Hey guys,

I have a bunch of websites that have not received any TLC for a looooooooooong time

one for example would be ebook-reviews.net

now the site is probably so messed up now that a complete overhaul is needed

the most valuable parts of it IMO are:

> Domain name itself
> rankings- somehow its still #1 in Google, Yahoo and MSN for its main terms

As much as i'd like to keep it and a bunch of other sites i have hanging around- realistically i don't have the time or resources to maintain them and as such they are sure to keep deteriorating.

I’m think the best thing to do is try and sell them at a fair price…

Now looking around at some sites people are selling domains/sites for a wide variety of prices. When it comes to sites- it seems like most businesses people are selling them relative to current earning.

However when it come to domain (which is basically what I consider these sites now- domain with good rankings already attached) it seems like it’s the wild west- anything goes and there is vary little logic

So the question is how would you go about determining the value. I’ve seen “Get your domain professionally appraised” at places such as Sedo but am curious to what factors people consider when doing these appraisals. I’m sure history, demand, etc weigh in, but at least to me it’s tough to find this type of info.

Thoughts?

I believe I read something on the sedo site a year ago about:

• TLD where it resides, .com being preferred


• Length of the name, shorter is better


• Containing the most desired search term(s) and nothing else


• Amount of traffic it receives.. etc.

All playing a part..

It seemed like a lot of them (a year ago) were selling for a few hundred to a few thousand. Maybe two percent of the ones selling, were getting big bucks.

I found one of mine through whois, arranged to buy it and had the exchange handled through sedo. Went fine. A little slower than I would have thought.

You've really got to look at the value of the site from a potential customers point of view.

If I could only make $100 worth of business from buying your domain a month, there's no way I would pay anything more than $300 for it, but if I could make $1000/month from having that domain then $300 is a bargain.

I'm assuming the buyer would want to put a site of the same theme on the domain but i feel it is very unlikely the that exact same keywords will be targeted by the new owner, as such you'll have to consider the following points:

Anyone who comes along to take over the domain and use it for themselves will soon loose the ranks that you currently have. The content and copy will have changed completely, meaning the topic-reputation match of the incoming links will change. Some will return a 404.

This means there would be a lot of work involved trying to make sure the site kept it's good rankings.

Traffic is also another consideration. You may be #1 for your main terms, but lets say that this pulls in 1000 visitors/month. To begin with the site will not be found for any of the buyers main keywords (unless they are the same as your keywords), so having that domain would be almost useless until it started to rank for the new set of keywords. Now, will the new set of keywords that the buyer wants to use the site for have the same number of searches as your keywords? or higher? or lower?

Thanks guys...great info and all taken into consideration!

This is a little harder for me as i have not found much to compare to. Not like selling a car where u can see the prices of similar models

i'll take your suggestion and apply them to my research!

There is a tool here http://www.leapfish.com/domain_name_appraisal.php but I don't know whether it is good or not.

What i would suggest is taking em one by one, pimping them to generate stax of traffic and when you feel you have hit the peak, sell em. Kinda like playing the stocks, its tough to make comparisons but if you can catch it at its peak and sell... you are on the road to success.

Take consideration of the people you will try and sell to though, dont rank for "1st edition harry potter novel"... try generalise  and rank for "harry potter books" . You get the idea im sure good luck

edit: lalibela.co.za is worth $28,203.00 apparently... a couple of months ago it was only worth $350 crazy s..poo

I like your thinking ryan- only prob is i don;t have the time to work on those anymore which is why they keep slipping and i'm thinking of getting rid of them

I put one of the lesser ones on ebay as a little test...we'll see but thus far the action is minimal

well  Sis- ebook-reviews.net is worth $121,040.00 according to that tool so i'm not sure how accurate it is

i see they have a "professional apraisal tool" as well- sedo had 1 too for $30 which might be intersting to try...

...between that $30 and the $70 Matte is taunting me to spend on a .FM name there goes the 100 bucks cash prize  i was going to use for the new forum contest

lol, with all my luck i would probably never have the time to run through the .FM story so im gonna jump on a limb and vote for using the $100 as prize money... keep everyone on there toes ye know, im sure if .FM is really meant to be there will be some willing sponsor popping up in the forums