Website valuation

[TCH]

if you have ever valued a website - what factors did you take into account, and what weight ascribe to each

eBay offers a category called 'website for sale'

using their 'lowest first' and 'highest first' sortation options, we find that prices range (currently) from £1.17 to £5,000,086.70

we may hope, in this thread, to forestall the response that 'a website is worth what it will fetch' - which is really just a definition of 'worth'

 

[Ozzy]

In an attempt to avoid saying what you say to try and avoid, which is indeed the value of something in the market is ultimately dictated by what people are willing to pay (I remember people paying hundreds for Beanie Baby plushies), a website is worth the value of trade that it conducts.

So a website that sells stuff is a business, so you can apply EBITDA math to the trade and profit.
If a website has no trade then it's ultimately worthless, unless someone really wants the 'name' in which case it is worth whatever they are will to pay.

Just my 2c worth; others may disagree

 

[NickGrogan]

I've bought and sold websites.

If it's money making, then as @Ozzy says, it's fairly easy to look at revenue, estimate profit and go from there.

If it's just a domain, then I look at what that domain offers - For example, is it a brand name or keyword that people will type in or will remember? What links are there to that domain? Was it mentioned by the BBC? Does it have its own Wikipedia page? And so on.

The value you ascribe to these things varies, but it's where I start.

 

[Nathanto]

we find that prices range (currently) from £1.17 to £5,000,086.70

As it happens I've sold a website for £1 and I've sold a website for £5million and I've sold literally thousands of other websites/domains at wildly varying prices over the last thirty years. The £1 one was to a charity that just wanted the domain name, the £5m one was to a FTSE100 company who wanted the domain and the profitable online business behind it.

So you may not like it but I'm afraid the answer is 'a website is worth what it will fetch' or more accurately a website is worth whatever price a seller and buyer can agree upon.

There is no magic formula but there are normally two basic components; the domain name and the website.

The domain name could be very valuable if it's short, brand-able, sector-defining and/or has great quality SEO links. Conversely a long, unpronounceable, personal domain could be worth little or could even be a negative amount if it's a trademark-infringing domain.

As others have said, the website value will be based primarily on profit or traffic/users and again there's no magic formula - it entirely depends on the sector and current market conditions for that sector.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Websites, on their own, generally have little value.

What is valued is the business that the website serves!

 

[antropy]

Personally I'd say it would be some multiple of profit.

Paul.