How much would you pay for this forum?

As I only want opinions based on the statistics, and also due to the privacy concerns, I won't post the website link up; sorry about that.

Years ago I know of a forum that was sold for about $1200. How much, assuming you wanted the site, would you have payed for a site which at the time had the following statistics? I'm honestly just curious.

.com domain
Started 2008.
30,000 posts in first month (legit or not, I don't know)

By 2011 had;
400,000+ posts
17,000+ threads
8000+ members
Between 130-160 members online a day
Ranks well, 1st and 2nd results for most relevent keywords and long-tail searches.
"Good SEO"
"Lots of backlinks"
PageRank 3
35-40k visitors average during three months period
475,000 pageviews each month during three month period
27,000 unique average during thread month period
Earning £100 roughly a month through advertises and AdSense

 

£100x 10 or 12 is what I would say without knowing anything else about the site.

 

To me, it would depend on a lot more.

For example, what vertical is it in?
Are there ways the current owner hasn't monetized it that I think I can?
Is the posting quality and on topic or mostly 'general' posts?
Is it's topic one likely to grow or decline? (not too many ford pinto's being sold these days but there are new mustang owners every day and will be for some time to come)

PM me the URL if you want me to take a good look.

 

Could be worth anything from zero to tens of thousands of dollars. You've left off the most important details. Send me a private message with the url if you want a realistic appraisal.

When I say it could be worth zero, that would be for file sharing type sites. In fact, I'd place a negative value on file sharing forums, after all who'd want to pay money for something that could land them in jail.

Some niches might be worth much, much more, and you'd need to take the revenue figure in context with where the Adsense placements are, what of the visits are new and what are returning, etc.

 

To those asking for URLs; no, sorry.
All I'm asking for is guesstimates based on what I said, nothing more.
Assume that the site is active, full of content and of good quality.

 

What possible use could random people's guesses on the value of a forum we know nothing about be to anyone?

 

Assume you should read the answers Peter and I gave you... Go back and read them, then you'll understand why we cant give you a real value without more info.

 

Those stats are from 2011, what does it have now?
Is it for sale now?

In any case, 400k posts is good. and so is the members, the issue I see is that only between 130 and 160 members online a day. Is this growing I hope? Should be more active.

How many visits a day? How many uniques a day? What percentage returning versus new? Where is new from?

Most of all, what niche is this?

Asking for a valuation based solely on the above, not knowing anything else, assuming it is legal and not going to put me in jail or a lawsuit.... not knowing anything else, I would pay no more than 3 to 6 months earnings.... until it can be proven via adsense of a history of payment.

 

Forgot to add...

Or depending on what the person is asking for the forum. =)

 

There has been some very good advice given. Bearing in mind the above solid advice, it probably gets down to how much the seller is prepared to accept and how much the buyer is willing to pay.

 

That's great that it grew a lot from 2008 to 2011.... but that was before the huge boom of twitter and facebook. How is the forum doing today? Has it tied out significantly? If a forum was once active but it's dead now, the forum might as well be useless. Dead forums don't get pageviews and ad clicks. I'd only buy it if I could flip it or resell the domain.

 

Very true, and it would mostly apply to general forums. Niche forums, about any topic, will seldom be brought down by Twitter or Facebook.

 

This is the general rule, and in most cases is all that matters. It really doesn't matter how many visitors are using the site, it only matters how much revenue it's bringing in. Now if you see a potential for the site, and feel you could monetize it better, that's a different story.