Where are all the good sites?

You'll have to go here to see the details
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=456029
Site is only 1mo 2 weeks and first page of yahoo with zero promo. Made $150in adsense this mo. Hasnt been submitted to SE, Directories or traded any links. Site is a virgin that makes money.

 

You can make good deal if these people need money then they sell their website for a good price.

 

If I had a few good sites that earn well, and I can honestly say I have no interest in selling them for the typical 12-24 month profit estimate, even if that number was in the 6 figures.

I do the math... If I was to cash out... the money would dry up in 3-4 years and I'm left with squat. Sure I could make some great investment and double or triple it... or lose it all in Vegas... ;-)

Point is... my sites would be far more valuable to me than "most" folks are willing to pay for them. The only reason I might sell were if a competitor were to approach me and want to buy me out, which I would expect a good offer... Or if I was sick and tired of running the sites and wanted to cash out.

But right now the market is just getting better... more and more ad dollars are flowing into online ads... and more folks are finding their way online every day... so you are going to find very few highly successful sites for sale... particularly in the 100k range.

 

Hi Fryman,

Maybe I got something for you if you are willing to work .
The site make about 300 US a day profit.
But as I say it is a day job , emails , data that kind of work.
Last year had a offer of 75.000 euro , but did not take it.
If you wanna know more , just PM me.
By the way it is a online shop with about 35.000 costumers.

 

OK... here goes... I am trying to sell my website currently.

My site is http://www.ipwatchdog.com. I have had the site on the Internet since October 1999, and so far this year I have had 185,000 unique visitors. The "IP" in the name refers to intellectual property (patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets), which is a very competitive area for search engine ranking and pay per click placement. I have excellent search engine ranking ( i.e., top 10) for hundreds of quality key phrases. I am now interested in selling my domain name and website content.

My current asking price is $350,000.00. I suspect that will seem like a lot to those on this list, but I am getting 19,000 unique visitors a month for free from search engines and links to various of my pages. In the hands of the right buyer this will likely be considered a good deal given the desirability of key phrases, growth in traffic, age of site and original content. For those buying pay-per-click advertising through Yahoo and Google many of the terms I rank in the top 5 for on Yahoo and Google go for several dollars a click.

Any interest anyone? Does anyone have a lead for me or someone I should talk to? Information/introductions that lead to a sale will be monetarily rewarded.

-Gene

 

IpWatchDog - are you actually serious?

I can't see any talk of revnue and you're asking for 350k? This is exactly what these guys are talking about - people who don't have a clue about selling sites.

Think about who will want to buy the site - what kind of money will they have to spend on the site? Not 350k for something which doesn't promise to return...

 

This is just my opinion, but I think what makes DP and especially this section great is the fact that one can get cheap sites relatively hassle-free. What would this section be like if all posts listed here would have been asking for prices in the range of 50k, 80k, 100k, 600k, even millions?

I doubt it if any of us would have taken part in trading here. Besides, I have noticed a while back some person buying out proxy sites. Later this person sold his network of proxy sites for an amount ranging in the mid $xxxxx's. He trippled his income and the new owner has a network bringing in thousands of visitors.

I personally think that many people has the potential to turn junk into something positive and generate an income from it.

 

Thanks for the information PEEG.

$350K is what the site is worth to the right buyer, but that buyer obviously isn't here on DP. All that DP folks look for is passive revenue. My site generates paying clients for intellectual property lawyers. So you all can go ahead and look for passive revenue rather than a true business.

-Gene

 

Nevertheless, you should give more information about the potential. I see you have AdSense on the site, why not show some revenue stats? Even though an average DP buyer would not be interested, someone might. Besides, I think someone could turn that site into passive income too. There are a lot of affiliate programs for law firms, for example.

 

Sorry Sutocu. I have been doing this on another thread for just the reason that you mention here and I have been getting killed by people who tell me that I am just ridiculous and it has become quite insulting. I even had one guy lie about the contents of some PMs we had together, so I guess I have become jadded a bit.

The thread that explains everything about the website, traffic, SERPs, existing revenue and where revenue would or could come from is at:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=464614

I am also happy to answer any other questions anyone might have.

I have also been offering to pay a finders fee to anyone who makes an introduction that leads to a sale. I figured that with everyone here on DP and how active the forum is someone may know someone and things could progress from there. On the other thread it seems that everyone just wanted to tell me that I was ridiculous for even trying to sell such a site using DP. Sorry if I offended anyone on this thread.

-Gene

 

Here is some more information about IPWatchdog.com....

This site would be perfect for a law firm, search firm or consulting company specializing in intellectual property or start-up businesses consulting.

IPWatchdog.com has achieved extraordinary search engine ranking in the highly competitive world of intellectual property (i.e., patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets). To see the search key phrase ranking as of September 3, 2007, for Google, Yahoo and MSN go to:

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/search_term_ranking.html

As you can see there are quite a number of highly desirable terms here, in what is a VERY competitive market.

To illustrate the competitiveness, for one search phrase "idea patent", in order to get into the top 3 for Yahoo pay per click you would have to bid at least $2.72, to get into the top 2 you would have to bid at least $3.78 and to get into the top position for this phrase you would have to bid $5.40 per click. IPWatchdog.com currently ranks in the free search results as follows for this single term - "idea patent":

Google = 3
Yahoo = 2
MSN = 2

The page that "idea patent" points to is:

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/protect_idea.html

1539 visitors to IPWathdog.com enter through this particular page in August 2007. Therefore, to acquire that type of traffic a firm or company not in the free rankings would have to spend over $4,000 to acquire similar PPC placement and traffic for a single month, and that is only 1 of the many desirable phrases IPWatchdog.com is in the top 10 for.

The reason I am seeking to sell now is because I am starting a new business (see http://www.inventandpatent.com) and IPWatchdog.com will not be a needed asset in this new endeavor.

REVENUE

I understand that many will want to value the website based on earnings, but if that is your valuation method IPWatchdog.com is not the right site for you. In August 2007, I made about $750 in AdSense revenue and $1,200 in a LegalZoom affiliate program. LegalZoom helps people with patents, trademarks and copyrights. I would estimate based on my commission that the legal work they received in August paid them about $6,000. I put AdSense and LegalZoom up on my site as my other business development tasks became such that I could no longer take on legal work generated by IPWatchdog.com.

I am a patent attorney and when I was doing patent searches and patent applications for some people who came to the site I would make at least $3000 to $4000 each month. I didn't do as much work as I could have from the site, and in fact referred people to other patent lawyers when I couldn't take on more work. The money the site generated was always extra, not my primary source of revenue. I also did not take any copyright or trademark work simply because I was not set up to do that kind of transactional work efficiently.

TRAFFIC

Between November 1, 2006 and August 31, 2007, IPWatchdog.com has had 216,790 unique visitors interested in the narrow niche of intellectual property.

By way of example, between November 1, 2006 and April 30, 2006, only 2,041 of the 103,129 unique visitors to IPWatchdog.com were acquired through paid advertising via Google Adwords, with over half (1,171) acquired in November 2006.

For the four months between May 1, 2007 and August 31, 2007, IPWatchdog.com received 113,661 unique visitors, of which 37,754 were acquired through paid advertising. This corresponds to 18,976 visitors per month since May 2007 finding and coming to the pages of IPWatchdog.com for free due to search engine rankings and various free links throughout the Internet.

Since November 1, 2007, IPWatchdog.com has received 176,995 unique visitors for free through search engine rankings and free links pointing to the various pages of IPWatchdog.com. This corresponds to an average of 17,699.5 unique visitors per month for free over the last ten (10) months.

VALUATION

The selling price for IPWatchdog.com and the content of the website is $350,000.00. The purchase price of $350,000.00 equates to roughly $.41 per free unique visitor to IPWatchdog.com over a four (4) year term, assuming that IPWatchdog.com continues to average only the same number of free unique visitors as it has over the past ten (10) months.

For an additional monthly fee I am also willing to stay on for an agreed upon time to continue writing content. IPWatchdog has largely become synonymous with me in the industry, so I am willing to stay on in some capacity so that the good will I have developed with IPWatchdog can be transferred to the buyer.

 

I'm pretty sure he's not in a hurry and more or less shopping around. With 100k you of course want to make sure you get a good investment. I haven't seen any site that could be worth that for sale on DP. Ever. Maybe on ebay. Is there a forum where you can find sites of true quality and value?

 

"Takes a lot of looking and a lot of patience to find decent stuff."

This is the best comment so far. Look hard enough and you will find something good. Then it boils down to justifying the price based on monthly multiples or site quality and potential, domain age, PR, SERPS, etc.

One thing is for sure, there are no hard and fast rules that lead to a good buy and anyone who thinks there is hasn't bought and sold many sites. SERPS can come and go as does the weather, so this is not the big thing in determining price. Really it's a gut feeing and lots of knowledge about the website's niche that will help you arrive at a fair price. And persuading the owner to part with the site for a reasonable amount can be a challenge.

Once you've bought the site it's a matter of spending time and money keeping the site at the level of earnings that you purchased it at. Without lots of new pages, revised text, good marketing, etc, a site will wither in the search engine rankings.

Sitepoint has realised that there needs to be some sort of standard form of selling sites and have a good looking marketplace for sites. Selling and buying on DP is like a dog's breakfast. Things are all over the place. Despite this, there are bargains to be had here. It's just that patience is required.

 

bizbuysell.com is also a good place to find some more large-scale sites.

I almost sold my flagship site on their site 5 years ago for about 15k. The guy wanted to pay in 3 installments of 5k. I said no... and squashed the deal.

It was the best decision I ever made... Adsense came out the next year and the rest is history... ;-)

 

Rod-

I have a question about what you say about SERPS. I know that rankings can and do change, and I have been told by others on DP that they are useless when valuing a site, which I know has to be wrong. But how is it that for an old, well established site they are considered not that important? I see all the time in Google where you search for something and at the top of the free rankings is a site that obviously has not been updated for years, and in other instances, top free ranking pages have information that is so old it is outdated and completely useless.

If you don't consider SERPS and what it would cost for someone to achieve those rankings, how can you value a fair and reasonable price for an information site?

Thanks.

-Gene

 

Well, I should qualify my statement lest it be interpreted as meaning that SERPs are of no importance in determining price. When combined with a domain age of, say, five or more years, long-term good SERPs for key search terms are a bonus, since it indicates to me that the previous site owner has worked hard to maintain the site. It's obvious that Google loves established sites, since they generally stay highly placed.

Id be surprised if there were too many non-updated sites at the top of the pile, unless perhaps they had rss feeds or blogs creating plenty of new content for them.

The general site valuation formula used around the forums of 10 times monthly income is really only a starting point. I believe that when you buy a website you should apply the rules for buying any business. Estimate "assets" of the site (for example, domain name, original content, organic traffic, even PR), quantify the last two year's revenue, and then add a figure for "goodwill". This latter element is the hardest thing to put a figure on and needs to be carefully researched. IMO big ticket websites need to have lots of goodwill as well as assets and income.

So, to the price. I would pay two or more years income for a top site, well established in its field. A new site earning income off good SERPs is a gamble and you can be lucky and get your money back with the ten times rule or find your income vanish once the SERPs drop away.

This is my experience from buying sites from twenty dollars to twenty K. But I'd love to hear the experiences of those DP members who have no price limits, as well as from members who buy low-price sites regularly for a hundred bucks or less.

 

Amen to that fryman.

 

Rod-

Thanks for the follow up. Everything you say makes sense.

-Gene

 

Well, the flip side to the whole "10 month revenue is wrong" argument, is that your site might not make a dime after I buy it. Since the web is so competitive, I might lose the top ten ranking that you enjoyed from Google, or maybe lose that link that was sending you a ton of traffic. Buying established websites is usually a crap shoot and nothing more.

 

I have been looking for a couple of months for a good site at a reasonable price.
It's very hard though, you have to do a lot of investigating on any site before you commit your money.

For an established site the Premium Sites for sale Forum at Sitepoint is a good place to look but I have found every second site on there to have miss-information about traffic and revenue.
The truth takes a back seat when big money is involved.

A big problem at Sitepoint is that the seller can delete any post they don't like, so if anyone posts a warning about something it's usually deleted straight away. The seller can bu11shit all they like and get away with it.

Thats so true, it really is a crap shoot, big money sites usually have a lot of high PR and traffic links behind them, those links can disappear as soon as the site changes hands, this forum is littered with posts where that has happened .... a site that was bringing in good money can die overnight.