Domainers have a strange relationship with automated appraisals. When the number is low, the tool is garbage. When the number is high, suddenly it is worth mentioning in the sales thread.
I am not above this either. I have looked at appraisal numbers before and liked the ones that helped my argument more than the ones that did not. I think most of us have.
The problem is not that appraisal tools exist. I actually think they have a place. The problem is that we use them very differently depending on whether they confirm what we already wanted to believe. A low appraisal does not automatically mean a domain is worthless, and a high appraisal does not mean a buyer is waiting somewhere with that amount of money ready to go.
I see this all the time in domain discussions. Someone posts a name and says, "GoDaddy says $3,200," or "Estibot says $8,500," as if that settles it. It might be one data point, but it is not the market. The market is a real buyer, with a real use, at a real moment in time.
A name can look average to an appraisal tool and still be very valuable to one specific buyer. Another name can check all the obvious boxes and still sit for years because nobody has a reason to buy it right now.
A domain is not priced like a used car. There is no exact model, mileage, and condition comparison. Domains are one of one. Sometimes the value is obvious, sometimes it is buried in a use case, and sometimes nobody sees it at all.
That does not make appraisal tools useless. I actually think they can be helpful if you use them the right way. They can make you pause, question a price, compare names inside your own portfolio, give you some sense of how certain keywords or extensions are being viewed. They just should not do the thinking for you.
A $200 appraisal should not automatically scare you into dropping a name. Maybe the tool is missing something. Maybe the market for that name is narrow. Or maybe the name is not as good as you thought. That last part is the one we do not like.
The same is true on the other side. A $10,000 appraisal should not convince you that you are sitting on a sure thing. Maybe the tool is overvaluing a keyword. Maybe it is leaning too hard on old sales that do not really apply. Maybe it is a name that looks good in theory but has no clear buyer pool. The tool does not know.
The danger is not the appraisal number itself. The danger is when the number becomes the story. When we like the number, we use it as proof. When we do not like the number, we explain why the tool is wrong. That probably says more about us than it does about the tool.
And I get it. Domains are easy to get attached to. You buy a name because you see something in it. You imagine the company that would use it. Then a tool comes along and says the name is worth less than your renewal fees, and nobody wants to hear that.
But sometimes that friction is useful. Sometimes the tool is wrong. Sometimes you are wrong. Most of the time the honest answer is somewhere in between.
That is why I try to look at appraisals as a filter, not a verdict. They are not the final answer, but they are not always meaningless either. The best use of an appraisal is not to prove that you are right. It is to make you ask better questions about the name.
The question I keep coming back to is the simplest one. Would I still buy this name today if I did not already own it? That question is probably more useful than any appraisal number.
I still check appraisal tools. I just try not to worship them when they agree with me or ignore them when they do not. The number is one opinion from a tool that does not have to pay the renewal.
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