How to appraise website value in the current year?

I've been out of the SEO game for a good while now, but I still have some stuff running on 100% autopilot (membership sites) raking in a little here and a little there, on average $100 a month. Now I'm wondering if I should just sell off these sites as I have no interest in developing them any more, but they have great potential for a very nice monthly income, but how does one appraise a value for website in 2017? 6-12 months of revenue?

 

I loathe these types of posts. Generally these posts pertain to websites of minuscule value or worth. A website of value produces revenue and there would be a formed business. So the question would never be "How much is my site worth" but rather an evaluation of the company you own. So yea...every time this question pops up it pertains to a website of very little value if any.

Why would someone sell their web site? Here are some reasons...

1. They believe the money that they will receive from the sale will greatly out weight the generated income from running the site.

2. They believe the web site is dead or rapidly dying and it's not worth the effort in attempt to save.

3. Their web site doesn't generate income or potential but it was their "baby" so they want to sell to justify the wasted time spent on attempting to develop it.

Now that that's out of the way...... BEFORE you think about selling WHY are you selling? If it's an auto pilot web site that requires very little maintenance and generates $100/mo why wouldn't it be intelligent to hold on and continue to make $1,200 per year? Think about it...

Let's say you DO have a site of value and it would just BOTHER you to hold on to.... Then generally you can do 12x or 24x revenue to determine a simple sites worth. But again... WHY sell it?!?! I would NEVER sell a web site that generates $100 per month for $1,200. And most people probably wouldn't pay $X,XXX for such a web site unless there was a LENGTHY consistent revenue history. That's why it's very difficult to sell and buy low revenue web sites.

But whatever... odds are if you have "no interest in developing" your site (as you say) then there's a VERY good reason for it. And it sort of cancels out your comment about there being opportunity. You don't even see the opportunity in it to be interested........ So I'm going to say your site is worth $0.

 

Thanks for the reply. Let me address few things.

1. I am fairly certain that it would, as the money received could be used with a project I see more worthy of my time. Or just gamble it with cryptocurrencies.

2. This point can be made moot with checking long-term statistics of a site (sales, member growth, traffic...).

3. The sites here are in the adult niche, and I've run sites generating 10 times the money I do now because the affiliate company I was with stopped working with the market I preferred working with, and thus I just threw up white label stuff and let the things be. This is just to say that the sites are by no means special to me. I just don't really care for the 16-hours-a-day ratrace anymore, so building from the scratch doesn't interest me, I'm doing well enough with my current line of work.

Also I would argue that something generating more or less stable income is well-developed already, so there's no need to try and justify it - like you put it.

Because of the cost of business (essentially banking) being a hassle for someone without permanent address, so I'd like to cut off from stuff that doesn't really justify it. Also, like I said, most likely better ROI in other stuff.

I agree with you here, seems like I forgot to mention that there's consistent history of roughly 36 months and counting.

There's great opportunity, and tons of money to be made in the adult niche (I would know), but I'm old enough to value free time over working already. And yes, I'm not interested when I can earn my monthly pay faster doing something I really like, so there's no point in

 

Your site offers great opportunity to make great money but you aren't interested in it but want to invest your time in other projects? That means your site does not offer great opportunity or great money.

 

Typically it's 3x12 month's revenue, as I remember from Shark Tank. Or maybe it's 2x. So, let's say $2400+.

That's what I'd say. Maybe freshen it up a bit first. Give it a wax job.

 

Was that specifically for valuing an online business? Seems a bit high. Most established websites sell for 12-18 months revenue.

 

It's something like 2x earnings over a period of time, usually a year, I think. So, if he's making 100 per month. However, websites are so volatile that I would personally value it lower, maybe 600 -900, or something.

 

Well there ya go. You're saying it's worth 3 year's earnings but won't pay that. It's only worth what a buyer will pay for it.