To SELL or not to SELL? :)

Hi all

Today i was discussing with a friend of mine about selling or not a good earning site. And the question is the same to all of you To SELL or not to SELL a good earning site this days?

Looking to your replies on that will be valuable to all DP members

 

I sold a decently earning site a year ago and made a nice amount of money with it. However, I am sure the new owner made it all back in about 6 or 7 months time. I sure miss that AdSense income!

 

If i was you i will not sell a good earning site (it's steady money)

I will only sell it for a great ofer or in a big emergency case ...

 

Though, is the get cash (by a site sale) to reinvest scenario a promising one? Or at the end you turn to waste money trying to get what u had..?

 

I say if its making money keep it. i have a site i have owned for 7 years makes me money every month. I would never sell unless i was giving alot of $$$ 7 years of profit on the internet is not seen to often,

my advice, unless you have another idea you can funnel the money into, i would keep it

 

I guess the question is why are thinking of selling the site?

 

All the posters above me have offered great advice. Let me add this one thing to what they have said.

It might be the right time to sell if you feel like the market segment has peaked or your abiltiy to grow the site beyond its current place has peaked.

Otherwise cut your losers and let your winners run.

 

Apart from the financial aspect, do you enjoy working with the site?

My friend sold his main site, and regrets it. He became bored, he tried setting up different sites but just didn't have the same interest that he had with his orginal site. It was like his baby, who he worked on for many years.

 

Only sell your site when you have an emergency case.
Steady income is very important and you shouldn't give it up.

 

Thank for all your replies up to now

 

Some people are in the business of buying and selling websites, like myself

 

I was offered a good amount of money for my website. I chose not to sell it, because I calculated how much money I make a year with the site, plus the interest I can get with the bank and the price that was offered to me was stale, as your site is a steady income and even though one lump sum is good, it didn't really make me wealthier in the end. (Although my sites have a long way to go before I can get rich, muhahaha)

 

Personally I see no reason to sell a profit earning site unless you feel that it will die soon or just cannot handle the pressure of maintaining a site. A few people have offered to buy my sites, but if they offer $100,000 which is what it would generate per year, then sure I would have the money upfront but a year later I would be missing out on $100,000 per year the the sites generated so I do not see the point. I thought about buying sites myself but I like my code for my sites to be clean and some people have really badly coded sites.

 

If you don't need the cashflow then there is no piont in selling obviously. We don't all have that luxury though

 

Like everyone else has said, there is no real reason to sell a well earning site unless you desperately need a large injection of cash, or you get an INCREDIBLE offer. I think if you sell now, you'll regret it as soon as the period of time passes where you would have earned the amount you sold it for (if that makes sense).

 

The problem with adsense is that it's so dependent on google. Nowadays every so often I get paranoid thinking I'm going to receive a "your account has been disabled" email. It happened to a good friend of mine last week, someone who most definitely had not violated the TOS or clicked his own ads. Just read through the adsense forums right here on DP to see many more seemingly reasonless bannings. Cash in hand is better than speculative recurring income. So if it's an adsense site I suggest selling it for 12 months income. If it is a site that actually sells something or the income it generates is within your control then I don't think you should sell it unless you get an irresistable offer. (5 years income or something like that)

 

I totally agree. And i would not sell a site to develop a new idea because i am always giving most of my money for developing new projects and any of them need to be developed so urgently.

 

I second that.Some sites have to depend on adsense by nature and there wont be any afffilate programs for that audience or the result would be much poorer than adsense.

 

Just remember that Google isn't the only game in town. Sure, there are a lot of wild exaggerations (and some true stories) about people hitting the Mother Lode with Google, but there are other ways to monetize your site including BidVertiser, Yahoo!, and others.

When your site becomes a leader in its category, you can charge for banner ads too. I make about $1000 annually via one site where I secure banner ads directly from my customers.

 

I don't believe in selling a site. I will only sell if I get a very high price and that I can make another site of atleast the same standard/ revenue. I believe in buying websites and unifying it under a single brand.