This Site Just Sold For $75k After Making $7k For One Month…Bad Deal?

I was just at one of the online website marketplaces and noticed this website that sold for $75k.

Anytime a website sells in the high 5 figures it gets my attention. So after a closer look let me tell you why I think one party got the better end of the deal.

The website is dogfood.guru. It is basically a website that talks about dog food recalls and does reviews etc.

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The website was started literally just a year ago. As you can see from the traffic chart here it ramped up pretty quickly.

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Within 5 months of starting the website is was up to 20,000 visitors a month. In case you were wondering that was really good. At the 10 month mark their website traffic doubled. Then as you can see 1 month later it doubled again.

This is not normal growth. The traffic growth of this website was phenomenal. It is rare to see a website grow that quickly being that new of a site.

First Red Flag

Here is a chart of the breakdown of traffic sources:

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The most interesting thing here and my first major red flag is the site gets 86% of its traffic from search engines. It doesn’t say which ones but it is most likely Google. The reason this is a major red flag is because that means there is no traffic diversity and one Google change could erase all of the traffic instantly.

Think about it. If they lost their rankings the site would go from 150,000 visitors a month to just 21,000 per month and it would be even lower than that because a lot of the direct traffic comes from people who found the site through Google.

It is a major red flag for me because this is exactly what happened to me on a site that was making $1000/day, believe me it was not cool.

I am very surprised to see how a website that is barely a year old could grow in the search results like that. If a new site can move up in the rankings that quickly, I may have to rethink my entire philosophy of buying existing undervalued websites and just start one from scratch.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that there probably wasn’t a lot of competition in the “dog food reviews” space so it made the barrier to entry much smaller.

I just wouldn’t trust that this traffic or the search rankings were going to stick with such a small amount of history. Show me that kind of traffic for 2 or 3 years, then I am much more interested.

Red Flag Number 2

The second major red flag that jumps out at me is the revenue from the site. As you can see from the chart below the site made $6800 last month.

dogfoodgururevenue

Even if I just look at the last 3 months of revenue and take an average a 10x multiple (which is pretty standard for online businesses) would be about $40k.

The buyer of the website based the multiple off of just one month’s revenue history. That is a GREAT way to get yourself burned and lose a lot of money.

Instead what the buyer should have done is averaged out the 6 months of revenue data and based his 10x multiple on that, which would have been about $27,000.

Now I can understand that you have to factor in the growth of the site and how you could probably make the assumption that the site will at least hold where it is at right now and that might drive up the price a little.

That is why selling a website at auction can sometimes be the best way to go. Get different people bidding against each other based on potential.

Who knows, if this things stays where it is at or continues to grow this website could bring in $100k in a year which would be an amazing return on investment.

That is the risk the buyer is taking. They are probably much more familiar with the dog space than I am.

What I Think The Website Is Worth

If the owner of this website came to me and wanted me to buy, after looking at all of the data and the industry and looking at the revenue channels that exist in the dog food/pet space I would probably not be comfortable paying $75,000 for the website.

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I would be much more comfortable coming in at about the $25,000-$35,000 range for this site. That way if things stay exactly as they are I can make my money back in 4 to 6 months but if in a month or two things take a dive, my risk is mitigated.

Again, the pet space is not one I have spent much time in so I would be much more risk averse on this one. If it was an industry I knew more about I might be willing to go higher.

 

Want To Learn More About Website Flipping?

I have been helping people quickly get started online by teaching them how to buy low priced websites for pennies on the dollar and then fixing them up so they make money fast. Get access to my email course to learn how you can do it too.

Still Selling Post Google Updates

I know that watching websites plummet in the search engines can make the prospect of buying and selling very scary. As with all things there are risks to this business. (and remember, for every site that fell out of the results another replaced it)

I just wanted to write a quick post and let you know that I am still both buying and selling websites. Things are always going to change, you just have to be able to adapt with them.

For example, link building has to be done much differently now than it did a year ago. Doing it wrong can kill your rankings but doing it right will still get you to the top of Google.

I am in the process of selling 2 websites that I bought recently (less than 5 months ago), and as soon as the deal goes through I will post the results here. I will tell you that we are making a nice profit.

There is money to be made in the world of website flipping.

In conclusion, don’t get discouraged and don’t panic. Flipping websites is still a viable business.

How Penguin and Panda Impacted Website Values

Guest Post

Website ValuePlacing an accurate value on a website is a truly tricky proposition. Most website valuation companies follow a loose set of guidelines, but the Internet is an ever-changing landscape that causes any fixed rules to fall by the wayside in a matter of weeks.

Case-in-point: Flash back to 2009. Websites optimized with hundreds of thousands of low-quality backlinks and monetized with AdSense were dominating the SERPs and making countless webmasters boatloads of cash. With the right set of tools, any SEO worth his salt could crank out niche sites, get them ranked, and start seeing profits within a month or two – some were even making fulltime careers of it.

Then, by late 2011, Google leveled the playing field with a series of algorithm changes that shook the SEO community to the bone and changed the game entirely. The same tired old tactics simply didn’t work anymore. Link farms? Gone. Blog networks? Dead in the water. Backlink blasts, comment spam, and forum links? Practically useless.

Today, people are scared. People are concerned. They wonder what value their sites have after Panda and Penguin. They want to know if websites will continue to be assets in the future. But the concern is unfounded unless the webmasters in question are guilty of engaging in any of the blackhat tactics that Google is outlawing left and right.

Penguin and Panda – So What Happened?

Before we can understand how website values changed after the updates, we need to know exactly what it was that happened. Here’s a little refresher course:

There’s an easy way to distinguish between the Panda and Penguin updates. Panda is an update that targets on-page issues, and Penguin tackles backlink problems.

When Panda originally hit, it penalized sites that had issues such as duplicate content or too many ads plastered above the fold. According to Neil Patel, SEO legend and founder of Quicksprout.com, Panda ushered in penalties for these main website issues:

Then, a year later, Google followed Panda’s changes by unleashing Penguin. This update dealt with backlinks in a major way. Sites with thousands of spammy links pointing to them were hit hard, and webmasters scrambled to clean up their backlinks in a hurry after they watched their rankings plummet overnight.

According to Search Engine Watch, Penguin examined three key areas of a website’s backlink profile:

This wiped some of the spammier sites off the map. Even legit sites run by webmasters who used backlinking services, linkblasting software, or who sold paid links were hit. This is because the referring sites themselves are now a ranking factor – you should have a natural-looking backlink profile with a variety of anchor text, and it should be comprised of well-respected sites in your niche (or sites that are at least related in some way).

Website Values Post-Panda/Penguin

So, how can you figure out what your website is truly worth after all the algo updates? The best way is to employ a website valuation company in order to determine a value. If you use a simple auction site or attempt to place a value on the site yourself, then you risk grossly mispricing your greatest online asset.

To determine the true value of a website, a legitimate valuation company will calculate your website’s revenue for the past twelve months. A multiplier is then applied to assign the website a grade of A to F, and the multiplier generally depends on three important factors:

  • Macro Impact

This external factor is based on macro-level issues such as economic conditions and algorithm changes. For example, people don’t trust Google as a singular traffic source now that such dramatic changes roll out every few months. The search environment is unstable at best, which is the reason that websites relying exclusively on Google for their traffic have lost value so rapidly.

  • Buyer Mood

Buyer mood is an extension of economic factors, and it’s similar to stock market conditions. Buyer mood affects pricing because, quite simply, there’s no way to sell an asset if no one is buying. If the Web experiences major upheaval, trends in certain types of websites ebb and flow based on the changes. Hence, buyer mood will majorly impact the possible sale of your site contingent upon what type of site you own.

 

  • Micro Impact

These are the factors that impact the sale of your site based on the site’s stats itself. For instance, the lifespan of the site, its potential for future growth, stability, and its presence in the industry are all key factors that majorly influence the price of your site.

How to Increase Your Website’s Value

If you’ve bought a website and you want to increase its worth in this new search landscape of ours, don’t fret. Building out a site still involves the one-two punch of beefing up content and building backlinks. However, an extra piece of the puzzle after Panda and Penguin is community building. This is the missing link going forward– you must strive to nurture and grow your website’s community above all else.

How? Network with others in your niche. If relationships already existed between them and the previous site owner, extend an olive branch and pick up where he or she left off. Comment on related websites and blogs. Guest post. Link to authorities in your niche.

You’re not doing this for links. You’re doing it for exposure and networking.

Eventually, people will link to you – and your backlink profile will have truly organic links that you didn’t lift a finger to build. You’ll also gain shares, conversations, Likes, great discussions, and plenty to write about because you’ll be part of a real community – an integral piece of an ongoing dialogue.

To determine which areas of your website need work, try performing a traditional SWAT analysis. Figure out the areas where your website shines and identify the parts that need work. Then, determine which opportunities are out there for your site, and decide what external factors threaten your site as well.

Another way to increase the value of your website and future-proof it against new changes is to ensure you keep clean records at all times. Don’t mix your website data with information from other business ventures or websites. Keep detailed, independent accounting and maintenance records so when the time comes to sell, you’ll have all the info you need at hand.

Assigning a value to a website is a complicated matter. The number can fluctuate wildly as external factors change the landscape of the Internet. That’s why using a website valuation service is a good way to determine the true value of your website before you decide to sell.

 

Quiet Light Brokerage is a website valuation company that provides free online valuation services as well as a full spectrum of services to help webmasters prepare their online businesses for sale.

Your Website Flipping Method Questions Answered…

The release of the Prosperly Website Flipping Method is tomorrow. The course will be a comprehensive training course that teaches about buying, fixing, running, and selling websites. Many of you have contacted me with questions about website flipping and about the product. Below you will find my answers.

Question: How much money do I need to invest to get started flipping?

The answer is: it depends. Website flipping is like real estate flipping in many ways, but with a much lower cost of entry.

I would recommend not spending more than a few hundred dollars on your first websites. Even with the success that I have had, I seldom spend more than a couple of thousand dollars on a website. Depending on your technical skills, you also might have to spend some money on website development. Again, this shouldn’t be more than a couple of hundred dollars.

Question: What kind of technical skills will I need to do this?

Not many. You will need to learn how to use FTP and also I would recommend you learn how to use wordpress. There are thousands of free training videos to help you learn, just search on YouTube.com. You can also contract people to do almost anything you need.

Question: Do I have to have your SEO skills?

You will need to perform SEO for your site, but you do not need my skill level. In fact, what I teach you in this course will give you all the SEO advantage you will ever need to make any internet business successful.

Question: How much time will it take me to run a website?

This will depend on the site you buy. If you are following Prosperly principles, you will be spending the least amount of time possible on the sites.

Question: How long before I can sell a site?

I have owned and run sites for years before selling, and I have also owned sites for only days. Normally I would anticipate having them for several months before selling them. If you have increased the revenue and traffic to the site then you should make a good profit.

Question: Who is your training course for?

My course is meant to take someone from no knowledge about buying, fixing, running, and selling websites to a level where they can do this for a living. However, it is in depth enough that even if you have experience with websites you will learn the strategies that have helped me be successful over and over.

Question: What makes this course different from the others out there?

I hope that you know through following my blog, that I am not one that gives useless information. You can count on the information I provide you with to be relevant and informative. I would not put my name on something that I didn’t completely believe in.

I can’t speak on the other courses out there because I haven’t gone through them. All I can tell you is my course is awesome. :-)

Question: If this is so great why are you sharing this information?

This is probably the most common question I get. The answer is simple. I sincerely desire to help others, and I don’t believe that hoarding the information I have will help me be any more financially successful. The world of websites is HUGE. Just because I help others to succeed does not mean that I won’t.

Question: What is your course going to cost?

The course isn’t going to cost you anything. It is going to make you money. It is an investment in your education and your future. I will be offering the Prosperly Website Flipping Method training course for $1,997. This is a special deal for my longtime Prosperly followers. Since I have never sold a training course before I don’t know how this is going to go and I may only give access for a very short period of time.

Question: Will there be support after the purchase?

Yes. After purchasing the product you will have unlimited email access to the Prosperly support team.

Question: Is there a guarantee?

Yes. We will offer a 30-day money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied I will refund your money, no hard feelings.

Thanks again for your patience while I have put this course together. I assure you it is well worth the wait!

Check the blog tomorrow for information on where to buy it.

Adam