Expert Domain Reviews

We are pleased to announce a new process that will involve naming experts from our community in our Premium Domain curation process.

This process is designed with a goal to ensure that our curation process takes into account feedback from multiple naming and domain experts.

As mentioned in the article, there are several incentives offered to Expert Domain Reviewers. If you would become an Expert Domain Reviewer, please note that we currently have limited slots available.

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We have a proverb: one head is good, and two is even better! The more experts, the better the quality. Will experts consider new domains or domain requests too?

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@grant

Will this eventually extend to unregistered names? (obviously, youā€™ll have to have a report button if the name is registered and remove any reviewer registering a name).

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Iā€™d also like to suggest that any description added is also seen. Reviewers are unlikely to know if a submission is a word in another language.

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@AbleBrands it is unlikely we will open unregistered names for expert reviews. We believe that the risks involved with that approach significantly outweigh the rewards.

Since most domains are submitted without a description, we believe this can potentially skew the voting process (in favor of domains which include a description). We may test this concept in future. In the meantime, we recommend using the Request Review feature for any rejected domains for which you believe a description or an additional context would have helped.

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thank you for this, in case domain expert also a squadhelp creative,even though they may not register the domains, but theres possibility to submit those unregistered domains to some contests.

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It is now very hard to get domains approved! Can you do something about it?

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I have to admit that getting expert approval has become incredibly difficult

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Allow me to just say, maybe the difficulty is in that the process has changed. SH has said, to my understanding, that several reviewers now get to evaluate one name. Maybe they only accept those that are on par with what they want for the MP as well as when a couple or a few reviewers all agree. Before this, we donā€™t know what the process was other than it was SH employees that were doing this. Maybe at that time, only one employee had to give the go-ahead for it to be approved. Now maybe a few ā€˜expertā€™, meaning people that are in this industry already, have to agree and then SH gets final decision.

Also allow me to point out that there is a pandemic going on across the world right now. Domain sales in general and trends reflect this and things are difficult in general. It is also why we are getting a surge of non-guaranteed and low-reward contests. We cannot, right now, make comparisons to what was commonplace months ago to now. The commonplace has changed. People donā€™t know what businesses will make it right now or if their businesses will even be able to start. People are being careful. Businesses are closing. Startups are being delayed. Employees are getting laid-off r even released from their duties. Everything is difficult, right now. Hopefully we ALL will be able to make something decent of the world through all of this and coming away from this. But, we have to keep these factors in mind. For everything we do. Things are not ā€˜business as usualā€™ right now for any industry. Letā€™s just make the most of it and be happy that SH is doing their best to remain open, provide support, provide help, and still give us all something to do when who knows what tomorrow may bring. This is a time for us, at least, to be thankful that things are still even chugging along ā€¦ domains are getting reviewed at all, contests are still going, and things are still happening.

Iā€™m thankful and Iā€™m thankful to SH and the reviewers that are just trying to make the best of these very questionable times.

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@grant That is sort of the idea! If your name means something that isnā€™t immediately obvious, or if you want to get across that it can appeal to many categories, then surely it makes sense that the reviewers should be told this.

It would also encourage submitters to put descriptions in their names. I see so many names without descriptions in the marketplace, which apart from being annoying (OCD, I like to be tidy), doesnā€™t help SH SEO.

I get frustrated as a submitter that I canā€™t get my message across, and just as frustrated as a reviewer when I google a name and find a great reason for it to be accepted, but then see it doesnā€™t make it. Obviously, the other reviewers didnā€™t see what I saw when I googled.

Iā€™m hoping you do go ahead and test this in the future :slight_smile:

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@grant has SH been reviewing descriptions on names from the beginning if they are there?

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Long time domainer, new to SH though, or only recently started submitting names to the marketplace here. My question pertains to the expert reviewers, those selected who have a proven track record here. The process has changed recently. I have several names @20 reviews with 5 or more approvals each. Theyā€™re kind of sitting there, not sure if itā€™s worth it to write a description for each now. I stopped doing that when I realized reviewers not staff were just looking at a name. So would it help, say, if suppose staff now takes a look depending on what the process is, to write a description?

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Since expert reviewers are introduced into the process, I am quite happy because , not only the reviewing process shorten from 5-6days to 1-3 days, but also , my approval rate increase from 2-5% to 8-15% roughly.

How can I apply to become expert reviewers ? I have contacted support , they said will review my account but i think after 1 month , still no update .

How do u know you got 5 approvals out of 20 reviews ? I donā€™t see ā€œno of approvalsā€ but can see only ā€œno of Reviewsā€

It is my understanding their criteria is a combination of the following: In order to qualify, you must meet one or more of these conditions:

  • You have an excellent Approval rate at SH
  • You are a Tier A creative at SH
  • You are a successful domain investor with a strong, brandable domain portfolio

It seems like the reviewers who have identified themselves so far are a combination of all of the above. Tier A, strong ā€˜salesā€™, and high approval rate. By approval rate it would need to likely be 50% and above. For example, on another platform their goal is 80% approval. The site average on SH is 11% so you would need to be way above that. Though Iā€™ve been in the brandable marketplace for 6 years and have had some success, it will take me awhile to get to where I need to be on this platform.

Thanks Terrafirma but are you sure all of the reviewers have approval rate of more than 50% ? I donā€™t think so. Maybe only less than 5 of themā€¦they are more than 30 reviewersā€¦:slight_smile:

Iā€™m not sure but itā€™s my best guess that a vast majority are on the upper tier, yes. I just started submitting here and Iā€™m at about 32% approval and I hope to bump that up. Me personally, I wouldnā€™t be comfortable having reviewers who didnā€™t have strong sales and/or 50%+ approval rating, TierA looking at my names. Iā€™ve been on all the main marketplaces (5, now 4) and Iā€™m excited by the growth of this platform. (I signed up 2 years ago but didnā€™t pursue until now).

I worded it incorrectly, when I meant to say ā€˜likesā€™. This appeared via email and notification tab.

Awesome 30%. May I ask, how many names have you submitted? and how many have been approved?

I was like you, when i first started, I submit the best names because only limited to 10 name submission. And I got around that mark, 30% - 40%. But then when my account was approved to submit more names, I started submitted hundreds and even thousands of names. And thatā€™s when the rate reduced.

When we submit 1000 names, its impossible to get 300-500 names approved. I am impressed if you got that mark :slight_smile:

How many names have you submitted?

Something to add, this SH platform, is actually more of a brandable name platform. My mistake was, I submit premium domains but rejected because it doesnā€™t meet the ā€œbrandableā€ requirement. For example, NewYorkBroker.com or LasVegasLawyer.com which are worth thousands of dollars each, but they will be rejected from the Premium SH names because they are not ā€œbrandableā€ type of names that SH is looking for.

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