Comments on: Selling Blogs – Factors of Valuation

By: Hangelbel

Hangelbel — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 04:51:51 +0000

Hi. Can I sell my blog even if I don’t have my own domain?

By: Austin Long

Austin Long — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 17:02:30 +0000

Call me old fashioned, but for me it’s gotta be current earnings and short term earnings potential.

By: rob

rob — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:33:26 +0000

Just curious

* Traffic
25,000′ish
18,000 unique

* Current Earnings
$1400 – $2800

* Technorati Ranking
42,000

* Alexa Ranking
99,439

* Number of Posts in Archives
1200

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:13:12 +0000

It’s strange that so many bloggers have decided to sell their blogs. I just wonder what exactly is causing it or if it is just a coincidence.

By: heelcandy

heelcandy — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:30:51 +0000

Unique visitors + subscribers is the way that I look at blogs that I’m potentially going to buy. Another great way to measure a blogs worth is referring traffic, where are the uniques coming from, google, links, rss feed? Lastly pay attention to the foundation articles that a blog has and see if they are long term articles or dated articles that will disappear with time. Hope that helps.

By: Ryan Roberts

Ryan Roberts — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 07:37:39 +0000

I just wrote an article about how to use a corporate mergers & acquisitions strategy (earnout provision) to potentially increase your blog’s selling price.

I’m not sure about commenting etiquette, so I won’t leave a link in this field. I guess just click my name to get to my Startup Lawyer blog. The article is titled “How to Sell Your Blog for What It is Worth.”

As for basing valuation on rss subscribers, I’d be a little hesitant to do that as a first option. I’d start with revenue, then go to uniques, then maybe subscribers.

I hope no one sold their blog based on Saturday’s Feedburner counts…

By: Mike Huang

Mike Huang — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 05:16:45 +0000

We should all just wait a couple more weeks and we should be seeing EVERYONE trying to sell their blogs. I just hope those stupid scammers won’t come toward the sales…

By: Missy

Missy — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 01:52:43 +0000

According to the discussed valuations my blog would be worth around $2,030. Not a large sum, but certainly from an investment standpoint probably better than stocks, as my blog is only 4 months old.

This is an interestingly juicy discussion. Blogs as investment vehicles. Wow!

By: Angelica Ars

Angelica Ars — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 01:33:22 +0000

continuity in nr of visitors and popularity

By: Joel Falconer

Joel Falconer — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:00:53 +0000

Skellie, I think it’s a fair price – if it meets up to all those criteria, certainly, because it has the most important thing: great value for readers.

By: David Bradley

David Bradley — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:35:59 +0000

I think you’re right. Given that Sciencebase has 2700 or so subscribers, I’d be sitting on about $80k…which cannot be right, surely my site is worth much, much more than that ;-)

By: Manolo the Shoeblogger

Manolo the Shoeblogger — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:50:02 +0000

The Manolo must agree with those peoples who said that one should value the blog principally on the earnings, as one would any other business.

Yes, there are many variables that modify this calculation, but it is still the earnings that count the most. And in the current somewhat frothy market, the Manolo figures that 3 to 5 times annual earnings for the established blog with the decent readership is the reasonable price.

The multiplier goes up for the marquee blogs with more than six figure earnings, to something like six or seven, or ten, or even much more if the blog sits atop its category and makes the piles of money. (Henry Blodget said, half jokingly, he thought Techcrunch was worth $100 million of the American dollars. 20X earnings, yes?)

But, of the course, valuation is the inexact science and the blog is only ultimately worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it.

By: Skellie

Skellie — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:28:25 +0000

I wonder if there’s a market for a new way to make money online: starting blogs, establishing them, and selling them? It seems that people are so daunted by the idea of building a blog from nothing that they’re prepared to pay tidy sums to have someone do the legwork for them.

By that valuation you’ve got there Skelliewag is worth between $27,000 and $35,000 dollars. Not sure about that ;-)

By: Jacob Lee

Jacob Lee — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 04:09:09 +0000

Anybody have any thoughts on what filmcriticblog.com might be worth. The domain only?

Jacob Lee

By: Andrea >> Start a consulting business

Andrea >> Start a consulting business — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 04:01:27 +0000

I’d use standard business valuations. That means I’d use income as a means of valuing the business. I am frequently surprised to see blogs selling for only a small multiple of monthly income. What’s with that?

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 04:00:41 +0000

So how common is the selling of blogs? Is that a reason some people make blogs, people who can get a blog booming quickly then sell them on?
I am really new to blogging I set up 3 blogs that focus on my 3 main passions, fitness, surfing and my novel. for me it is all about the joy of sharing and hell if I can make a few bucks on the side to buy a beer or 2 at the end of each week then I am stoked!

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:16:40 +0000

Looks like Bryan’s OMG is now up to $8,500. Not bad for a 4-month-old blog. =)

By: Joel Falconer

Joel Falconer — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 01:05:45 +0000

The only reason I can think of to sell a blog is if I wanted to leave blogging, or leave a particularly flagging blog in terms of its performance.

I’d think long and hard about long-term value of keeping a blog vs. the short-term gain from selling it, before I took any action.

If you’re not going to write for the blog anymore, how long will it take for earnings to dwindle? Would earnings be greater over the course of a year or two than the sales figure? And if so, is the blog’s continuation more important to you, or the blog’s earning power?

By: Mike Wanner (aka Beatle)

Mike Wanner (aka Beatle) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:50:16 +0000

Darren – I think this should be broken down into two categories: Sites that have killer design but no traffic/no earnings/no rankings BUT simply potential to get there based on design and concept of the site. Does it include video, podcasts, content or pillar articles, or what I think is catching on, being a secondary blogger covering topics by a top blogger, like Darren. How many secondary blogs do you see on how to make money, and, more importantly, the ones that write each post/page video to be the exact same topic as Darren. No original thought here by the secondaries but I’ve seen two or three sold on sitepoint for $3000.

I’ve sold three sites on sitepoint myself with no rankings, URL just the WP design and concept. The selling of the concept on future value based on attractiveness and ability to attract buyers or other like-minded folks.

This is a bit cynical… but who cares about traffic or alexa rankings if your audience is a bunch of lookers and not buyers. Shouldn’t your blog be a front end to educate your audience so they trust you and then begin offering higher-end products on the backend… Otherwise we’ll soon revisit history of internet valuations without any real value to see on paper or concrete cash flow.

Just a few thoughts….

By: Dom

Dom — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 23:34:53 +0000

That’s interesting – the ~$30 figure fits in with calculations I did based on what people in this niche say they’re earning. I guess that means if you’re advertising, you want to keep your cost per subscriber acquisition well below that figure..