E.O.I - One of the largest & most popular car websites online

Something I've been contemplating for quite a while now.

Since September 2003, I have set up ExoticCarSite.com in any spare time I have had. Basically an overview of the website is I have ~25,000 car wallpapers in 1600x1200, and 1024x768 resolution for car enthusiasts desktops.

Basically, in the past month 4 months I have lost interest in continuing the website and I have been incredibly slack by not doing many updates, thus affecting my world ranking, and sliding from inside the top 80,000 websites online, down to the current position somewhere around the 110,000 mark.

I had planned to do a complete overhaul of the website next year, and upgrade it to PHP, have a content management system, introduce a premium membership subscription with a few things my other competitors websites don't yet have, among other things.

But, being a complete amateur that I am, I have no knowledge of HTML [taught myself what I have learnt thus far through FrontPage], so PHP and a content management system is well beyond my reach.

Basically, I have a set price figure in my mind and I will consider selling the website, and everything required to run it. [All passwords, media site lists, webmaster email accounts, etc]. So as soon as you buy it, its yours, and I just walk away and put the money as a down payment on a house.

Site Overview:

Of the top 10 car multimedia websites online, ExoticCarSite.com is a definate top 10. Honestly, I'd say around the #5-8 mark.

The site has recently undergone transformation, and will be completed by years end. A member here, "Mystique" has been doing the update, and I'm sure Victoria will help iron out any questions or queries you may have, as she is the person who is doing the update for me.

To complete the update, only the header images need to be added to each folder for each car. This is around 1,000 images.

Revenue:

I have 4 advertising companies onboard supporting ExoticCarSite.com

Google Adsense - last month: $X,XXX

FastClick / ValueClick $XXX

IntelliTXT by Vibrant Media $XXX

Casalemedia $XXX

If you wish to know the revenue the website generates each month from these 4 advertisers, send me a PM.

I also have Road&Track, AutomobileMag & MotorTrend wanting banner advertising as of next month, as well as about 10 other emails from people wanting to pay money to have their site featured on ExoticCarSite.com.... I have also been approached by many advertising companies of late, offering me banner advertisements. These companies include the people who have the banners on Myspace.com, Xanga.com, Imageshack.us, Monster.com. Considering THEY approached ME, there must be something good to come of it. The site is currently not running any text link advertising, so a further $1000/month is easily attainable, since I know for a fact that automobilemag and Road&Track pay $500/wk to be featured on RSportscars.com in the right hand column....

Monthly Traffic:

~120,000 unique homepage views per month alone [that's not including hits to any of the other 2300 pages online]

~4,000-5,000 homepage hits per day. It used to be an average of 7,000 uniques per day, but with no updates for the past 4 months it has gradually rolled back to 4-5K.

150GB of bandwidth / month

5GB of space usage

Domain Name URLS:

1. ExoticCarSite.com
2. ExoticCarCommunity.com

Hosted:

The site is hosted on SanityTechnology.com, an Australian based company. The server I am hosted on though, is based in the United States [ThePlanet], with variable load balancing spread across 4 servers in the US. Basically, if one crashes, there are still 3 other servers that are hosting the site. Basically, you will NEVER have any downtime.

Serious offers only. I won't be replying to anyone who has low post count, or I feel isn't of genuine interest.

I'm looking for MID $XX,XXX.

Regards,
Brad

 

Forgot to mention the email subscritpion list is just a shade under 2000 people.

 

Bump.

Asking price is ~$32K

 

Sweet site - wish I had the cash!!

 

lol yer, its my baby, but its time to grow up, buy a house, rent it out, and move on with my life.

I just can't be bothered with anything to do with websites at the moment, nr have I been for the past 6 months. lol.

 

Best of luck with the sale... I'd like a link on there!

 

I am interested however the price you mentioned looks little high considering the revenue and other important stuff that i take in consideration when buying a site. If possible please send me all stats for at least past 3 months including traffic and revenue. Also please include referrer stats and any other figures or stats that can help make a buyer good decision. Please let me know how has site been advertised and if you are paying for any current advertisement, any links that are expiring soon? Whats the %age of organic traffic. AS MUCH DETAILS AS POSSIBLE thanks

EDIT: Also please let me know if the content is unique and who writes it if it is unique thanks

 

I am very interested in this site. Can you please PM me all the revenue details and referral stats

 

What did you do to the forum. Forums normally make up a big part of the value of sites like this. Did you kill it completely, or only put it offline?

 

ok guys, its been a week, and I finally have a day off.

I'll update you all with all the necessary info this afternoon / tomorrow.

I work 6 days a week, 12hrs a day, so I often don't have the time to pop on here to answer PM's etc.

But I'll login to everything and grab all the necessary details within the next 36hrs for you all.

 

Would you please pm me with stats and revenue details- thanks

 

good luck with the sale =)

good seller here people!!!!

 

please pm me all revenue screenshots and traffic/refferer screenshots. Thanks.

 

I think Jaree has asked all the questions required.

Please could you pm me with the same information. Thnx

ps there is a potential issue with the positioning of your ads next to images

 

WOW

This is a very impressive and fully featured website, listed in countless blogs and directories, including AboutUs.org.

Incidentally, I was writing on cars and found it after doing a research that led me to this post.

 

All I have to say is that writing about exotic cars for years you certainly deserve to get one!

 

Ok guys, sorry for the late reply. I have been sick with the flu for the past week, and as of today I'm finally out of bed and feeling much better.

I've sat here for the past say 30 minutes, logged into all the publisher revenue thingies and done my sums. It seems I have over calculated my profits, so having said that, I will drop my asking price to $25K US

Here's what you've all been waiting for. I haven't included screenshots as I would have to individually take screenshots of each month for each publisher. Thats like.... 48 images lol.

Revenue stats:

AdSense:
In the past 5 months, AdSense has paid: $6,000
In the past 6 months, AdSense has paid: $6200
In the past 12 months, AdSense has paid: $7670

Vibrant Media / IntelliTXT:
In the past 12 months, IntelliTXT has paid: $3650

FastClick / ValueClick:
In the past 6 months, FastClick has paid: $1400
In the past 12 months, FastClick has paid: $2891

CasaleMedia:
In the past 6 months, CasaleMedia has paid: $300
In the past 12 months, CasaleMedia has paid: $635


Now, considering i haven't done an update in the past 6 months, you can see the huge potential here. The reason why the profits have jumped so high within the past 6 months is due to focusing on clicks paying more, rather than just flashy ad banners that people hate. Before, I used to display my AdSense ads off the right, out of sight, just to fill gaps in the page.

At the moment (last week before being sick), I was in talks with buying a $330,000 house a few suburbs away from where I am, or buying an apartment block in the city for circa $400K. I haven't decided yet, but I do need this sold for a nice deposit lump sum for Mr Real Estate agent.

Now to answer some previous questions:

Traffic statistics and search engine stats etc, can be viewed here: http://www.exoticcarsite.com/stats/

I have never paid for advertising with this site. Every link you see on other websites are from exchanges etc. NO paid links!

Organic traffic sits at about 80%. Remember, I'm an amateur, I don't evne know HTML, lol, so SEO is certainly not something I know. Again, huge potential here for someone who knows what they are doing.

As for the written content. Some is mine, some is not. The content that is not mine, is free for editorial use only, thus copyright free, much like the images. The content that is mine, you are free to use and keep, as I don't care, I want a house lol.

I closed the forum down, as there was a spammer who continually spammed the forum. Not having any clue how to ban them via IP, I opted to close the forum.

LOL, thanks bud. AboutUs.org added me about 2 months ago. I remember the Google Alert I received from it. Thanks for the comments though

LOL. As much as I'd love an exotic car, here in Oz, they are just too expensive. I have a 2000 model Honda S2000. Cost me $37K. In the USA, you can buy them NEW for $37K, and still have some good change. Its my little exoticc though lol. Never see any around. I see more Ferraris & Lambos etc than I do S2000's lol. Appreciate the comment though

 

So within the past 6 months of being slack, lazy and losing interest, it still earnt ~$8-9K, from 4-5K uniques per day.

Take ity back to the 7-8-9K uniques it used to get, use the 2000 member newsletter subscription service to your advantage, and your set

 

Seems like over the last 12 months you were earning about $1200 a month on average. So based on the usual asking price of 10x monthly earnings that would be more like $12k.

 

10x (which isn't even right, but anyway) & 12x monthly earnings apply to crappy Myspace and ringtone / phone sites that have no real long term future IMO.

Basing your "average" off the past 6 months, for earnings of ~$9K. If you still wish to apply your MySpace theory of 10x or 12x based on that fact, you get $18K.

Thats based off the 12x theory. Which is exactly that. A theory.

I'm asking for less than 18 months worth of revenue for site that is well and truely established within the online auto community. As mentioned above by someone, who came across this thread whilst searching for car related stuff, and found this thread...

Its not some MySpace resource site. All my competitors are based within the ~25,000 top sites of Alexa (RSportscars.com - ~6000, Dieselstation.com - 16,000, NetCarShow.com - ~20,000, SeriousWheels.com - ~not sure, Fast-Autos.net - ~used to be 15,000 mark but due to lack of updates etc it has crashed to about 95,000) ExoticCarSite.com has more images, higher quality, bigger sizes than all of them. All it needs is some TLC from someone who actually know what they are doing, and it will be within the top 15,000 as well.

Original quality, highly respected non MFA websites will always fetch higher multiplier than crappy Myspace & ringtone sites with a return of just 12 months. Especially sites that can continue to grow so largely revenue wise without any updates from the past 5-6 months....