GoDaddy Auction Results Do Not Impact GoDaddy Appraisal

I have been curious about how GoDaddy’s appraisals change once an auction on its GoDaddy Auction platform closes. I am curious to see if the appraised value goes down since most auctions close below the appraised value, and the majority likely close considerably below that figure. The difference between appraised value and the auction sale price is expected since auctions are generally wholesale purchases while appraisals should align closer with the retail value of a domain name.

I checked to see how a domain name I won at GoDaddy Auctions for around $1,500 appraised a few months after the auction. From my recollection, the appraisal has not changed much since then. When checking, one thing I noticed is the auction sale price was not listed under comparable sales, although a prior sale of this domain name was listed. I checked a few other domain names I won at GoDaddy Auctions at different price levels, and none of the sales were shown under comparable sales.

I reached out to Paul Nicks to ask how much of an effect the auction result has on the GoDaddy appraised value and why the GoDaddy Auction results do not show up under comparable sales. Paul told me GoDaddy does not include auction sales into its appraisal algorithm, nor does it list auction results under comparable sales. GoDaddy considers its auctions platform to be a wholesale marketplace, while its appraisals are assumed to be retail pricing.

I do not love the GoDaddy appraisal tool, especially when it comes to higher value domain names. While it may be helpful to sell lower value domain names, I think it can be a detriment to higher value deals where the prospective buyer has set a budget based on the appraisal from GoDaddy. With that said, it is good to know that GoDaddy does not include GoDaddy Auction results in its algorithm, nor does it share auction sale prices.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

3 COMMENTS

  1. GoDaddy Auctions used to be a wholesale marketplace, not anymore. Prices now are between wholesale and retail.

    GoDaddy’s domain appraisal tool is not giving out accurate retail prices either. Estibot is no better.
    But if you combine the two domain appraisal tools together, the average domain appraisal is a bit better, but not by much.
    A manual domain appraisal is still a lot more accurate.

    • There is 1 bidder who always bids, and won’t stop. Even if nobody wants the domain, and it is headed to closeout, if you bid at the last second it will auto detect, and jump in to push you higher. It’s basically like bidding into a proxy wall, I don’t understand how they can afford to keep paying so much for less than 1% sell thru type domains.

      As stated above what is the point of paying what end users want to pay, less 20% in commissions, it makes no sense, and you have no guarantee you will ever sell the name.

  2. Would be good to know where they get retail comps from.
    Godaddy is a great company however my experience with their appraisal suggests to me a disregard for recent actual public sales data, the GD suggested retail outdated by a large margin.
    Example:
    Yesterday, looking at comps for a domain,
    Broad search on word 200k / month
    Appraisals
    Godaddy 1600
    Others 600-16,000
    Comp average 24k
    Actual recent comps 2 yrs : 15k-40k
    Looking at a similar comp sold in 2018,
    Retail 82K
    Godaddy 12,800
    This info gathering took about 30 min.
    12 comps.
    Maybe a lot slower than “algorithms” but a lot more current retail accurate.
    Appraisals in general should be range based and not single value.
    Comps support this approach.

    If the auctions are truly wholesale then it’s access should be limited to qualified wholesale buyers like all other “wholesale” providers.
    If then, an average multiplier of wholesale can be developed for “suggested” retail range.

    Cheers

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