But there is some meaning in the oft misused term. It refers to an instant zing that pulls it into a higher level of reality where it’s completely plausible and authentic as something to comfortably engage with. That means a company’s image, and in turn, its profitability.

Brandability online is different from offline, as for example, a single English word, which is not really special (and in fact quite the opposite, in a literal sense) can make for a professional, authoritative domain. Call your brick and mortar power tools store “Power Tools”, and see how far you get. Sell from powertools.com? Another story.

Acronyms have their moments without being words at all. Two and three letter acronyms can have great zing, but qjj.com does not.

Another type of brandable domain, and the kind I happen to enjoy most, is the perhaps nonsensical but at least sayable short words. I definitely don’t mind odd spellings, but with an important distinction: I want them to be plausible spellings, and not to look like impossible English words. The main way to know is to see if you can find a term where the variation in spelling/sound exists in another existing word.

For example:

most.com – a real word
moast.com – same pronunciation
toast.com – spelling that justifies moast.com

Still, even if you can find an example, use common sense, taking into account the normality of the word you’re using for justification.

final.com – a real word
finyl.com – same pronunciation
vinyl.com – spelling that would have justified finyl.com, except that y’know what? finyl looks weird in a way that moast does not.

Note, you have to be careful of being caught in Google trying to convince a searcher they aren’t looking for you. The last thing you want is people having trouble finding your brand because Google said “I think you meant this real word – here are those results instead”.

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Too Long To Type?

How often do you really type out full domain names? Once I’ve visited a site, whether on my phone or computer, my browsers give autocomplete suggestions after the first character, no matter how long the final domain is.

I also visit sites via links, and even when linking to a site, I usually copy and paste the domain if it’s anything but teeny tiny.

Then, of course, there are bookmarks.

So, in many cases, you’ll type the full domain just once. Is it really that inconvenient?

Not Just Short, But Short and Sweet

It’s not impossible to make a long name catchy, but it isn’t exactly easy either. That said, the reason why catchy is good is because it’s potentially easier to remember. Depending on how you play it and how creative you are, long names can be plenty memorable. Take Toothpaste for Dinner. 19 characters I’ll never forget.

Now this is about buying fresh domains, and the potential a longer one can have, using real words to conjure up real imagery the way a short but pronounceable word like… I don’t know… ‘zilpy’ cannot.

But make no mistake, unless it’s a well known phrase or name, or has a ton of content/site along with it, your odds of buying let alone selling a domain of that size are low.

Toothpaste for Dinner is a lovely name, but once you’re going that far, there’s a decent chance you can come up with something decently catchy at that size, if you’re creative. So it loses its intrinsic value.

The Tiniest I’ll Go

Three character dot coms are expensive, of course, and you can maybe have a chance at throwing money at a useless domain like q5j.com. Yay. For three or four characters, you’ll pay good money for dot nets and dot orgs, too. Numbers and hyphens will lower prices, but in most cases they aren’t worth it unless you have somehow found a perfect use.

The shortest names I will buy are 5 characters, because it’s only at that point that anything reasonable becomes at all useful. At five, you can still get some all-letter names that are pronounceable, or that can plausibly mean something, if you get lucky.

As an example, I bought mclol.com for $5 (plus the cost of the registration) from a closeout sale. ‘Mc’ like Irish, and ‘lol’ is lol. Not outstanding, but certainly worth the price for the size, and usable. I suspect in a few years, names of this kind won’t be available at 5 characters, so if you find a brandable 5-letter option for pretty cheap, go for it.

Short domains are fun to look at, and have a legacy as sought after items that to me inflates their price unreasonably. The shortest name I ever bought was pun.nu. Shortest dot com, 5-letters, but a few of them.

Non-Traditional Extensions

I got that 3-letter domain with the funky extension because it was a word and I was intrigued by .nus at the time (which is a story for another day), but in general I won’t bother. They often cost more and I see them just sitting on the shelf never getting developed.

I don’t have experience selling other extensions, so if anyone has thoughts, please weigh in, but to me you’re going to have a hard time selling if that’s the only reason you’re buying.

If you can make a word out of it (eg. shaz.am), then go for it, but your odds are slim for finding anything good, and you aren’t likely to see them for sale in a marketplace, likely because you’re filtering for only the major extensions.

Ok, But There Is Too Long Yes?

I think beyond 20 characters and you’re probably being silly. If it’s just a few large words, you might be ok, but other than that, don’t bother. (fun fact: the largest domain names allowed are 253 characters)

I told you my shortest… The longest domain I ever bought is… 41 characters. But that’s also a story for another day!

Link Value

The more links a site has pointing to it, the more value it is said to have. But, it’s not just about quantity; it’s about quality too. Links have value in proportion to the trust and authority of the link source. So, if you want a strong domain from a search engine perspective, you want lots of people linking to you, and you want lots of people linking to the people linking to you.

Pagerank

Pagerank is a term you often hear. It is named after Google founder Larry Page and refers to a currency of link value. A link from a strong site passes more Pagerank than one from a weaker site. A site with many strong links pointing to it is said to be a high Pagerank site.

Pagerank is quantitative and cumulative, but it’s tricky to actually measure. The only real number you get is a number supplied by Google per page. The score given is either n/a, or any number between 0 and 10. The scale is not linear, and more logarithmic instead, such that increasing by one point represents a tenfold increase in value. I’ll be as precise as I can be at the end of the post.

The score, accessed by and given in SEO toolbars, is updated roughly a few times per year, although lately Google has updated pages more often. In general, the pagerank score provided in a toolbar (toolbar Pagerank, or TBPR) is a fairly good approximation of the quality and quantity of links pointing to a site, although it’s not completely reliable indicator.

Spreading the Juice

Think of link value as a liquid that can flow between pages (which is why it’s often called “link juice”). To a certain extent, linking out from a page somewhat reduces that page’s Pagerank, as there is a degree of finitude to the shareable quantity. This is especially the case with internal links, as Pagerank can pass between pages on the same site, too. You will want to see the Pagerank score of not just the homepage, but of subpages, too, and hope for PR spread across the site, especially to the most important pages.

What’s Good?

A good PR score partially depends on the niche, and the types of links that produced it. For example, a PR3 page caused by one PR4 link is not as worthwhile to me as a PR3 page caused by three PR3 links, a few PR2s, 1s, and 0s. Also, there’s a big space between each number, and while you can’t see it defined more precisely by Google, one PR2 site could be a lot stronger than another PR2 site. And add to that the fact rarity of PR updates and you see why this isn’t the perfect indicator. A site that shows n/a could be a 3 at the next update. You have to look at the links.

Regardless, here’s a rough guideline to help you get started a bit. These are descriptions of TBPR scores for a site’s homepage, and how I generally interpret the value of a site before checking the TBPR on subpages and checking all the links coming in:

n/a – Not yet given a score by Google, potentially relatively useless from a Pagerank standpoint. This is tricky because it can represent extremely fresh content, which is increasingly important to Google results. For example, a new blog post will be n/a, but a link from a new post on a popular blog would be great.

0 – A penalized page, or a page with no real link value to speak of. Still, if the site is legit, a link from a PR0 is normal and good for adding variety to your backlink profile. Approximately 0-2 fairly weak links. I wouldn’t buy a site like this in most cases.

1 – A site that has been online a while but without much in the way of links. Maybe just a few, from fairly weak sources (no sources linking in above PR2). In general, I wouldn’t buy a PR1.

2 – A worthwhile PR score, at a decent kind of level. This is a sign of a minimum good standard, and would be a nice link to get. In fairly small niches, PR2 is relatively high. A PR2 score could be the result of one PR3 link, or a few 1s and 2s. If the links were clearly niche-focused and the domain name fits the niche, I would be happy to pay $50-75 for a PR2 domain

3 – I find this is the kind of score that’s given to sites who are clearly authoritative (official band’s website, for example) and when the links don’t necessarily justify the PR. One strong PR4 link can grant a three, but I’d be happier with a few 3s, 2s, 1s, and 0s linking in, to diversify a bit. I would pay $75-150 for a site like this depending on the content and other variables.

4 – A few PR4 sites or one PR5 site will often create a PR4. This is a site that’s in what I consider the lower end of the middle tier. It is a site with recognized authority, and is likely ranking for many of its terms. It depends on the size and competitiveness of the niche, of course, but 4 should bring traffic in most cases. I would pay approximately $100-500 for a good PR4 domain.

5 – Few sites get to a real PR5 without being actually popular sites. Only very strong and old, or very active and link-filled current sites have a chance. At this level in many niches, 5 represents some dominance and high potential, and are often clear hubs within their niche, that everyone tends to link to. A strong PR5 is worth $500-2,500 depending on the other variables.

6 – This is likely a strong and meaty source, likely with 6-figures of links, many of them from very high authority (PR5 and 6 sites). At this level, the site likely has a ton of content, and has been recognized with links from longstanding authority sites in their respective niches. This is the rough boundary of the middle tier. To me, a PR6 is in the $5,000-10,000 range.

7-10 – Sites with this range of PR scores generally fall under the same class. They are all extremely well-known in their niches as primary sources. Sites at this level set the tone for authority. Inbound links are in the millions and billions. They are often well-known brands, and almost invariably high traffic sites. You will likely never get an opportunity to buy a PR7-10 domain. If you can, under $10,000 would be a lovely price.

If you disagree of have more to add to my assessment, please comment below! Until then, when I feel like some geeky fun, I guess the PR of a site by the look of its homepage. You really do start to get a sense of the classification eventually.

Hopefully this clears some things up and helps explain why Pagerank and link value are important to any domainer, and why having a sense of how it works can add useful precision to domain assessment, helping you fetch the best justified price for your domain sales, and helping you find good deals.

Domain Homes

The domain names are the homes of websites. Sometimes homes are occupied, sometimes they’re abandoned. Sometimes they are bulldozed into nothingness, and sometimes they never were to begin with, even if the land always did. When buying domain names, this increasing scale of inexistence represents lower and lower cost for the would-be buyer of that domain. So domains currently in use are the most expensive, while a domain that never housed a site will cost you $7.49 nowadays.

Here is a basic breakdown of a decreasing value of a domain depending on its historical conditions:

Most Valuable

1. Owned, Online, Active, and Content-Rich
2. Owned, Online, Active, and Content-Poor
3. Owned, Online, Rarely Active, and Content-Rich
4. Owned, Online, No Longer Active, but Content-Rich
5. Owned, Online, Rarely Active, and Content-Poor
6. Owned, Online, No Longer Active, and Content-Poor
7. Was a Site There, Now Offline, and Content-Rich
8. Was a Site There, Now Offline, and Content-Poor
9. Never Was a Site There, But Domain Owned
10. Never Was a Site There, Domain Never Owned

Least Valuable

Now other factors can affect the value of a domain, so that a great name somehow never bought can be overall worth more than a bad name someone built a small site on, but that won’t be because of its history.

The value associated with the levels is not necessarily a reflection of its potential (although it usually is), but more of a reflection of the likely perceived value by the current domain owner, since it largely represents how much time they’ve put into it.

Tangible Historical Value

If we think of domain names as literal homes, imagine an abandoned house. Yes, the life may be gone from it, but there may be some furniture, and at least some walls. Also, the wiring, plumbing, and even roads that lead you there are still drivable. The previous content and residual inbound links represent this infrastructure.

Ancient Content

If the content had value before, there’s a decent chance it still has value now. Not all content can stand the test of time, but intentionally-written, decently-written material has worth. In buying a domain, you may or may not have secured the rights to content that existed before, and you may or may not decide to act in accordance with your rights.

A certain fraction of the content will be available through Archive.org. SEO toolbars often offer one-click access to the site’s Archive.org presence, which is where this past content can be harvested if no prior arrangement had been made.

For example, let’s have a look at Accessible Arlington, the first in a series of domain lessons (failures) that are to come. This was a $5 closeout domain sale ($5 + a basic registration cost) found through TDNam, Godaddy’s auction marketplace. I took the Archive.org pages, put them back up as soon as I bought the domain, exactly as they were. I figured it’s a resource that is potentially helping people. If the person doesn’t want to pay to renew the domain to keep offering it, maybe I am willing.

But the fact is, I didn’t buy the domain for its content, although I was happy it was there and relatively complete (in Archive.org terms). I bought it for the residual link value it had.

Ancient Links

Links are the primary means by which Google and other search engines attribute value to a particular site. They represent a vote of trust and popularity, handy for search engines to know what to rank, especially without knowing everyone’s traffic. Link value represents Pagerank (PR), the currency of ranking value, and is shown in SEO toolbars as Toolbar Pagerank (TBPR).

But what happens if you take over ownership of a site? What happens to that link value?

In theory, it’s supposed to disappear, as you would be getting value for what you didn’t yourself earn. Or is it? What if you bought a site, intending to take over from someone else with an identical site. It would be like a store owner handing their keys to the new owner. In doing so, it’s not like the roads to it would be torn up; they are part of what was purchased.

Across numerous domains I’ve bought at different stages relative to the deaths of their last sites, I have noticed a small PR drop. But what does this mean?

It could mean that Google has dinged me for an amount represented in the drop, remembering that the PR scale is logarithmic. But we can’t rely on TBPR as the ultimate mark of a site’s ability to rank, either.

In fact, the link value attained by buying expired domains is meant to be cut completely by Google. If they did cut it off entirely, might they still give it a TBPR score? Is selling for $5 in a clouseout sale the same as expiring? If Google can tell it’s a case of passed on ownership, the value is supposed to remain, buy how do we know? What are the best practices?

Not only is there a lack of clear communication between Google and site owners about this, but there’s a potentially overt, potentially hidden, potentially non-existent discussion between a buyer and a seller relative to this. To have any sense of this and include it as a factor in your buying or selling, you have to check out a domain’s current TBPR, check its backlink profile and see if the PR is legitimate and useful (also verifying whether or not it’s fake PR), and know that in taking over the new domain, all of these links might never ever matter.

Lovely, isn’t it?

On Accessible Arlington, my PR score on the home page dropped to zero (hence my willingness to discuss it), but the fact is the value dropped when the link to it disappeared, not, apparently, because Google wanted to punish me.

At the end of the day, even if Google is not going to pass on ranking benefit, domains with pre-existing content and especially domains with pre-existing backlinks and in turn PR will fetch a much heftier price. This price could reflect actual value, or, if Google is true to what they say (and can manage it effectively) then it could be a whole layer of valuation for absolutely nothing.

Respecting Old Age

The age of a site is a factor in determine its authority and, to an extent, its search engine ranking potential. If I buy an expired domain, and it keeps its PR, is the age of the previous version of the site still to my benefit? Maybe.

Traffic

Past links and authority could mean that a new domain might come with traffic already pouring in a little. Or, the traffic may be close at hand if it’s an exact match keyword domain and the bonus is around the corner. This benefit is likely to be small on an expired or for sale domain, but everything counts. And, if the site is currently running, the traffic value will be significant.

Yes, traffic is more a fact about the present than the past, but it’s still a consequence of the domain’s history.

The Bottom Line

Thieving or purchasing old content can jumpstart your web project. Related to this is the rest of the domain’s history, which may or may not count towards search engine rankings in the future.

Personally, in my case and in the cases of the people I know, the TBPR has stayed, and it seems like decent ranking ability has been passed along also. When I do buy, I accept the risks of the pre-existing value getting nullified. I try to put up a website that offers value to users so that what would otherwise be broken links actually point to decent websites (how dare I!), and know that even if pre-bought links do get devalued, that doesn’t mean that a person might see this old link, believe I am an authority, and also link to me, following the first site’s Google-devalued lead.

If you do decide to go down this road and buy a domain with established history, here are some summarizing tips to consider:

• If you are buying a whole site, get it transferred and up and running as soon as possible.
• The more usable content, the better.
• Even if you are buying an expired domain, get some content on it as soon as possible, and try to make it unique and of value.
• Start getting fresh links as soon as you can.
• The longer it’s been expired for, the greater the risk of devalue (theoretically).
• Try to have the niche of your site match the niche of the links coming in to obtain the best odds for the best value.
• Expect at least a small drop, and accept that a complete drop is possible.
• Don’t expect that lingering TBPR means lingering ranking potential. But that doesn’t mean you can’t sell it.
• If the PR comes from one strong link, there is risk in it all disappearing if that link is ever removed. The more diversified the link portfolio creating the PR, the more secure you are.