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Beware of the “Comparable domains sold” shown at GoDaddy domain name appraisals. It seems some of these domain sales are older than 2006. Maybe some are even a lot older than 2006!
When I get an inquiry for one of my domains I usually check the GoDaddy domain name appraisals. I do it not to get the price of course as the GoDaddy domain name appraisals are completely useless. I do it to check any comparable domain sales that I might have missed. Usually I look for the most recent ones as I may be getting an offer from the same buyer. (I also check namebio.com.)
So today I got an inquiry for my domain “limitedbudget.com”. (Yeah, I know… I hope my buyer does not have a limited budget!!!)
I will not even comment on the Estimated Value that my domain got. You can see it at the screenshot below.
So I checked GoDaddy domain name appraisals only to see the domain I myself entered featured in the “Comparable domains sold” section with a $2,288 sales price. It was quite surprising as I remember owning this domain for many years!
GoDaddy does not provide the year the domain name was sold in the “Comparable domains sold” section.
I checked and found that I own this domain since 2008. I then checked Namebio to see if I could find more info about this sale. I only found my own purchase from 2008 for $410 at Namejet.
I then used DomainTools.com to see the whois history. So it seems that this $2,288 sale was by BuyDomains and the buyer didn’t renew the domain and it was auctioned in 2008 when I bought it. (The domain still had the signature CUSTOMER.BUYDOMAINS.COM and CUSTOMER2.BUYDOMAINS.COM nameservers in 2007.)
The 2007 whois record I found said that the domain was last updated in 2006-11-11.
So the sale shown at Godaddy was completed in 2006 at the latest!
The domain was registered in 2003 so the sale could have happened even earlier than 2006.
How is this 2006 sale helpful as a comparable domain name sale? It is not. We are centuries away from 2006 domaining. I wish I could find domains with 2006 prices!
These sales are completely useless and totally misleading as GoDaddy displays them without a date next to them.
These “Comparable domains sold” are completely irrelevant in 2020 and certainly not suitable to be used in a domain name appraisal algorithm. I sincerely hope that these comparable sales from ancient history are NOT used in the appraisal algorithm. But judging from the appraisals and how bad they are I assume they use these sales.
GoDaddy’s “algorithm” is an insult to all algorithms and it is harmful to the domaining industry. It is also undermining GoDaddy trying to maximize the value of its own domain name portfolio.
GoDaddy’s appraisal tool is deceitful for both sellers and buyers and this could be a liability for GoDaddy despite their disclaimer as they are withholding important information.
Finally, you can either have an estimation OR a true value: “GoDaddy estimates the true value of each domain by looking at millions of historical domain name sales.”
(I have written again about GoDaddy appraisals. Read more here.)
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You do not know how many buyers use Godady domain appraisals, I do a domain market research time and unfortunately the greed to pay what Godaddy says and then sell 5,000 to 10,000 percent more after a month are DnJournal.com
GoDaddy appraisal tool is a ridiculous thing. GoDaddy should be ashamed of themselves to put such a misleading tool out there. Especially since they have thousand things to improve at GoDaddy Auctions, etc. The interface and tools for GoDaddy Auctions are archaic. They’re stuck in 2000. Shame!
It works as intended. For intensive purpose, the types of domains it helps are the majority of the likes in huge domains and godaddy portfolio.
It does suit them. There are a million contrived 2 word domains to sell in the 2-3k range. These tools give end-users impression of value on domains they would have tough time selling for $500.
On THE SURFACE, to Joe blow playing around, it seems unbiased.
That’s the danger. I can recommend you play along and list within the range. Sad, you have no way to fight back. Easy way is my suggestion but ofc do whatever.
Just objective observations of trends and such.
Well I guess I don’t mind having to go over this again after so many years in the blog comments, but will give the summary version:
1. All automated “appraisal” services are harmful to us all – follow the money, who benefits – and are not “appraisals” at all. Sad.
2. Understand the “real estate analogy” properly: domain names are NOT “residential real estate”; they are “commercial real estate.” “Comparable sales” with domain names makes NO sense at all in terms of the capabilities of a dead computer algorithm. Only a sentient mind can even BEGIN to assess whether anything is even truly “comparable.”
3. Even with a sentient mind, “comparable” is meaningless with regard to true value. A previous sale price could have been way off true value (and probably was), in probably most cases far below real commercial and also non-commercial value.