  As connected devices multiply and the internet matures into a ubiquitous
platform for exchange and communication, the question of what makes a domain
name valuable is ever more significant. Due to the scarcity of meaningful
vocabulary and the persistence of domain-related data, the buying and selling
of previously owned domain names, also known as the domain aftermarket, has
evolved into a billion dollar industry. Each day over a 100,000 domain names
expire and become available for re-registration. Manual appraisal is impossible
at such a volume; thus a method for the automated identification of valuable
domain names is called for. The aim of our study was to develop a method for
high throughput screening of domain names for rapid identification of the
valuable ones. Five different aspects that make a domain name valuable were
identified: name quality, domain authority, domain traffic, active domain age
and domain health. An SVM method was developed for high throughput screening of
domain names. Our method was able to identify valuable domain names with 97%
accuracy for the test set and 93% for the external set and can be used for
routinely screening the domain aftermarket.
