OK, I wish I could roll out a simple answer but nothing about domaining seems to be all that easy really.

I have often seen (mainly in expired domain auctions) that an odd ball domain that really makes little to no sense, be at a higher value than one would expect.

Now any domain name "can" sell for what somebody may consider a "high price". I use to shake my head at that, but it’s just a fact. Any domain "can" sell for Any Price!

Example:

NoHotel.com and NoHotels.com selling for $30,000 EACH at Sedo not all that long ago.

To me, I would consider that not the best way to spend 60 grand. Considering the buyer was from Norway, I would have to assume the buyer figures a lot of people search for hotels using the acronym NO, or it was a good fit for a Norway Hotel chain instead of NorwayHotel.com or the shortened version of Norway was a good fit. Maybe they own a Telecommunication company called Noho? (Noho Tel).

The fact is, the seller had the idea of asking a much higher price then the average bear would and the interested party paid for it.

Now Nohotel and Nohotels.com (still parked btw) domains do not hold a large amount of domain age (1998), but you get my point about some domains sell for prices nobody can really explain.

As a buyer, if you see a domain that has no general clear meaning at auction and doesn’t show a sign of traffic or links in place, no keywords or ones you would consider good, you might want to check it’s creation date!

Personally, if a domain name is simply very old, but doesn’t make shit for sense, the domain age by itself doesn’t make the domain name "valuable" IMO.

Yes, even 15-24 years ago people registered what most would consider a "reg fee" domain and that doesn’t mean just because somebody paid 20 years of reg fee, means you should add that to the price you should pay with a multiplier (unless you want to that is).

So the next time you see a domain that is 15, 16, 18 or 20 years old, doesn’t automatically make the domain name worth thousands.

Clear, Easy to spell, Keyword(s), Term Popularity, Domain Extension, No Trademarks, SERP’s in place, Traffic etc are things you really should consider for your next domain purchase, not just based on creation date of the domain.