Ask HN: Request for feedback on my idea

[webstartupper]

I wrote some code to help me filter out good domains listed on GoDaddy Auctions from the bad ones. I wrote this for the following reasons -

1. GoDaddy does not show page rank, information on backlinks or pages crawled by google.

2. There are many domains that show a fake page rank by redirecting to a high page rank domain. I ended up buying such lemons :(

3. There are domains that do not show up when you do a google search for info:domainname.com. This is definitely something to be checked up on before buying a domain.

Since it worked for me, I figured it could help others out there who use GoDaddy Auctions. I would like your feedback on the following points -

1. Does this add value to others who use GoDaddy auctions?

2. What do you think about the usability of the app?

3. I thought the name was cute - Do you think I'd face any issues with it? (legal issues from GoDaddy)

4. How could I monetize it? Do you think its valuable enough to pay a monthly fee - $10 a month?

Here is the URL - http://www.gomommyauctions.com

Entries listed with a red page rank are potential scam domains. You can click on the page rank to get additional information on the domain that it is redirected to. You can also click on Google index and links to get additional information.

Please feel free to rip my idea to shreds. I can take the criticism :)

[steventruong]

Does this add value to others who use GoDaddy auctions?

Somebody somewhere out there will find value for this. I just don't know what that number is for you.

...

What do you think about the usability of the app?

I personally don't care about pagerank when looking for a domain. I care more about the domain itself. Others my differ. Just a personal preference. In my experience, pagerank is meaningless.

...

I thought the name was cute - Do you think I'd face any issues with it? (legal issues from GoDaddy)

GoDaddy also owns gomommy.com so not sure. In the grand scheme of things, probably unlikely but I'm not a lawyer and this is purely an opinion.

...

How could I monetize it? Do you think its valuable enough to pay a monthly fee - $10 a month?

I personally wouldn't pay for a service like this but someone else might. Not exactly the most helpful answer but there is a target audience for most things. You just gotta go find them.

[itsprofitbaron]

First of all, I think I should point out that I released a free guide in 2007 showing people how to buy and sell domains whilst making a large profit on them & this method involved GoDaddy Auctions (TDNam).

With regards to the service you are providing I think it’s one of the closest offerings to my guide in doing the filtering for domains.

However, I'm not here to talk about the guide I'm here to answer some of your questions.

First of all, it does add some value to GoDaddy Auctions to the normal user but there are some features missing which would improve the usability and functionality of the service.

Whilst the usability of it is 'OK' although when you compare it to other domain services it’s actually a LOT better than others - there’s a few features such as 'price', ability to filter domain extension, remove hyphens etc that need to be added and also the 200 limit isn't as much as when I'm using GoDaddy Auctions, I'm always selecting the 500 option (and then I still think 500 is too limiting!)

There are other types of auctions on GoDaddy Auctions - a lot of trades happen around "buy it now" and a few other options which your service doesn't seem to pull them - you really should.

I'm not sure about the issues with regards to GoDaddy itself as they own gomommy.com (which redirects to GoDaddy) and I'm not sure if they hold a trademark on "GoMommy" but you should definitely look into it from a trademark perspective.

With regards to monetization of the service, there are a few ways you could do it - one way is via a fee - although $10/month is a little high for it as it currently stands and you also need to compare this to TDNam (GoDaddy Auctions) that the price point is only $5/year.

If you are looking to charge for the service, then you definitely should add a lot more features to the service (including some of the ones I listed above).

However, there’s also incorporating GoDaddy's Affiliate Programme into the service - so that whenever anyone buys the domain, you get a % of the sale. This wouldn't even be hard to incorporate as they already get to the auction clicking the link anyway so it’s just slightly modifying the links to incorporate your affiliate code.

Additionally, you could also offer a 'free' and 'paid' services - the 'free' being the one currently as it stands (although I would still add some features) which incorporates the affiliate option and the 'paid' having a lot more features whilst still incorporating the affiliate links.

[webstartupper → itsprofitbaron]

Thank you for the comments Nicholas. I found your suggestions very useful. I made the changes to show 1000 records and plan to add an advanced search to incorporate your other suggestions.

I have been unable to find the free guide you released in 2007. Could you please post a link here?

[webstartupper]

Clickable Link - http://www.gomommyauctions.com

[AznHisoka]

the service works best as a 'credit report for domains'. perhaps analyze a domain someone enters and give them a report with all the due diligence