As you can see, my domain is worth a good chunk of change! But, let's break each item down:
- TLD Score: A TLD is a Top Level Domain. You know these as ".com" or ".net" and accompany ALL domain names. Certain TLD's are more popular and therefore worth more in the eyes of an investor with .COM being the current domain market ruler. After that, .NET and .ORG take second place. And finally, the many other TLD's are becoming more and more popular. A few key players to watch are .INFO, .NAME, and .BIZ. These names are upcoming superstars.
- Unwanted Character Score: A valuable domain name is memorable and easy to communicate. It is generally assumed that names containing numbers, hyphens, or symbols are less valuable then those that do not. Some domains could theoretically work better with a non-alphabet character, but we cannot determine how a human will react to this based on numbers, and therefore must penalize CVS scores equally.
- Length Score: Shorter domain names are almost always easier to remember than a long one. We award extra points for shorter domain names in the CVS system rather than longer ones. This is a fairly self-explanatory addition to the CVS algorithm.
- Archive Score: The Wayback Machine at Archive.org has been archiving the internet since 1996. The number of times a domain was indexed on here is a good historical reference of potential value. Newer sites may not have as many entries on Archive.org and therefore may not recieve very many points here. [NOTE] Sites with a robot.txt query exclusion will not recieve a score from Archive.org.
- Google Search Results: Google is one of the top 10 search engines so our system checks to see how many entries your domain name has listed in it. This is averaged between 3 search engine results to help create an overall search engine score.
- Yahoo Search Results: Yahoo is one of the top 10 search engines so our system checks to see how many entries your domain name has listed in it. This is averaged between 3 search engine results to help create an overall search engine score.
- MSN Search Results: MSN is one of the top 10 search engines so our system checks to see how many entries your domain name has listed in it. This is averaged between 3 search engine results to help create an overall search engine score.
- Search Engine Score: The search engine score is derived from the average search results returned between 3 search engines (Yahoo, MSN, and AllTheWeb). This number affects the CVS more prominently for domain names with a verifiable history.
I do not know why they think I have zero Yahoo search results. I know I am indexed on Yahoo. Even with that one discrepancy they give me an appraisal value score of 562 and a (rough) estimate of $33,158.00 as the bare minimum I should accept as an offer for hmtk.com.
To make things a bit more interesting I ran a few other domains through their system:
- Digg - AV5946 : $42,936,066.00. There was also a special note: It has been determined based on search results that this name may be extensively valuable beyond the scope of the LeapFish.com domain analysis tool. It is recommended that you seek the services of a complete domain appraisal company rather than rely on this estimate.
- KingNomar.com - AV43 : $43.00.
- JohnChow.com - AV634 : $92,564.00.
- Theplugg.com - AV45 : $45.00.
- Kenzerco.com - AV1446 : $504,654.00.
- thecoversproject.org - AV19 : $19.00.
One thing I noticed is that a high number of Google results guaranteed a high dollar value being assigned to the domain name. It's not just about search engines, it's also about traffic and revenue. You will also note a link to a "paid" appraisal service that they offer. I imagine they hope to snare you into paying for their service (I have no problem with that) so they may be exaggerating the price they show you. I mean, come on, $42M for Digg???
In case you were wondering, the website that got me too look into this was The Covers Project. This website is currently up for bid over at eBay.