My Question:

Let's say I have a website, I'll call it www.site1.com, that gets a total of over 200,000 UNIQUE visitors each month, and well over 1,000,000 (1mill) total page views per month - and doesn't require ANY paid advertising for this site, NONE. All the traffic comes from a larger site, i'll call it www.site2.com, which I also own. (In simpler terms, site1.com gets all of it's traffic from site2.com, but they are both my sites.) So, I decide I want to sell site1.com. Let's say it makes no monthly or yearly profit, and costs $250 per month to run, but still a very valuable site due to the traffic it receives. Now, After reading up on the subject of selling a web site it was very obvious that there is no specific or set-way to determine the value of the site, and that it can be highly negoiatable, plus depends greatly on the buyer, the seller, the site, ect. So, i'd like to get responses from as many people as I can with the amount of money they would try to sell site1.com for, based on the traffic it receives. 200,000+ Unique visitors per month, over 1million total page views per month, plus requires no advertisement to receive these numbers, because the traffic comes from my other site, site2.com, which will STILL be promoting site1.com - even after I sell it. Good deal huh? It just increase the value of the site by a lot. Anyone experienced, please respond with the amount of money you would try to sell site1.com for. Now my next question.

Let's say I don't want to sell site1.com, I just want to make some money by selling some text link advertisements on my page. The advertisers must pay PER YEAR, not CPM, CPC, or none of that. You pay by the year. 200,000+ Unique visitors per month, over 1million total page views per month - how much would each of you charge each site to put a text link on site1.com for 1 year? The more responses, the more I learn. I appreciate your time & look forward to seeing the amounts some of you come up with.

If all the traffic to site1 comes from site2 then I wouldn't think site1 wouldn't be worth much. Site1 would be at the mercy of site2 and could easily lose all it's traffic. It's good business not to put all your eggs in one basket so to speak and there's no guarantee that after the sale you would continue to send all that traffic to site1. Also unless the sites are relevant to each other the traffic isn't going to be all that useful.

I suppose you could sell text links on site1 though again if all the traffic comes from one source then it's still a risk for the advertiser since that traffic could easily disappear if anything happens to site2. I would think that site2 would be the one to sell the ad space since if it can send that much traffic to site1 it must be getting more than that and would be the better choice.

Something though seems rather suspicious with the whole set up of one site sending so many uniquiqe visitors to another site.

Good point, good advice. However I strongly disagree with your statement "Site1 would be at the mercy of site2 and could easily lose all it's traffic" and that it would decrease the value of site1 by as much as you thikn. I disagree due to site2 (the larger site with more traffic) relying on advertising and various other methods (that don't cost money) to generate it's traffic. As long as I'm advertising and have my deals and methods I'm currently using, the traffic don't "disappear". Plain and simple fact. The only other factor that comes into play is money & my deals, and my budget isn't a problem. You didn't tell me how much you would try to get away with selling and advertising though...I asked two questions, not an opinion on those questions. Put yourself in the position of the site owner, and if you can, come up with how much you yourself would ask to sell it for, and per year w/ text link advertising. I'm looking for answers from people who have sold domains or web sites before, of course.

You made me think though, perhaps site1 should be a member site [free membership], so even if site2 closes, goes bankrupt, or sells out and whatnot - site1 would still have the members & traffic with out relying so much on the larger site. Thnx.

The issue has nothing at all to do with where site2 gets it's traffic. What I meant by being at the mercy of site2 is that if I purchased site1 there's no guarantee that you who still own site2 would continue to send the traffic to site1. You could decide instead to send all that traffic to site3 in an attempt to sell site3. Also since I have no control over what you do to site2 I'm relying completely on your ability to continue to send the traffic. That just wouldn't be a good business decision which is why I don't think site1 would be able to sell for much.

Now if you continue to own both sites then some of those problems go away which is why I think you could sell advertising space. I hve no idea what you could get for it since I don't sell advertising space and am unaware of what the going rates would be. I apologize if I wasn't able to answer all your questions.

Yeah I see what you're saying. Site1 would have to be a membership site - like a forum or some other type of site that wouldn't rely on constant traffic flow from site2 like you said. That way even if site2 stopped promoting it so heavily, it would still have 200,000+ members. Thnx 4 the help. I wouldnt of got much money with out a contract saying site2 will continue promoting site1 for X amount of time.

Exactly. I was thinking that before about the contract. If you had one promising to keep sending the traffic it would certainly make site1 more attractive.