by Mara Miller, Sedo.com Marketing Associate
Thanks to Sedo's wildly popular Domain Parking program, many of our users earn hundreds or even thousands of dollars each month without selling a single domain name. Instead, they park their high traffic domain names, and then sit back and watch as the checks roll in. Domain traffic, they realize, is like a license to print money. Inevitably this leads to the next question: How can I get more of it?!
In this article we'll explain the tools and techniques domain pros use to determine — or at least reasonably guesstimate — how much traffic a domain receives. Armed with this knowledge, you'll be able to predict approximately how much money a domain will make, and thus gain a better understanding of the domain's true value. The educated buyer always comes out ahead, so read on to unlock the mysteries of domain traffic and learn how to determine scientifically if a domain is really worth buying.
We will discuss three methods for evaluating traffic:
- Trackers/ Direct Methods
- Predictors/ Indirect Methods
- Traffic Source
1. Trackers/ Direct Methods
Ideally, you can skip all of the guesswork and find out how much traffic a domain receives directly from the domain owner. The easiest way to do this is simply to ask the seller — Sedo's negotiation system includes a comment feature to enable you to do just that. However, the seller may make a mistake (or simply be dishonest), so it's always a good idea to double-check his numbers with one of the methods below.
DEVELOPED WEBSITE
Traffic counting scripts are one of the simplest and most reliable methods for determining traffic to a developed website. Each of the websites listed for sale on Sedo is required to integrate the SedoTracker, a free professional statistics program which can easily be integrated into website code. Key figures from the SedoTracker are automatically displayed on the website's for sale listing, giving buyers the additional reassurance of a third-party-verified system. Sellers gain even more information, such as top referrers, geographic and chronological breakdown of visitors, and more. Most sellers will provide serious buyers with these important details upon request.
PARKED DOMAINS
If a domain name is parked, Sedo will automatically provide traffic statistics on the domain's sales listing page. These pages display the unique visitors/ month, based upon the past 32 days. If a domain has not been parked for the full 32 days, the visitor numbers could be inaccurate. It's also worth noting that visitor numbers can be manipulated by malevolent sellers, but in general the parking visitor stats serve as a very helpful guideline for potential buyers.
2. Predictors/ Indirect Methods
What do you do if a domain is not parked and the seller won't provide you with stats? Fortunately, there are a few tricks available that may help you get a rough indication of whether or not a domain receives any traffic.
We wouldn't recommend relying exclusively on any of these tricks as a bulletproof way to guesstimate traffic. However, taken as a whole (and with a hefty spoonful of salt) they can shine a bit of light on the question of whether or not a domain will receive valuable traffic.
ALEXA.COM
This site ranks websites based on the number of visitors they receive — for example, Yahoo,com is ranked #1, MSN trails in the #2 position, and so on. Many high-traffic domain names will get an Alexa ranking just from their type-in traffic. In general, an Alexa ranking under 1,000,000 for an undeveloped site is a good indicator that the domain receives decent traffic (eg, several thousand monthly uniques). Rankings over a million are less reliable, but usually any sort of Alexa ranking means that the domain receives at least some traffic. As with all of these methods, Alexa should be used as a guideline only: sometimes even domains for which Alexa returns "No Data" (too low to rank) will still receive traffic, and vice-versa. In addition to Alexa, you'll find a similar tool available at Ranking.com.
OVERTURE SEARCHES
Overture's "Keyword Selector Tool" tells you how often a given keyword was searched. For example, "Sedo" was searched 1,014 times in November, while "Paris Hilton" was searched 862,528 times. Naturally, a domain that contains a highly-searched keyword is more likely to receive traffic. However, the Overture Tool's usefulness goes beyond that: if you use the exact domain name (with extension) as the keyword, Overture results can be used as a predictor for whether or not a domain name receives traffic. For example, "Yahoo.com" was searched 11,089,508 times in October, according to Overture. Sedo-parked sites "Moma.com" was searched 1,055 times, "Camera.com" 258 times, and "gamer.com" 558 times. Our research has shown that Overture searches do sometimes have a rough correlation with traffic (especially type-in traffic), but as with other methods there are many exceptions to the rule.
3. Traffic Source
If you want to better understand something, go to the source. This aphorism applies to domain traffic as well. Thus, in addition to using the above methods to guesstimate the quantity of traffic a domain receives, you may want to use these techniques to try to determine the source of that traffic. Traffic source will affect the longevity and conversion of the traffic — in simpler terms, it will have a huge impact on how much money the domain will make.
LINK POPULARITY
A website or formerly-developed domain name may receive traffic from old incoming links and directory listings. There are many online tools for checking link popularity. One of the best can be found at Marketleap.com. The important thing to look for here is not just the quantity of links, but also the quality. A single link from a major website may be worth thousands of links from smaller sites. The longevity of link traffic varies widely: a link from a news article may generate a flurry of traffic that lasts only a week, while a directory listing may continue to generate steady traffic for years.
SEARCH ENGINE LISTINGS
Search engine listings are a major source of traffic for many sites. You can guesstimate how much search engine-derived traffic a website receives by looking at its "search engine saturation". This is an indicator of how often the domain appears in the various search engine indexes. Again, Marketleap.com offers an excellent tool for evaluating search engine saturation. Just keep in mind that it's also important to look at how high the site is listed and how often the keyword is searched. Don't forget that search engine listings change frequently, so if this is the primary source of traffic, expect fluctuations!
PAID TRAFFIC
Some traffic may be coming from PPC advertisements, exit pop-ups or banner ads that the seller is buying. This is the shortest-lived traffic, because as soon as you buy the domain, the seller stops paying for the ads!
EXPIRED TRAFFIC
If a domain was formerly developed, some users may continue to visit because of old links and references, or simply because they remember the domain name. This traffic may continue for years, but naturally it decreases with time.
TYPOS AND VARIATIONS
Don't ignore traffic diverted to the domain name through typos from other high traffic sites. Check out traffic for similar domains by using the tools above. Also consider traffic from variations of names, such as an abbreviated form of your domain name or an acronym. If these sites experience a high volume of visitors, there is a possibility it will translate to high traffic for similar sites. Alexa can be a useful tool for doing this — they have a feature which lists sites visitors of the questioned domain also visit. You might also try the typo-generator found at SearchSpell.com, which boasts the uncanny ability of identifying the most common typo-errors for a given keyword.
Traffic is crucial for any revenue generating business on the web. Use the tools listed above for determining domain traffic and never make a wrong buying decision again!
Conclusion
Just one final parting thought: Once you've mastered these tricks and are digging up one high-traffic jewel after another, take a moment away from counting your piles of cash to remember your friends at Sedo who first took the time to share this advice, and return the favor by parking your new treasures with the domain parking service that looks out for you: SedoParking.com!