Be Wary Of Stats

When it comes to purchasing domain names on the “drops” (expired auctions), both Netfleet and Drop publish stats to assist prospective buyers.

These stats generally include “monthly exact searches” on Google; along with CPC (cost per click). Drop also publishes the number of links the domain has; and Netfleet gives you a DA score (domain authority).

As you can see from the examples given below, this could be a dangerous path to tread. Now before anyone suggests that I’m alleging some sort of skullduggery, I am not! It’s just that their API feeds are currently inaccurate.

Drop.com.au

When it comes to Drop, all I can suggest is that you totally ignore their stats. As most of my regular readers know, I love Drop.com.au – however, in my experience, they have never had stats that are anywhere near accurate! They are aware of this, as I often tease them about it.

Let’s look at one example today:

Hip.com.au – Phrase: hip, Monthly search volume (AU): 880, Suggested bid: $4.36, Links in: 5

What does Google actually say? Monthly search volume is 3600 exacts; low competition; no CPC mentioned.

Netfleet

I’ve always found NF to be very accurate with their stats, however, something has gone awry in the past couple of weeks. Their stats can no longer be relied on either.

Now I’m not generally a “stats man” when it comes to deciding on which domains to buy, but yesterday I noticed a real howler on Netfleet’s auction page. The domain name leatherjackets.com.au showed only 10 monthly exacts; $0.00 CPC and no DA score.

In reality, it had 12,100 monthly exacts; $1.39 CPC; high competition.

So back to the Hip.com.au example. We’ve seen what Drop says; so what does NF say?

590 monthly exacts; $0.39 CPC and a DA score of 21 (as mentioned, Google says 3600 exacts).

Buyer Beware

So the moral to the story is that if you rely on stats to help you decide on a domain name, you best do your own homework in the interim!

Good luck on the drops. 🙂

Ned O’Meara – 11th June 2106