- Joined
- Oct 10, 2002
- Messages
- 1,621
- Reaction score
- 0
Since I am starting a company with a friend, I have no time to run my poker discussion forum.
The site currently has around 16 thousand members and has been online since April 2004.
I have already listed the sale at site point - auction 19322 (eg. www. site point . com / marketplace/auction/19322 . Heres the information which is posted there
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am starting an online shop with a friend and as such, have no time to run most of my websites. Therefore I am selling my poker forum TexasHoldemForums.com. The forum has been online since April 2004 and currently has around 16,400 members. It's an enjoyable forum to run and does not need to much work to keep it going every week. However, anyone who has time and cash to invest in the forum is sure to make a lot of cash.
The site makes money through affiliate commissions from poker sites and from direct ad sales.
The forum has a lot of features including :
* A member blog area at http://www.texasholdemforums.com/blog.php. The site also has its own dedicated blog (wordpress) but I did not update it after I added the member blog section. The wordpress blog can be seen at http://www.texasholdemforums.com/blog/.
* An arcade - only installed recently due to member requests
* Photopost image gallery
* Review area where members can review products
* Hand history converter. The site was one of the first to have its own hand history converter. A paid a designer to design this from the ground up a few years ago.
* A poker odds calculator. We were the first forum (which I know of) to have its own branded poker odds calculator.
* Info pages including product reviews, interviews and articles.
* Articles and posts have been featured in several UK and US poker magazines
* It's own unique theme. The theme is 100% unique and cost $1750 (it cost a little more since the copyright link back to the designer was removed).
Included in the sale :
* An owned vbulletin license
* The domain names texasholdemforums.com, texasholdemforum.com, holdemforums.com & holdemforum.com. All domains are registered at enom so its a free transfer.
* The buyer may hold the website on my dedicated server for up to 3 months. This should be enough time to transfer the site over to its new hosting area.
* I will stay on as admin for a few weeks to make sure the transition goes smoothly and so that I can help with questions and problems (if I am needed)
* Current ads which have been bought have to be honoured. There are not too many at the moment however.
The forum has a fantastic memberbase. There are 12 staff moderators who help with daily moderating duties and also with helping make sure the forum ticks over. There is also another member who has admin privaleges and who helps with some admin jobs. In addition, the forum has many high posters who chip in all the time with many things. All in all, the forum has a great memberbase who are both loyal to the forum and dedicated to making the site a success. Im sure that any potential buyer will have his own way of doing things however I would strongly encourage any buyer to keep the same staff team as they really do make running the forum easy and fun too (well if you enjoy poker you'll enjoy running the forum!).
I get over a dozen emails every week from poker companies asking if we will promote their brand. Most are reluctant to buy advertising directly and instead want you to promote their affiliate program however they do offer some good deals to encourage members to download and deposit.
Please note, due to the price of the site, I will only accept payment via escrow. If you dont want to pay via this method then please dont bid. No time wasters either. dont bid unless you are going to follow through and pay once the auction ends.
I will split escrow fees with the buyer 50/50.
I'm sure that there will be many questions so please ask in this thread. I will do my best to answer all questions but what I can gurantee is that all questions will be answered honestly and I will do my utmost to make the transfer to the buyer as smooth as possible.
I do stress that due to other committments I have not been able to commit much time to running this forum however it still brings money in every month. This forum needs someone with some time and money to take the forum to the next level.
Revenue Details:
The sites income has varied over the last 4 years. At one point the site was making $20,000+ a month however monthly income is currently around $2500 a month. I must stress, this income is derived from little or no work. I have went for months at a time without working on the site. Direct ad sales are not promoted yet they still generate a lot of ad requests.
--------------------------------------
Text And Banner Ad Sales
---------------------------------------
I've attached a screenprint showing the direct ad sales from the last 6 months. I think that covers most of it, I sometimes get cash sent via neteller and through poker site transfers too but off the top of my head most have paid via paypal the last few months. In total I've received about $2,400 directly from text and banner sales on the site in the last 6 months. This works out to be $400 a month.
The site makes about $160-£230 a month from Text-Link-Ads.com too. Here is a breakdown of what has been made via text-link-ads.com the last few months (the site will be trasnsferred to your account if bought). The links are only placed on the home page of THF (you can verify these prices via text-link-ads.com itself by searching for the forum)
July 2007 - $205.00
August 2007 - $218.75
September 2007 - $236.25
October 2007 - $236.25
November 2007 - $186.96
December 2007 - $160.00
January 2008 - States that I will make $160 this month
The reason the cash dropped is because of Googles update. The site has a page rank penalty because of text link sales. If you want the sites pagerank to increase you would have to remove all text link ads. Of course, the site makes ok money via selling text link ads and banners with text links so thats a decision you would have to make if you bought it.
So to summarise, the site makes about $600 a month from direct text and banner ad sales however I do remind you this is done through no work from myself ie. all sales come from the advertise here link on the site. $600 a month works out to be $7,200 a year from direct ad sales though with a little work Im sure it would increase to $10,000 a year quite quickly.
-------------------------------------
Affiliate Commissions
-------------------------------------
Affiliate income from the site varies quite a lot. In general, full tilt makes about $1000-$1200 a month, pokerstars brings in about $300-$700 a month, Cake Poker brings in $200-$500 a month. I also make smaller amounts of commissions from dozens of other sites. For example - I received £47.62 from absolute poker on Jan 10 and £115.82 from Everleaf Gaming Limited on jan 8th (i dont even know what site they represent haha!)
(note : those figures are in UK pounds, not dollars - the uk pound has roughly been double the us dollar in the last few months, eg £50=$100).
In general commissions from affiliate accounts are around $2,000 a month.
Affiliate accounts for any site which makes money will be transferred after the site has been transferred. Quite a lot of accounts are tied in with my poker account so it will require the poker company to transfer the details. CPA paying sites such as pokerstars will require you to use a new tracker eg. texasholdemforums2 or something similar.
The only expense from the site is $250 which is contributed to a league every month. This is currently held at pokerstars and is taken from the pokerstars affiliate commissions.
I am willing to sell the forum with or without the affiliate accounts however the price will obviously change according to whether the accounts are included or not.
Traffic Details:
Traffic stats are attached. Traffic has been up and down during the last 3-4 years. From November 2006 to July 2007 I was travelling through Asia and Australasia. During this time the site was maintained by the staff members including 2 members who were promoted to admin. Of course, traffic dropped at first a little but then grew quite steadily.
The site uses the vbseo hack which converts page extensions from php to html. During June and July 2007 my server was going down a lot due to traffic from visitors and search engines. As a result I had to switch off vbseo because the hosting company said that was causing the increase in processor time. The vbseo was switched off for about 4-6 weeks. Near the end of July I moved to a new hosting company and got an improved server. Shortly afterwards I reinstalled the vbseo hack however traffic has not recovered fully. I suspect traffic will increase once all pages have been indexed by google etc again.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Again, you can see screenshots and evidence of earnings etc at www. site point . com / marketplace/auction/19322
let me know if you have any questions
Kevin
The site currently has around 16 thousand members and has been online since April 2004.
I have already listed the sale at site point - auction 19322 (eg. www. site point . com / marketplace/auction/19322 . Heres the information which is posted there
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am starting an online shop with a friend and as such, have no time to run most of my websites. Therefore I am selling my poker forum TexasHoldemForums.com. The forum has been online since April 2004 and currently has around 16,400 members. It's an enjoyable forum to run and does not need to much work to keep it going every week. However, anyone who has time and cash to invest in the forum is sure to make a lot of cash.
The site makes money through affiliate commissions from poker sites and from direct ad sales.
The forum has a lot of features including :
* A member blog area at http://www.texasholdemforums.com/blog.php. The site also has its own dedicated blog (wordpress) but I did not update it after I added the member blog section. The wordpress blog can be seen at http://www.texasholdemforums.com/blog/.
* An arcade - only installed recently due to member requests
* Photopost image gallery
* Review area where members can review products
* Hand history converter. The site was one of the first to have its own hand history converter. A paid a designer to design this from the ground up a few years ago.
* A poker odds calculator. We were the first forum (which I know of) to have its own branded poker odds calculator.
* Info pages including product reviews, interviews and articles.
* Articles and posts have been featured in several UK and US poker magazines
* It's own unique theme. The theme is 100% unique and cost $1750 (it cost a little more since the copyright link back to the designer was removed).
Included in the sale :
* An owned vbulletin license
* The domain names texasholdemforums.com, texasholdemforum.com, holdemforums.com & holdemforum.com. All domains are registered at enom so its a free transfer.
* The buyer may hold the website on my dedicated server for up to 3 months. This should be enough time to transfer the site over to its new hosting area.
* I will stay on as admin for a few weeks to make sure the transition goes smoothly and so that I can help with questions and problems (if I am needed)
* Current ads which have been bought have to be honoured. There are not too many at the moment however.
The forum has a fantastic memberbase. There are 12 staff moderators who help with daily moderating duties and also with helping make sure the forum ticks over. There is also another member who has admin privaleges and who helps with some admin jobs. In addition, the forum has many high posters who chip in all the time with many things. All in all, the forum has a great memberbase who are both loyal to the forum and dedicated to making the site a success. Im sure that any potential buyer will have his own way of doing things however I would strongly encourage any buyer to keep the same staff team as they really do make running the forum easy and fun too (well if you enjoy poker you'll enjoy running the forum!).
I get over a dozen emails every week from poker companies asking if we will promote their brand. Most are reluctant to buy advertising directly and instead want you to promote their affiliate program however they do offer some good deals to encourage members to download and deposit.
Please note, due to the price of the site, I will only accept payment via escrow. If you dont want to pay via this method then please dont bid. No time wasters either. dont bid unless you are going to follow through and pay once the auction ends.
I will split escrow fees with the buyer 50/50.
I'm sure that there will be many questions so please ask in this thread. I will do my best to answer all questions but what I can gurantee is that all questions will be answered honestly and I will do my utmost to make the transfer to the buyer as smooth as possible.
I do stress that due to other committments I have not been able to commit much time to running this forum however it still brings money in every month. This forum needs someone with some time and money to take the forum to the next level.
Revenue Details:
The sites income has varied over the last 4 years. At one point the site was making $20,000+ a month however monthly income is currently around $2500 a month. I must stress, this income is derived from little or no work. I have went for months at a time without working on the site. Direct ad sales are not promoted yet they still generate a lot of ad requests.
--------------------------------------
Text And Banner Ad Sales
---------------------------------------
I've attached a screenprint showing the direct ad sales from the last 6 months. I think that covers most of it, I sometimes get cash sent via neteller and through poker site transfers too but off the top of my head most have paid via paypal the last few months. In total I've received about $2,400 directly from text and banner sales on the site in the last 6 months. This works out to be $400 a month.
The site makes about $160-£230 a month from Text-Link-Ads.com too. Here is a breakdown of what has been made via text-link-ads.com the last few months (the site will be trasnsferred to your account if bought). The links are only placed on the home page of THF (you can verify these prices via text-link-ads.com itself by searching for the forum)
July 2007 - $205.00
August 2007 - $218.75
September 2007 - $236.25
October 2007 - $236.25
November 2007 - $186.96
December 2007 - $160.00
January 2008 - States that I will make $160 this month
The reason the cash dropped is because of Googles update. The site has a page rank penalty because of text link sales. If you want the sites pagerank to increase you would have to remove all text link ads. Of course, the site makes ok money via selling text link ads and banners with text links so thats a decision you would have to make if you bought it.
So to summarise, the site makes about $600 a month from direct text and banner ad sales however I do remind you this is done through no work from myself ie. all sales come from the advertise here link on the site. $600 a month works out to be $7,200 a year from direct ad sales though with a little work Im sure it would increase to $10,000 a year quite quickly.
-------------------------------------
Affiliate Commissions
-------------------------------------
Affiliate income from the site varies quite a lot. In general, full tilt makes about $1000-$1200 a month, pokerstars brings in about $300-$700 a month, Cake Poker brings in $200-$500 a month. I also make smaller amounts of commissions from dozens of other sites. For example - I received £47.62 from absolute poker on Jan 10 and £115.82 from Everleaf Gaming Limited on jan 8th (i dont even know what site they represent haha!)
(note : those figures are in UK pounds, not dollars - the uk pound has roughly been double the us dollar in the last few months, eg £50=$100).
In general commissions from affiliate accounts are around $2,000 a month.
Affiliate accounts for any site which makes money will be transferred after the site has been transferred. Quite a lot of accounts are tied in with my poker account so it will require the poker company to transfer the details. CPA paying sites such as pokerstars will require you to use a new tracker eg. texasholdemforums2 or something similar.
The only expense from the site is $250 which is contributed to a league every month. This is currently held at pokerstars and is taken from the pokerstars affiliate commissions.
I am willing to sell the forum with or without the affiliate accounts however the price will obviously change according to whether the accounts are included or not.
Traffic Details:
Traffic stats are attached. Traffic has been up and down during the last 3-4 years. From November 2006 to July 2007 I was travelling through Asia and Australasia. During this time the site was maintained by the staff members including 2 members who were promoted to admin. Of course, traffic dropped at first a little but then grew quite steadily.
The site uses the vbseo hack which converts page extensions from php to html. During June and July 2007 my server was going down a lot due to traffic from visitors and search engines. As a result I had to switch off vbseo because the hosting company said that was causing the increase in processor time. The vbseo was switched off for about 4-6 weeks. Near the end of July I moved to a new hosting company and got an improved server. Shortly afterwards I reinstalled the vbseo hack however traffic has not recovered fully. I suspect traffic will increase once all pages have been indexed by google etc again.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Again, you can see screenshots and evidence of earnings etc at www. site point . com / marketplace/auction/19322
let me know if you have any questions
Kevin
