Lorelle has written a comprehensive post (does she write any other kind) on Selling Your Blog: What Are Blog Buyers Looking For? which explores questions like:
- When is the Right Time to Sell Your Blog?
- How Much is Your Blog Really Worth?
- Selling Points for Selling Your Blog
I agree with everything she says but would simply add that ultimately a blog is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. There are many factors that different buyers and sellers will use to determine value (Lorelle outlines most of those that I can think of) – but in the end it is like selling anything – it is about demand and supply.
I’ve seen some blogs sell in the last year that had selling prices well above what I’d have paid personally for them – however the buyers had their own agendas in mind. At other times I’ve seen blogs sell for ‘bargains’ where the sellers had their own motivations for choosing the buyer that they did.
It’s a funny business we’re in – and I’m pretty sure we’ll see a lot more of this buying and selling of blogs in the coming months!
Lorelle always writes such long, detailed and helpful posts.
Site flipping can definitely be very profitable if you have an avid interest in site building and promotion.
I agree Darren’s viewpoint: One blog for a lot of value to different buyer….. good luck all !!
A nice view on the blog selling phenomenon. Kind of funny that by writing such a great post, the value of her blog probably just went up!
Perhaps now would be a good time for her to sell it….!
Kumiko
If only I would get the amount promised by ‘How much is your blog worth?’ widget by technorati…
The thing that annoys me about selling blogs is that the price is dictated almost solely by short term revenue trends. In my experience, if your blog isn’t generating any income you can say goodbye to any chance of receiving a fair price for your site.
I agree that the marketing is expanding. The unfortunate thing is some webmasters are creating blogs to sell, concentrating on CTR’s first and quality content last.
it depends on a lot o factors, but mainly the “audience” is what counts!!!
[…] Blogs kaufen, verkaufen und bewerten Der Beitrag wurde am 14. Februar 2007 von Oliver Karthaus veröffentlicht Ich habe mir in den vergangenen Tagen Gedanken gemacht, welche Maßstäbe man beim Kauf und Verkauf von Blogs ansetzen kann. Parallel dazu gab es heute auch zwei gute Artikel von Darren Rowse und Lorelle VanFossen. Meine Überlegung wurde dadurch ausgelöst, da ich im Begriff bin ein sehr gut besuchtes und exzellent verlinktes Blog zu übernehmen / kaufen. Das Tool “How Much Is My Blog Worth” dafür heranzuziehen, ist sicher genauso schlau, wie bei Domains Adresso zu nutzen. Also, welche Faktoren / Risiken sollte man in ein Angebot einbeziehen? Und kann man ein Blog überhaupt so bewerten wie eine normale Site? Ich denke da gibt es schon das erste Problem. Fangen wir mal mit den Links an. Kaufe ich eine normale, kommerzielle Website und ändere nicht viel daran, bleiben die Backlinks wahrscheinlich zu 99% bestehen. Ein Grund dafür ist aber auch mit Sicherheit der Umstand, dass niemand jede Woche oder jeden Monat seine Backlinks daraufhin kontrolliert, ob die Partner-Website immer noch den gleichen Inhaber hat. Am Ranking sollte sich also durch die Übernahme nichts gravierend verschlechtern. Bei Blogs sieht das schon ganz anders aus. Ein Blog ist ja oft wie ein Wohnzimmer des Autors. Er schaut eigentlich regelmäßig bei den verlinkten Blogs vorbei, hat sie wahrscheinlich sogar im Feedreader. Bei Blogs muss man also schon eher damit rechnen, dass viele Backlinks verloren gehen – zumindest zunächst, bis der neue Besitzer neues Vertrauen bei den ehemals verlinkten Blogs aufgebaut hat. […]
Its true Matt, webmasters do create blogs to sell, and without much content. I have done the same and still do, but it is no different than when we created turnkey sites, or adsense sites to sell. I have sold a many of those, simply because there are people out there that buy these types of sites to have that multiple stream of income. I have had people come to me to create 5-10 sites specific to that concept for them to buy the entire lot. It isn’t that much of a difference than being hired by anyone for that matter to design and build a 5- 10 page website. It;s our job. So creating a blog to re-sell, or at least on my end, is just designing one that someone could jump right into, very cost effective, and start blogging. I also agree with Darren, some of the prices I have seen blogs go for, certainly not any of mine, are wild and I would never pay that much for them. But from a webmasters point of view, its all in a days work!
I don’t know if I’d be able to sell my own blog right now or even in the future. It’s too special for me. Maybe I’ll go to creating other blogs, developing them then selling them off, but my very own personal blog? I love it too darn much! :D
I guess that to calculate the value of a blog is important the current revenue.
I agree that every blog has its own value. Most importantly, if you have worked hard in creating a post or two knows that despite what other people think, your blog is too dear to you and you spend way too much time and effort in it – more than you really want to – which adds to a much more sentimental value – whether it’s generating any income or not.
Of course, there are blogs, created solely for the purpose of getting them sold or making money, without any solid, unique/authentic content,- and are merely created by tweaking, copying and modifying others work. I have no comments regarding them except to say that they are merely parasites, feeding and growing off others, and we do not need them!
I skimmed the article, but here is my thoughts. In the last 7 years or so I’ve been running websites for myself both personal and commercial and have sold a few that I just got tired of running, no blogs specifically, but some did include forums. My experience is that the most anyone will realistically pay is about one years worth of revenue generated. If your blog (or website for that matter) has a google page rank of 7 and 4,000 pages of content but only makes $5 / month, don’t expect to get any offers for $10,000.
From my experience, many webmasters are too emotionally attached to a site to be realistic about selling it, regardless of how reasonable an offer would be.
hurm..
if i also can sell my blog as much as Techsailor can do..
but i wonder if any buyers want to buy blog because i think they wouldn’t invest their money except the blog really make revenue..
I recently sold my first blog. At first I thought only the domain is worth my asking price but when the auction started all offers were between 10-12 months of revenue… I hate when people buying blogs/websites think only this way and give no other value to the blog/website.
The discussion around the issue of selling blogs has been fascinating. There is a lot of difference between selling a domain name and selling a blog. Even in the blog buying marketplace, there are “just blogs”, personality-driven blogs, and multiple blogger blogs. Each have a different way of determining the value, in addition to the things mentioned in the article, and some personality-driven blogs just aren’t salable material because once the personality is gone, who would want it?
It’s a fascinating thing to think about selling your blog, but the bigger question is “what have you done to make your blog buyable?” :D