What are popular forums worth?

[Marcoose]

As a few of you may know I own footballforums.co.uk, a project that up until now has pretty much been on the backburner. I am in 2 minds at the moment whether to put my efforts into developing it, or maybe I should just sell.

My question is, how much is a developed forum worth. Just say I got to the stage where I had 1000 regular users, how much would the site be worth/how much would earnings potentially be. I don't mind putting money into it now if it pays off.

I know it's hard to answer but if you have experience in running a popular community, it would be great to know how much you earn!

 

[jimm]

The figure often banded around is 24 months rev.
Reality is its worth what people will pay.
I have bought forums for many many times their monthly rev, to then increase the rev significantly bringing the multiplier a lot more into my favor.

 

[Marcoose]

The figure often banded around is 24 months rev.
Reality is its worth what people will pay.
I have bought forums for many many times their monthly rev, to then increase the rev significantly bringing the multiplier a lot more into my favor.

OK, and what would you say a forum will roughly earned in adsense on a monthly basis if it has 1000 regulars? I know it's tough to say cos it depends on niche, but very roughly.

 

[jimm]

Anywhere between nothing and not much (maybe £25). Adsense is not the way to earn money on forums.

 

[Marcoose]

OK, would you say it's more about finding relevant websites that want to advertise? Or do you think affiliate stuff?

 

[jimm]

Do you want my catching code too?
Selling advertising > Affiliate > Adsense

 

[Marcoose]

Do you want my catching code too?
Selling advertising > Affiliate > Adsense

Great minds, eh!

I think basically I'm looking for people's opinions on whether I should develop. I suppose I could invest relatively insignificant sums of money to develop, but are the rewards there to be made?

 

[jimm]

Football isnt my bag so i dont know the market but a sucessfull forum can certainly pay well. I cant answer whether it will be worth it.
You need to work out how many visitors you could actually get, how much it will take to get them and how much rev you can get.

 

[peter_w]

I built up PESGaming.com to over 100,000 members (since sold it), a couple thousand posts a day etc. Reality is it didn't make a fortune even at that level. Made some money selling copies of PES every year, but that was more from the front-end blog than the forum it's self.

On a good day $50 from adsense on the forum. Typically more like $10 to $20. This was 2 years ago, though. CPM banners are awful - to the point most companies won't even touch you.

 

[wb]

Difficult to say how much it will earn without making proper estimates based on figures, but I think with it being football then you should be able to monetise it quite well through gambling affiliates. If you build up a nice member base then I'm sure you'll be able to negotiate some decent free bet offers to mail out to members when their team/nation is playing (perhaps ask them who they support etc upon sign up if you don't already).

Obviously you can't compare like for like as you don't know the revenue or statistics (other than it says there were 10,000 members at time of sale) however UK Business Forums apparently sold for £250,000 to give you some inspiration!

 

[mally]

Ukbusinessforums earns an income from private banner advertising and members who upwards to adverse at £40 a month..

Football might not though have the same appeal for advertisers..

Would be good though having areas for travelling fans like hotel affiliates, train ticket affiliates etc

 

[Pred]

depends on:

domain
traffic
content
subject
cost of ppc and ads etc

put this way i think domainstate sold for a kitkat crunchie and a packet of crisps

not sure if many high forum sales? anyone know of any?

i would think finance, business, property etc would be worth a bit if successful
prob main worth is if you're in an area and you can channel some targetted traffic from forum to your business or other sites

 

[Marcoose]

Hmm intersting. I originally bought the forum because I also own comparebookies.com (homepage is skewed because it's being worked on) and thought it would be a graet way to get traffic to it. I also thought implementing odds comparison into posts would work. Maybe this would be the way forward.

 

[rob]

I run a football forum, and if I didnt support the team I frankly would not bother.

I run a couple of others and the key is be 110% up with libel law, and setup processes in line with it. Self hosting or sympathetic host is a must.

Drop me an email if you want more info.

 

[Alien]

I run NFHiB, income via AdSense is good for our niche.

 

[Marcoose]

This is a great thread - does anyone else run a forum and does it make you good money?

Rob - you need to delete some messages, your inbox is full!

 

[mat]

Here is how I see it...

Forums only really work if you are making it out of a passion for the subject. I would say they need to run for a few years before you even think about starting to cash in. Even then you really have to make sure your not going to piss off all your users. Your forum is nothing without them.

Making a forum single handedly with the view of making money as the main interest is deemed to fail.

 

[Marcoose]

Here is how I see it...

Forums only really work if you are making it out of a passion for the subject. I would say they need to run for a few years before you even think about starting to cash in. Even then you really have to make sure your not going to piss off all your users. Your forum is nothing without them.

Making a forum single handedly with the view of making money as the main interest is deemed to fail.

Fair point. Although I like footie, I'm not as passionate as I once was and tbh my reason for buying the domains was to make money from it. OK, I think I'm going to sell - any takers?!!

 

[snooze]

It is funny that you made this post Marcoose, I was coming on the make a similliar post (no need any more). I bought a domain for the sole purpose of setting up a forum but been dittoring on the idea of actually starting it.

A show is coming in June, so I start it now, promote it a the show and see what happens from there. Who knows it might be the cash cow or a big lemon

 

[markb]

One of my sites is a very active uk forum with 60,000 members and has around 500 to 800 people on the forum at any one time. Doesnt make a huge amount of money compared to other sites I run, its very time consuming and get lots of threats of legal action every day for various things. Its a good job I have lots of very good moderators who help make the site easier to manage.