The Reason For Selling Sites?

I have been developing web sites for 15 years now.

Heres what I don't understand. Please enlighten me if I am being Ignorant!

Let's say I have a site that makes 500 a month. What I am seeing around DP, is a normal sale rate of 6X to 8X the monthly income.

My question is simple. Why would I sell the site when I could just wait the 6 months and have the same in my pocket?

My Adsense sponsored sites are all making me free money. I have sites that I haven't updated in 3 years which make me money every month. I think it's a bit like selling the goose that lays the golden egg!!

I'm sure that there are the obvious reasons why sites are sold.
- I own too many
- I need money fast
- My loan shark came to visit me
- I found a better site and I need money to buy it
- Selling on the upswing (this happens in the stock market a lot, you know it will peter off so you sell now)
- etc.

So if at all possible, I'm asking the people who have sold sites on DP to post the reasons why they sold. I'm not looking to make any judgments here or anything like that. I am curious, and I think that this would make an interesting thread.

PS: If a thread such as this exists somewhere else, please point me to it!

 

nothing more to agree with.

 

sell it because you simply want to sell it

 

i generally create my sites for the purpose of selling, maybe rack up a month or two of revenue and then sell it off

 

Some people, including myself, sell sites and domains after they are developed for a quick flip. It is similar to day trading in the stock market. Some people buy stocks for long term investments while others go for the quick flip. Just like the stock market, you will make more money in the long run on average then always selling and buying, but it is all about what style you like and what you are looking to do.

 

People sell websites, because they no longer have the time to develop and maintain them.

Some others do a business, called "Website Flipping", where they build websites and sell them for profit.

 

well in my case each site i have had and sold (only sold a couple)..

-Conflict of interest after i come up with a better idea
-Does not suit other sites i have (niches)
-starts costing me money, why lose money when i can sell it to someone who is willing to pay for my quality work
-to fund / upgrade and existing project.

Selling because you need money is not a good idea, you check you site 6 months later and find out its doing wonders.. the site in my sig will be one of those ones, but i have other niches now and wont have the time to maintain i did some great linkwork and id sleep better knowing someone is using it rather than me turning it off or just going dead.

 

I completely agree with you.

The only valid reason is selling a site in which you have lost interest and that will need to be maintained to flourish.

Most of the sellers do not have the funds to hold the sites. They are more interested in the quick flip, cash in hand.

A few of them are scammers selling sites that are not earning anywhere near the income they report.

 

I believe he is specifically pointing out sites that say they are making $XXX.00 per month. That's some good money to give away, especially when a lot of them say they are "no maintanence" sites.

My thoughts on it. Profit numbers are over exagerated in many cases. It's real easy to say something is true, when it's not exactly. Some people commit click fraud, some people "forget to mention" the money they are spending to get the traffic or clicks, yada, yada, yada.

If you EVER see me on here selling a $500 per month website, you can guarantee someone has stolen my account and is about to rip you off

 

most sales are due to the realization that the limits have been reached in a certain site and its time to paint it out all pretty on DP with the word "potential" everywhere and get someone to pay too much for a piece of junk

 

See, that's kind of what I thought. A $500.00 per month site is worth keeping assuming the traffic is legit, and not paid for.

I am not a huge earner with web sites. However I make about 1 good weeks pay every month from my adsense sites. This allows me to work 1 less week, or get paid for 5 weeks every month. Either way, it's all good.

I'd be thinking, that like the stock market, we'd all have some long term earners, and some short term sell-offs. One to rely on, and some to make a quick buck! I have yet to try the quick buck route (other than for a couple of domain names with no sites)

 

I agree with you there. Most of the sites for sale on here are just a lot of hot air talking about "potential" for this and that, but aren't really worth anything. If they really did have potential then the owner should keep the site and rake in the cash...

 

My reason for selling one:
Health reasons and complete lack of interest in that particular niche.

 

stallican, you are absolutely right. But you need to know one thing. Then y this whole BST section is there in DP? Well it all grounds to one theory. There is always demand for good sites to be taken and people sees the oppurtunity and grabs it.

Meanwhile people selling the sites can be on business mood to flip the site or the ones who lost interest in their sites and need to get rid of them.

There is nothing wrong in selling the site earning $500 per month if it starts hindering you and doesnt want to be with you. Personnaly, if you dont like a job at office and the pay is say $10000 per month would be u there? or rather would u give full interest to it? Its the same case here too in selling the site.

Coming to my experince,i do create lot of sites and sell immediately coz i simply have no time to promote and get the ripened fruit out of it on longer run. Simply i cant do it. Dono y but my interest wholy stayed in the creating niche sites and thats it. Not after that

 

Reason to sell: I want to focus on a few sites, or I want to make money so I could buy house for my family

 

Sites are sold based on past revenue stats and I have found that about 90% of the sites that are put on sale have past stats that were result of many factors and where there is no gurantee of earnings as to the future. The calculation of revenue x months should only be seen as 'potential' and unless heavy work is done to boost the site, reality could be far from that!

 

Actually a site with stable passive income worth much more than 6-8 months revenue.
If any site is based on 6-8 months revenue, it mush have shortcomings. You need to watch it carefully.

 

I tend to buy websites because I'm a compulsive shopper. Usually, by the time I get the domain transferred to me, I'm already bored of it. So probably after a few months, you'll see me selling it. I lose some (sell it for less than what I bought it for) and I win some (sell it for more) so it's all good - keeps me occupied, though I would have liked it better if I actually made a good profit.

 

one reason is i cant eat a website nor trade them in for foodstamps