Would you buy a site with 80% reliance on AdSense?

Is it wise?

[Richie0x]

I have the opportunity to do it, but I'm worried about taking out a substantial business loan to buy the website, as 80% of it's revenue comes from AdSense and I'm not sure if it's reliable enough. I know for a fact that if I buy the website, I could double the AdSense revenue and pay back the loan within two years. I'm very confident about that as I've run my own website for 6 years now, so I know what to do. I'm just nervous because AdSense (and Google for that matter) can be so unreliable. Any ideas or suggestions?

[lgn1]

Didn't somebody say that adsense accounts were non-transferable. Im not sure if that still applies, or would apply if you bought a limited company that had an adsense account (as the limited company, as a virtual person, would be the owner of the adsense account), not you.

Sounds risky however, to buy a company that depends on a single fickle source for 80% of its income.

[Essex_boy]

Its easy enough to change the script to your account codes though.

Thats a call your going to have to make, can you afford the repayments of the loan if the adsense money dried up?

[Broadway]

I can understand you concerns, being a webmaster who has a site that the vast majority of it's income comes from Adsense. We all worry about what might happen if we lost our Adsense accounts.

Are there affiliate programs that might be a good match for the site if you needed another income stream.

The Yahoo Publisher Network does well for some. Might this be an option in an emergency, at least in the sense that it could provide enough income to at least service the loan.

[vibgyor79]

>>> I could double the AdSense revenue and pay back the loan within two years.

Does this mean that even after you double the Adsense revenue, it would still take 2 years to breakeven? Looks like the seller is asking for 3 to 4 times the yearly revenues. That looks expensive.

According to me, 80% AdSense is not the real issue. AdSense can be replaced by alternatives (affiliate programs, YPN etc) for most of the commerical sites. The real issues would be -

- Asking price
- Source/reliability of website traffic