The MediaWizard’s Blog | mwzd.com

Rick Latona has written a great series of articles on his site entitled “What makes a domain name sellable“. Its a very interesting, straightforward insight into the mind of one of the most successful domain sellers out there. His approach is hard core business minded which is perfect for this trade, which can lead people astray at times.

It’s a four part article that lays it out -

Part 1 -

I have one question that I ask myself that is more important to me than any other question. What sort of website would be put on the name? When buyers buy a name from me, more often than not they want the name because they have some sort of vision for it. What’s the obvious vision?

1. What’s the brand value of the domain, as in, would you start a business based on that name?

Part 2 -

It isn’t easy to appraise a domain. When someone asks me if I want to buy a name, I often reply simply with “I’ll pass”. Inevitably, they’ll send me back an email asking my why I’m passing. Well, that’s an impossible question to answer.
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Perhaps you can compare it to “curb appeal” in the real estate world. Some houses just show better than others. How does your domain look from the curb?

2. Does it have recall value? Does it have appeal. Can you brand it to make it extra special?

Part 3 -

Does it have legs?

3. Well, does it? :p Possibilities is whats being discussed here. Keeping in key with my own thoughts mentioned in The LLLL.com Conundrum

Part 4 -

Revenue, makes a domain sellable but tread carefully or you can get burned. For the buyers I have this one strong piece of advice. Unless the name has other intrinsic qualities i.e., has legs or is some obvious category killer, you can lose your ass.

4. Revenue is important, but is it realistic or just a smoke and mirrors short term play… thats the crunch factor.

All in all, well worth a read.