  What is a domain? A domain is your address on the internet (e.g. ActivaDomains.com). This can be viewed in the same way as a piece of ‘Virtual’ real estate on which you can build your online presence. Can’t I just register my domain? Yes and no. Of course you can register a domain but only if it is available. To find if the domain you want is available you can check at www.netsol.com/whois. By their nature each domain is unique and it is likely that if you are looking for a generic or dictionary domain, then this has already been registered. What is a domain extension? There are a number of different domain extensions such as ‘.com’, ‘.net’ ‘.co.uk’. These determine either the purpose or geographical relationship of the domain although this is not always strictly adhered to. For instance ‘.com’ relates to worldwide commercial domains and is by far the most popular and valuable extension. Other domains such as ‘.us’ (USA) and ‘.co.uk’ (UK) in broad terms determine the geographical scope to which the domain / website and underlying company relates. The domain I want is already registered, so what are my options? There is an active after-market in domains ranging from sites such as Sedo with over a million domains on offer to individuals selling a handful of domains. Please refer to our links page for some useful after-market websites. Why should I consider a web presence, expand my web presence or buy additional domains? Perhaps the question should be why shouldn’t you? The explosion of the internet as a viable advertising medium is relentless and the flow from traditional advertising outlets is unmistakeable. According to Jupiter Media, online ad revenue is expected to increase by 14% this year to $13.6 billion in the USA alone with longer term predictions showing continued double digit growth. This growth has been reflected in a significant rise in average domain values over the last few years and the expected growth in the years to come. From a company’s point of view, a good generic domain is not considered advertising expense but an investment in an intangible asset which will provide sales leads for years to come as well as expected capital growth in the domain itself. In other words a good domain is an investment not an advertising expense. A domain is the equivalent of virtual real estate. The quality of the domain determines the location of this real estate and this is the main driver of value. What is traffic? Traffic is the number of visitors a domain / website receives and generally determines it’s popularity. More importantly it also determines the commercial appeal / potential of the underlying business What determines the value of a domain? This is a complex area with differing points of view. As a general guide, the quality of the earnings the domain can produce together with the quality of the domain itself is what determines the market value. However it is common to not always agree on the value of a domain. Some of the factors that influence the value of a domain are:
To go into this in a bit more detail:
A domain that has existing traffic is considered more valuable. The type of traffic is also important with a domain that receives direct navigation being highly coveted. Direct navigation occurs when a user types in a domain into the toolbar directly instead of using a search engine such as Google or Yahoo. The value of a domain with traffic from direct navigation can be significant since this provides not only a free form of advertising but also highly targeted consumers. Direct navigation leads have a high click through rate compared to search engine and link traffic. In addition an existing website which has existing links and directory listing would add value to the domain. The extent of the current monetization of the website can is also a determining factor.
As a general rule a shorter domain is considered more valuable however it should be noted that a longer domain that is more logical would be worth more than a shorter illogical domain name. A related issue to this is the number of words in the domain. Single word domains can be extremely valuable whereas longer domains with three or more words would be worth significantly less if anything at all.
In most instances the ‘.com’ extension is considered substantially superior to others and this has an important impact on valuation. This is followed by the ‘.net’ and ‘.org’ extensions. In some regions such as Germany (.de) and UK (.co.uk) the geographic extension is also highly coveted. The lack of an appropriate extension can lead to ‘traffic diversion’. This occurs when a wrong extension is used by a websurfer / consumer. For instance ‘CarSales.org’ may lose customers to CarSales.com despite significant advertising expenditure of the former just because many consumers automatically assume that it should be a ‘.com’ extension. In this case, the ‘.org’ is an inappropriate extension and would be considered a waste of advertising expenditure. This is a related concept to Mindshare (see below). In the worst case these sales may go directly to your competitor. Many companies try to avoid this by acquiring a number of extensions of the same domain.
This is the holy grail of marketing and can be briefly described as the consumer’s ability to remember and later recall the domain in its entirety without much effort. For instance Cars.com has vastly superior mindshare to Billys-cars-259.org
The composition is related to mindshare. Generally a domain without dashes / hyphens and without numbers is considered more valuable. The key here is the ‘radio test’, in other words how would the domain sound if it had to be advertised on radio and how easy would it be to remember. The number and logical sequence of the words and their use in everyday language is also a determining factor in valuation. For instance the domain BigCasino.com would be considered more valuable than CasinosBig.com. The former is more logical and intuitive.
A domain that is in conflict or perceived to be in conflict with an existing trademark will have considerably less value than a generic domain due to the potential threat of legal action.
A good generic domain tells tells the online consumer that the company is a serious player. As with the previous example, just think of your mental image of the companies behind ‘cars.com’ compared to ‘billys-cars-259.org’.
The use of the internet as an advertising medium impact the value of a domain. For instance the domain Casino.com is considered to be highly coveted compared to Shipping.com given the extensive online presence of casino websites online compared to the shipping industry. What about specific values / comparative sales? DNsalesprice.com is an excellent resource for finding comparative sales and is highly recommended. This research tool provides a valuable insight into the value of the domain after-market. I want to find out more about domains before investing, what do you recommend? The internet has a wide variety of resources at hand for researching and acquiring domains. We have brought together a selection of the best resources in our links page. You have a domain / several domains I like, what do I do now? Just get in touch at Sales@ActivaDomains.com. We are open to offers on all our domains whether you are looking for an outright purchase or leasing agreement. How do I pay for my domain purchase? We accept Paypal for transactions under $500 and recommend Escrow.com for transactions over this amount. Further details to be provided upon agreement I want to list my domain with you, do you act as a broker? No, for now ActivaDomains.com only sells our own domains. We have plans to develop one of our domains ( DNbargains.com ) into a free listing service for domains under $100. Please contact Sales@ActivaDomains.com if you wish to be informed of when this website is functional. These FAQ’s have been helpful, can I use them on my website? Of course, just provide a backlink to http://www.activadomains.com/ 
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