How should I measure potentiality of a site?

While buying a site How should I measure potentiality of a site?

 

Well, I doubt there is any hard and fast answer to this but here are my thoughts. I am pretty new at this and in the very beginning I was merely just snapping up sites because they are cheap but after this last couple of weeks I found that I was doing it all wrong, I am now more subjective in searching what to buy.

Of course, one important aspect would be the marketability and thus the potential of the site. A site which is just nice and fanciful but does not have much appeal, no matter how cheap would not fall under that category.

What is important is to put yourself in the shoes of the audience and feel from that perspective. It may also be good to look at what the current trend is and go with that.

There are two kinds of websites, free sites and those which sells something type of sites.

I would categorize free sites as those which just provides information, picture and are typically adsense based sites where the more eyeballs would lead to more opportunities for clicks and thus income. In that case, a good sound and easy to remember domain name and is chiefly popular now.

Then the other is the money making sites which are those which sells something. This needs to be unique either because it appeals to a niche segment of the market and contains something which that niche would want to buy.

Web directories falls somewhere in between as they are both info and they do at times charge some for listing on the site (either monetary or through links exchanges).

So in short, what is important is the appeal of the theme of the site, it must be either very popular or very unique. Browse the site, go through the contents and see if it would entice you.

Of course with Google, Page Rank is yet another indication of how much value the site would be especially when the majority here places the important of Page Ranking.

I personally look at monthly income level and what drives the traffic to the site. If they are natural traffic so much the better or else you need to build them from scratch. A benchmark of 6 to 10 times the current monthly income level would be a nice guage.

In the end, it is really your gut feeling especially if they are new sites, it is a question of how much you are willing to risk in that venture.

Sidetracking a little, what's important for me is whether I know enough about that industry and how much resources (both financial and time) which I could dedicate to it. But in the end, the real potentiality of the site depends on the run who would take over it.

 

Potential has no value to me as "Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder". As a buyer the idea of "potential" can not be measured. On the other hand PR, income, traffic stats, etc. are hard facts that are measurable. With hard facts you can decide what the value of the site is to you. Potential implies to me that
I'm I going to have to spend $ on advertising, SEO, maybe redesign on a site with "lots of potential". Now having said all this, I will admit that I sometimes buy inexpensive domain names for speculation. So in this case I guess one could say I am buying for the potential value of the name. Just my thoughts.

 

thanks for your posts

 

That's agreat summary of site potentiality kashem. I would add that a site should contain original content that is well written and adds something to the topic in question, rather than parroting what's out there already.

 

Sorry the post in question was by eddy2099.