Need to price FreshDames.com please

When I started playing around with web design a few years ago, freshdames.com was my playing ground for learning, having fun, etc.

I'd like to go ahead and sell it if possible to generate some venture capital to focus on some other web projects. It's time to move on ....

A few facts/stats:

The domain is 2 years old.
Has roughly 1K pages indexed in Google (depending on datacenter)
Home page currently PR4
15-20K visitors per day (main site and 11 subdomains collectively)
Current total montly income made from freshdames is about 1200USD

Now, a few questions:

What other factors, facts, and/or stats might a potential buyer want to know?
What is a fair asking price?
How best to market it?
Should it be done through an escrow service? If so, at my expense or added to the selling price?

Some help, ideas, etc. would be greatly appreciated ~ thanks!

 

A couple other factors are how long has it been making that monthly figure and what kind of maintainance does the site need.

 

If you are unclear or uncertain about the buyer then Escrow is a reasonable solution to help protect you from chargebacks and fraud.

Fair asking price ...? Rule of thumb is roughly 10 - 12 x monthly income so that would set you in the range of $12 - $15k, however, that means finding a buyer who has that kind of ready cash and is interested in the site so you may have to settle for a lower price (as low as 6 x monthly) unless you are prepared to wait.

Things buyers might want to know:
Obviously, income over a period of months - i.e. is the income sustained
Do you use PPC to help drive traffic?
How do you get your traffic? Is it from search engines, referrals, ..., what?
How is the site updated?
Is all material copyrighted and relevent permissions included in the sale?
Sources for updating the site.
Additional costs.

Hope this gives you a few ideas ...

 

Mcfox covered it all, just dont forget to break down how you get all the revenue.

 

Great advice so far; thanks!

I think I'm going to take some quality time to "profile" the site on paper and get a better feel for it.

I'm thinking of having a professional appraisal done on it while I gather stats and other points mentioned above.

Is there an appraisale service that's widely accepted/recognized?

 

You could try www.Sedo.com but I don't know what they're like for appraising websites. It's a service they do offer but I've only used their domain appraisal service.

 

In my opinion there is no good service, you will just waste money... people will pay what they are willing to pay... :/

 

Seems like a hot porn site domain, to me. I'd say mid $xx to low $xxx for the domain alone.

 

Thanks for the recommendation - I went ahead and paid for a higher end website appraisal from Sedo. So far, I am actually impressed because it has not been returned in the promised 3 days ... someone who works there as a domain broker has sent me some inquiry emails regarding traffic and other stats - hopefully indicating that it is an in-depth look and consideration and not merely a cut/paste formula and response. I'm hoping the age, PR, traffic, SERP of solid/competitive keywords, etc. will prove fruitful; if not, I'll hang on to it and milk the traffic for all it's worth. I'll let you know - thanks.

 

Please let us know what you think of Sedo's services once they're done too

 

No prob - I'll give feedback as soon as they give me something to give some on ... I did it / paid on the 5th (Apr) so I'm guessing anytime since they say 3-day turnaround.

 

Got the appraisal back today from Sedo.

I have to say that I was a bit surprised, and pleasantly so.

The appraisal was not a glowing endorsement of the domain and site even though it was a paid service - quite objectively spelled out.

The appraisal did not take into account any revenues, just TLD, branding, search engine friendliness, domain name, etc - but especially traffic.

It was a really good overview and gave me some better insight as how to better market the potential sale.

Thanks for the info all - especially mcfox for the Sedo recommendation.

 

I'm curious as to how specific they got with the price. How wide was their gap? Was their range a few hundered wide or more?

 

You're welcome. Good luck with selling.

 

No, it was a specific price with no gap or range. $45000USD and that was not taking into account content or current revenues being generated by the site.

 

Holy crapola! I'm off to change the price on that domain I offered you a while back for about $70!

 

ROTFL @ mcfox

Yes, as I recall the name, it was very similar ... might be able to add a zero.

However, I don't realistically think I'll get a hot auction sale going at the 50K level. Actually, I'm pricing at about ½ of the appraisal and go from there.

mcfox - shoot me an email if you want and I'll forward the entire appraisal to you; you might find some of the rhetoric useful

 

PM sent.

You should probably try www.sitepoint.com forums and also www.dnforum.com as places you may realistically expect to achieve the sort of money your site is worth. That's where all the big guys hang out

 

In any case, looks like you've got yourself a nice piece of internet property.

 

Thanks for the resources and information; PM received - email sent.