere between high $XXX to low $XXXX (in todays market) to now only being worth low $XXX at best.

(feel free to comment if you think my valuations aren't reasonable)

So these are the sorts of things that can happen and when they do I'm torn as to what to do. Cut my losses and flip em off or just sit tight.

Thoughts?

As a starting point I would look at what the name was acquired for, if you think it is worth more/less than that then the question is why?

For 110 searches a month are people going to be interested? Top position on Google is probably going to to yield maybe a 1-2 visits per day for the exact term "dj turntables" it will likely get some traffic for related terms with some work but is it worth it? Then to set up an ecommerce site for that much traffic, work on back links etc, again, is it viable?

 

[WG2010]

I'm in the same boat as you cncventure, I bought 20-30 domains over the past 6 months based on the information the keyword tool was giving me. Now it seems the tool was incorrect, they've fixed the errors and now display the correct data.

Live and learn I guess, it isn't a huge amount of money but many of the domains I would not have purchased in hindsight, all a learning experience I guess.

 

[Chris.C]

As a starting point I would look at what the name was acquired for, if you think it is worth more/less than that then the question is why?

I acquired pretty much all my names for reg fee.

But as I mentioned above - I appreciate that I thought I had a domain worth developing it is of borderline development potential.

My general rule of thumb is I need around 30 visitors a day for a developed site to produce a reasonable ROI within a reasonable period. So with figures like those above, I'd estimate receiving around 15 uniques a day with a small developed site.

So my logic says, there is still underlying value in the domain, it's just that someone that operates on my margins and my time frame it's not a good investment.

Which basically means from my perspective the only way to get much more than low $XXX from the undeveloped domain would be if a retail investor wanted to buy it whose margins are much higher and their time frame much longer, which would likely mean I would probably have to wait awhile until more of the retail business sector works out the value in exact match domains.

For 110 searches a month are people going to be interested? Top position on Google is probably going to to yield maybe a 1-2 visits per day for the exact term "dj turntables" it will likely get some traffic for related terms with some work but is it worth it? Then to set up an ecommerce site for that much traffic, work on back links etc, again, is it viable?

All depends on costs of setup. I don't know what costs other people are operating on, but I normally operate on website setup costs or around $500 - $1000 with revenues sources being AdSense, direct ad sales and lead gen.

I'm in the same boat as you cncventure, I bought 20-30 domains over the past 6 months based on the information the keyword tool was giving me. Now it seems the tool was incorrect, they've fixed the errors and now display the correct data.

Google's a bitch aye...

Live and learn I guess, it isn't a huge amount of money but many of the domains I would not have purchased in hindsight, all a learning experience I guess.

Me too. But I guess that's business - not all investments are winners, but you have to accept the fact we are going to pick some losers from time to time and just hope that the gold nuggets help us average out to a nice little profit.