What are +4 million pageviews worth these days? - Page 2

Bell · 2006-02-10, 02:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon

GonZo - I'll shoot you a pm in a minute, but you hit on one of the reasons we're considering letting these two sites go. Both sites have only static html story pages, thousands of them, with mostly hard-coded banners or served via ancient Javascripts. Trying to get someone's advertising onto those pages is not an easy task the way things are set up today. The sites would be a good opportunity for someone who wanted to remake them into what the future of story sites should look like. I have too many other things going on these days to think I'll have time to get these rebuilt how I'd like them, and it takes too much time to update them the way they are now.

Fonz - I'm pretty sure Google has a lot of returning traffic too.

I'd be willing to say that this traffic in not more valuable than Google traffic, but I wouldn't concede that it's only worth one-fifth of what their traffic is worth. Sex story surfers are pretty good traffic, as those here who have story sites will know.

universally (via script) pull each page of the site into a frame where you have SOLD (leased) the frames ad space for revenue...

contact the appraisal dept. over at sedo.com for an evaluation (appraisal) ...

consider parking it on sedo.com for a few hours to get revenue generation stat proof - to show a potential bidder at sedo.com

turn the site into a text feed and lease that to others...
that would be a revenue source that should be provable...

just a few thoughts...

Good Luck with your project...

~Bell

Simon · 2006-02-10, 12:01 PM

Wazza - LMAO at Higherthiamin... I think I take 500mg a day of those.

Glad to hear the sorting got done.

You pointed out that using Google Adwords as a guide isn't the best way to go. I agree, and that wasn't my comparison, I was just replying to something Fonz had said. If I was going to use clicks for comparison, I think we'd have to have a way to track the outgoing clicks from the two sites, since I believe that's more of what we'd be talking about if we did want to use SE traffic as a comparison.

And I agree, a developed website is definitely worth something to us.

...and...

Bell - Thanks for the suggestions and the good wishes.

As you mentioned, we'd thought about using some easy ways to frame or insert the page content. I have two things holding me back on that. One is that we already have server inserted header and footer bars with links to our other sites on many pages, and we have buttons, banners and other promotional links on most pages too. So adding more advertising isn't really what I'd want to achieve. These two sites really need to be rebuilt in order to manage the advertising better.

Oh yes, the second thing holding me back is that I don't want to do anything to damage the traffic growth. In particular, I'm not sure how SEs would react to all of the content suddenly being in frames, or otherwise repackaged.

And actually, I guess there's a third thing. I'm not really trying to generate more revenue from some of our older sites. Mostly because I know what it would take to do that and I don't want to add more work to my already over-full schedule. I want to clear more time for other things.

Sedo.com is something I hadn't really thought about, probably because I thought they did mostly domain sales. I've never bought or sold domains through them, and don't know much about their experience in selling domains that already have traffic. I can look into that, but I'd appreciate feedback from anyone who can add some input on this.

And thanks to everyone for the feedback so far.

Simon

P.S. For what it's worth, I looked over some stats last night and I was a little low on the visitors number. The 750k visitors was in November. December was 840k and January was 890k. Average over the last nine months was 825k/month. Pageviews were an average of 4 million/month, with 4.3 million in December and 4.5 million in January.

JohnWebcams.com · 2006-02-11, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon

Hiya folks

We have a lot more on our plate than we can take care of right now, so we're thinking about letting go of a couple of sites that we really don't have time to develop further at the moment (and no, not Fetish Club or Cash Fetish).

We've spent years developing sites without ever selling one that we've grown. We've bought and sold some domain names, but we've never sold a developed site that already has some very nice traffic.

Before we get to the point of actually offering them for sale (which I'd announce in the "for sale" forum), I'd like to get some feedback on how people are valuing sites today. I know that some folks base things on traffic, or PR value, or number of inbound links, or SERPs, or percentage of bookmarkers, or a range/combination of other different things.

To keep this a general discussion, let's just say these these are two large free sex story archive sites. They have thousands of pages indexed by search engines, over three-quarters of a million visitors a month, and over 4 million pageviews a month between the two sites.

If you have any experience in putting a value on a web property, I'd be very glad to get some feedback on how I might best go about setting a reasonable/rational value for websites like these.

Thanks in advance for any input you can offer.

Simon, we might be interested in buying this. Please send me an ICQ to 476-111 or email to webmaster at webcams.com with the URLs and more specific traffic stats (Source of traffic, etc) and we'll talk more.

Thx

tigermom · 2006-02-12, 01:21 AM

I think the best way to evaluate the site's worth is put it up for auction. As someone here mentioned market value is a matter of supply and mostly demand. If you happen to find 2-3 interested parties that enter a bidding war, you could be in for a good price.

Please let me know if you do put it up for sale. My budget is limited, but hey, who knows??

BTW, regarding the formulas, I had an interesting coversation with a serious bricks and mortar business man, and he mentioned 7 times yearly profits as the general worth of a business. Profits and not revenue.

For mainstream sites it's usually 12-18 times monthly profit (again profit, and not revenue). But most people auction the sites and prices can get higher, or stay lower.

Simon · 2006-02-12, 11:13 AM

JohnWebcams - I'll be sending you some info via email. I'll include more info on the traffic for you.

tigermom - I've used those formulas with non-Internet business, and I think some of them apply if we were selling the business. But since these are just two traffic pumps out of many sites we have, I thought that pricing them based on the quantity/quality of traffic would make sense. An auction might be interesting, and it would be a fair way to deal with multiple buyers.

I've gotten some good ideas from this thread. Thanks again to everyone who's contributed some feedback. Any other ideas appreciated too.

Simon

tiger · 2006-02-14, 01:40 PM

Simon I have contacted you before about the sites. Let me know if you are going to auction them I would like to be able to participate.

Simon · 2006-02-15, 06:04 AM

Tiger - I don't remember ever hearing from you before (unless you're related to Tigermom?), so if you sent me a pm or email, I don't think I ever got it. Let me know if you asked for information and didn't get a reply.

I'm not sure if we'll go the auction route yet, but I'll be sure to let anyone interested know about it when we figure out which way we're going with these.

Simon

tigermom · 2006-02-15, 08:37 AM

tiger isn't related to me lol, just thought I'd clarify that

tiger · 2006-02-15, 11:24 AM

I was speaking with someone named "cindy" who said she was representing you in the sale.

I have all the information I need. We just didn't come to an agreement on price.

Simon · 2006-03-31, 08:28 AM

Just letting those who asked to be notified if we decided to sell them that an XBiz ad for "story sites for sale" is out now, and being distributed at the Phoenix Forum (link to ad here).

We'll be accepting offers for a couple of weeks. If you have questions, please hit me via email at "simon |at| industryinc.com" or icq at 269043019. You can also leave me a note in the Established Sex Story Archive Websites for Sale thread in the "Products and/or Services offered" forum.

Simon

2006-02-10, 12:01 PM	#27
Simon That which does not kill us, will try, try again. Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Conch Republic Posts: 5,150	Wazza - LMAO at Higherthiamin... I think I take 500mg a day of those. Glad to hear the sorting got done. You pointed out that using Google Adwords as a guide isn't the best way to go. I agree, and that wasn't my comparison, I was just replying to something Fonz had said. If I was going to use clicks for comparison, I think we'd have to have a way to track the outgoing clicks from the two sites, since I believe that's more of what we'd be talking about if we did want to use SE traffic as a comparison. And I agree, a developed website is definitely worth something to us. ...and... Bell - Thanks for the suggestions and the good wishes. As you mentioned, we'd thought about using some easy ways to frame or insert the page content. I have two things holding me back on that. One is that we already have server inserted header and footer bars with links to our other sites on many pages, and we have buttons, banners and other promotional links on most pages too. So adding more advertising isn't really what I'd want to achieve. These two sites really need to be rebuilt in order to manage the advertising better. Oh yes, the second thing holding me back is that I don't want to do anything to damage the traffic growth. In particular, I'm not sure how SEs would react to all of the content suddenly being in frames, or otherwise repackaged. And actually, I guess there's a third thing. I'm not really trying to generate more revenue from some of our older sites. Mostly because I know what it would take to do that and I don't want to add more work to my already over-full schedule. I want to clear more time for other things. Sedo.com is something I hadn't really thought about, probably because I thought they did mostly domain sales. I've never bought or sold domains through them, and don't know much about their experience in selling domains that already have traffic. I can look into that, but I'd appreciate feedback from anyone who can add some input on this. And thanks to everyone for the feedback so far. Simon P.S. For what it's worth, I looked over some stats last night and I was a little low on the visitors number. The 750k visitors was in November. December was 840k and January was 890k. Average over the last nine months was 825k/month. Pageviews were an average of 4 million/month, with 4.3 million in December and 4.5 million in January. __________________ "If you're happy and you know it, think again." -- Guru Pitka

2006-02-12, 01:21 AM	#29
tigermom You can now put whatever you want in this space :) Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 893	I think the best way to evaluate the site's worth is put it up for auction. As someone here mentioned market value is a matter of supply and mostly demand. If you happen to find 2-3 interested parties that enter a bidding war, you could be in for a good price. Please let me know if you do put it up for sale. My budget is limited, but hey, who knows?? BTW, regarding the formulas, I had an interesting coversation with a serious bricks and mortar business man, and he mentioned 7 times yearly profits as the general worth of a business. Profits and not revenue. For mainstream sites it's usually 12-18 times monthly profit (again profit, and not revenue). But most people auction the sites and prices can get higher, or stay lower. __________________ XLEF

2006-02-12, 11:13 AM	#30
Simon That which does not kill us, will try, try again. Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Conch Republic Posts: 5,150	JohnWebcams - I'll be sending you some info via email. I'll include more info on the traffic for you. tigermom - I've used those formulas with non-Internet business, and I think some of them apply if we were selling the business. But since these are just two traffic pumps out of many sites we have, I thought that pricing them based on the quantity/quality of traffic would make sense. An auction might be interesting, and it would be a fair way to deal with multiple buyers. I've gotten some good ideas from this thread. Thanks again to everyone who's contributed some feedback. Any other ideas appreciated too. Simon __________________ "If you're happy and you know it, think again." -- Guru Pitka

2006-02-15, 06:04 AM	#32
Simon That which does not kill us, will try, try again. Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Conch Republic Posts: 5,150	Tiger - I don't remember ever hearing from you before (unless you're related to Tigermom?), so if you sent me a pm or email, I don't think I ever got it. Let me know if you asked for information and didn't get a reply. I'm not sure if we'll go the auction route yet, but I'll be sure to let anyone interested know about it when we figure out which way we're going with these. Simon __________________ "If you're happy and you know it, think again." -- Guru Pitka

2006-02-15, 08:37 AM	#33
tigermom You can now put whatever you want in this space :) Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 893	tiger isn't related to me lol, just thought I'd clarify that __________________ XLEF

2006-02-14, 01:40 PM	#31
tiger Internet! Is that thing still around? Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 8	Simon I have contacted you before about the sites. Let me know if you are going to auction them I would like to be able to participate.

2006-02-15, 11:24 AM	#34
tiger Internet! Is that thing still around? Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 8	I was speaking with someone named "cindy" who said she was representing you in the sale. I have all the information I need. We just didn't come to an agreement on price.

2006-03-31, 08:28 AM	#35
Simon That which does not kill us, will try, try again. Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Conch Republic Posts: 5,150	Update - Sites are now for sale Just letting those who asked to be notified if we decided to sell them that an XBiz ad for "story sites for sale" is out now, and being distributed at the Phoenix Forum (link to ad here). We'll be accepting offers for a couple of weeks. If you have questions, please hit me via email at "simon \|at\| industryinc.com" or icq at 269043019. You can also leave me a note in the Established Sex Story Archive Websites for Sale thread in the "Products and/or Services offered" forum. Simon __________________ "If you're happy and you know it, think again." -- Guru Pitka