The low value of heavy-duty content sites

[Edwin]

I wanted to get everyone thinking for a minute about heavy-duty content sites (sites that take 8-10 hours a week to maintain or more) and how much they would be worth when sold.

My thesis is that unless they are producing a very substantial revenue stream, in the many $000s a month, they are essentially worth nothing at all because the effort required by the new owner to keep them maintained to the same standard as the previous owner will be "worth" more than the time invested!

For instance (this *is* a fictional example) if I was trying to sell a site with 25,000 unique visitors a month and 100,000 pageviews, and which generated $800 a month, but which required 15 hours a week of solid work to keep it updated, then my hypothesis is that this would be one deal where it's just traffic for the sake of traffic! Taking over a site like this would really slap handcuffs on your ability to work on other sites and projects.

I mention this because a lot of the sites for sale on this and other forums are similar to the above. Just something to think about, perhaps?

Edwin

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[singloon]

i agree... although it ain't a problem for me cause i never intend to sell any of my sites .... have thought of acquiring some sites but the problem is time and effort to put into any more sites.....

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[eitan]

Hi,

Well, i think that there isn't such thing as traffic for the sake of traffic...i think that if you have the traffic, you can earn good revenue, but, it depends on the time you're willing to put in it...

If you work on your site for more than 10 hours a week, then you sure can find technics to increase your site's revenue in that time, but it takes time to explore, for example, which affiliate program works best for you. You usually don't find sites that requires a one hour investment per week and makes a very good revenue, usually.

Warm regards,


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[starluck]

Interesting point of view, I would guess that any heavy-duty content site with that volume of traffic should be generating several thousands of dollars a month tho; enuff to pay someone to do the work for you.

So, hypothetically I'd say that under the right management that level of traffic could generate good revenue.

If, I was buying such a site, I would also use their proven poor performance to try and knock down their selling price substantially.



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[xor]

Edwin - I agree 100%. If you're running a site "for the love of it" and spending 10 hours a week and only making a few hundred dollars a month then that's one thing. However, if you want to buy/sell a site then you better figure out your revenue per hour of work. Some of these sites that people are trying to sell are worthless. Who would want to buy a site that took 20 hours a week to run but only made $500/month ($6.25/hour). That means you would be buying a business which would basicly give you a minimum wage job.

starluck - There is no way a web site which receives only 100,000 impressions a month will make over $1000. I think Edwin was being generous with his example of $800. With current CPM rates you'd be lucky to get $100 for a 100,000 impressions unless the site was very targeted.