'Niche' Website Valuation Factors

[retired_member25]

Hi Guys,

I'm looking for opinions on the extent other website factors have in the valuation of a website other than the multiple of monthly revenue.

I say this because I have a relatively old (3 years) old minisite in Google which is the only site monetised within it's niche (as in no obvious competition).

The site is aimed at students, and due to the subject matter i'd say it would be only students who are currrently in university visiting the site.

The site isn't great, it hasn't been updated for an age and aesthetically needs beautifying - However to what extent do you guys think the following have an impact on the overall resale value -

Website Age - 3 years
Dominating Niche for most relevant keywords
2/3k unique student visitors per month

The site makes between £15 to £65 per month from adsense. This changes monthly.

Do you guys think the added value factors above significantly impact the potential resale price, or do you think the adsense income alone is the only significant bearing on value?

Cheers

 

[ScottJ]

As a buyer in my view;

Age - yes the older the site the more desirable and sell-able it would be, especially if you were looking for more than 18-24 months x net income. You would need to be able to show stable traffic and or income across that period though so good age can increase the multiple on income.

Dominating the niche - is good but a double edged sword, being in position 2 or 3 for the main keywords can show good potential for further earnings, conversely being ranked no.1 could be a worry, it can be a big drop in traffic/income from 1st to second so again site age can help counter that concern if it has long/stable rankings.

Traffic - relative to the industry and income, always helps but 100 visitors per day can earn more than 10,000 visitors per day in different genre's so those numbers in themselves are not overly important unless the site is clearly under-monetised.

Basically current earnings plus age/stability plus any obvious increases in available income are the main points for me when glancing at a site for sale and can help justify paying 36 months x income in cases.

 

[suzi]

any obvious increases in available income

Surely that can be far more important than all the other items - perhaps linked to unique visits.

 

[ScottJ]

Not more important than age/stability, for me. But almost all factors carry weight without being in any defining order.

A new mini site could quickly get into the top 5, be unmonetised and suddenly get traffic or get traffic from the current owners own network, that would not necessarily make it more valuable or attractive than a site that had already been in the top 5 for the last 2 years which had most income streams explored.

I would also add unique content to the list of factors that I generally look for.

 

[aZooZa]

Yeah - that stood out for me - 2-3k unique student visits per month making that little? That's potentially very valuable traffic!

 

[RSK3000]

I would consider.....

Age
Domain name length and the extension
Keywords in domain and if it is brandable or generic
Type-in traffic
Revenue generating potential
The amount of interest in the niche and whether site visitors have any money to burn
Dashes, unexpected spellings, using numbers instead of words etc may hurt valuations
How much have similar sites/ domains sold for
'X factor' - some domains have it, others dont!

 

[retired_member25]

Thanks for the advice chaps, I think it may be time to put some love into this site, however it's interesting to hear that a site without unseen revenue streams may be more interesting to buyers compared to an full tilt monetised site. Cheers.