Buying domains

[UFO.ORG]

This post is primarily about sellers inflating the traffic that they receive:

When buying a domain, there may be some reference to the amount of traffic (unique users looking it up).

Traffic is benefical in the context of free footfall (which is the same as a shop in a mall - the better placed etc gets more potential customers passing by). The value of free traffic is only that which doesn't need to be bought, and even then only where it is directed and useful traffic. A very generic name might have a very broad range of users looking it up, whereas a specific name will have accurate and targeted traffic.

Given a "click" is likely to set you back 10-20c US then the free traffic could be worth something, it could influence the price you pay for the name. 10 clicks a day x 20c x 365 = $730 USD Pa. At a 20% yield thats $3650 capitalised.

However, can you rely on a vendors stated traffic count?

Well, you can't unless you get months and months of log reports and sift through them. Bots can create uniques and repeat visitor counts on the traffic stats. The vendor could have other domains pointing at the domain which creates traffic. They could even simply buy it (less likely though). the domain might have a history and receive its current traffic from historical links on other sites. (These entropy over time, but not as much as you'd think strangely).

So, if you are relying on traffic as part of the purchase equation then gain at least 3-6 months of log reports and go through them line by line. You can do reverse look ups on the IP addresses at ripe.net and sample them also. (remember that traffic from all over the world isn't that valuable).