There are a few key tools in a Domainer’s arsenal – Estibot, Domain Tools, NameBio, etc. However one often overlooked tool is Compete.com – a service that provides free traffic estimation services. First – I’ll say the same thing about Compete.com as I do about Estibot – consider this an estimate and not an exact number. Still – an estimate of traffic volume can help make or break a domain purchase decision.
Here’s an example of a situation where a tool like Compete.com really helps me out. Someone contacts me about a domain they would like to sell – they tell me it gets 10,000 unique visitors/month. Using Compete.com I notice that the site’s traffic is too small to have even registered with Compete.com – there is a good chance this seller is lying to me.
If, on the other hand Compete.com showed 6,000 or 7,000 visitors I can assume that the seller is being mostly honest. Since Compete.com is only an estimate you could easily be receiving 10,000 visitors but have Compete.com only show 4,000-5,000 but it will always register! When a domain’s traffic is so low it doesn’t register on Compete.com, you know that any proclamation of traffic made by the seller is probably false.
While the Pro version of Compete.com is quite expensive, it provides you with a complete look at the analytics data for any site – it’s as if you had installed Google Analytics on someone else’s site! So if you’ve started buying revenue domains (on which traffic is a KEY factor) Compete.com can help you make sure you are buying a domain that meets the traffic expectations the seller is setting. Spending one minute doing a quick test could save you from wasting your money buying imaginary traffic!
So enjoy and remember…it’s just an estimate – but an estimate is better than nothing!
