Australian Webmaster Blog

I’m often asked this question however valuing a site can be very difficult as no two sites are ever the same. There are some site valuation tools available however they simply use a formula based on links, Alexa ranking, Page Rank, etc and I’ve found them to be grossly inaccurate.

The most accurate answer to the question would be “whatever the market will pay for it”. It might not be the answer you want however isn’t the goal to gain the maximum amount of money from the sale?

With web sites there can be a large variance in what people value a site for.

Let’s think of a vacant block of land for a second. The perceived value of that land will vary from person to person based on their intended use of the site. A property developer looking to build a block of flats on the land would value it higher than a person looking to build a house. Someone just wanting to grow their own vegetables would value it even less. The same applies to a web site – purchasers will each have a different perspective on the worth of your site.

In the case of web sites I’ve heard of people buying sites purely for the e-mail addresses of members, or just for the domain name. People will even buy forums so they can merge the posts in with their existing forum and simply dump the domain and software. What you consider as a valuable component could be actually unwanted by perspective purchasers.

The other problem with a web site is that the “location, location, location” rule doesn’t apply. There also isn’t any real physical asset that can be easily valued. In most cases your “assets” are your domain name, any scripts developed and your data (customer details, articles, design, etc). These are all very difficult things to put a value on as they are often completely unique.

Commonly people value a site by looking at it’s earnings. Generally they will multiple the monthly revenue (by usually between 9 and 12) to determine a figure however there are many sites out there with little earnings but their potential demands a much higher value.

So the trick is to maximise “the market” and let them decide the value.

An auction is the perfect solution to allowing the market to value your site and there are a number of places where you can auction your site. The one considered the best is Flippa, formerly the SitePoint Marketplace.

Flippa is considered to have the most purchasers, particularly those with the funds to purchase larger sites. As a seller there is a $19 listing fee, plus a 5% success fee (with a maximum fee of $498).

Don’t be afraid to under-value your site – as it’s an auction the market will ultimately decide the price, or it wont pass your reserve. Some people even suggest starting your auction at $1 so it gets people’s attention and gets them hooked in to your auction.

Once you have your site listed on Flippa, there is still a lot more you can do to maximise your sale price. Here are some suggestions:

• post on forums a link to your Flippa auction, consider posting on webmaster forums (eg. DigitalPoint) as well as forums within your particular market
• if you haven’t already, contact your competitors and tell them about your auction, they could be willing to buy you out. You can even contact owners of the same domain name but with different extensions.