I have a website that is listed as a Google news source. It has a PageRank of 3.
Monetization is not the strong point of this site. I’ve sold text link ads which make about $100 a month and since last week I tried affiliate sales and that’s gotten me $120. Nothing substantial from Google Adsense either.
This website was largely abandoned by me for close to three years but I’ve been working on it for a few days now (less than a week) and it shows some promise. Yes, despite the abandoning it is still a valid Google news source and new stories show up on Google news.
Now I’m only looking to fund my new business by selling this web property. I’m looking at a five-figure range ($10K-20K).
Is it ready? Should I try my luck selling it? Or should I invest more efforts in this and wait till a certain revenue benchmark is reached before I can hope to sell it?
If you’re going to advise me to wait, according to you what is the revenue threshold I must break in order to make a $10K-$20K sale?
Consultancy part was a joke, as emphasized by the smiley!
The web property I want to sell has some things going for it, Google news source inclusion is big and can be quite profitable. However, I do need the $$ to fund advertising campaigns for my primary business and I have little motivation to build this other site I’m looking to let go.
In your article, “Guide To Acquiring Established Web Properties”, you pose as someone who is familiar with this subject. Why then would the invitation that follows to contact you for more advice be seen as a joke?
However, I do need the $$ to fund advertising campaigns for my primary business
Fair enough, but that can, at most, account for why you’re selling the site. It can’t be used to justify the price.
It is impossible to give you an idea of what you can expect to sell for as you’ve provided very little information - no traffic figures, no site age, no niche. Perhaps this Sitepoint article on valuation may give you a better idea.
In your article you provide “general information” on online acquisition i.e. you pose as someone who is familiar with this subject. Why then would the invitation that follows to contact you for more advice be seen as a joke?
Let’s not make this personal of what I claim to be or not. I appreciate your opinion and the time you’ve spent here. I write and speak a lot. Often I use humor. That blog post was not to “sell” my services.
I may know a little bit and am willing to help, but that doesn’t mean I’m not eager to learn nor am I closed to advise from others. I highly appreciate everybody’s input.
Thanks for the link. I’ve read that article earlier.
I can provide the rest of the details mentioned:
– Site founded - May 2007
– Strongest selling point - Listed as a Google News Source
– Back-end platform - PHP, MySQL, Wordpress
– PageRank - 3
– Niche - General purpose news
– Monetization - $100 per month through text link sales, Nothing substantial through Adsense and I made $120 in the last 5 days in the first time I tried affiliate sale.
I believe you’re of the opinion that the price I ask is a bit too high. That’s fair enough.
Clinton is just sick of people who have sigs that purport one thing and then those people ask the simplest of questions on SP which shows that they probably don’t know about it (the SEO forum here at SP is great for examples of that, you’ll have posts asking what a dofollow link is from people who are offering SEO services in their sig).
Anyway, back on track.
Your site has a track record of $100 a month so let’s go the high end and say 18 months revenue so we’re at $1800, seeing as it’s traffic is driven by news which needs to constantly be refreshed to keep traffic up let’s assume (if we hire a third-world writer) $50/month in expenses that has to be removed from that, so our actual profit is closer to $50/mth * 18 or $900.
So you would probably get (based on the scant information that you have provided at this point), $1000 for it. There would have to be some great unknown advantages to the domain/site to get $10k much less $20k.
I have to agree with tke71709. I was just starting to write when I saw his response! I really wonder where you base the figure 10 to 20 K on. And not only that! Is it ten or is it twenty? I find it quite a big difference between the two. I won’t repeat what tke71709 already said. You’re talking about a three year old site. FruitMedley Post asked for traffic figures which you don’t have or don’t want to share. You mention the site as a “Google news source” without any reference to that or what soever.
Oh and before I forget what are the articles listed in Google News?
@tke717709, Thanks for your response. I can understand where FMP is coming from.
Are evaluations made from current revenue only? Isn’t future potential taken into account.
That brings me to @donboe’s point. I can prove the Google News source listing to the seller. Obviously I’m not trying to sell it here in this thread so I don’t see a need to prove it here or share the URL at all.
What get’s listed in Google News on average every 15 minutes is news reports that I put out. These can be press releases or an India specific news agency that I am subscribed to. Opinions and analysis pieces on recent news events also get carried, usually real time (lag of 10-15 minutes).
@tke717709, the numbers you put out is what I was worried about. I guess I’ll have to work on this site and get probably good results for a quarter before I can convince buyers to see things my way.
Let me know anytime you’re willing to buy a site based on the seller’s estimation of potential. I own several billion dollars sites I could sell you for just a few hundred thousand dollars.
All investments are made because the investor thinks that it will be worth more in the future than they are today. I think this can be termed as “future potential”.
if a vendor has a website that is highly sought after by several buyers then the vendor will have a larger say in the final price than the buyer.
Vendors don’t have any say in the buyers’ valuation - that’s irrespective of how competitive the market is. When there’s more competition among buyers bidding will go higher. But bidding will never exceed the maximum price the highest bidder is willing to pay. The vendor plays no part in deciding bidding prices.
Every buyer has his own valuation of the site, but he will not necessarily offer that figure if he can pay less. Competition among bidders forces buyers to offer more but it will still always be within their valuation and their valuation isn’t influenced by the number of competing bidders.
All investments are made because the investor thinks that it will be worth more in the future than they are today. I think this can be termed as “future potential”.
You skirted the issue I raised. Valuation isn’t based on the seller’s perception of “future potential”. If you disagree you could have contacted me to buy the “big potential” sites I’m selling at a fraction of their “true worth”. It’s funny how some sellers wish sites to be valued based on this “potential”, but are reluctant to put their money where their mouth is.
The investor whose solely buying future cash flows… so they’re looking for 12 months revenue history and will go strictly by the numbers. Probably pay 5-12X earnings. Also check out SEO, traffic etc. But mainly earnings…
The developer who is purchasing based on other factors, site design, coding etc.
The problem is the developer can go ahead and build a site like that on there own.
So it seems the bulk of buyers are noobs (looking to build experience), and investors. You gotta get those numbers up before selling!
Why not work on it for a few more days and get it into even better shape? If you were able to make significant gains in just a few days, imagine you spent a week or two working on the site. Then you might have something in the ballpark of the selling prices you are looking for.
Your sig link points to a page that says you do paid consultancy for acquisitions 