How GoDaddy Could Help Price Domain Names

GoDaddy recently uploaded a video with a general discussion about how to price domain names. I think Joe Styler shared some good advice, particularly for people who are not domain investors but own valuable domain names and want to put them up for sale.

It’s no secret that I think GoDaddy‘s automated appraisal tool can be harmful to a negotiation involving a high value domain name. It may help sell lower value names, but I would need to sell a whole lot of $1,000 domain names to make up for a lost six figure sale if someone is influenced by a low appraised value. With that in mind, a few people were amused when I suggested that GoDaddy could help domain investors price their domain names. I don’t think I was super clear in that post, so I want to be more specific using an example.

GoDaddy has a bulk domain appraisal tool, although it’s not really promoted much that I can see. The neat thing about this tool is that it doesn’t just spit out the GoValue appraisal. It has additional information included. Here’s an example of what information the tool gives using one of my domain names, Advantageous.com:

• GoValue appraisal: $10,169
• Wholesale value: $1,000
• GoValue list price: $27,299
• Sale probability at $500: 96%
• Sale probability at GoValue: 31%
• Sale probability at wholesale: 92%

If I am reading this correctly, GoDaddy’s automated appraisal tool is saying that if I list Advantageous.com at $500, there is a 96% chance it will sell within one year. If I list it at the $1,000 wholesale value, there is a 92% chance it sells within one year. It’s a bit confusing, but it looks like there is a 31% chance of selling for the GoValue figure.

What would be helpful, particularly on lower value names, is if GoDaddy had an additional column within the Manage Domain Listings page on my GoDaddy Control panel that had an adjusting percentage based on the price I choose. For instance, if I price Advantageous.com at $1,000, the percentage would be 92%, just like the bulk appraisal tool states. If I price the domain name at $12,500, the percentage might change to 26%. I could continue to adjust pricing based on my appetite for a sale and the likelihood of the domain name selling within a year.

This tool would be particularly helpful in pricing the lower value inventory rather than the high value domain names that are difficult and costly to replace. On the lower value names, where a couple hundred dollars in pricing can really impact the chance of a sale, it would be helpful to get pricing advice. For instance, if GoDaddy says I have a 46% chance of selling GoodWishes.com for $3,999 and a 59% chance if the price is $3,299, it might be worth the lower price tag to move it more quickly if I want to juice my sales revenue.

It would also be super helpful to know if a particular domain name has a better percentage of selling if the price ends in -88, -99, or -97. I understand that some China-based buyers may be moved with a price ending in -88. GoDaddy’s sale algorithm would understand how appealing a domain name may be to buyers in China, so it might assign a slightly higher sale percentage to a name with a price ending in 88. Likewise, a domain name in the bargain or sales space may benefit from a price ending in -97, which is popular with some discounters.

In essence, for the best domain names in my portfolio, I don’t really care how much GoDaddy says the name is worth, much like they don’t really care on their own names. On my lower end inventory where a $100 or $250 difference in price may lead to a big swing in likelihood of a sale, this pricing tool would be helpful. For people who hate the idea, they don’t have to use it.

One other thing I would like to add is that this tool should be available to GoDaddy sellers rather than buyers. Sellers, after all, choose the platform where to list their domain names. Even if a buyer is also a GoDaddy client, it is the seller who chose to list their domain names at GoDaddy, and they should not be harmed by a pricing tool.