$1426 REV - 40,000 POSTS! Bespoke Webmaster / Tech Forums BIG PROFITS TO BE MADE
http://lovingtech.net/
Public Auction Ended
$4,670
Bidding History: 24 bids- Started:
- Thu, Jul 22, 2010
- Completed:
- Sun, Aug 1, 2010
Website Statistics and Collected Data
Site Visibility
| Google PageRank | 3 |
|---|---|
| Alexa Rank | 170,575 |
| Links in Google | 42 |
| Links in Yahoo! | 12,607 |
Domain
| Registration Date | 21st Jan, 2009 |
|---|
Compete Stats
| Compete Ranking | 0 |
|---|---|
| Trust |
SEMRush Stats
| SEMRush Rank | 2,399,719 |
|---|---|
| Keywords in Google | 55 |
Site Content
| Possible Copies Found | 0 |
|---|
We will listen to offers on this website. Selling because owner wishes to step down as administrator.
This is a unique opportunity and this sale has received some great publicity.
About LovingTech
· LovingTech is a bespoke and high quality, beautiful forum.
· Designed for webmaster and technology discussions.
· Established in January 2009.
LovingTech became a rapid success and was featured in many highly reputable tech and webmaster sites such as; Tech Patio, Blognamic, Dragonblogger, Untwistedvortex, Blogengage.
This website will have an immediate ability to make $800 - $1800 per month, depending on the advertisers you wish to have. It is not monitized currently, so if you do so you will see a return quickly.
Summary
· Setup as a non profit site.
· Niche is very profitable and commercially related
· Members wanted advertising so ads were accepted
· Ads sold in various formats, totaling $1426
· Website went non-profit again in Jan '10
· Website was never officially monitized or 'for-profit'
· This leaves the new owner to monitize this website
Why this forum is a great opportunity
· Financially rewarding topic/subject
· Fantastic content, rich niche
How will the site make money?
· Adverts sold on a per-forum basis
plus extra for:
· “Sticky thread” advertisements
· Contextual advertising
· Text links
Sticky threads are forum threads that the user has paid a fixed price per month to have their thread sticky.
Imagine a marketplace where everyone will go out of their neck to get best coverage and thus pay extra. Unfortunately LovingTech never looked for advertisers as it was a non-profit site, but they privately asked LovingTech to which it made sense to cover any costs we had. Please refer to the main revenue section.
Forum Details
· 40,000 quality posts
· 5500 threads
· 2,000 members
Forum Design
· Excellent bespoke theme for the free MyBB forum software.
· Software customized considerably to maximize the powerful software to its potential.
· Design, implentation, setup and customization worth at least $1500 alone.
Rankings
· Page rank 3
· Listed in DMOZ directory
· Good Google rankings for many keywords.
Staff and Extra
· Team of staff in place
· Custom-written Moderator Handbook
· Custom-made forum rules.
Misc’
· News page setup scarping news from other tech blogs.
· Should be expanded as a lot of people are aware of this neglected page (this was setup for testing purposes but was somehow found by Google and other sites now link to this page).
· Website accepted into NewsNow.co.uk but awaiting a blog. This would provide massive traffic source.
Value
· Domain-only appraised by a third party at $5000. We appreciate this figure may not be accurate.
Domain value based on several factors including:
· Links
· Traffic
· Age of domain
· Site category
· Domain keyword popularity
· Overall occurrences of the domain name on the web.
Whole website value factors
· Profit
· Potential
· Design
· Brand
· Themes
· Forum Posts
After sale
· Current owner will offer immediate support.
· Owner happy to remain as moderator free of charge.
· Will help with the transfer of the site if applicable.
Future development
Massive increase in member count can be delivered by
· Forcing users to log-in to view the threads – as the content is usually excellent. Furthermore, using a service such as CPA Lead were the user must fill a survey out before they can register will bring in money.
· If you already own a forum you could merge another forum into this one (or vice versa).
· The forum is quieter than it once was so could do with a spark from a new owner.
Revenue Details
· Setup as as a non-profit hobby
· Advertising accepted when members when members so impressed with the experience that they wished to advertise. Ads sold between Jan '09 and Jan '10
· Made sense to cover costs / future costs and receive investemnt by receiving advertising. We understand a new owner should and will want to make this a monitized site.
This website will have an immediate ability to make $800 - $1800 per month, depending on the advertisers you wish to have, if you want to make money from it.
· Website not been monitized since January 2010. So total earnings were made January 09 - January 2010 and not after.
· Website never officially monetized, or looked for advertisers.
· 100% ready to make a lot of cash!
Monitization methods:
· Per-forum advertising
· “Sticky threads”
· Text Links
· Contextual advertising
· Affiliate links
One advertiser paid $400 for 6 month per-forum advertising in our Internet Marketing Forum. He was so pleased he advertised for another 6 months for $400.
So how did that work?
· Can easily add advertising on a 'per-forum' basis and receive payments from "Paypal" subscriptions.
· This is really attractive advertising to companies as they only pay for 100% targeted advertising related to their business! For example, a SEO company advertising only in the SEO forum! When a user browses the SEO forum they would be interested by SEO services and therefore visit the happy advertiser.
It is important to stress that LovingTech never looked for advertisers, so a new owner should:
· Actively look for advertisers and make this a monitized site.
· Approach companies related to each forum to advertise.
· Setup an ‘advertise with us’ page.
If advertising is sold for all forums you would make in around $18,000 just at a $800/yr rate. You could charge a flat $50 or $30 month/yr rate too, whatever you think is best, but you will definitely see a return quickly even if you charged $50 a year!
What has the website made so far?
· $1426 revenue generated from casual member advertising Jan '09 to Jan '10.
· $380 made from a 'poorly positioned' adsense advert.
· Revenue from 'sticky threads' - a sales thread in standard forums. How does this work? The member posts a thread in a non marketplace forum, and we accepted a fee for sticking it for a month ($30).
· Text links sold to members at $10/mo rate. Their ads are displayed on the forum description.
A new owner really needs to package up sticky thread and link sales as they wish.
If you want to buy this site and make it for-profit you can make $800 - $1800/mo. $1800 would be made if per-forum ad is sold for all forums, not mentioning the other money to be made from sticky threads and text links!
Future potential for making money:
· Setting up a newsletter with affiliate sponsors (can be done easily through the admin panel, where a regular top posts newsletter is sent).
· Adding properly positioned Google adsense advertisements.
· Becoming an affiliate to sell products such as to new webmasters looking to start a site (hosting, ebooks etc).
· Selling reseller hosting
· Creating ebooks to sell to visitors such as SEO guides etc (Clickbank affiliate?).
· Price comparison for tech products, web design services or even referring people to best web designers (receiving an advertising fee or commission to be LovingTech endorsed).
· Sell products
· Setup a paid marketplace.
· Offering paid membership or a VIP (paid) membership upgrade?
Traffic Details
Whilst the site has a global appeal, traffic mainly originates from:
· United States
· United Kingdom
· Australia, India and Canada.
The site gets around 35,000-50,000 page views per month. We know this can improved but the current owner is not experienced in marketing sites.
Does this auction violate the Flippa Terms and Conditions? If so, please report it.
Comments 37 public, 5 deleted
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Claimed Traffic
| Page Views Per Month | 40,000 |
|---|---|
| Uniques Per Month | 10,000 |
Claimed Financials
| Gross Revenue (per month est) | $118 |
|---|---|
| Net Profit (per month est) | $118 |
| Warning: The seller has provided estimates (read more) | |
Monetization Methods
| Advertising Sales | Yes |
|---|---|
| Product or Service Sales | No |
| Affiliate Income | No |
Site Uniqueness
- Content is claimed to be unique
- Design is claimed to be unique
Seller
Attachments
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Last year analytics (when we had analytics)
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Most stylish forum design, ever
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Tags
Contextual Help
- The winner of this listing will be required to pay a 2.5% success fee to Flippa.
More Information ^ - Ownership transfer is safest when using Escrow.com (more information)
Seller also accepts payment using: PayPal ^
Alrite, first bid placed, let's get the ball rolling :)
Had private message - yes this is a quick entry into the market, and a great opportunity. The site is all completed, what you need to do is be a good admin & monitize it.
Ryan, I own a popular webmaster forum and received an email from you regarding this sale. I've read a few posts there and I see how your great personality helps the forum live and be active. You did a good job there. If the sale is really a must then I wish you best of luck with it. I didn't have buying a forum in my acquisition plans but maybe I'll take part in this auction, who knows. Thanks.
This site will be a great purchase and has a brilliant community and so much potential for money making!!
Very interested, I will make a bid now.
Thanks for all the interest. Good luck everyone. I received a question regarding the income, and I will post a public answer.
"Yes, The site made $800 from one per-forum advertiser alone. So you can come and sell ads for all 23 forums, at that price to make $800 x 23 and then extra for sticky threads and other methods. Hope that helps."
This website is a good deal, DNS name is very SEO Friendly and the rankings are decent to inherit. With AdSense alone probably could make $100 per month with the site, not counting paid advertisers. My hat is in the mix.
Hey ryan, really liking the site. How much time would you say you spend on the boards per week. Seems like you are pretty active, has to be a part of the reason why it has a loyal audience
The number of "Atta Boy" comments from people that created Flippa accounts today is pretty high.
Is this a bit of astroturfing, or are you just that popular around here ?
how many registered users do you have?
2000 registered users hivelocity.
Vairun, I posted the listing of this auction on the forums themselves, but I hope that was a rhetorical question.
Made the auction end in 9 days, 24 days was too long.
Hi, Can I see proof of traffic? Thanks
Yes, send me a PM I'll get some documents to you.
Hi I'd like to advertise on this website whoever owns it.
I will send you pm, I have placed my initial bid for this one.
Please PM me traffic proof and forum stats (topics/posts per day over time) as well.
Reply to a question - yes we can setup paid subscriptions, there is a plugin to do so.
(Paid member subscriptions)
Hi, very good site, I may be interested. Do you think it is possible to do some reseller hosting there if I bought it?
Will winner be provided with email list of advertisers?
How much is monthly hosting costs?
Why do you state the revenue as Gross Revenue (per month est): $118/mo
But in the auction title $1426 REV? Is this the total revenue of the duration of the site?
Monthly hosting costs were £2 for just one site but I've got a forum with 200,000 posts on my hosting which means I will have to package up everything to you. Yes, the title says the total revenue made on the site and was divided by the period we accepted member advertising (12 months). Sam, yes, reseller hosting would do well, i've been asked on the forums about this but I wouldn't know where to start.
(What I mean by package up is put the database in a zip etc and do an install on your hosting). Can be done NP.
I forgot to mention another advertising method.
Charging for a thread or announcement. Via the admin panel select it so that all users must read the thread before anything else. THis would bring amazing exposure.
I've placed a bit; I'm interested. Great money making potential with this site!
In the auction, you said that advertising sales were from Jan 2009 - Jan 2010. I would be interested to see how consistent advertising sales have been since Jan 2010. Do you have any screenshots of revenue from those dates onwards? And if advertising has not happened since then, will the contact details of past advertisers be passed on with the sale of the forum?
I mean, as it stands, at $6500, that is much less than what most forums sell for on here is all (its much less than I would list it for!). Bit of a steal to be quite honest considering the way that this site was monetized.
Hi Ryan
We didn't take any advertising after Jan this year. Since i listed the auction, people have asked for advertising just from this and I accepted two per-forum sticky thread advertisers totaling $50.. I have another person who commented here asking me and we are speaking about it. I will pass these details on, along with advertisers who advertised last year.
I put $6500 on as a mistake, I was planning to put $8,000 - $10,000 on the site and take $6500 as a minimum, but unfortunately I got that all wrong. If the bidding goes higher than $6500 someone can just BIN! I should put the BIN now up again but it'll be unfair now.
1,000 views!
We have just secured our third advertiser since we posted this just from people reading this. Will pass all contact info for these one but it once again shows how profitable this will be just from the per-forum method.
"i will use your ads services for one month and if we got good response then we can pay you for regular."
The reserve has almost been met.....
Lovingtech.net estimated worth $17,371.00 USD
http://mysitecost.com/www.lovingtech.net
The next bid will hit the reserve!