Your domain name will be appraised
based on the following eleven factors:


1. Marketability
How profitable is it?
How large is the market it is targeting?
Does it apply to the entire market?

A domain such as driedflowers.com is without a doubt worth less than familycars.com. The reason is that dried-flowers market is less profitable.
vintagecars.com is worth less than cars.com since it applies to a minor portion of the industry.

2. Clarity
Can it describe its content?
Can it be associated with a product, a service, a brand etc?
Is it easily brandable?

BookShop.com or FastBanking.com have a great development potential since they're perfectly clear.


3. Memorability
How memorable is it?
Will people easily remember it?
Will people easily recognize it?

A domain name should be easy to remember and easy to recognize. The easier to remember, the higher its price will be. Moreover a good domain name is hard to misspell.

Escrow.com, News.com, are easy to remember and hard to misspell.
cyberwebdiscountcoupons.com is difficult to remember and retains a good amount of value.

4. Link Popularity
How popular is your website?
The more popular your site is, the better it is ranked on major search engines.

Please note: Link popularity applies only to developed websites.

5. Top Level Domain
What is its TLD?
e.g. com, net, org, ws, etc.
Dot Com names are the gold standard on the Internet.

carwash.net is worth less than carwash.com

6. Length (Please don't count the extension!)
How long is it? Is it easy to type?
When it comes to domain names, shorter is better.

carwash.com (7 characters) is worth less than car.com (3 characters)
fastsearchengine.com (16 characters) is worth less than searchengine.com (12 chars) etc.

7. Word count
How many words it contains?
The most valuable domain names consist of few words. Two/three words are good, and four words are about the limit.

carwash.com (2 words) is worth less than car.com (1 word).
veryfastsearchengine.com (4 words) is worth less than searchengine.com (2 words) etc.

[Each abbreviation, acronym, prefix or suffix is also considered one word.
e.g. eshop.com = 2 words]

8. Hyphens
Is it hyphenated?
Hyphenated names usually don't sell as well. It's very useful to register a name with hyphens in, if you own the non-hyphenated version.

car-prices.com is worth less than carprices.com
compare-car-prices.com isn't worth much.

9. Numerals
Does it contain numbers?
top10.com is worth less than topten.com etc.

10. Substitutions
Does it contain substitutions?
i.e. "2" instead of "to", "k" instead of "c",
"4" instead of "for", "ez" instead of "easy" etc.
2morrow.com is worth less than tomorrow.com
ezshop.com is worth less than easyshop.com etc.

11. Abbreviations
Does it contain abbreviations?
wallst.com is worth less than wallstreet.com


Last but not least: Be aware that trademark conflicts reduce the value of a domain name dramatically.