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Ask HN: I received an offer. Should I sell?

11 points by ryangilbert ↗ HN
Hello HN.

I received an offer for one of the websites that I own. I'm going to keep the domain private for now for a couple reasons.

1) The site hasn't been sold yet 2) I don't want it to look like I'm simply promoting my site

Here's the story. I run a website that takes literally 5 minutes a year to keep updated. It's a simple one-page html/css site. It is ranked #1 overall on Google for a term that is searched nearly 20,000 times each month.

I've really only had the site up now for 2-3 months despite owning the domain for a year. Since the site has been up it has received over 60,000 page views from 55,000 visitors. This is all from organic search engine traffic... no advertising. In this same time the site has also earned $193 from AdSense.

Here's the stats for September and October so far:

September: 33,450 pageviews - $73.12 October (5 days): 18,667 pageviews - $13.07

Some potentially negative things about the site: contains a trademarked name in the domain. There are plenty of other sites on the internet with it in their domain as well and they are up and operating just fine. The site may only receive this much attention for 8 or 9 months out of the year.

So my question is this... should I sell the site? I was offered $400 (seems sort of low to me). Is the site worth more than that knowing it might be a seasonal(ish) site with potential trademark troubles in the name? Keep in mind the site costs literally nothing to keep up and takes 5 minutes each year to keep updated and accurate.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!

If you want additional info I'd love to chat at draftpulse [at] gmail [dot] com or in the comments here.

22 comments

[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 51.7 ms ] thread
kimura
$193 in 3 months equates to about 65 a month. In a year, you will net about $772. Conclusion, there is no point in selling it for an amount less than $772, especially given that maintenance only takes 5 minutes of your time in year. I'd probably wouldn't sell it for twice that amount - I tend to be attached to my domain names. Anyhow, think of it as beer money.
ryangilbert
Thanks for your input! I did think $400 was a bit low. Since selling isn't necessary right now (it's doing just fine without any work right now) I was thinking $1,000 would be the magical number.
brador
How did you get the site to #1 so fast?

On the price, yeah, $400 is low. But then the risk profile of the site is high. Are you in a hurry to get rid of it?

ryangilbert
The domain is an exact match for the term. It's also a .com. That along with some simple SEO work on the site had it to #1 in about 2 months. It was on page 1 pretty much right away.. then floated from 5-2 on the first page until the last 3 weeks or so.
brador
Yeah, hold it and ask the bidder to up their offer. Unless you really need the money. You have to consider why they'd want it too when negotating to feel out their max point. Good luck.
codegeek
$193 in 3 months = 65/month. Since it only takes 5 mins every year, I would say ask for at least 2 years worth of payment which should be roughly $65*24 = $1560.
ryangilbert
Thanks for your input. Do you think the potential trademark infringement (that doesn't seem to be a major issue for any other site on the web) would affect this value at all?
codegeek
why should you worry about that ? You already have an offer which means the buyer is well aware. Unless the buyer is negotiating on the basis of trademark infringement. In either case, I think you should stick to this and see. If buyer backs out, you can negotiate a little lower :)
netspencer
I think the language you use is very interesting. "A website that I own" makes it seem like it's a commodity and not necessarily a product which you've put lots of blood, sweat and tears into building. From your description, it sounds like that's the case. So really its just a domain sale. Not sure what the domain is, so I can't be certain how much value that has in and of itself.

That said, the advertising profits alone do give the site value. I'd counter the offer at $600 and point out that, if current trends continue, the site will pay for itself in the next year. But there's definitely a lot of risk involved, so it's worth selling and taking the money now. I would at least.

Unless you want the domain for something, sell it. It's hard to rely on ad revenue. Being able to pocket a few hundred dollars right now is probably a good option.

ryangilbert
Thanks!

Technically the site has already paid for itself this year and the next 20 or so... (technically because I already had hosting so I'm just assuming the cost of yearly domain renewal).

I agree with the risk part though. Might be better to sell it now instead of rolling the dice with the trademark and ad revenue.

coryl
If you do decide to sell, know that you can shop it around on places like dnforum.com

You may get better offers.

ryangilbert
Thanks. Shopping it around if I decide to for sure sell is definitely a good idea.
sejje
I wouldn't dream of selling this site at that price.

With no risk or effort you are generating a solid return. Not knowing any details, I'd say you have a good chance of things getting better.

You're risking a few hundred bucks--big deal! You'll make the few hundred bucks over the next year.

dsnid3r
Ryan, Having worked on this site with you I highly recommend you do NOT! sell the site. You have nothing to worry about in risk and the profit is money in your pocket for little to no work on your part. Keep the site unless you get offered the price of what it would make in 2 years. If you need anything or want to talk you have my email.
niico
Sell it. Get rid of the trademarks and maybe use the money to build a real website.
bravoyankee
The way you were talking up the site, I thought the sale price would be $40,000, not $400.

My advice: if you are broke and have no food in the fridge, sell it. If you're doing "okay" financially, keep it. Four hundred isn't enough. I'd be asking for at least $700.

nivla
I did a research on this a while back. Looking at most domains sold at Flippa and other domain sale sites, the final price is closer to the max you can earn in one month x 24 months.
witoldc
You're extrapolating results from 3 months into years? Uh... yeah...

It doesn't sound that easy or stable if you are willing to sell it for 6 months profit instead of using your 5 minutes each year to run it forever and making $900/year.

huhtenberg
Technically you should try and sell at 5x your annual revenue. So given your figures you are looking at 3-4K.
firebones
If you buy into A/B testing, then you probably have the possibility of increasing your revenue significantly, which would drive up your price above the recommendations here. (Disclosure: I think I can guess the site you're talking about from recalling a reference you made elsewhere.) Also, there may very well be CPC referral opportunities associated with your domain which, in-season might yield far more revenue than what you're seeing, although I'm not sure how gray those networks are.
lix2333
Wait...75 dollars on 33k page views from ad sense? Is that normal?