A lot of people own domain names and simply become personally attached to them because they own it. Does this mean they are all "good" or "bad"? Since you own it, it’s likely that you wouldn’t say the domain is bad!
Does your domain name hold value is a different question then is your domain name good or bad.
I can say my domain name JamieZoch.com is good. It’s who I am. It’s my name! Is it valuable? Not likely, unless their name was Jamie Zoch that is. Since I own it and if somebody else wants to own, it means it has value.
Since there are not many "other" Jamie Zoch’s in this world, the likely hood of another wanting to own it is lower. Demand would be low, but do not rule out the "want" factor…
Now if your domain name is a more popular term that is often "exactly searched for" on the net or the term is used by a lot of people / companies… this is where domain names hold the most value.
Generic, trademark free terms that match what people search for on the net with the most popular TLD .com are the most valuable. Why? They are generic. They make sense without needing heavy advertising to get your message across and there is only one domain like it in the world. Yep, just one Cars.com . How many people search for Cars on the net everyday. LOTS. How many car companies offer cars? LOTS.
Demand =’s Value!
When a car company runs an ad of Any Kind (TV, Print, Radio, Online etc.), and shows cars in it and talks about it’s cars during the whole ad…. then uses the domain name Cars.com in it’s ad, it simply Makes Sense! It becomes almost "natural" to see it.
You as a customer can easily remember it. You can visit the site anytime, 365 days a year. The domain name is very clear, makes a lot of sense used in advertising or simply when seen and people naturally already search for the term on the internet.
Yep, only one can own Cars.com… How many car manufactures, new car dealerships, used car dealerships in the world would love to own Cars.com . LOTS!
Is it still early in the game for domain name owners? Yep! Lots and Lots of companies have yet to figure out the power of the world wide web! New companies are started daily… and values for good domain names will keep rising!
Returning to our conversation on NP earlier, just because one sends out a bunch of emails and doesn’t find a buyer doesn’t mean the name is a bad one or even that it is overpriced. What is our natural response to email and postal mail advertisements coming from unknown recipients? Most hit the trash/delete button. This could very well be the case with domain email solicitations. Roughly one in three of my domains at SEDO has at least one offer page view in the last month. Those views are likely from domainers but perhaps some indication of quality and reasonable pricing. The interest level in domains priced over $1000 drops off sharply but only about 10% of my portfolio is priced above $1000.
Domainers like to promote the branding, SEO and traffic benefit of generic domains. But it is easy to find scores of sites launched with domains which have none of these characteristics (Well I suppose you can brand anything if you spend enough money on it).
July 7th, 2009