There are two schools of thought in the domain investing world – one says, using metrics and data you can find investment grade domains, the other says once you have a good gut feeling for a good name that’s all you need.
Today there are more resources than ever for looking up data about domain names, whether its past sales data on places like NameBio or backlink profiles using tools like Majestic, the sky (or web) really is the limit.
At the same time, we all know that some people just have that magic touch either because they’ve been buying and selling domains for a long time or they’re just naturally good at knowing what sells. I know people who fall in both of these camps, the reality is, in the world of domains having a good eye or gut feeling for a domain, getting that right, and doing it over and over again, can and does happen all the time.
For myself I personally blend both schools of thought, I love data and use a variety of different sources when thinking through an investment, and at the same time, I’ve been doing this for a while so there’s also a little gut involved. As for metrics I use, here’s a few things I look at:
- similar domain sales (often using NameBio)
- USPTO (make sure there aren’t any Trademark issues)
- Google search results
- domain age
While I personally don’t think domain age impacts the price of a domain much (and yes this is a whole topic/blog post itself), when I’m buying an expired domain I do like to know if the domain was just registered last year or if it was registered twenty years ago.
As for gut, well, that’s hard to explain but since my core focus is two-word .COMs I think this is where most of my “trust your gut Morgan” instinct comes from.
How about you, data, gut, or a combo of both?
