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I really don't get where squatter prices come from. It's one thing if a domain is in use, has a history of high traffic, and has high potential through name len
by ivyirwin 17y ago
I really don't get where squatter prices come from. It's one thing if a domain is in use, has a history of high traffic, and has high potential through name length and/or brand potential. But a regular old squatting site that barely gets hit except by crawlers and link farms?
I think the problem stems from an unregulated marketplace. Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for domain reselling to be regulated, I'm just saying the consequences of the reality of the situation is that somewhere along the way it became okay to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a $10/year commodity. Because of that, everyone thinks they can strike it rich by being greedy.
Personally I think a new model is needed for a majority of domain reselling. I've been working on a model that prices regular domains at cost to the owner times a premium factor. For instance, if you had a domain for ten years at $10/year, and multiplied it by a premium factor of not less than 1.5 and not greater than 3, the domain would sell for between $150 and $300. Not bad for a $100 investment. The premium factor would be calculated based on traditional characteristics (length, traffic, etc).
Don't get me wrong, I've been asked by buyers for domains I own and I'm not doing anything with and I see the dollar signs. But at the end of the day, I'd actually sell a domain using the above formula. And when I'm buying domains, it doesn't take that much effort to find an alternative to a taken domain... just use some imagination.
- yuvouv 17y agoI don't get where the price of land comes from? It's just a unique patch of dirt that they own, that I want and I can't get anywhere else - why do they want to so much money for it? It's not like they have built an office block on it like I want to do!
- ivyirwin 17y agoFair enough. Decent analogy, but not quite to the point. Land prices are adjusted over time due to quality of land, location, and surrounding. Domain prices are all relatively the same price new, but theoretically the next day someone can turn around and sell a new domain for tens of thousands of dollars. If you're doing to make the real estate argument, then new domain purchases should also have variables pricing from the same domain provider such that somekeywords.com is more than gobblygook.com, don't you think?
- yuvouv 17y agoTo push the analogy further - no. Unclaimed domain names are like parts of the wild west handed out to early claiments, they all had the same value/acre (=almost nothing). Then when a city had been built on them (=you have a brand) then the price goes up. Even if the owner didn't do any work to build the city, having an empty lot in the middle of it is still valuable.
- pmichaud 17y ago50% return on investment over 10 years is not a good return. It's only like 5%.