16 replies to this topic

[warrenerjm]

Hi Everyone

Well after five years hard work I am in the process of closing down, BUT I am not having much luck in finding out how much my website is worth.

Can anyone give me some guidance please?

I have the website which I hope I have worked on well with your help, associated social media linked to domain name & accounts from suppliers. All the valuers I have searched online ask £1000's so must be aimed at big businesses!

How do I find out the stats for the site to back up my ranking/visits? I don't much understand this side?

Is there anything else I should consider & also where do you go about selling websites/domain names/hosting etc?

Should I keep out of stock items on the site as I run it down so it doesn't hurt my google links?

Can you tell I have no clue & your help would be much appreciated.

By the way this is a UK site, so probably aimed at the UK?

Thanks
Julie

[DunWeb]

Hi Julie,

I sold a aquatics store website once, complete turn-key operation. I had advertised it for months with no response and was getting frustrated by the idea that no one thought the site was worth anything. The site had been running for 4 years and ranked well on popular search engines.

However, I used google analytics and my sales reports to back the sites history and looked at associated business to sell the site. I found a aquarium store that was looking to increase sales and made a solid profit on the sale of the site and contents. I had also included the remaining hosting and domain name for the site as part of the package. The site had more than 6000 products on it with full images and descriptions which seemed to meet the new buyers needs.

I sold the complete store, with remaining hosting and domain name for $7800.00 USD. Just for reference.



Chris

[warrenerjm]

I want to include the remaining host etc too Can I ask how you valued your site. If you search this you get wildly different values from tiny to huge! Wish the huge was possible but in my dreams.

I have enquiries about it but it is the backing up the traffic/ranking & valuing it that I am struggling with?

Thanks for your comments.

[geoffreywalton]

Sorry to hear you are off, but google analytics can give all the stats you need to back up your stats.

Enjoy

G

[burt]

I've bought and sold many sites. A rough guideline is to take the monthly profit of the site in question and multiply it by between 10 and 15. There's your selling price.

Obviously this varies site to site, but as a guesstimate it's usually there or thereabouts.

Eg; if your site makes a net profit of $1500 a month, expect a sell price around $18k.

[warrenerjm]

geoffreywalton, on 27 July 2010, 18:00, said:

Sorry to hear you are off, but google analytics can give all the stats you need to back up your stats.

Enjoy

G

ahhh thanks and for all your help. Much appreciated

[geoffreywalton]

Glad to have been of help, am I on for a percentage?

G

[warrenerjm]

burt, on 27 July 2010, 18:04, said:

I've bought and sold many sites. A rough guideline is to take the monthly profit of the site in question and multiply it by between 10 and 15. There's your selling price.

Obviously this varies site to site, but as a guesstimate it's usually there or thereabouts.

Eg; if your site makes a net profit of $1500 a month, expect a sell price around $18k.

What if you have invested it back into growth? i.e. I grew it year on year but didn't take anything out of it. Can I value it on the increase of growth? I know my sales, so I could ay profit was 25% of that? Usual is between 25% & 30%. Then I could divide by 12 & x by 10. Can't see a crafter paying that though. Also where do you find people willing to pay xxx for my website. I've been told it's only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I am likely looking at fellow crafters who want to start up in business, but I know when I started I had a few hundred pounds. I didn't appreciate the time involved in setting up the website let alone all the rest put into getting the links/rank/suppliers etc.

I don't have Google analytical & when it was installed I didn't understand what I was looking at! I have hits data etc as part of my hosting, could this help me put added weight/experience to my website?

Thanks for all your help.

[knifeman]

warrenerjm, on 27 July 2010, 19:27, said:

What if you have invested it back into growth? i.e. I grew it year on year but didn't take anything out of it. Can I value it on the increase of growth?

I have never been to business school, so this is just my 2 cents. Your website is a cash producing investment. Not all investments are worth what was put into them.

So a website for sale is worth what it can do for the prospective buyer. And I guess that follows what Burt said and worth is relative to sales. Of course you may have extras like pre paid hosting, SSL, domain name, etc. Also do you have any ad revenue? If you had a brand new cutting edge widget for sale with top SE results and gobs of traffic, that might count for something as well.

I came across a website the other day that purported to tell the value of a site, but there value had to be placed on links and traffic, cause they surely don't know gross sales, net profits, expenses, etc.

Tim

[warrenerjm]

knifeman, on 27 July 2010, 19:42, said:

I have never been to business school, so this is just my 2 cents. Your website is a cash producing investment. Not all investments are worth what was put into them.

So a website for sale is worth what it can do for the prospective buyer. And I guess that follows what Burt said and worth is relative to sales. Of course you may have extras like pre paid hosting, SSL, domain name, etc. Also do you have any ad revenue? If you had a brand new cutting edge widget for sale with top SE results and gobs of traffic, that might count for something as well.

I came across a website the other day that purported to tell the value of a site, but there value had to be placed on links and traffic, cause they surely don't know gross sales, net profits, expenses, etc.

Tim

Thanks Tim

All advise much appreciated. It goes with what I said about the type of person wanting to buy my site too. They are generally not high flying business people either. My web name is relevant to my business & so a bonus & I must have reasonable links etc as I am worth a nice sum on thoses websites you mentioned (which all seem to be US)

I am still getting "this is a new area" when I ask business advisors (UK) which I find hard to believe. I'd prefer "I don't know the answer to that one"

Can I just ask about the stats I have.

Not sure what all these totals mean & their relevance?

Hits
Files
Pages
Visits
KBytes
Sites

What suggests good visitors & how do I find my Google page rank/other ranks?

Unfortunately I wanted to build it up to a suitable level to generate a good profit, which I did over the five years, but I have now decided to sell, so don't have the relevant continued profit figures after the growth.

Edited by warrenerjm, 27 July 2010, 20:00.

[Hotclutch]

warrenerjm, on 27 July 2010, 19:59, said:

Thanks Tim

All advise much appreciated. It goes with what I said about the type of person wanting to buy my site too. They are generally not high flying business people either. My web name is relevant to my business & so a bonus & I must have reasonable links etc as I am worth a nice sum on thoses websites you mentioned (which all seem to be US)

I am still getting "this is a new area" when I ask business advisors (UK) which I find hard to believe. I'd prefer "I don't know the answer to that one"

Can I just ask about the stats I have.

Not sure what all these totals mean & their relevance?

Hits
Files
Pages
Visits
KBytes
Sites

What suggests good visitors & how do I find my Google page rank/other ranks?

Unfortunately I wanted to build it up to a suitable level to generate a good profit, which I did over the five years, but I have now decided to sell, so don't have the relevant continued profit figures after the growth.

Just google "page rank checker" and then enter your URL to see your pagerank. Also check your Alexa ranking, to see where you sit relative to your competitors. It takes time to develop pagerank and good SEO, so those factors would be of interest to savvy buyers.

[warrenerjm]

Hotclutch, on 27 July 2010, 20:14, said:

Just google "page rank checker" and then enter your URL to see your pagerank. Also check your Alexa ranking, to see where you sit relative to your competitors. It takes time to develop pagerank and good SEO, so those factors would be of interest to savvy buyers.

Several clicks later & a page rank 3. Now looking to see if good/average/below average

Thanks

[lindsayanng]

pagerank of 10 is the best.. a site like google.com is a 10.. a 3 is a site that basically generated some organic back links with little to no effort put into getting back links.. PR isn't the end all be all for sites, but its definitely important.

[Hotclutch]

lindsayanng, on 28 July 2010, 01:36, said:

pagerank of 10 is the best.. a site like google.com is a 10.. a 3 is a site that basically generated some organic back links with little to no effort put into getting back links.. PR isn't the end all be all for sites, but its definitely important.

This is false...PR 3 is a fine base to work off of. It is just a lot harder to get to PR4 from PR3, than it is to get from 2 - 3.

[warrenerjm]

lindsayanng, on 28 July 2010, 01:36, said:

pagerank of 10 is the best.. a site like google.com is a 10.. a 3 is a site that basically generated some organic back links with little to no effort put into getting back links.. PR isn't the end all be all for sites, but its definitely important.

I have tried but I am not a professional I know what you are saying though. I bet Google.com is the only site who Google rank 10??? Pretty poor if they didn't I guess as they know what is expected of them.

Thanks

[warrenerjm]

Hotclutch, on 28 July 2010, 06:00, said:

This is false...PR 3 is a fine base to work off of. It is just a lot harder to get to PR4 from PR3, than it is to get from 2 - 3.

I know of other "bought" site using osc that do not have a 3, so this makes me feel better thanks

When I look at where the google search links come from I am on page 1 quite often. They are relevant searches, but I didn't know how to get this for more of my products/keywords. Not much help though as I don't have the stats on this. Oh well.

[dirtmaster]

I'm sure i read somewhere that 6 times the average monthly revenue is the idustery standard for websites but this seems a bit sketchy.... You've also have to factor in to the price the age and value of the domain name, the costs of any scripts, logos and mods you've paid for, the value of previous customer details and the overall value of the site in someone elses hands.