Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Firstly, the money would be nice, however the site is only run as a hobby as I have an interest in the content published.
Secondly, the majority of income from the site is from AdSense, and it would take a couple years to reach the amount on offer. This is assuming G does not ban me, or the income drops way below my current earnings. On the other hand I could earn more than the amount on offer if AdSense continues for the long term.
Has anyone had to face a similar decision? That is, your site is making money from AdSense, and you're thinking about selling it.
If it is not, or the offer is too generous to refuse, you can reinvest the profits and begin another website. Perhaps on some other interest you have, or depending on your contract with the buyer, even something similar to what you already have. (Though I would imagine someone offering that kind of money for a website would not want you competing in the same area)
And the offer blew you away at first so I assume the amount is much higher than you anticipated if you were planning to sell it?
You can always redo another site but you might not get the same offer again.
only interested buyers will do so. most of times, they are just looking for more information.
it would take a couple years to reach the amount on offer
2 years income?
Why sell so cheap? Unreliable traffic? Fad hobby?
$$$,$$$ means you are making ~ $50,000+/year from AdSense alone. IF being banned was likely I would think your income stream would have attracted scrutiny by now - so why haven't you been banned already? You haven't been banned because you must be doing something right - so just keep doing that.
If it's a "couple years income" what will you do to replace that income versus keeping that nice income stream going into the future?
Recently I read about one major site that had 1 million yearly earnings from Adsense, but their company is priced at 64 million. I mean 64 times more than the earnings.
It all depends on how much is your site diversified, where the traffic comes from? From Adword? From just one keyword? or from 1000 keywords or more.
So it depends on many factors. Be careful, don't sell cheap.
I would not sell my site if I was offered 100 times more than what I earn today.
There was a very well discussed thread about this some time ago.
So, the offer is extremely good, and I would go for it, UNLESS
1) they are just fishing for information
2) it's a scam (insist on an escrow service etc. etc)
3) you are WAY under-exploiting your site and there are other ways to make money apart form Adsense
best luck
This could be true, but the price is what they want to pay and what you are willing to take.
It again depends on the future of the site. If the future is greatly diversified and great, why would you sell for 10 months price?
1) the % of actual sales publicly reported (not very high %);
2) who is reporting the sales (buyers like to confirm lower numbers publicly);
3) average is a statisitical term, so IF most sales are of a particular quality AND your website has distinct qualities THEN reliance upon averages is detrimental;
There's a lot that goes into the analysis and I don't have time to set forth a full explanation. Take a look at this:
[webmasterworld.com...]
The thread is about the sale of domains BUT the core analysis overlaps with general issues involved in website sales, especially issues relating to sources of traffic since - all other things being equal - "traffic = money" is a large part of the equation when it comes to a cybersale. Traffic coming from a wide variety of "non-cost channels" is especially valuable.
I'd settle for 10 months revenue IFF (if and only if) the traffic was running on vapors, the content was of short-lived value (not evergreen), the subject matter was "popular" (versus longstanding), etc.
[webmasterworld.com...]
Especially post #65, page 7, where chicagohh quotes his own statistics. He doesn't say how many sites in the sample, but the result is an average of 9.48 x mobthly income
And yes, I know there are A LOT of other factors to consider, but I was just saying that ON AVERAGE sites get sold for 10x the monthly income.
Al this said, I have a site with income of 300-400$ per month that I (think I) would not sell for 20k, considering other factors:
1) it's an authority in its niche, so it has a VERY steady traffic, inlinks being added avery day from reputable sources, PR growing at every refresh etc.
2) I know it has far more potential than adsense alone, so I am planning to develop it
3) it has good intellectual property assets that can be used outside the Web (a factor that VERY few sites have)
So, yes, there are a LOT of other factors!
so IF most sales are of a particular quality AND your website has distinct qualities
Good point. A lot of the sites that go up for sale on webmaster type auction boards are pretty junky.
Recently I read about one major site that had 1 million yearly earnings from Adsense, but their company is priced at 64 million. I mean 64 times more than the earnings.
That was Topix.net, which the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain bought for its ad-optimization technology, not for its revenues. (Its revenues are unspectacular for a site with its level of traffic, but it's doing some very interesting things with targeting of AdSense ads to individual users.)
It may well be they are about to compete against your site, and are trying to figure out if its worth it.
Aside from this, I agree with the current low-valuation theory. If you site has, say, 50% or more traffic NOT from Google, but inbound link and the like, you can definitely charge more. All in all, if you have no great plans to massively expand the site and thus revenue over the next few years, I don't think there's a better time to sell than now.
Its revenues are unspectacular for a site with its level of traffic, but it's doing some very interesting things with targeting of AdSense ads to individual users.
Not sure I really understand.
If the optimisation it's doing is that interesting, why are its revenues unspectacular?
Not sure I really understand.
If I understand EFV's post correctly, the buyer may have been more interested in the technology itself than the site to which it is currently applied. ($64M does sound like quite a bit for just the technology, though...)
If they are not going to require you to sign a non-compete then I would take the money, have a nice vacation, get organized and start another site.
Good luck & congrats!
If the optimisation it's doing is that interesting, why are its revenues unspectacular?
Probably because it's a general-interest aggregator site for news and features (sort of like Google News with more topics).
A dollar today is much more valualble then a dollar tomorrow.
Sell it.
Build another.
Don't worry about $ for awhile.
What's stopping you? If it's price, ask for more then they're offering. Do a little negotiation. If they hit your number, do it.
