Free Domain Name Appraisals

By | February 1, 2022

There are already several automated sites that will estimate the value of a domain name, but this week I created what I think is the first one powered by AI: BoredHumans.com Domain Appraiser

While I love EstiBot.com, which is the industry leader, some of the other sites often give really bad valuations, so my goal was to try at least to do better than those.

All domain valuation tools, whether they involve AI or not, use many of the same factors to arrive at a price. A typical valuation model might be something like: 3*{number of monthly Google searches for that word/phrase) +250 * (the cost-per-click (CPC) price for a Google ad) + 42* (age of domain) / (how many letters are in the domain). A machine learning model looks similar to that, it just comes up with a formula that is more exact.

I was hoping the AI would be magical, where I just feed it data and it would output amazing predictions. But it turned out instead to be a difficult project. My first version was quick to build, but said every good domain was worth $1,342,250 and the rest were worth $50. My next version did a little better, but never valued $1 million+ domains at more than $80,000. After many more versions where I manually made dozens of small adjustments, I finally got it working decently.

To give you an idea of the wide range of prices domain valuation sites give out, here are some real examples for 3 domains I own (Yachts.com, GameReviews.com, AdoptMe.com):

EstiBot.com – Yachts.com: $359,000 (this is mostly based on that it knows the domain sold for $350,000 [to me] less than a year ago. I think it said $90,000 the week before I bought it). GameReviews.com: $38,000. AdoptMe.com: $2,000.

GoDaddy – Yachts.com: “More than $25,000”. GameReviews.com: $15,414. AdoptMe.com: $11,207

DomainIndex.com – Yachts.com: $83,600 GameReviews.com: $9,100. AdoptMe.com: $2,620

FreeValuator.com – Yachts.com: $2,451.04 GameReviews.com: $590.78. AdoptMe.com: $2,478.25

Epik – They appear to be powered by Estibot.com, as the values were exactly the same.

WebsiteOutlook.com – Yachts.com: $394.2 GameReviews.com: $197.1. AdoptMe.com: $233.6

SitePrice.org – Yachts.com: $14,450. GameReviews.com: $8,012. AdoptMe.com: $9,195.

My BoredHumans.com Domain Appraiser: Yachts.com: $137,847. GameReviews.com: $71,305. AdoptMe.com: $8,364.

Based on all those results, which one do you think is best? My opinion is that all the other sites undervalued Yachts.com (based on the estimates given before I bought it). Also, after I purchased the name, 2 people told me they would have paid more than I did for it (one was already trying to buy it at the same time I was). GameReviews.com is currently listed with a broker for $99,000. AdoptMe.com is tricky to value, as it would be hard to liquidate fast, but I did have a $20,000 offer on it a year ago (I didn’t sell because I am in the process of building my Virtual Pets site on it).

As a reminder of the current domain market, these were the top 30 .com keyword domain sales of 2021 according to DNJournal.com:
Hippo.com $3,300,000
Christmas.com $3,150,000
Floor.com $3,144,000
Marketing.com $2,500,000
Forge.com $2,202,000
NFT.com $2,000,000
Angel.com $2,000,000
Exodus.com $1,945,000
Meme.com $1,250,000
Near.com $1,150,000
eBike.com $1,008,900
SelfMade.com $977,500
Recursion.com $904,000
GoBet.com $850,000
Tattoo.com $812,000
Ava.com $792,000
LiveWire.com $632,500
ZeroCarbon.com $600,000
Lender.com $550,000
Wolf.com $550,000
Able.com $542,500
Blade.com $503,000
James.com $440,000
Snappy.com $415,000
Overview.com $400,000

This is just the first release of my domain valuation tool; I will be making it better over the next few months, so give it a try at https://boredhumans.com/domain_appraisals.php and let me know what you think.

10 thoughts on “Free Domain Name Appraisals

  1. Pingback: Free Domain Name Appraisals - NameBloggers

  2. M Green

    I love it. (Smile goes here)
    Appraised my dot com domain proctors
    Appraised Value: $89,147.00

    Reply
  3. Nuno

    Hello Eric

    Is a great idea, i have tested. Nice job

    In words with seach volume works very well
    The value of 4 letters domains some are right, i think must have a base value.
    minimal values can be added.

    In the brandable and 5 letters domains are missing something

    I think you can consider the number of extensions are taken
    The qeip.com/sales uses dotdb.com data

    Can be a very useful tool, with some work and improvements 🙂

    Best Regards
    Nuno

    Reply
    1. admin

      I do have a minimum value for 4 letter domains, based upon the prices listed at https://shortnames.com/llll .

      I don’t think there is any good way to automatically value brandable domains. Also, the liquidation value (like at an auctions) of most brandable domain is very little (maybe $0?) so I am not sure they should appraise for much.

      Yes, I had looked into checking the domain extensions as a factor, but I could not find any cheap way to do it. At https://dotdb.com/pricing/ it is $70/month for 30,000 queries/month, which is fine for now but could get expensive if my site gets popular.

      This is just a first version I put together in a week. It could definitely be improved.

      Reply
      1. Nuno

        Eric, i comment because i liked a lot your idea .

        Past sales are very useful

        Registrars api are free, maybe you can use to see if .net and .org are available.

        Maybe the year of first registration, could be a factor to introduce.

        Success

        Reply
        1. admin

          Namebio.com has an API I could use for historical sales, but it would cost me $100/month or more so for now that is why I am not doing it that way.

          For checking other extensions, there is a free way I can it, but it is only 95% accurate so I am not sure if that will help or not. I will test it. I had a programmer build a bulk domain availability checker or me last year that used this free method. It was only for .com but I can reprogram it for all the popular extensions.

          Year of registration would be good also, but that is something I think I would need to pay for also, if I am doing a high volume of searches.

          Reply
  4. Val

    Hi Eric,

    With a sample size of two domains, my results are interesting. One domain, 6 characters, two syllables (American English) came in at just under $88,000. Estibot appraises significantly lower – so much so that it engendered a haughty scoff (but, what else could one expect from an owner).

    Another domain did not appraise at all and I am not sure if this is intentional, or simply unaccounted for. I re-read your post thinking I may have missed a constraint. Three syllables, all recognizable words: watch me web (and of course, dot com).

    I then tried adding a few characters onto the first domain and the results were null, as above.

    Reply
    1. admin

      I see the problem now. There is a bug on my site where $0 appraisals show as blank, so thanks for letting me know. I will get that fixed. Watchmeweb.com is not a bad domain, and you might end up selling it for a good price, but I agree with my AI (and esitbot.com) that is has no appraisal value.

      Reply
      1. bishopi

        Your BoredHumans.com domain appraiser seems like a promising addition to the domain valuation tools available. It’s always a challenge to accurately assess the value of domain names, and it’s clear that you put a lot of effort into refining your AI-based model.
        What’s interesting is the significant variation in valuations across different tools for the same domains, as you’ve demonstrated with your examples. It just goes to show that domain valuation can be a complex and subjective process.
        I appreciate that you’re actively working on improving your tool, and I think it’s great that you’re open to feedback. The domain market is dynamic and ever-changing, so having a tool that aims to provide more accurate valuations is valuable for both domain buyers and sellers. I personally use https://bishopi.io/tools/all-registered-domain-search for domain research.

        Reply

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