What’s the Domain Name Worth?

Ordinarily, I don’t solicit public opinion on the value of a domain name, but I am also not one to reveal the price I paid for a domain name either. I am planning to do both of these things in a couple of days.

On Saturday, I wrote a blog post about the launch of SlipperyElm.com, a pseudo mini-site. On Wednesday, I plan to write an article sharing some insight into why I built the website on this domain name instead of simply flipping it. I hope this will help you when you’re thinking about spending the time and money building out a website.

You can help me a bit if you give some feedback on the value of the domain name.  Here’s some info to use when you anonymously appraise in the poll below:

SlipperyElm.com was originally registered/created in 1999. The .net is owned by Thayers (company that sells slippery elm lozenges), and the .org and .info are also registered. The exact match search volume for “slippery elm” is 4,400, but the broad match, which includes longer tail terms like “slippery elm lozenges” is considerably higher.


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

24 COMMENTS

  1. I think I would have a hell-of-a time selling it for more than $1000 but… the domain is worth whatever you can get someone to pay for it=)

    No one seems to specialize in selling just Slippery Elm, it is always an herb store that is selling it as one of their hundreds of products. I think this limits the number of companies that would be willing to pay over $1000 right now for the .com of just one of their hundreds of product names.

    maybe it is just me raining on a prade. It is a lot worse of a domain from DogGroomers.com but still a lot better than BullRidingHelmets.com=)

  2. My day job is in the supplement industry, and products tend to explode with hype at times. How many legitimate supplement stores sell only acai? How would you like to have owned acai.com or acaiberry.com for the last few years? Slippery elm will likely never be as big as acai, but it has a lot going for it. If you got it below 3k, I think you did very well.

  3. I personally never heard of such product until today.
    and speaking of BullRidingHelmets.com is it ok to register such names with a brand name (Bull) on them? If yes then i missed out some real good names with very high search volume.

    Good luck

  4. Haha sorry i got confused and for some odd reason i thought it was Bell helmets 🙂
    Btw that’s a bad picture/example to show because none of them is wearing an actual helmet. it’s more like BullRidingHats 🙂

    Thanks

  5. I suppose one critical question before investing time in development is your interest in the topic. Regarding GAKT search volume, I have a site on a domain where the GAKT exact search volume is only 2900. The site doesn’t even rank on page one of Google for that one word. However, the site has had more than 2000 visitors in the last month because of long-tail searches. The phrase search volume is over 200K and the site does rank for several three word search phrases at Google, Yahoo & Bing. So IMO phrase search volume can be meaningful. Note that the site relates to a topic I have an interest in.

  6. Hello,
    You did an experiment with a domain name about “Resistance Swimming Pools” or something close to this. How did that work out? Did you ever sell it?

    Thanks. Really appreciate your blog.

  7. @ Brian

    I don’t think I sold it. This is obviously MUCH different. The resistance pools domain name was hand registered by me, had much lower search volume, and there were far less companies selling them. The one thing it had going for it is that resistance pools are very expensive. Aside from that, there isn’t much of a comparison there and SlipperyElm.com is far superior.

  8. Tough question to really gauge with limited knowledge, also depends how much time and money you put into it….the key is the traffic, if you get them to your site you can obviously promote other products of a similar nature, create an email subscription list for these types of products…there is a lot of money in health, wellness and weightloss all you have to do is check out the infomercials that are always playing

  9. well the really interesting thing, to me, is that not 1 of the top 10 results on the first page of Google is a commercial site, they are all informational. (.edu, wikipedia, etc). none is actually selling the product. if you build out a product-related site and rank it on the first page (relatively easy with the keyword.com as we all know) that will give you a lock on all the traffic from people looking for slippery elm products, since you’ll have no competition in the SERP (other than the sponsored ads). developing the domain should add a lot of value here, imo. very nice!

  10. El,

    Unlike those who don’t have any appraisal background, I gave you about five minutes of my expertise, and found out A LOT more than you discussed in your blog article.

    My appraisal is that this domain is worth min $5,000. That can rise of course.

    But, for quick cash, a smart arborist, who knows what products come from an ulmus rubra, besides the tree itself, should quickly make an offer in this range. Problem is, our industry doesn’t have a “promo educational” site to teach the world these basics about the value of category-killing domain names.

    We’re dorks. Admit it. God, I’d wish you’d admit it.

  11. @stephen

    I think the value is more to do with a herb supplement than a tree. I voted10K+ also because I worked in health foods for 6 years before and it was a popular item in-store.

  12. @ Pat – OMG! I went and registered it! Thx! 😉

    @ Joseph MacDonald – I coughed up a piece of ribeye… BTW, nice to see someone’s REAL name in their comments in a professional business called “DOMAIN INVESTING”. You’re two thumbs up in my book!

    @Steve – I found those health supplements in my searching on the domain, and I agree with you heartily. Your comment is an excellent example of a domain investor who has KNOWLEDGE based on past experience, and probably a lot of inside info on where any domain prodserv is going. Good call.

  13. @ Joe Mac

    You wouldn’t be hiding out as the real Country Joe McDonald” of the famous Woodstock band, “Country Joe and the Fish”, would you?

    Are you him? I can’t imagine anyone else in the world having a similar name! 😉

  14. @Stephen — no I am not of the fish variety, I am thinking of starting a band: Country Joe McDonald and the Ninjas 🙂

  15. I have several domains that I’ve had forever since the mid nineties but never used – like autoworkers.com or comedygold.com and altho I put them up on a couple of auction sites for sale – I have never even had an offer.
    I think the names are more useable than slipperyelm.com so can’t for the life of me think how yours could be worth $1000+

    I wish I could figure how to make dough with a webname.
    I guess I’m too dumb. I registered these names years ago and have never developed the domain names. Originally I had 100s of them but over the years just let them expire

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