Valuing Personal Domain Names
Sales of personal domain names are increasing and to date the bulk of personal domains have sold for less than US$1,000 but a a small percentage have traded for tens of thousands of dollars.
The very high shared population of many personal names and the exponential growth in people looking to secure a personal domain name means that common names are becoming increasingly valuable and are trading for increasingly larger sums.
Whether you are making an offer on a name, registering a name or listing a name for sale you should consider the following factors which all have a bearing on the value of a personal domain name: Population, Extension, Category, Use of Symbols and Transferability.
| Population |
The greater the shared population the more valuable the name. |
| Extension |
The .com's are the most valuable followed by .net and .org.
Other country extensions such as .tv and the increasingly popular .uk & .nz extensions are fast increasing in value. |
| Category |
- First or Last names are valuable (e.g. Robin.com, Jones.com)
- 2 character initials are very rare and very valuable (e.g. JB.com)
- 3 character initials are also rare valuable (e.g. DB1.com)
- Other variations can be attractive (e.g. DavidWilliams.com, MSmith.com, DavidJ.com). |
| Use of Symbols |
Names with numbers or dashes are less valuable. |
| Transferability |
Some extensions are difficult to transfer ownership.
The .com/.net/.org and .uk/.tv/.nz extensions are all relatively
easy to transfer ownership and therefore easy to sell. |
The value of a common domain name is likely to be between US$200 to over US$10,000 but some of the very common names could be worth over a million dollars!
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Domain Registration