Domain Appraisals?
 

Okay, I'm getting offers on one of my short domain .com's (idiaper.com) and the offers are now over 2K but several of the bidders want to see an apprasal certificate. Can anyone tell me some good places for an honest manual apprasal?

Most likely scammers who get a % for referring you to a domain appraisel company.

People who are spending a lot of on domains dont need appraisels hahaha.

Appraisels are totally worthless anyway.

Hehehe, as if anyone who is really interested in a domain would want an appraisal :1orglaugh

afternic.com

I will give you a full manual appraisal for $20.00 including full details about the site name, traffic, seo capability, type-in capability etc. Send me an icq or post your email address. It will take me about an hour to do

There is true way to appraise domains.

This is kind of like the Nigerian scam. Its likely most of these bidders own the appraisal serviices. They give you an intial offer of $2,500 but insist you get a certificate which will only cost you $50-$100. Ok you think...I'll make out with at lease $2,400.

Little do you know your obtaining your certificate from their company or a company they are being paid by. Once you obtain your "certificate" the offer is no longer on the table. They e-mail thousands of domain owners doing the same thing.

Yup. If a potential buyer ever asks for an appraisal, you can direct him/her to sites like Afternic or Sedo so they can purchase their own appraisal. NEVER buy an appraisal to satisfy a bidder.

Besides, you will get a better appraisal here or on a specialized domain forum. Sometimes a domain will have some or most of its value from the traffic it generates (backlinks, typeins, etc.). So make sure you include that info when describing it.

If you want to see what name is worth in today's marketplace you can also list it for sale (ebay, sedo, afternic) and see who bites and for what price. If you don't want to let it go too low, you can always set a Reserve price.

ill give ya an appraisal + a nice looking cert for 200 usd paypal
whats the domain?
:1orglaugh

Be careful there are a lot of scammers out there...Afternic is a good place to start...

No seriously though. I will give a very good appraisal for $20. I have some spare time and it will be rather fun for me. I will use all domain tools I have access to and list the results

That's why I am asking for independant advice and not using the suggested sites.

DailyDiapers, if you haven't gotten the idea from the above comments, just don't seek an appraisal. That's the buyer's job. A "certificate," implying some officiality, really means nothing.

If you want a valuation for your own purposes, because you're concerned that you're selling too low, then put the name on afternic, and tell all the bidders who were interested that they can bid there. The top bid is your real appraisal. Put in a reserve price of $2000 if you don't want to sell it for less than that.

My feeling is that if you've got more than one bidder asking for an appraisal certificate, there's a 99%+ chance that they're trying to scam, and have no serious interest in buying the domain.

I would avoid offers even from probably-well-intentioned people like Raulph. I don't know him or anything about him, and he probably has some knowledge and means well, but domain appraisals in general are extremely arbitrary, and if it's not the buyer doing the appraising, with a real offer, it means nothing.

I agree. The buyer should do the appraisals. Why would they ask the buyer to do it when the buyer can just go to an appraisal service that over evaluates the price. Something like idiaper.com can be appraised at over $100,000 by some of these programs.

The buyer should do the appraisals. Custom appraisals by reputable companies would be the best. It takes knowledge, tools, and creativity to appraise a name properly and no automated computer system can do all 3 properly, yet.