UK based after market site?

[Edwin]

Originally Posted by foz

theblackbook_co_uk

constructionsupport_co_uk

No. Not if I was judging, anyway (which, perhaps fortunately, I won't be).

blackbook/co/uk would make it in, but the "the" kills it.

constructionsupport/co/uk only has 28 exacts and no companies seem to be competing over the term if you scan through the organic SERPS, so it's not commercially significant.

[foz]

Originally Posted by Edwin

No. Not if I was judging, anyway (which, perhaps fortunately, I won't be).

blackbook/co/uk would make it in, but the "the" kills it.

constructionsupport/co/uk only has 28 exacts and no companies seem to be competing over the term if you scan through the organic SERPS, so it's not commercially significant.

1st is under offer and the 2nd has been sold. Both over £450+

And that's just for today.

[Edwin]

Originally Posted by Skinner

Edwin, present your case, How would you determine what is accepted and what is denied ?

Is the domain name the category killer in its niche, or at an equivalent (or, at the very least, commercially viable) level if several category killers exist?

Cars/co/uk - category killer for "cars"
UsedCars/co/uk - category killer for "used cars"
SecondHandCars/co/uk - acceptable alternative to category killer, based on keyword numbers, advertisers, SERPS competitiveness etc.
CheapUsedCars/co/uk - already getting into the "qualifiers" so borderline. Certainly no category killer, but a case might be made for inclusion.
---
GreenUsedCars/co/uk - far too specific a qualifier, commercially minor, nobody's going to pay big money for it. Out.
UsedCarTube/co/uk - "brandable", so automatically "out"

and so on.

Basically, some qualifiers (colours, sizes, materials, etc.) may be ok depending on the specifics of the keyphrase. Others automatically push the domain into the "too specific for its own good".

NOTE: a domain can be a category killer for a small niche and still be potentially relevant, as long as that niche is itself commercially significant AND the domain really is the best for that niche.

[Edwin]

Originally Posted by foz

1st is under offer and the 2nd has been sold. Both over £450+

And that's just for today.

Proves nothing. The sales charts at DNJournal every single week show that names can sell that nobody would imagine could ever sell - and certainly not for the amounts they ultimately realise.

Doesn't mean that it makes sense for some startup trying to best Sedo and Afternic at their own game to list them... because for every "outlier" success story of that type, there are 10,000 names that don't sell and never will.

Sedo has succeeded so far precisely because they don't know what will sell - so they've aggregated 20,000,000 lottery tickets and they only need a few to pay off for them to start coining it, because entering the lottery (= getting people to list their name) costs them essentially nothing.

But the new startup won't be operating in a vacuum. Sedo already exists, and they pretty much have a de-facto monopoly on "piling up any and every domain name, and see what sticks" approach. So an entirely DIFFERENT approach is needed.

[Skinner]

So looking at the first 20 names on your text list.

memorabledomains.co.uk/domlist/alpha.txt

How many and which of those would you accept ?

Why would you not go with the moderation queue to get multiple 'selected' peoples opinion ?

[Edwin]

Probably 16mmfilm/co/uk (it's the category killer for people who need that particular film format) and maybe a couple of the caravan ones. I'd have to check the Google exacts to determine which, and also look at what they sold for and how many advertisers were competing for the term.

[Skinner]

I'm not sold on your idea's of selection Edwin, I think it should be a group who decided almost like a Jury but thats just me.

[foz]

I know what sells in volume and its not SEO loaded keyword domains (for me).

[Edwin]

Originally Posted by Skinner

I'm not sold on your idea's of selection Edwin, I think it should be a group who decided almost like a Jury but thats just me.

As long as the people picked to go on the "jury" had the backbone to turn down domain after domain after domain until they came across something truly worth listing, I don't see why your idea wouldn't work! It certainly makes sense to spread the load, that's for sure.

Maybe set it up a bit like the computers in the Space Shuttle. From memory, I think they have something like 5 different computers, and each transaction is computed in quintuplicate. There have to be 3 identical answers (or 4? anyway, it's the principle that counts) for the output to be acted upon.

Similarly, if for example 5 people voted (anonymously) on each domain name, then it would take 3 (or 4) "yes" votes out of 5 to keep the domain name, and only 2 (or 1 if you want to be really cautious) to exclude it.

The voting itself should be quick, decisive and final. If a decision is open to "appeal" suddenly the whole process bogs down in a quicksand of recriminations and accusations from which it will never escape.

The jurors could themselves be (automatically) policed: if a juror consistently votes "the other way" from his/her peers (e.g. takes the contrarian view 30% or more of the time, or whatever quality threshold is deemed appropriate) then they are automatically barred from further voting until their situation can be reviewed, and an alternate juror gets thrown into the mix.

Combine that with for example automatically and anonymously forming random groups of 5 jurors for every single domain name, drawn from a larger pool (e.g. 20 jurors total) and you have a rather nicely self-policing system. Each domain name is judged by a different set of eyes, and no juror will know (nor will any end-user) who else is voting on a particular domain nor how they voted.

[Skinner]

I don't think an appeal process is required either, I think just a time limit 6-9-12 months until resubmission would be a better idea, which allows time for the domain to come into fashion for emerging tech names for example.

I would go for a larger number than 5, I'd aim for a group for 20-40 people, which would mean on any given day 10+ would be available to moderate. If you went with 5, and 1 goes on holiday or whatever your going to have troubles, so a larger group is the way.

The voting system on the other site, had a consistency rating, which weights each jurors pull based on past performance, so people who vote against the norm carry less weight than those who vote to the norm.

I like the kinda double blind voting option of 5 selected per name from a larger pool, but I think doing that, you would need to factor in how active the decision makers are, so you don';t end up with 5 people who login weekly.