Anyone who has been in this business for just a solid year, knows that artificially generated valuations are crap 99% of the time.
I had an interesting conversation about a week ago where someone asked me about the GoDaddy valuations. I said they are mostly for entertainment purposes but I do think they do harm to new domain investors and non domainers.
If GoDaddy believes in their valuations, they do have namefind and if they think these names are so valuable, after they clear closeouts they should be doing a lot of handregging.
There is one name that really exemplifies how flawed their system is, @TLDN pointed out a domain to me on Twitter, along with alerting GoDaddy. It was @TLDN and @WTFDomains that got GoDaddy’s attention to take down the public auction of RapeKids.com. Now the auction today is an expired auction, so I guess, GoDaddy has to let it run it’s course. NO one in their right mind is buying the following name.
Now I know what I am going to hear from some, “Oh Raymond you need to understand, they have so many names, and the algorithm did this and the backend did this, and quality control was out to lunch.” Save it, I don’t care, learn to add a filter that blocks adding valuations to certain keywords. Cause no way in this world am I letting it look like my company assigns a $1,651 to the above name.
And if the reply is we know their valuations are worthless, then what is the point? Get rid of them, otherwise it seems like masturbation without the payoff.
That’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Frank says
I gotta say dude you have really turned it up a notch the last couple weeks.
That is appalling that godaddy valued that name, they should not even allow an expired auction.
Canadian Thunder says
I spit my beer out on the masturbation line, well done.
David says
I hear ya…it is a morally reprehensible name and they should filter it out of the auctions totally. But the valuations are a different matter. GD is in business to maximize profits though and they are gonna operate as such. I think domainers know or ought to know that valuations of this sort typically don’t mean much. I mean, when one adds domains to sedo they give an appraisal. How many times have you gone by that?
Mark Thorpe says
You are right, Ray! No need of it.
Their valuations are way off and letting sickening domains to be sold on their plarform is just wrong!
GoDaddy needs to get their act together!
Kate says
Godaddy (and more recently Namejet) have introduced automated valuations because they want to get more crazy bids from inexperienced buyers. As simple as that.
Ategy.com says
I think you’re mixing two separate issues (although both bad).
1. Is the outright horrible valuations. Honestly, they are so bad it’s pathetic that anybody who knows anything about domains approved this system after testing it. The is no excuse for how far-off and misrepresentative these valuations are. It’s just pathetic!
2. Is their filtration process. I actually reported both “GastheJews.com” and “RapeKids.com” as well as started this topic about it on NamePros. While I do understand that some “creative” names can get through. The fact they don’t have filters for “Kill” and “Rape” so that they at least get manually checked before going live is beyond comprehension. I do feel that as users we also should help out when we see a domain that gets past the filters, but any domain with “kill” and “rape” should have already been flagged. Here’s the conversation on NP:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/blatantly-racist-domains.1020858/
Raymond Hackney says
No not mixing purposely used one to highlight the other.
They both are things that need to be fixed.
The valuations are really out there.
Joe says
He is very right if I do not buy more in Godaddy is because the appraisals of domain names .Com that reached 12 months have become premium assuming no higher than 500 USD if they are not offended and so you go to your auction in 12 months Do not sell anything they put 99 USD no thank you.
Validity redundancy http://www.sedo.com with the same domains estimated valuation 349 USD and you write 500 USD no one buys you, you are at your mercy of a commission of 15% in Godaddy and in Sedo premium domain name bought expired (Test) in Estibot Value 3000 USD and for the first is 99 USD and for the second valuation estimated 349 USD there is no right to tease, direct selling is the only solution and there is no commission.
R P says
Very good call Ray. There really should not be a computer generated “valuation” of, in vast majority of cases, domains that are neither liquid or marketable integrated into these platforms.
M. Menius says
Your criticism of automated valuations is accurate and something which needs to be repeated regularly – especially for novices coming into the industry. There are domainers (and some blogs) who know better, but take the money anyway and advertise/promote automated estimation tools.
Referencing them does harm the industry, and lends credibility to something that is clearly deficient as a reliable valuation mechanism.
This is especially true for higher end domain names whose value is constructed on complex variables. Thanks for your post. It was needed!
nik says
The whole expired name auction business of Godaddy is nothing more than theft, specially when they do not pay back any portion of that money to previous owners or escrow account. I bet this will only go down with time, by default. OPEN ROBBERY.
Paul Nicks says
reprehensible domain, we axed the expiry listing, thanks for the heads up.
Not sure how the dots are connected from pointing out an awful domain to stating that all valuations need to be removed however.
Raymond Hackney says
There was no connecting of dots, Paul, that was used to illustrate the height of the absurdity.
Most think the valuations are off or make 0 sense.
I can post 100 example if need be.
There are names that go through closeouts with four figure valuations, maybe Namefind should register them.
R P says
“There are names that go through closeouts with four figure valuations, maybe Namefind should register them.”
Ha
Brad says
Paul,
Valuations should be removed. I bet a large % of the domains you value at around $1,000 don’t even sell for $5.00 in the closeout auctions.
If you say otherwise, this is something that can easily be checked.
AW says
One and primary purpose of these absurdal valuations is to attract more bids in expired auctions. Forget about investing, assets, premium, quality etc. we’re talking about hard sales and extra revenue, revenues for GoDaddy naturally.