PulseWeb

Sorry if this is a little long-winded, please hold on!

About a year ago I was really into the game 'Halo 2' on the Xbox games console. So I started a website as a little hobby for me and my son. Anyway, it turned into quite a big thing so I used it for Google AdSense adverts and it made a decent amount every month. A few months ago I lost interest in it so handed the site over to someone else. He's decided to close it down now as he's sick of it as well! The thing is, it still gets a lot of traffic. At the moment I've just put a 'closed' message with some adverts on, but is it actually worth trying to sell?

Details are...
Domains: HaloSkillz.com and HaloSkillz.co.uk
It's only got standard webstats and I don't really understand them, but here they are...
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Figures in parentheses refer to the 7-day period ending Jun 22 2007 at 3:21 AM.

Successful requests: 817,571 (348,284)
Average successful requests per day: 38,928 (49,754)
Successful requests for pages: 297,788 (119,779)
Average successful requests for pages per day: 14,178 (17,111)
Failed requests: 23,400 (1,117)
Redirected requests: 3,694 (343)
Distinct files requested: 143,639 (8,880)
Distinct hosts served: 5,899 (426)
Data transferred: 10.98 gigabytes (2.95 gigabytes)
Average data transferred per day: 535.45 megabytes (430.86 megabytes)
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That looks to me like a decent amount of traffic? The site had/has a Google PR of 3, and the forum a PR2. The traffic will keep coming (I think) as the site is linked to in loads of places (YouTube mainly, but loads of others as well).

So, any thoughts? Is it worth anything? Would it be worth trying to sell or best to keep it as it is? The guy who took over from me just wants rid of it, but I said it was worth putting up a 'closed' message for now just to let the regular visitors know what's happening.

retired_member16

Why?

Ifs its earning, then why on earth didnt you keep it? Its too early to look at the stats but I still cant understand why you lost interest in something that earns for you every month.

anthony

^ It depends. If he was running a forum there, then acting as Admin/Mod can be very time consuming. Certainly that is what the cashe versions show anyway.

PulseWeb

Thanks 'programmer', that is more or less the reason. I totally lost interest in the 'Halo' games months ago, so running a website (with busy forum) solely about a game I no longer like/play seemed pointless. Regardless of the $100/$200 per month income from AdSense.

The guy who took over from me got sick of it straight away, so we've closed it down. Loads of people are screaming about us doing that, but it's easy for them to do that as they weren't in control.

So back to the original question, is it worth anything? I'm leaving it as it is for a couple of days just to let the members know what's happened. But after that is it worth me parking it with 'Sedo' or something similar? Or maybes just redirect all the traffic to an affiliate link for eBay? Or try selling it?

I should mention the majority (about 90%) of traffic is American.

ps. programmer - what do you mean "Certainly that is what the cashe versions show anyway"?? I don't understand the stats, I'm used to Digital stats and Google Analytics showing 'unique' visitors and stuff. The stats I've got look like big numbers, but I can't make sense of them. With analog stats is it possible to see 'unique' visits? Or do I have to go on what's pasted above?

nnh

If it's that busy then post a message on the home page for a week detailing it's future sale. After a week put it on ebay.com and a site user will buy.

If there is a lot of work it will be a 'user' that wants it...Try 18 x monthly income reserve. Be prepared to show stats for income!!...Good luck...

PulseWeb

The current 'closed' message already says people can get in touch if they want to make an offer. The problem is, most of the people from the forum are teenagers and there's only a small percentage of adults.

18 x monthly income as a reserve? That'd work out at over £1k! I doubt any of the forum members have £1k so the auction would probably be a waste of time. Plus I'm not really bothered about the website in it's old state, I'm more thinking about the amount of traffic to the domain names.

Showing stats for income isn't a problem. The figures I've stated are accurate, so I have no problem showing screenshots are even letting a potential buyer access my AdSense account if they really wanted to. Traffic stats are even easier to prove, I can give anyone a username/password for access to the stats page.

Would it not produce a decent income from Sedo or another domain parking service? When it was a website it only had a few AdSense adverts on (there's more now, but that's because it's a 'closed' message) and they produced $100-$200 every month. Surely a sedo parking page full of 'pay-per-click' links will generate something decent?

rjs_essex

Without seeing detailed stats its hard to say but the problem with this 'tactic' is that gradually traffic will tail off. Webmasters that have backlinks to your site will pull them when they realise or are told that the links are dead. Taffic from returning visitors will fissal out, seach engine placement will drop and gradually your PR will reduce to zero.

Bear in mind that Halo 3 is coming out in November this year and is dubbed to be one of the hottest game releases of all time. Halo already has a massive following and this will increase with the launch of the HD V3. Your domain is not version specific so I would suggest you rebuild your online community and develop in a way that prevents you from having to work on it full time. Once you have loyal forum members, promote them to moderators and get others to do the work for you.

Alternatively bear me in mind if you want to sell up if you think this idea is going to be too much work, im interested

Rich

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PulseWeb

thanks rjs_essex. I know what you're saying, and the upcoming release of Halo 3 is something we'd already thought about. It's just that I no longer have any interest in playing any of my games consoles, and to be honest Halo 3 isn't something I'm bothered about.

If it's left as closed, the traffic will eventually drop-off. However, a lot of the traffic comes from YouTube as well and we have no intention of deleting our YouTube account. So at least a decent percentage of traffic will continue for quite a while.

No matter what, we're not going to consider keeping the domains/website/forum. We either sell it, or I park the domains to get some revenue. If someone approached us who wanted to take over, they're more than welcome to it. Obviously, at a price. But I don't know what it's worth??