Premium 4 yr old Motorcycle Network, 120/day income, TWO forums, 20,000 members

Questions 21 public, 2 deleted

1. 

   Posted by:

   spdude (+5)

   Date:

   Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:27:38 GMT

   Here are the reasons why I feel the minimum asking price should be at least 20 months revenue:

   1. The sites are extremely old and established. The registration date on the Suzuki domain is 2003-06-08

   2. Automotive niche. Not gaming, myspace, icons, proxy... CPC is generally so much better, and of course this will not change overtime.

   3. Vast majority of traffic is US based and of a mature age. The Google Analytics PDFs will confirm this.

   4. A very similar motorcycle forum was sold here at Sitepoint for a BIN of $75,000. The income there was almost exactly the same as what is being declaired here. There was no Google authority status in the case of that other site, and it was only one single forum. Here the risk is distributed because the content site and forums are all on seperate domains. Cumulatively the traffic here exceeds that of the other site. Please PM, if you want the URL to the previous auction I'm talking about.

   5. Apart from Adsense, the only other monetization method being employed is VibrantMedia intellitxt. At roughly $18/day this brings in an additional $500/month. This was added just four days ago. So it is revenue in addition to whatever has been claimed earlier. There are no CPM ads or other paid advertising on the site. This leaves open doors to increase earnings further.

   6. The most important factor which justifies over 20 months revenue is the ZERO maintanence factor. I literally make less than 2-3 posts per month on the entire forum, and that too is in the staff section tending to vbulletin related bugs, and there is no need for me to get involved. Both forums have one additional volunteer admin and 2-3 moderators who do a great job of keeping them clean.

   Reason for Selling

   I have these sites occupying half of a server currently. The rest of the server is dedicated to the sql of a huge site which is making $xx,xxx/month. The forums of that other site has several million posts and a new game is being released this month. The servers will be crashing when that happens.. so to make room for the huge traffic on the main money making site, I need to remove some sites from this server. Either I sell this network or I need to rent yet another server, and of course securing the asking price would justify my efforts thus far anyways, and there doesn't need to be a reason for selling beyond that IMO. In any case, the sites are solid. The content sites need updating only once a year. 2008 modles have already been added to the Suzuki site, and simply sitting on them for another year while enjoying the monthly revenue is not something I have a problem with, if the right offer doesn't come.

   I have set a BIN price of $80,000

   Serious buyers can PM me for proof of anything or access to the Analytics stats..

2. 

   Posted by:

   spdude (+5)

   Date:

   Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:52:41 GMT

   One further correction is required. The staff at the MJ forum have their own adsense pub-id on the main blog page of MJ.com and the members template of the forum.. this gives them roughly $50/month in earnings. In addition there are a couple of sponsors and vendors on the forum. I've also allowed them to bnefit from the income coming from sponsors, since they run the place and deal with the vendors themselves. Apart from that I am under no obligation to pay any staff. They are all enthusiasts and love the site.

   If this thread leads to a sale, what I will do though is send them some proceeds from the final price as a thank you to them, and also to pave the way for a smooth transition.

   My own purchase of this network was not followed by a public "change of ownership" announcement. The new owner can simply take over my admin account and communicate only with the staff. No need for any announcement.

3. 

   Posted by:

   george benjamin (+2)

   Date:

   Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:37:37 GMT

   I know Spdude from DP and all of his sites are high end and he has done several high xx,xxx buying and selling sites.

   70k in my opinion is too low for a site that has zero maintenance. The other advantage i think is that they are community based websites - ie; they will generate themselves. A community reaches a point where no more work is needed to be done on it (other than moderation). What will happen is only increased traffic and increased revenue. Does Shawn Hogan need to promote DP anymore to make more money? NO. It promotes itself.

   The 12 months revenue model is becoming really outdated now, especially for sites of this stature.

4. 

   Posted by:

   moreclicks (+3)

   Date:

   Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:24:36 GMT

   I've dealt with SPdude on a regular basis for almost a year now, I own a site that he recently sold on this forum and it's performing above the level it was when he owned it. It's been a great investment and if this network does not sell quickly then I will gear up and buy it myself.

5. 

   Posted by:

   Edman (+5)

   Date:

   Tue, 11 Sep 2007 08:08:40 GMT

   Wow, this is a nice site, probably will get snatched up quickly. Too bad its a bit out of my budget range :(

6. 

   Posted by:

   spdude (+5)

   Date:

   Tue, 11 Sep 2007 10:03:12 GMT

   Ok, I'm heading for bed now.. will be back in about 8 or so hours. There have been a couple of enquiries into a lowered BIN. Given the interest seen thus far, I wont be accepting such offers. Please publicly use the bidding system.

7. 

   Posted by:

   patricio (-17)

   Date:

   Tue, 11 Sep 2007 10:23:24 GMT

   wow, did you ask all your family to come and post what a great person you are?

8. 

   Posted by:

   ketan9 (+5)

   Date:

   Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:51:26 GMT

   I have following questions:

   1. Will the backlinks stay for this site once the sale has been made, if not then this sites will lose their rankings as the backlinks are from your other authority sites.
   2. Why is that you do not have stats prior to 4 June 2007?
   3. I would like see the stats how they were between November to March. Since summer is almost over now, in winter the earnings would die down per my understanding, but if stats shows something else I would be interested.
   4. "Suzuki Motorcycles" brings you the most organic results but yet the site ranks 15th, whereas the other keyword "suzuki bikes" ranks you 1st yet, less number of visitors. The math is not working out. Did you loose ranking recently for "suzuki motorcycles"?

   Thanks,

9. 

   Posted by:

   gloukes (+5)

   Date:

   Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:53:25 GMT

   Is kawasakimotorcycle.org part of this network of sites and included in the sale?

10. 

    Posted by:

    asimj (+3)

    Date:

    Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:56:36 GMT

    kawasakimotorcycle.org does seem to an integral part of this network of sites and should be included. Winter months revenue details would also be very useful information for any potential bidder. Please post this information for us all to see.

11. 

    Posted by:

    spdude (+5)

    Date:

    Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:38:48 GMT

    @patricio what can I say, people simply know me both here and at DP. Those comments were unsolicited.

    @ketan9

    >1. Will the backlinks stay for this site once the sale has been made, if not then this sites will lose their rankings as the backlinks are from your other authority sites.

    That's not true really. The Suzuki site has been authority for at least two years, and I've only owned these since 4-5 months. I don't have any other related automotive sites I'd be linking these from.

    >2. Why is that you do not have stats prior to 4 June 2007?

    Because that is when I installed Google Analytics.. on June 4.

    >3. I would like see the stats how they were between November to March. Since summer is almost over now, in winter the earnings would die down per my understanding, but if stats shows something else I would be interested.

    What I can provide for you is vBulletin related stats for as far back as you want. From there you will notice that there is no huge drop during the winter months. I used to own another Motorcycle forum from September to February which did just fine during those months. While search volume might drop by 10-30% (definitely not more)... cpc and other things also contribute heavily to the bottom line. So clicks earning $0.15-0.20 during the winter months could cause even more earnings than my current $0.10 clicks, even though the volume in summer is more.

    Again, I haven't owned this network during winter months, so I can't posts stats for them, unfortunately.

    >4. "Suzuki Motorcycles" brings you the most organic results but yet the site ranks 15th, whereas the other keyword "suzuki bikes" ranks you 1st yet, less number of visitors. The math is not working out. Did you loose ranking recently for "suzuki motorcycles"?

    It ranks 4th for that term on google.com, and second for the singular. Please recheck. You can even compair data centers using the McDar tool:

    http://www.mcdar.net/dance/index.php

    For me it is showing 4th on ALL datacenters.

    The kawasaki site was designed and created around the same time as the Suzuki one, by the same coder and designer. That's why it looks somewhat similar. There is a link relationship between them, but I do not own it. The link relationship will remain as long as the new owner doesn't remove any themselves.

12. 

    Posted by:

    spdude (+5)

    Date:

    Tue, 11 Sep 2007 20:23:47 GMT

    Here are monthly post totals on the forum since summer 2005:

    June 2005 9798
    July 2005 8947
    August 2005 10257
    September 2005 8909
    October 2005 10258
    November 2005 8336
    December 2005 6631
    January 2006 6834
    February 2006 9676
    March 2006 11609
    April 2006 11657
    May 2006 11116
    June 2006 9955
    July 2006 9888
    August 2006 10852
    September 2006 9710
    October 2006 9715
    November 2006 8190
    December 2006 6146
    January 2007 8052
    February 2007 8991
    March 2007 13117
    April 2007 11397
    May 2007 11582
    June 2007 10771
    July 2007 12233
    August 2007 12779
    September 2007 3842

    What it looks like is although there is indeed a 20-30% dip during winter months, the only two months really affected are December and January.

    So basicly, the value here is in the combination of the authority content site plus the two forums. It really minimizes the impact from seasonal drops and ensures the general trend is always headed upwards.

13. 

    Posted by:

    spdude (+5)

    Date:

    Wed, 12 Sep 2007 02:11:14 GMT

    BIN offer made. Bidder has left his phone number and I'll be talking to him soon.

14. 

    Posted by:

    spdude (+5)

    Date:

    Wed, 12 Sep 2007 03:22:14 GMT

    Pending sale...

15. 

    Posted by:

    DBA2003 (+3)

    Date:

    Wed, 12 Sep 2007 07:06:42 GMT

    Hi Yusuf,

    Ok, there you go. Good luck with the sale.

    Regards

    Patrick

16. 

    Posted by:

    tastysites (+6)

    Date:

    Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:11:03 GMT

    Congratulations to both buyer & seller!

17. 

    Posted by:

    spdude (+5)

    Date:

    Wed, 12 Sep 2007 23:01:40 GMT

    Funds have already hit Escrow.. and we're beginning the verification process. If anything does happen to change, I'll change the auction status back to active.. and if it goes through, I'll delete all details and close the thread in the next few days.

18. 

    Posted by:

    Matt Mickiewicz (site admin)

    Date:

    Thu, 13 Sep 2007 19:54:57 GMT

    You may not wish to delete the details of the auction/bids as it will negatively affect you when the reputation system is rolled out -- SITEPOINT ADMIN.

19. 

    Posted by:

    spdude (+5)

    Date:

    Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:24:15 GMT

    But as long as the system is not yet rolled out, we should be fine doing this, correct?