The bottom line is that any domain name is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. There is no inherent worth in the domain, it has no physical property value, it isn’t a stock market commodity (yet); so the only real value is how badly someone wants that name for themselves. You may have the biggest and best collection of earthworm wrangling ropes ever made, but if you can’t find another earthworm wrangling rope collector to sell them to, they aren’t worth, well, dirt. Domain names are the same, so unless you have a name that someone else can’t live without, you will not be retiring on the sale profits any time soon. Fortunately, finding someone who is searching for a domain name is easier than finding an avid earthworm wrangling rope collector. All the above being said, there are some factors that are commonly considered to raise a domain name’s value. They are:

1. Length of name

2. Composition of name

3. Development and Popularity of the name

4. Prior Interest

Length of Name

In most cases, a one or two word domain name will have a higher value than multiple word domains. Correctly spelled common words and phrases have a higher value than obscure words and sayings, or misspellings. Domain names that are easy to say, spell, and remember and have easily identifiable meanings are the ones everyone is looking for, which obviously raises their value. Nike’s justdoit.com is a perfect example of turning a short, well-known phrase into a smart domain name. The more unmistakable and to the point the domain, the higher the value. Wormwrangler.com will work well for you, whereas earthwormwranglerropesuppliesandcollectibles.com is, while accurate, way too much.

Composition of Name

The way a domain name is put together also adds or detracts from it’s value. In general, experts recommend avoiding hyphenated names, so in the above Nike example, just-do-it.com would be of less value than the non-hyphenated name. The domain extension is also important, because people are still most familiar with .com. Even though other extensions are valid and useful, the first reaction of a visitor is going to be to type in flowers.com – not flowers.biz. Another thing to keep in mind is whether or not the domain would be a first choice for a potential buyer.

Development and Popularity of Name

Is there already a website built for your domain name? Having a well established site will increase the value of the domain. Several factors go into assessing the development and popularity of your site, including the age of the site, number of back links, and Google PR and/or Alexa ranking. The older, more established a site is, the greater the chance that you will have amassed a collection of relevant links to sites who also link back to you, raising your placement in search engine results. Having a high Google Page Rank and a high Alexa ranking will also increase your domain name’s worth – all of these tools help determine how popular a site is, and how often the site is visited. If you are selling the domain, someone else will most likely be putting up a totally new site on it, but the theory is that a domain that already has a good history will bring more traffic to the new owner. People will be typing in your domain directly, looking for your old site, and that will put more eyeballs on the new domain owner’s pages.

Prior Interest

It is possible, of course, to have interest in your domain name without any effort on your part at all! If you have been lucky enough to register a name that someone happens to be looking for, they may approach you directly to ask if you would consider selling it. The price you will ask for should be based on the factors above, as well as how many such offers you have gotten in the past. If you’re getting several offers a year for your name from different people, you can obviously raise the price. If this is the case, you might be better off choosing to sell the domain through a domain auction, rather than directly to a buyer. Set a minimum price on your name, let all the previously interested parties know about the auction, and let them duke it out!

Determining the worth of your domain name is a very subjective process, because, again, it’s only worth something if there’s someone out there that needs to buy it. Visit some domain auctions and sale sites, and see what people are actually getting for the domains they’re selling. From there, follow the above guidelines to help you set a ballpark figure for the domains you have for sale. Using your common sense, keeping an eye open for trends, and having a little bit of imagination will help you in choosing domain names to sell. Whether this is a one-time sale or the beginning of a domain sales career, it’s important to understand your market.

Before you start
You should always have the domain registered before you start any online business. It doesn’t make much sense to create a superb website and then start looking for a free domain. You never know in advance what will be the final registered name.

Top level domain
There are some general purpose top level names like com, org, net or info. If you are targeting everybody around the world then this is the choice. If you are targeting only one specific country or region then you can choose a country domain. Each country has its own domain, but there are also domains like eu (Europe) which can be considered as a general purpose domains.

Domain length
A general rule is that domain name should be as short as possible. But this depends on the type of the website. Short names are easy to remember and typing them directly into browser is simple. However, if your website is about best moon photos then you can choose a domain that is your main keyword or website name.

Dashes
In some cases you will have difficulty in finding a suitable name that is not registered yet. One of the solutions might be to separate words with dashes. While this is a bad compromise because almost nobody types dashes when entering the web address directly into address bar of browser, this might be the only solution to register the desired keyword phrase.

When everything fails
There shouldn’t be such a case. It is always possible to find a suitable name to represent our website on the internet. If after many attempts with your wanted phrase or keyword you still can not find a suitable domain then simply change your target keyword or name. This also means that the market around your first choice is saturated and there are already many websites that target the same keyword.