I had somebody ask me to do an appraisal on a domain name. If I do take the time to do one, I try to explain A LOT more then a price. I explain why the price is what it is and if it’s a reg fee domain that doesn’t make long term sense, I try to explain Why, so they can make a better purchase in the future.
I will not post the specific domain but it was for a single sport and included the players first name + the keyword Countdown. So it went like this PlayersFirstNameCountdown.com . This player is known by "this name".
The owner purchased the domain because this player is getting close to breaking a record.
This was my reply:
Dollar wise, the domain name is "worth" what it cost to purchase it. (Registration fee: $10 or under)
Why?:
(players name) will not be around forever, so that puts an "interest" that will fade quickly and Not be in the news, people will forget about him, stop searching, caring etc. Very Specific domains hold most of there value based on a Developed site and it’s content the pertain to the domain, but the domain name doesn’t restrict future use. Side Note: Plus (players name) could Sue you for trying to make money off "his likeness and name" so you have to be careful.
"(the players name)" record will come and go over time as well.. and it’s "just one record". It’s a Big World and you want to attract all different kinds of Record Hunting Sports Fans!
What would I have done?
If you can not afford GenericSpecificRecord.com (GenericSpecific = sports name for the record) and you didn’t want to solely focus on one specific record, you are better with a "Generic" Term for your domain name. Then you can capture Every bodies record chase in all different kinds of sports.
I would use a domain like BreakThat.com (I happen to own it but you get my point) .
Then the site design can be like a score board with the leader of specific records on top of specific categories for that sport. To keep the site active, you can have a blog, forum, chat room or provide news. This will allow you to always stay current with the latest news of people (players) getting close breaking All Kinds Of Records, records broke recently and simply records in general. Hockey, Baseball, Tennis, Racing etc.
This will lead to a site with Long term Interest and never ending content compaired to a site that will have a short life and die out very quickly after the record is broke. Let alone the value of the domain. If you are going to put in a lot of hard work, you might as well allow yourself a site that can always have new things and gain value.
Will Castillo
Hey Jamie,
I noticed that you set your RSS feed to excerpt instead of full text.
If my voice serves, it would be better if you set it back to full text and keep working on links pointing to internal pages… that way you will probably still have visitor to your page AND do not force people to visit when they just can’t.
It’s just MHO though.
All best,
Will
Jamie Zoch
I hear you Will, but I also think that my site is loosing a lot of visits from people just reading directly from their RSS and not coming to DotWeekly.com
All my hard work is going out the window if nobody comes to the site and A Lot of people read from RSS, so I need them to come to the site from time to time
AJ
I guess I have always thought that a good domain names was specific. Make it short, easy to remember, and keyword heavy. No???
Or is it that specific domain names in .com are too expensive??
Jamie Zoch
Yes it’s good to be Specific, but for the situation I was talking about, it was better to be Generic because the way the domain was, would of made it old fast.
So if you are selling cars, yes be specific. Cars.com, NewCars.com etc.
Will Castillo
Hey,
OK, I hope you the best. I’ll keep reading you anyhow.
However, I still think you can have the best of both world using smart internal linking techniques though.
All best,
Will