Thread

Does anyone know where and how I can sell an EE based web site, complete with content and domain name urgently? I am not interested in auction sites nor in sites where you can sell your site after having paid a fee for the honour of putting it on sale.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Nobody around these days?

Nobody around these days?

Around, yes. Knowledgeable about domain and site sales, not so much. I’ve had some success with site/domain brokers but they take a cut, and there’s a healthy amount of due diligence required before money and domain exchange hands. The real trick seems to be to get noticed by those interested in buying/running a site. Try advertising on the site that there’s an interest in selling the site.

Is it IT-Enquirer? If so, do you have user stats, revenue information, advertising relationships? From what I’ve seen, sites with revenue can be sold for two to three times profit (sometimes much more).

Thanks for your advice.

Yes, I have all the figures. Do you have anyone in mind who would be interested in buying? Given your comments, my asking price would be approx. 24000 Euros.

One thing I think is going to hurt is your alexa ranking. People buying sites that do it frequently almost always look there. Your site ranks around 390,000 there which is so-so. Not heavily trafficed. To sell that for essentially 50K USD is going to be tough unless you’re really banking the membership/ad revenue.

I always thought Alexa only measured Windows visitors…

But anyway, selling the site isn’t going to be easy. 80% of its revenue comes from reports, both paid and sponsored, and so I’ll only be able to sell it to someone who is willing and able to work himself into the subject and then continue the job.

My guess is that only journalists or editors—that’s how I started out—will be interested.

The count doesn’t really matter. it’s the trends. The alexa rank is only calculated off people who have the toolbar installed. but the point is it takes a decent snapshot of website trends. So the sites that are getting the most traffic aren’t being counted the same way lower ranked sites aren’t. The truth is the more traffic you get the better the stats are but that’s universal.

Since you’ve got special interest and aren’t generating money on ad revenue like a lot of sites, you could probably do much better. The problem is findind the right spot where people in that arena might be looking.

I had a niche site I had to sell back in 2003 that was a really busy site and had TONS of potential, but I ended up letting it go because I didn’t know where to find the right buyers. sold it for 10% of it’s value at best.

That’s what I fear too… Anyway, we’ll see—I have a couple of contacts I can ask, but if these people aren’t interested, I’m stuck with IT Enquirer for the rest of my life 😉.

That’s what I fear too…  I’m stuck with IT Enquirer for the rest of my life.

I’ve PMd you with an email address of a broker I know. Whether you get the site sold now or later, going through the process of selling will be a good experience.

There are two basic issues with selling a site. Greed and fear. You want a buyer who goes over the pinnacle from fear (the site won’t make money) toward greed (I’m sure the site will make money and I’ll pay plenty to get it).

In between are all kinds of considerations. Traffic. Hours devoted to maintain the site. Hosting and hardware. Maintenance. Licensing. Advertising revenue and potential revenue. Content sources. Profitability. And more.

You’ll need to package the proper pieces; traffic, user survey results, trends, content value, revenue (sales), page views, unique visitors, and profit, in such a way that the site looks attractive to a potential buyer. ‘Average’ sites go for, typically, two to three times profit, but sometimes two to three times revenue.

Still, the value of a site depends more on the buyer than the seller. If they want what you have, they’re usually willing to pay more.

Thanks for this e-mail address and for the advice, gramps.

Let’s give this a try!

Another idea is to contact your current competitors and see if they want to take you off the market and build their user-base by picking you up.

if you after a value of around 24000, then assuming 3x valuation or profits, 6000 per annum… The surely you could use that to hire relevant people to post articles/reports to your site… Grow the content without doing the work. In time, worth more, but still turning over money and still ready for sale?

Hi nevsie,

How does the value of the site (the 24K BTW is because the site got me approx. 20K/year—not enough for my medical expenses…) relate to hiring people when one hasn’t money to pay them?

Can you explain that to me? I’m a moron when it comes to marketing and selling…

my point was based purely on assumptions… people suggested 2-3 times profit margin, on a per annum basis. Hence that is how i translated my figure.
Therefore, my assumption on you selling the site is that you are going to be doing other things (as the value will not allow you to not work ever again!!!)
Therefore, the site may potential be able to run itself- i.e. the profits pay people to do the work…

The theory being that you do not hire one individual to do all the work, but offer to buy reports/articles from people for a nominal fee - whether they be experts in their field, or students in the college! The value of the items you buy, will potentially reflect the value of the visitors (number of, and which ads they click!). Thus reaching an ideal world of other people doing the work for you and you reaping the benefit.

I have seen other scenarios based on advertising where the person producing the content gets paid based on the advertised earning around that article. Theory being, the more articles they post, the better the value of the article, the more people read, then more they earn back - get get a commission/kickback. Again, a idea where the effort is all others, and you earn the commission…

Now yes this is no sudden influx of cash, but you still retain the asset, and you still get regular earnings, with significantly less time spent…

OK, so now I understand. Unfortunately, I need a large (well, considerable anyway) sum of money now, immediately. And that’s not going to happen with your method. It is nice to know how it works, though, for other sites that I might start later 😉.

Dabbledoo: I have thought of that as well. The problem is that in the market I’m targeting the competitors are either very large publishers like VNUnet or analysts like Pfeiffer and Cap Ventures. There was a time that I had appeal to the latter, but with a health that doesn’t allow me to travel anymore, they are not interested. And I also think I’m too small to mean anything in terms of ‘competition’.