Comments on: If you want value, don't listen to dnScoop

By: Rose

Rose — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 03:02:12 +0000

dnscoop is the least bit accurate. If anything it is just another tool for entertainment only.

By: Badi Jones

Badi Jones — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 00:39:15 +0000

I never claimed that the value was accurate. It is a challenge to try to make it accurate, but unless I start using some sort of human intelligence, like Amazon’s digital turk, there’s just no way to do it. Even then, a domain estimate is subjective, and can change based on who’s buying. If anything, my tool attempts to use variables that do have value to give a general idea of what a site is worth.

Google paid 1.6 Billion dollars for youtube, but do you seriously think it was worth that much? No. That figure just shows how badly Google wanted to acquire the site, and how unwilling the creator was to sell.

Just because you couldn’t sell your site for $30K, doesn’t mean that there’s not someone out there who wouldn’t pay at least that for it.

It seems a site like this should be making at least that much per year.

By: Douglas Karr

Douglas Karr — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 23:14:38 +0000

Hi Badi,

I’m not often critical of websites – I love seeing new tools out there that help folks less technical. I guess the bottom line is that there is no validity to the value you output. Do you compare it with actual sales? If so, please release those findings.

The problem comes with those less technical use an application like yours and then have false expectations. It’s just a fun tool, not reality – you should not market it as anything but.

Perfect example: Scrapblogger is a tool that will most likely sell for in the 6 or 7 digit value, but you folks show it as $0. Your tool can’t determine the age of my site so rather than estimate based on other variables, it simply drops the value through the floor.

It’s not a site valuation tool unless you can provide some kind of indicator that sites are accurately selling based on the prices that you are predicting. You state that it’s not 100% accurate – but you probably have no idea if it’s even 1% accurate.

Google: $2B?
Microsoft: $700M?
Apple: $400MM?
Colts: $50K?

C’mon! Throwing up a cool equation and looking up a bunch of stats isn’t telling anyone anything. You should not set these false expectations with people.

Simply put, you’re falsely advertising.

By: Aaron Brazell

Aaron Brazell — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 23:04:45 +0000

Badi- it’s still wrong. Way wrong. You make way too many assumptions based on incomplete information. Trust me when I say I’m not attacking you. I think dnScoop is a lousy valuation tool though. Currently, the value of this domain is $198k which is laughable considering I was laughed out of the blogosphere when I tried to sell at $30k.

Tell you what, if you can somehow boil these intangibles down to an algorithmic number, then maybe you’re on to something that can be taken seriously.

By: Badi Jones

Badi Jones — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 21:46:38 +0000

Hey there. I am the creator of dnScoop, I need to say something in defense of it. Many of the statistics shown on the dnScoop results page are just FYI, and are not used in determining a value. Things like pagerank and the number of indexed pages are given, but not used.

I have been constantly tweaking and updating the algorithm to make it more accurate every day. It’s not easy.

Your review is based on a lot of assumptions that just aren’t true. If you have any constructive criticism, I’d be glad to listen.

By the way, we’re worth over $25,000 now, and we’re on a dedicated host.

Thanks for the press.

By: Doug Karr

Doug Karr — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 05:29:55 +0000

One of the glaring factors that they are utilizing is the number of pages. So a simple, one-page tool, that gets thousands of hits per day doesn’t do well at all.

Ironically, it hurts dnScoop’s evaluation of their own Domain! Try dnScoop.com in dnScoop.com = $3,685.

Hmmm. Shouldn’t that say it all?