what makes a valuable domain name?
 

ive been floating around here for a while, in that time ive seen domains sell for $20 right up to a few grand..

what is it that actually makes one domain so valuable whereas another is worth feck all?

is it the .com because a site doesnt have to be a .com to rank well..

traffic and dictonary listed.

keywords...important for SEO
relevant to the site...important to brand recognition/marketing
easy to remember...for the stupid surfers who don't bookmark...

Other than that it is mainly market forces, a domain is really only worth what others are willing to pay for it...

In my personal opinion I think the value is determined on pure traffic. what's the alexa ranking, the overture ranking, and so on.

fair enough but some of the domains that ive seen people selling for a couple of grand dont have anything on them!!!

so is it then just about the keywords in the URL? that doesnt make much sense to me as incoming anchor text is a far more important factor..

ive bought a few keywords domains over the years that ive done nothing with, e.g sexyteen.co.uk.. overture keyword tool states that 98k people a month search for "sexy teen", the reason i havent done anything with it is that i know that without a good linkbuilding program it'll end on page 19 of the search results.. the domain alone doesnt make a successful site?

anyone got any thoughts on this?