Hello,

Disclaimer - not strictly DNN..

I have the possible opportunity of purchasing a competitor's site.

The site owner has asked me how I value the asset – I realized I have no idea on how to value a website or attach a financial purchase price to it. I know my price range and what I am prepared to pay for it (based roughly on the number of users and how much more valuable that would make my site, as well as the size of my budget).

Does anyone have more experience on this or any advice on how to value a website?

Things I thought of

1. Monthly Income (my business model is different from theirs so this would not equate to my future income – I merely want the userbase and Google juice).
2. UserBase (Although Number of Active Users is more accurate)
3. Monthly traffic – impressions, unique users (Google Analytic data would come in handy here)
4. Various metric sites – Alexa, Comcast, Trends etc. (check age of domain, traffic etc)

Considerations

1. What am I getting for the price – all IP, domains, database, code etc.
2. What is the site written in, what database does it use
3. How will the users react when told that their data has been sold?
4. How to handle the transition (later - after sale agreed)

Obviously the seller may not be entirely honest when providing such statistics but I have little else to go on. Any advice in this area is appreciated.

Entrepreneur

PokerDIY Tournament Manager - PokerDIY Tournament Manager<
PokerDIY Game Finder - Mobile Apps powered by DNN
PokerDIY - Connecting Poker Players

I like that phrase - 'it's only worth as much someone is willing to pay for it' - so old, yet so incredibly accurate and it goes down to perception of value to a person, depending on what they want to do with it.

I purchased DNNSKINS.COM in 2006. It was offered to me asI had been involved with skinning and it looked at least like it could have an extended life. 

I would be looking at the traffic, membership and evaluating what you're actually going to do with it. If you think it's going to help you in your business, then it may be worth an investment.

By the way - it was in the thousands - what I paid for DNNSKINS.COM - and that was when there were 27,000 users, and now I have 75,000 users on there.  

I know that ActiveModules purchased dnnfusion - but that was the product i guess, not the site - I am not sure how much was paid, I only have heresay and we all know about the 'ass u me' comments.  I ain't going there.

Here's a bit of a time killer - http://www.wmtips.com/tools/info/  - put in the URL and see what comes of it.. and then there is http://www.alexa.com - to view traffic ranks.. ... do a search on google how many times they are being searched.. and either way you'll justify whether it's for you or not. 

Good luck - keep us posted if you're bought a mini empire..

Cheers

Nina

So, yes there is always opportunity, but you have to evaluate what it's worth for you moving forward.

Nina

Great website, thanks Nina. Interestingly, although this site has been around since 2003 (and hence has a MASSIVE userbase (although I need to verfiy the active number (returning?) and confirm that they were all volountarily signed up ;) - the traffic scores and metrics are not very good. I spend a lot of time on SEO/link building so PokerDIY looks really good on that site whereas their site is 1/100th of the rankings.

However, I contacted him about a sale (I suspected he did not have enough time to run it and I work on PokerDIY full time) and he does appear to make some money out of it. Because my business model is different, I cannot rely on these revenues (PokerDIY will always be free), but I guess I have to compensate him for them. 

Thanks for the comments - I have made an offer on your suggestions and will see what he comes back with. Even if he laughs at least we got the ball rolling! Exciting stuff...  (keep an eye on PokerDIY - it's going to be the number one social network for poker players in the world ;)

Entrepreneur

PokerDIY Tournament Manager - PokerDIY Tournament Manager<
PokerDIY Game Finder - Mobile Apps powered by DNN
PokerDIY - Connecting Poker Players