Software You Shouldn’t Live Without and Review of Free Domain Appraisal Engines

One Software Product You Should Not Live Without is:

Roboform

Don’t let the compact size of this inexpensive “password manager” fool you. It is the hardiest password-storage tool on the market today, super-user-friendly, awesomely stable, CONSTANTLY UPDATED, super-versatile and SUPER-SECURE, offering various types of encryptions for your constant online and offline protection. Once you get the hang of it, which is so easy because once properly configured, Roboform offers to do the work for you, those gruesome days of recalling (forgetting) and hand-typing in again and again your passwords are OVER and with Roboform you can gain entrance into your multiple password protected sites fast as a blink on perfect autopilot. For the very small price of the Pro Version of RoboForm, around $30.00, which includes lifetime updates, you will thank yourself a million times over you invested in this magnificent FIVE-STAR SOFTWARE. Trust us. This is state-of-the-art stuff. PS: The Roboform people also offer GoodSync, a GREAT BRAND NEW database sync tool which has itself too, just been recently upgraded and it gives excellent quick results. The nice folks at Roboform offer free lifetime upgrades, not only with Roboform but also with GoodSync. I highly recommend that you treat yourself to the good life and quickly purchase the pair before the developers change their mind and justifiably up the price.

A Brief Review on Free Domain Name Appraisal Engines

 

Why do we suggest these links? Because they’re free, for one. Also, we, like many others out there, are grateful that several enterprising souls have taken upon themselves the arduous task of working up a (free) indexer with at least the intent of suggesting value. All free domain name appraisal engines have at least one thing in common – they tend to produce a wide variety of “money values” based on different modes of analysis using a fixed and limited set of criteria. Values that pop up on the free appraisal websites do not purport to be actual indicators of true market value and rightly so. However the values are at least interesting, albeit oftentimes arbitrary, and at most may assist in developing an overall strategy of determining potential market value or establishing a working minimum-maximum sell price for those sellers with limited funds or who are unwilling to “invest” in paying substantially large amounts of money for a “certified” appraisal. It seems to be a general consensus that market demand determines and drives the value of every commodity, including domain names. It appears that the innate attraction of particular domain name seems to be initiated primarily within the subconscious level and radiates its way outward into the form of a purchase. It is a reasonable expectation that top level domain names will continue to rise in value and as such, the search for attractive domain names should continue to be a rewarding venture.

Legal Implications: Just What IS a Domain Name?

Although the United States appellate authority suggests that a domain name is a form of intangible intellectual property, it has also been suggested, although this suggestion is not judicially clear or consistent, that a domain name is not property but rather a contractual right. The jury is still out on this point which instills hope that even greater values, similar to real estate, may be attributed to domain names as the law continues to work through cases and hone its view as to their legal substance.

Several Free Appraisal Engines Worth Looking At

NameBoy : NameBoy used to charge $10 per appraisal. Currently they’re offering unlimited free appraisals, so we suggest that if you want your ego supercharged, that you jump on the bandwagon and bulk load your names up for what promises to be a very “healthy” list of appraisals you will immediately wish could be cashed in like currency. Our experience with NameBoy valuations is that they tend to the very high side and we would like to understand further the indexing criteria they use in order to arrive at these figures. Hats off to NameBoy for offering the public free appraisals with the additional benefit of bulk-name uploading and prompt individual appraisal responses. Even if their numbers can be superficially high based on current market value, it’s still a pleasant experience to see it in writing.

Estibot

Estibot in certain circles is considered the “bible” of free appraisal engines and the engine that most closely simulates true market value. The good news is that Estibot currently touts a “new and improved” upcoming release which they claim will ‘revolutionize’ the appraisal system which may lead to even more realistic results. Currently, Estibot offers unlimited free appraisals which, in our opinion, have historically drifted in consistency, possibly in part because they seem to be tied into Overture for some of their indexing, whereas Estibot tells us on their website that Overture has currently been “down” and admits their results may not be as “accurate” as a result. Our experience with Estibot values is, like all free appraisal systems, they seem to rely solely on automated limited indexers and tend toward the low or medium range. A strange phenomenon occurs often with users of Estibot which seldom occurs with the others – that of reliance. Estibot seems to be more conservative in their indexing but at the same time their indexers appear to be broader in scope which lends credence to the common-place conclusion that Estibot appraisals can quite often hit the mark right on relative to predicting true market value. This ability to more closely predict sales results in the real world of auctions or buy-it-now scenarios in our opinion gives Estibot an extra dimension of credibility based on performance although this is not to imply one should entirely rely on the Estibot numbers alone, for like all free automated searchers, none of them can truly predict what the free human spirit will deem of value and up-bid on and this is the most exciting part.

Summarily, we feel that any free appraisal system is prone to arbitrary production of arbitrary values spanning the low to high and should never be relied upon as the final judge of market value of a domain name, ESPECIALLY with arbitrary domain names which possess their own “secretive” value based on unknown appeal factors which are virtually measureless and therefore impossible to predict, to wit: who would have placed a value of THREE HUNDRED TWENTY SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS (considering traffic) on an arbitrary name such as Google, twenty years ago? Estibot just appraised Google for me several seconds ago and provided this amount. Minus the traffic of Google, Estibot places the value of the domain name alone (keep in mind the name is arbitrary) at $730,000.00. What’s the moral of this story? It’s twofold. Traffic is one index used by free search engines to determine value and so an arbitrary domain name void of traffic, although generating 0 traffic, may ultimately rise fast in value if it finds, of course, the right “home” and is market-groomed correctly to draw traffic.

Leapfish

I like LeapFish and I really don’t know why. I like the format and the occasional surprises in value that lead me to suspect there may be more to a name than the other engines are telling me. Leapfish offers unlimited free appraisals which predominantly tend toward the much lower side which we feel is based on limited indexers. It has been our experience that Leapfish and Estibot agree within reason about 10-20% percent of time, depending on the type of the name, however they disagree 80-90%. This inconsistency seems to be one of indexing features. Nevertheless we enjoy the dual rides and are quick to not hang our hat on either.

Conclusion About Free Appraisal Systems and Determining Market Values

As with all the FREE APPRAISAL systems out there, (and there are not that many) our best advice is just enjoy them for what they are but do not rely on them as indicators of “true market value”. Real sale prices are the general indictor of immediate worth. Do your own serious homework based on what the market is actually paying. One way to gain perspective on true market value is applying the basic common-sense fundamentals and checking out sales prices at auctions and names that create frenzy bidding. Also, keep in mind that even application of common-sense fundamentals can NOT predict the value of arbitrary domain names and that not all auction-end prices and/or “public sales” reflect “true market value” as both may be misleading and inflated for a number of reasons including but not limited to the integrity of the bidding, false rises due to irrational bidding frenzies and the like.

Final Word: Hold or Sell?

For those who demonstrate patience and diligent watch of the market, time may be on the side of increased domain name values. If you’re in a hurry to make a big profit on domain names, perhaps its time to relax and re-examine your game plan. You may want to consider holding on to your domain names for a period of time, even years, as you monitor market values and (likely) witness values rise. Write off the bad names and dump them for a song, absorbing the lesson of not buying anything that sounds like that again! Don’t be in a big hurry to sell your best names, because given time and the depleted market choice, exponential returns may be looming on the horizon for a few smart investors who can think ahead to meet the changing times and choose their names accordingly. In conclusion, don’t be anxious or unrealistic and stay in sync with the market trends.

More Coming Soon on Solutions to Determing Price and Auctions…

Flexlists « Webosphere : Internet, RSS, web 2.0

Now you have the abilty to create as many different types of  ”online lists” as you want with secure features. You can keep your lists private, tailor the security, make available to groups or publish openly to your website. The potential is endless. Check out Flexlists!

Flexlists « Webosphere : Internet, RSS, web 2.0

Establishing Online Presence: Do you need to sell the family farm?

How does an online business effectively establish online presence? Online presence is where the rubber meets the road, often the deciding factor separating the haves from the have-nots. The irony in this topic is that the solution is elementary and simple. Complications arise out of trying to dodge the obvious which can’t be ignored. So, how do you get good online presence? Simple! Obvious! Just hop up on stage! And where exactly is this “stage”? Simple! Obvious! In blogs, multimedia postings like YouTube and other arenas of personal participation. Many successful businesses have found optimal value in utiilizing multimedia to enhance their presence. You’ll find them on YouTube, Google, Metacafe, Yahoo, Revver, Shortbrain.tv (formerly BlipTV) and iFilm. Does that take courage? You bet! Does it promote online presence? You bet! Will any other tactic short of this fall short in the arena of optimazation? You bet! So what are you waiting for? Go ahead, be brave, and hop up on stage (but do a little rehearsal first)!

Website Business Capital: The Missing Ingredient? (or) Is TV the same as the Internet?

  Let’s entertain a hypothetical: For every 1000 website business startups today, 90% lack sufficient capital to compete. Well, how much working capital does one need to truly compete? $100? $1,000? $10,000? Just as those “couch potatoes who sit glued to the boob tube” some “web entrepreneurs” stand back and secretly disdain, could it be that the chair in front of your monitor is indeed something akin to a “couch” and that many good faith entrepreneurs today are beset by the same plagues that face the TV couch potatoe crowd? I.E. tons and tons of media hype pumped out by well-groomed professionals with no other purpose than to install (or reinstall) the scarcity mentality and promote a barage of virtually worthless quick fixes. Could it be that some of the “internet information gods” we adore and so readily set our mental antennae to are nothing more than snake oil peddlers with logistical savvy working diligently to “scare” the market (internet business) out of a buck (or two or ten thousand)?  For example, presently feeding among all web intrepreneurs is the basest and most vile of all internet business fears, i.e. that one may be relegated to a virtual “non-presence” on the internet unless one aptly subscribes to the doing of A,B,C, and D. At this point the door swings wide and we get to sniff the snake oil of promise and prosperity for only X amount of dollars per month as supported by all the latest charts and bean-counter data. Adding up the potential cost of A,B,C and D, we may discover, oh, that isnt too much for the “promise” of a successful online presence, or, perhaps like the remaining 90% who nourish dreams of internet success without the currrent presence of capital for funding A,B, C and D, we may say “ouch” and move on to more realistic endeavors like finding and mowing a lawn. But what if we instead believe that internet success has startling similarities to all successes in general and that substantial capital alone or the absence of it is not in and of itself required for legitimate success and neither is subscribing to the “Pro Version” of A,B,C or D.  Is there any merit to this belief and are there any relevant examples of relatively recent online entreprenurial successes to back it up. Let’s take a closer look at the scarcity mentality and see how it affects the trend of internet snake oiling. Let’s look at the substance of proven techniques and determine how to most cost-efficiently arrive at the root of the solution without blindly subscribing to the snake oil frenzy that grows exponentially by the moment. Comment.

Domain Appraisals: The Real Truth

Every website hound worth half his or her salt knows of the “free” domain appraisals offered at www.estibot.com and www.leapfish.com . I think these people who build and maintain these websites do an excellent job at gathering and sparking market interest to the extent the scope of these free estimators are understood and appreciated for what they are – mere speculations of worth based on very limited data and automated research. I’ve toyed with the free appraisals myself on various occasions, obtaining oftentimes odd and conflicting results. The key to “enjoying” these free appraisal sites lies partially in appreciating that they offer non-guaranteed judgments of worth based on an analysis of viable “domain name worth indicators”, such as traffic, indexing and other factors.

  If  you frantically peruse the website in search of other free appraisals and are set back at the seemingly astronimcal cost of what commonly is announced as “Certified Appraisals”, you’re not alone. Who in his right mind is going to pay Company X “the very low price of $29.99″ to tell them how much www.hutherfythknowlsitus.com is worth? (No offense intended to anyone seriously intending to market this name or if it even happens to be your last name, but Estibot, with relatively obvious rationale based on their limited indicators ranks it at Reg Fee which means basically “good luck buddy”. From an obvious standpoint we can see that length alone and absence of well integrated keywords work to reduce the value of “huther…”. But, in another vein, KEEP THIS IN MIND: Estibot is not the Bible of domain name value worth and neither is Leapfish. And neither of them pretend to be. WHAT IS IMPORTANT to realize is that almost any name, consisting of arbitrary combination of letters or numbers CAN be the next Big Thing IF marketed by the right set of folks. EXAMPLE: GOOGLE. So what is the moral of this story? Just because Estibot tells you that your 5 or 6 character arbitrary name has no value other than Reg Fee, it could still be a winner if the right company likes it and the right people brand and market it effectively. To that extent, it is never the appraisal, but the demand that drives the value. So keep hope alive and continue to be creative. There are plenty of companies, now and in the future, who may be looking for that odd combination of characters you just happened to think about just before you went to bed last Thursday night (and forgot to write down) and forgot in the morning, that someone else thought about too, placed on the auction block and has since pocketed several grand. Language rocks, doesn’t it.

   So, if market does drive value, what is the worth of a “Certified Appraisal” opposed to one cranked out by Estibot or Leapfish? Well, for sure, it depends on the integrity and analysis depth of the appraisal and the current performance of the domain name in real life. There are times when a Certified Appraisal may support a hypothetical value based on aggregate indexing, but the bottom line is that market demand drives the price, the market is the ultimate indicator of “worth” and with the rapid-fire changing of paradigm shifts invading the internet at speeds greater than light, anything is possible, including but not limited to the implementation of a new extension system that antiquates and even obliterates the .com era. Sound far-fetched? So did the internet just twenty years ago. So does this mean we walk away from premium top level domain names and snub our nose to all the .coms? Please do. Leaves more room for the rest of us.