8 yr old site, 40k uniques/day, 10k Alexa, ZERO work required, $75,000 p.a. income

You mean, apart from earning the highest possible multiple. No other reason really. The need and eagerness to sell is quite weak to be honest, but I'll do it given the right offer.

 

As promised, screenshots are being gathered. The first 8 can be seen here

Three of them are vBulletin related, showing monthly posts and registrations for the last 17 months, and one to show user activity for the last 60 days.

The other five are from my premium ExtremeTracking account, detailing stats for NGEmu and it's forums and vba subdomains only.

The network has many other subdomains and two other main sites, pcsx.net and aldostools.com. None of them are being tracked by the ExtremeTracking account.... When taking everything into account, daily uniques are definitely in the 40k range as mentioned in the opening post.

Please note that by far the biggest two search referrers are visual boy advance (the name for our gameboy emulator), and ngemu which is the site's domain name. I can not stress how valuable this is. This would put the value of the domain alone in the 6 figures.

Also, please note that a very slight decline in traffic can be seen in the last 2-3 months.. this happened basicly after tribalfusion banners were introduced. TF slows down the pages and the one popup per user per 16 hours will obviously result in a 2-4% decline in overall daily uniques and pageviews. That is it. TF brings about approx. $1,500/month in earnings and increases CTR on Adsense in the process.. so the extra income is worth it, if you ask me.

More screenshots detailing income will be added soon.

 

spdude..move this to sitepoint..you'll find buyers there...

 

i second that, this is one of the best websites for sale that i saw on digitalpoint untill now, its really a pleasure to see quality websites instead of everyday's proxies,arcades and myspace websites..

 

$150,000. Yes, that's an offer subject to stats etc., being verified which, knowing the OP, I have no doubt will be OK.

No. B&M may fetch 4-5 years earnings, online businesses don't. Why? It's the perceived risk. And, let's face it - there are many. From a dodgy employee at your domain registrar to backups all going wonky together when you most need them. Similar things have happened to the best of sites. Remember sex.com getting "stolen" and webmasterworld going down with a Westhost problem that lost a large chunk of the database?

Further, your calculations are a bit naive which surprises me as I've followed your posts and buys both here and in SP for years now and know that you are anything but. Here are some extra costs that you left out:
1. Even if I buy all your optimistic assumptions about growth where did you factor in the cost of the money? Over 4-5 years that's a six figure sum even at 6-7%
2. One doesn't pay $400K for a business and leave it to run itself. You appoint at least one full time staff to keep an eye on your investment. You may not have done that or may have enough confidence in existing "free" moderators. I'm not investing hundreds of thousands of dollars on that trust in staff I don't know.
3. Not exactly a cost issue but a competition one: Why would I buy your $75K sites at $300K when I can buy three other established $25K sites for $50K each? (I offer 24x in my WTB threads). I don't believe you've ever offered enough justification for this 48x. You've bought a lot of sites in your time. Point me to one where you've bid 48x and if you haven't, why not?

 

Been thinking about it, and will probably do so after the weekend. Q & A occuring here will all be incorporated in the OP of that future sale's thread... so it's all good.

Positive rep given for the detailed comment. I will attempt to address this later in the day. If others want to comment on the pricing model, and whether it is justified or not, feel free to do so.

 

These are things which can be effectively avoided with minimum effort to the point where most will deem them negligible. B&M businesses have equivalents of everything you mentioned, but there also, certain measures can be taken to render the risks negligible.

When considering risk before online purchases people do not think about the above. Here are some things which should definitely be pondered upon though; possible SE penalties, traffic sources abruptly stopping, getting banned by Ad networks such as ypn (if that is the major source of income), legal/copyright related issues, and in the case of forums, staff fallouts and general chaos following a change in ownership, these are the things which need to be addressed. If peace of mind can be secured regarding this second list of risks then there is no reason why an elite few web properties can demand higher multiples of revenue than "some" B&M businesses.

The example I gave above was based on selling within a three year period. At 6-7% that is not a six figure amount. It is more like $60,000. In the example above, 300k was being locked up for three years resulting in $800,000, at a total cost (cost of money) of only $60,000. After recovering the $300k + $60k that leaves $440,000. I would say that is pretty damn good.

Simply monitoring the Adsense page impressions and clicks once a day is enough to keep an eye on the investment. Server side access should not be given to existing moderators. In addition remote backups of everything should be kept ready in a manner where things can be restored in minutes if a problem was to arise. Apart from that, I really see no reason why a full time employee would need to be dedicated and extra costs calculated.

Those are what we call steals. I'm always on the lookout for them just like you. I have no budget for such purchases. The problem is one of availability. The biggest reason I decided to create this thread, is the lack of such deals. They do occur, but are few and far apart.

Here is a site which was making only $30-50/month at the time (two Adsense units on every page) which I paid $12,500 for:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=129042&

There are others where I've paid $25,000 for something making $600/month, fully monetised also by the previous owner, to the point where they had just given up. There have been instances where I bought a site for $5,000 which was making $30/month.. I escalated traffic and revenue and earned $50,000 within 10 months and then sold for $65,000 (bought for 5k > earned 50k > sold for 65k)

NGEmu for me is similar.. I mean I have spent a grand total of 2-4 hours in 17 months playing around with ad integration in order to arrive at the current $6-7k/month. That is the extent of the effort made towards monetization.

There is an extremely high possibility of there being certain highly converting clickbank offers or azoogle campaigns or whatever out there with the potential to triple the income, things which I simply do not have knowledge of with regards to this particular niche. Now based on that, it would be foolish of me to demand 10 years revenue or something rediculous like that, but then I can't ignore it either.

This is why much of the asking price above is not tied to revenue alone. Forum size, user activity, sheer traffic, domain age, multiple DMOZ listings, typein traffic, branding, wikipedia dedicated page, authority status in Google for three sites within the network, and of course the Alexa graph just speaks for itself.

 

Spdude,

Your last post was perfect, I could not have said it better myself! A site is worth what someone wants to pay for it...End of story.

Putting a price solely, based on the revenue that it generates is not exactly too smart for the prospective buyer to do.

We own and operate several successful sites as well, and are always looking for others but like was said above, those are FEW and FAR between.

More about purchasing a site needs to be taken into consideration than just the money being generated.

In my opinion, you must have an interest in the topic...As strange as it may seem even if the money is flowing in you will quickly become bored and lose all interest in what you are doing....and guess what the money will slow down if not STOP.

Thats all for now ...Good luck with the sale!

 

LOL. Sure. I appreciate that as a seller you would make light of the risks but it is generally accepted that the relative risks for online businesses are high. That's why the much lower multiples. But you don't need to me tell you to just look around at sale threads here.

The last time you put this network up for sale it was making pretty much the same money ($6K per month/$72K per year) and you wanted "above $100K". While the earnings haven't gone up the price sure has!

You need that user activity, age, type-in...blah, blah, blah to generate those earnings. They underpin the earnings. Without all of that you have zilch earnings. So you want these merits factored into the price twice? C'mon, don't insult me, you know I'm not a n00b at this!

24x is a deal and there aren't many of them around but 48x is a fair price? Huh?

26 years income! Great, I've got several established, self-running sites I'll sell you at 3 years' income. And, if you think 4 years income is a fair price for an established, self running site start a WTB and you'll be flooded with deals. C'mon, you know that this is an opportunistic thread. You're hoping there'll be some naive idiot with money who'll pay well over the odds . That doesn't happen in DP for the six figure sites. My very reasonable offer stands.

 

We are not talking about relative risks in online businesses as opposed to risks in B&M. We are talking about possibly the first (or indeed one of the very few) 8 year old sites to ever come for sale at DP with these stats.

Yes yes.. that's the reason nothing like this site is coming for sale on dp since ages (this very thread was created out of boredom, as I alluded to earlier).. because sellers don't want to part with their guaranteed income for years to come AND securely invested funds in the form of premium sites which appreciate year after year, in exchange for a measely BS 24x.

$300,000 is "above" $100,000. I don't see any contradiction

More seriously though, as time passes better sites coming up for sale have become more and more scarce. The supply today is much less than it was nine months ago. On the other hand, demand is much more. The number of people waiting to pounce on established sites making x,xxx with a mid xx,xxx price tag is now huge. I believe others will also agree with me here. Isn't it logical that this will have an affect on pricing.

Secondly, I am seeing a 10-15% increase in income in the last two months. This increase has not continued long enough to affect the p.a. earnings significantly, but it is there nonetheless. Perhaps this will be more fully presented in the future sitepoint thread.

Thirdly, nine additional months of sustained earnings has made me recognise the value here more than I did back then.

I have a site which is missing 70% of the features present in this network. All it has going for it really is the domain age and some old content. No updating is being done on that site, because I'm not a fan of the topic and really can't find staff who would volunteer. I bought the site for low $x,xxx in late 2005. It earned a mind boggling quarter of a million dollars in 2006. Now it earns low $x,xxx/monthly and pays for my 2007 BMW... so I hang on to it. This was to illustrate that HUGE sustained earnings (one full year) without the majority of the mentioned merits is possible. It also shows that it is the degree to which the merits are found in a site which suggests how long these earnings will hold for.

hahahha.. the reason why there aren't many around is because sellers don't want to part with their guaranteed income for years to come AND securely invested funds in the form of premium sites the prices of which appreciate year after year, in exchange for a measely 24x. If and when they do come for sale at 24x, then of course it would be a deal, and it is this very scarcity coupled with increasing demand as outlined above which hikes up the price for those sellers who will not sell for less than a premium i.e. have no need to sell otherwise.

You think I regret buying Rare-extreme for $12,500, or I regret picking up that other site for 5k which was making $30/month, which ended up netting me $110k

My budget currently is $50,000. An extremely good site requiring a higher budget can force me to arrange more though. PM me the URL of your best site with approx. $1000-1400/month or slightly more income and if it meets or exceeds all the merits of the network in this thread, I'll gladly pay you 3 years revenue.

 

That's exactly what I was talking about. Online = higher relative risk and therefore lower multiple.

Great! I'll wait for the competition to out-bid me.

 

That's a non issue really. I would never debate that.

The issue is that even amongst established sites, valuation can differ drasticly, based on the degree to which the earlier mentioned merits are found within sites earning similar amounts.

Most might not bother, since they know I wont sell for slightly or even significantly higher than your bid.

 

Good luck with sale.
Have you got a listing on SitePoint too?

 

Will create it most probably after the weekend.

 

Here is some relevant info regarding PCSX.net which is one of the sites within the network I haven't yet dwelled upon in this thread. I just noticed that it too has its own dedicated wikipedia page

4 years have past without a single page edit.... and it continues to earn $20/day

In the month of June, from 75,000 Adsense page impressions the site made $550. Grand total earnings since March 2006 are $7148.77

The site's merits can be summarized as follows:

1. 7 year old established domain
2. Authority status with Google
3. Dedicated Wikipedia page
4. Continues to earn mid $xxx monthly since very long despite not being updated for four years.
5. If related sections were to be added, potential for more income is clearly there. The SEs would immediately rank the new sections. Both traffic and earnings can well double, if not triple with minimum effort.
6. Only method of monetization is one single Adsense unit.

 

I just wanted to congratulate you on the site.
Brilliant site, congratulations on it, good luck with the sale.

 

I agree with foggy 24x is very generous for online business.Sometimes it is tough to even get 10 months . Although some guy on DP is asking 9 years revenue for his site.Sitepoint is the place to get offers on higher priced websites.

 

Great sites but aren't your images alongside your top Adsense block on http://www.pcsx.net/ breaking Adsense T&C's ?

Regards,

Rich.

 

That is actually true. Since I normally don't visit pcsx.net often, never paid too much attention. Will have that image removed very soon. Perhaps it might even increase the earnings, since the unit never serves four ads anyways.

 

Just a heads up really mate - glad you took it like a man!

Would hate to see your Adsense account revoked. On your sites that would be disastrous!

Regards,

Rich.

p.s great network of sites - gl with the sales!