Wow directory for sale..

Never thought this would happen, but it's for sale.. Check this http://www.wowdirectory.com/wowforsale.php and a thread at sitepoint.. http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=332307URL:

Starting bid is $216,000.00.. WOW

 

lmao. I agree with that guy. What the heck could possibly make this site worth $216k?

 

yeah, the monthly revenue is still only $6,000...

 

You can make almost that much by investing your $216k and then laying on a beach.

Advantages: Much less risk and no need to work 120 hours a week.

 

A site like this has more than the incnome as a state of value. The branding and marketing that have been placed to this site for the length of the run have increased the value greatly.

As to the value, i have no idea, but like any other business there is more value than the revenue it brings in.

 

6,000 x 36 months profit. He wants his money out of it, that's for sure. Problem is, is that the lifespan of a pure directory site is pretty much day to day, so your profits today could be gone tomorrow.

 

Well said! People need to look at potential income as well. $6K is not much considering what it could do... trust me.

 

I bid $216,000.01 Think they'll take a check?

 

w o w !

 

It seems a lot, but if you compare it to a normal business investment, it might not be too bad.

Take for example, the property industry. A 10% annual return on your investment (i.e. earning £10,000 a year in rent from buying a £100,000 house outright) is deemed a good one.

In fact, if you have $216,000 lying around in the bank, its worth buying the site which gives you a 33% return a year compared to the bank's base rate (which is probably around 5% in the US, I'm not too sure).

However, it also depends how much cost you assign to the running of the site, because the seller makes it sound like thats a lot of hard work...

Maybe if the price included him running it for a few years, it would be more appealing?

 

Yes, if Bruce Stone had more time on his hands, he would have done it by now. In the right hands this directory can be so much more than it is.

 

Watch it bluemouse2. My post was deleted over at sitepoint for saying "Wow". It seems they don't like it if you say anything remotely negative because it hurts their paid ads. They are taking the forum out of forum.

P.S. nice blue mouse.

 

They have erased like 14 posts regarding it. The admin or mods considered the posts "out of subject".

 

Your assuming the website retains that value. It may very well not. And you can die tomorrow if for example Google should decide to ban directories from the index.

 

Well... if anything it's good press. I'm sure business has picked up a little from the extra attention.

 

True, there is definitely a high risk. But if things don't change with the search engines, I think that the right person with the right energy could easily quadruple the revenue just by advertising more (Bruce didn't really advertise it too much).

 

I've always been a fan of the directory - very well done and organized. I just can't see dropping 200K on it though. For less than 200K I'll grab a premium domain with some history and a team of contract developers. Bam - wow directory part 2 for a fraction of the cost - with improvements if I wanted since I'm having it developed.

Bruce is great guy and I wish him the best of luck with the sale - I just don't personally see the value. I should rephrase - I do see value just not 200K.

 

I don't think that will happen, but there is always a certain risk.

 

Thats a very big "IF" though!

The problem I see with directories such as this is, that their revenue stream relies so heavily on the fact that the SE's use backlinks from them to effect their SERP's. This is taken on board by webmasters and SEO companies, who are then willing to pay a hefty fee to get a site listed. This is really the sole reason why they are currently doing so well at generating revenue. As we all know SE's hate their rankings being manipulated, and even if getting your site in directories it doing it in a totally white hat way, I still believe that it SE's don't like it that a poor site A can rank above good site B, just because it is listed in a load of directories, as it comes back to the ultimate point that the SE's want to show a good site over a poor site, regardless of how many links it has to it.

So essentially I believe SE's are moving against using directory links as a factor in their rankings. When this goes, or diminishes, so will the directories revenue, when it eventually filters through to webmasters.

What you should consider is how much traffic actually goes to the site to use it as a directory ( ie find something they are looking for ), as opposed to just going to it to get their website listed. If the second part goes then the future revenue will rely on the people actually using it as a directory.

Now on this I consider the some stats as posted in the SP post- namely:

To me this indicates a couple of things and kind of backs my theory up that this and other directories get most of their traffic from webmasters and SEO companies posting their links and not people "looking for an answer".

The figure for monthly page view is extreamly low as compared to the Alex Rank ( I have a few sites with several million page impressions and their Alexa ranks are around 200,000 - 300,000 ). The reason for this I believe is down to one thing, - it is webmasters and SEO companies that are the vast majority of Alexa toolbar users, therefore sites visited by webmasters and SEO companies will have a remakably distorted Alexa rank ( i.e much lower than it should be).

This fits perfectly with the above Alexa rank, and proves to me that most people visiting the site are indead webmasters and SEO companies and not the general public.

So this further indicates to me that if the SERP's are trying to devalue links from directories (which I believe they are), and this knocks on to the sites revenue stream, them the actual revenue stream that could possibly be left if this one goes is small.

Now I'm not saying that this site is not a great money earner, a well respected directory, and a great site, worth a lot of money, but IMO it is high risk, as it relies so heavily on SE's allowing a link from a directory to effect a sites SERP.

 

Looks like the new buyers hope to get their money back. Wow is a paid directory as of Jan 15th.