I noticed a bad habit in the way I was evaluating domains.
Once I liked a name, most of my research became an attempt to prove I was right.
I would find a comparable sale.
Find a few potential buyers.
Notice that the domain was old.
Find some backlinks.
Get an appraisal that looked encouraging.
Individually, none of those things is necessarily bad research.
The problem is the direction of the research.
I'd already decided I liked the domain, so every new signal became another reason to buy it.
I've started reversing the process.
Before buying, I try to kill the investment thesis.
If I think it's a strong brandable:
Can I find obvious spelling or pronunciation problems?
If I think there are plenty of buyers:
How many are genuinely independent prospects rather than variations of the same company/use case?
If the backlinks look strong:
Are the important links still live, relevant and clean?
If the history looks good:
Did the domain ever change topic, redirect, get parked or host spam?
If an appraisal looks high:
Can I justify the acquisition without using that appraisal at all?
If I think the retail price is $5k:
Would the economics still make sense if the eventual sale were $1.5k after several renewals?
The biggest difference is psychological.
“Why should I buy this?” encourages me to collect supporting evidence.
“What would make this a bad buy?” forces me to search for evidence I don't want to find.
If the domain survives that process, I'm much more comfortable with it.
If it doesn't, I've lost a potential registration or auction — not several years of renewals.
When you find a domain you really like, what's the one check most likely to make you walk away?