Judge Name has delivered the verdict for:  SAMPLEDOMAIN.COM

Domain Name: Date of Appraisal: Fair Market Value: Liquidation Value: Recognition: TLD: Brand-ability: Commercial Appeal: Name popularity: Name Quality: Keyword Strength: Backlink Strength: Alexa Rank: Traffic Strength: SE Results: Search Frequency: Age: Way Back Results:	SAMPLEDOMAIN.COM 4 JAN 2008 $2750 $600 **** ***** ** **** **** *** ** ***** 881,509 *** **** ** 1999 ****
Similar Sales:	SampleDomain.ORG sold for $150 in Oct06
	SampleDomain.ORG sold for $150 in Oct06

Commentary:           The domain is well aged and has built up many high quality back-links over the years which has helped it achieve its Alexa ranking.  The name is easily recognizable but rather lengthy.  Keyword search frequency has been growing about 10% annually which bodes well for the future value of your domain.       

  

Terms

Fair Market Value - indicates a fair price to begin negotiations from between a buyer who makes a bid for the domain on open market.

Liquidation Value – reflective of a situation where the sale must occur in a short period of time and when there are no motivated buyers for the domain name at the fair market price. Thus, the seller needs to offer a reasonable discount to attract buyers.

$ - Domains can be valued in US Dollars or Euros

Asterisks (*) – The number of stars indicates the relative score in each category with 5 stars being the highest rating and 1 star being the lowest.

Recognition – How recognizable and easy to remember the name is.  

TLD – Top Level Domain.  The .com TLD is the most sought-after and usually ensures the highest value of a given name.  Other popular TLDs might limit the versatility of the domain, implying a certain type of site resides on the domain.  In some cases, a country code TLD (ccTLD) will be more applicable than a generic TLD.

Brandability – The potential for the name to be used to brand a new product or service.

Commercial Appeal – This rating is important if you plan to advertise with the domain.  The value of keywords that relate to the domain name will affect this rating.  A higher rating indicates you could easily publish ads on the site for income.

Name popularity – The demand for the particular name.  The number of other TLD’s registered with the name is a good indication.  The number of typos of the name that are currently registered is also noteworthy.    

Name Quality - Names that contain a combination of letters, numbers, and/or hyphens are typically less valuable than domain names that are either all alphabetic characters or all numeric.  Dictionary words and common foreign language words are valuable.  Shorter names are more highly valued as well.  Generally, names comprised of words are better than a combination of letters.  Long names with several words are typically not as valuable as shorter easily pronounceable names however. 

Keyword Strength – Domain names composed of strong keywords will do well in search engine rankings.  This adds value to the name as it makes it easier to drive traffic.

Backlink Strength – This is the most important attribute in placing well in search engine results.  The quality of the pages that link back to the site and well as the quantity are evaluated.

Alexa Rank – A ranking in the Alexa database of trafficked websites is definite plus in terms of the name’s popularity & visibility.

Traffic Strength – If traffic can be accurately determined it annotated in the appraisal.  It is difficult to measure the affect of traffic on the overall value of the domain name however as it can vary greatly due to seasonality, ad campaigns, and the freshness of the content.

SE Results – The number of search engine results a domain has is a good indication of its popularity.

Search Frequency – The frequency of the domain name in search results is a good indication of the amount of direct navigation or type-in traffic the domain will receive.

Age – Much like wine, domain name values tend to increase with age.  Older domains tend to sell better than newer domain names mostly because they have had longer to build back links and search engine rankings.   

Way Back Results – Lots of results in the Internet Archive indicates the name was previously registered and updated on a regular basis.  This usually means search engine placement is easier to obtain.

Similar Sales – Historic sales of similar domain names is probably the most reliable indicator of what the domain name might sell for.  It is important to understand the values of various TLD’s when doing this analysis because many times the comparison must be done on 2 names with different TLD’s such as Pizza.com and Pizza.biz.  Sometimes there no comparable sales to use regardless of the TLD.

Commentary – Notes from our appraiser which might help in negations with the buyer/seller.