Alright, I've come to the realization that I just don't have what it takes to seriously grow a forum by myself. I originally started it to learn about conspiracies and develop a central spot for theorists like myself to discuss and debate, but I can't afford to heavily promote via PPC or Adwords, and I don't have the time to be writing 20+ posts a day to keep up the illusion of "busyness". I'm not an exert in the field of conspiracies and don't have much to specifically contribute besides my general points of views and questions that I may wonder about. So I can't exactly just go about creating tons of random, information-less threads just for the sake of having bigger forum numbers.

Anyway, onto the topic at hand. I had some general questions about forum commerce:

1. Does age play a role to potential buyers? (It's about a year and a half old right now.)
2. Are people mostly interested in the entire forum? Or just the DB, domain, hosting space, factors etc.?
3. What's the best way to go transferring the files? How do I make sure they get everything they need?
4. Do people usually sell websites using simple methods like paypal? or is there some long-drawn out process involved?
5. How big of a role do the numbers play? (# of posts, members, threads, etc.) And how exactly can you calculate just how much each contributes to the forum's worth?
6. And lastly, does income really make a difference? Monetization was NEVER the focus of the forums, thus however they didn't generate "much" money-wise.

If there's any other info I should be aware of that I skipped over or missed, feel free to share.

I think it really just boils down to the domains traffic & link popularity.

I honestly cannot help you with this. If you go to websiteoutlook.com it gives an estimated value of the website, its daily ad view worth, and its daily views. That is all I can give to help you.

Originally Posted by HighRoller23

I think it really just boils down to the domains traffic & link popularity.

It has to be more involved than that....

Originally Posted by Leopard

I honestly cannot help you with this.

Then WHY'd you post here???

You can't exactly use those unreliable "estimate websites" to legitimately calculate a forum's (or any other website's) worth.

Originally Posted by jamestl2

It has to be more involved than that....



Then WHY'd you post here???

You can't exactly use those unreliable "estimate websites" to legitimately calculate a forum's (or any other website's) worth.

I was trying to give you a website which I thought may be helpful to you.

Do you honestly believe that those types of sites provide an accurate representation of a site's value?

I don't know, i was just trying to help

Alright, if you were genuinely just trying to help, that's understandable. However a tip for you: When offering people assistance, it's usually best not to start out with a line similar to "I honestly can't help you with this...".

Originally Posted by jamestl2

Alright, if you were genuinely just trying to help, that's understandable. However a tip for you: When offering people assistance, it's usually best not to start out with a line similar to "I honestly can't help you with this...".

Thanks, I will keep this in mind. And I did genuinely try and help.

Not really, traffic and good domain names are what its all about. Anyone can buy a vbulletin license and start a board. What incentive would you have to buy your site if the tables were turned other than for a hobby. How rich is the revenue possibilities...Be it advert placement or otherwise?

James it really comes down to what someone else will pay for it. HighRoller is exactly right in the post above this one. Anyone can buy a vB license and start a new forum. For about $500 anyone could have an identical forum set up by the end of the day. What you'll have that they don't is an existing community, a domain that's been around awhile, some links, existing traffic, existing database.

All of those will count for something, but you have to be realistic in how hard it would be for someone to duplicate the same. My guess you won't get a lot for the forum, but you should be able to sell it for something. The vB and vBSEO licenses alone are worth something. I'm steering clear of giving you a figure, because I don't know the market or how much interest there would be.

I did search for conspiracy forum and I see quite a lot of results so I assume there's a market. Maybe you could approach some of the other forums and see if any would be interested in importing your posts and current members.

When you sell I think you'll likely be transferring all the ownership info. So you'll be transferring the domain and giving access to all the files. The buyer may be happy to continue with where you have it hosted or they may want to move the site. You'll probably want to go through a site that brokers the deal. Once you transfer the domain it belongs to the other person whether they've paid your or not.

OK, guess I'm just somewhat disappointed that I put all that work into the forum and it turns out it doesn't count for much .

Originally Posted by HighRoller23

How rich is the revenue possibilities...Be it advert placement or otherwise?

You mean total amount I've made on it? Like I said in point 6, money wasn't the goal, hence not very much. The only ad program I have on there is Adsense, and without giving specific numbers away, lets just say the total is between 5 and 10 dollars (I know, not a lot).

As for what you mean by "revenue possibilities", I don't know, didn't really focus on it.

Originally Posted by vangogh

When you sell I think you'll likely be transferring all the ownership info. So you'll be transferring the domain and giving access to all the files. The buyer may be happy to continue with where you have it hosted or they may want to move the site. You'll probably want to go through a site that brokers the deal. Once you transfer the domain it belongs to the other person whether they've paid your or not.

I am thinking about starting a new forum though, while means I may not want to sell the license and vBSEO just yet. I'm not starting one by itself though, it'll be a part of the project I'm working on, and I'll add the forums to it for discussion about the new site, don't know when I'll complete it though.

If I go this route, that means I won't need the database nor the domain anymore, I don't suppose there is a market of potential buyers for just these two components though, is there? Maybe my best option here would be then to just sell the database to an existing conspiracy forum and they can merge the two if they wish, along with selling the domain separately.

However if I can get a somewhat reasonable deal for the entire package, I'll probably take them up on it.

Ok, some more questions:

• What's the best way to get an appraisal? I could just ask fellow members for a ballpark estimate, but I wouldn't know where you got that number from, or just how much business is worth these days.
• Who exactly do I see about selling the forum to? I already contacted two or three other conspiracy forums, (well, their parent companies) and NONE of them have EVEN contacted me back. (What's the matter with them...?).

I was thinking about just listing it up in the marketplace, but wanted to get a few numbers and evaluations going first before I just give it away.

I'm not sure how meaningful any appraisal will be. It really is going to come down to what a few someone's are willing to pay. What you might do is look around at various places where sites are sold and see if you can find a comparable site. See what that one is going for to get a feel for what price tag to add to yours.

The big things people will want your site to have are a good amount of traffic, any revenue the site is currently making and has been making in the last 6 months to a year, and also the size of the community and how active the community is.

You'd also be able to add in the value remaining on the vB license. In the end it will probably come down to how easy it will be for someone else to replicate what you now have. It wouldn't take much money or time to set up a new vBulletin forum. What you have that a new site wouldn't is the community around your site, and any links/traffic flowing into the site. You do have a good domain for the type of forum and the domain has aged somewhat, which would be an advantage over a brand new domain.

Alright, thanks Steve.

I suppose I'll look for forums that have similar numbers to mine. (Except traffic, don't have access to that).

Just looking at my stats now, I noticed that I was getting lots of fairly steady traffic, up until March of this year, then it just dropped off, wish I knew why that happened.


I don't suppose you can really factor in customizations to the forum price if they don't really have a worth (like the rep mods, the skin discovery and being chosen, other plugins installed etc.) right.

Also, I was curious about domain and database appraisals (If some are interested in just one or both of these), and if they're possible. Like I said before, I may still want to keep the licenses, but don't really need those sections for a new forum. Do I use the same methods you described above to get those appraised too? Maybe that's just too much of a hassle for transferring the objects, as you need the vB software for the forum to run anyway.

I don't suppose you can really factor in customizations to the forum price if they don't really have a worth (like the rep mods, the skin discovery and being chosen, other plugins installed etc.) right

I suppose if someone wanted to keep all the changes they would have value. The hard part in all of this is it's really going to come down to how many people would be interested in buying and what each is willing to pay. For example, I personally don't have a great interest in conspiracy theories. It's not a subject I would build a site around. You could have all the traffic in the world and be making good money with a good community, but I would still pay $0 for the site. On the other hand there's probably someone out there who's passionate about conspiracy theories, but doesn't know how to go about setting up a forum and customizing it. That person might pay more than your site is technically worth by most standards, because it's a good match for that person.

Do what you can to come up with a realistic price and then put it up for sale somewhere. My guess is you'll have to sell it as a complete site with the license. You can always get another license if you want to run another forum. If you only want to sell the database and the domain, you're likely going to get less and find less people interested.

The thing about it adding value to some and not others though is that you have no idea if it works for your visitors or not. Only they can be the judge of whether the modifications truly add value to the forum.

The DB and Domain wasn't really that big of an issue though, like you said I can always buy another license. So that's probably what I'll do.