What a domain is really worth

What buyers actually pay for

Domain prices are driven by a short list of things: length, how easily the name is spoken and spelled, the extension, and whether the words carry commercial demand. A short, pronounceable .com made of common words sits at the top of that list, and everything else is priced relative to it.

Existing authority matters in a narrower way than people expect. Age and backlinks can be worth a great deal to a buyer who wants to build on an established site, and close to nothing to a founder who only wants a clean name.

Why two appraisals disagree

Automated valuations are statistical models trained on past sales. They are useful for a range and unreliable for a specific number, because the sales they learn from are themselves negotiated, sparse and skewed towards the deals that got reported.

Use an estimate as a sanity check on the seller's number, not as a target. If the model says a name is worth a few hundred and the seller wants five figures, the question to ask is what they know that the model does not.

Checks worth doing before you pay

A name's history can carry problems that no price model captures. Archived snapshots show what the domain was used for, which matters if it once hosted something that would embarrass your brand or attract a penalty.

Trademark conflicts are the expensive surprise. A name that is available to register is not automatically a name you are allowed to use commercially, and discovering that after launch costs far more than the domain did.

• Look at archived snapshots for previous use and abandoned content.
• Check spam and authority signals for a history of abuse.
• Search trademark registers for your actual market and sector.
• Confirm the matching social handles exist, or accept the mismatch knowingly.