Valuation of HIGH earning Adsense site...

[Poohnix]

Hi all,

I'm not looking to sell, since it's a cash cow, but since I see a possible situation where I perhaps may have to sell next year, I'm looking for a bit of input what may be possible...

I have a website geared towards earning money online; Domain name itself isn't very special, 4 keywords, 16 letters.
It's just under 4 years old, and PR4.

I purchased it when it was about 2 years old; Then the website was geared towards India, (the creator was Indian), traffic was almost 100% from India, and Adsense earned about $4000-4500 per month.
Alexa then was about 12,000 worldwide.

Last year I made some changes on the site, and made it international, not only for Indians, and now worldwide Alexa is less than 8,000 (falling), and monthly Adsense revenue is $10-11,000, steadily growing.

It has a bit over 500,000 unique visitors per month, of which just under 25% still is from India, the rest spread over most of the rest of the world, including about 10% from the US.
Most traffic is due to members are urged to recruit other members, viral. (It gains 2000-3500 new members daily.)

The site is quite low maintenance, most is done by an Indian freelancer. Total cost, including hosting, about 4-500/month. (Could probably be cut down a bit.)

With those kind of numbers, what kind of multiple could I be looking for, if I sell it?
I know roughly the multiples for "normal" Adsense sites, but this isn't...

And again, no, I'm NOT selling it at this time!

 

[melmunch]

It is very tough to say, because a lot has to do with the risk in the site. If the traffic is truly defensible and growing, you might find someone to pay 3-5 years and I would recommend using a good business broker. If the traffic is somewhat suspect, or the critical mass you have is fairly easy to replicate, or there is other risk in the revenue, then you will see closer to 10-24 months.

With sites earning in this range, I have found buyers to be extra critical in analyzing any risk, even remote risk.

 

[Gerry]

Sorry, my jaw dropped...

 

[Poohnix]

It is very tough to say, because a lot has to do with the risk in the site. If the traffic is truly defensible and growing, you might find someone to pay 3-5 years and I would recommend using a good business broker. If the traffic is somewhat suspect, or the critical mass you have is fairly easy to replicate, or there is other risk in the revenue, then you will see closer to 10-24 months.

With sites earning in this range, I have found buyers to be extra critical in analyzing any risk, even remote risk.

Thanks... I would probably need to hire a risk analyst myself, since I'm not at all sure how to judge it. Traffic appears really solid, and the viral marketing seems to work very well. A large percentage of the visitors are from developing countries, where internet yet isn't widespread, so the potential for growth is immense.
Since the visitors are low income people EPC is low, but the sheer numbers makes up for that. (And EPC has gone up quite a bit since the site went international.)

 

[melmunch]

A risk analyst would help you project revenues for yourself, but I doubt it will help much with selling it. In a selling situation, the buyers will need to assess what they consider to be the risk inherent in each facet of the site, so diversification of traffic sources and revenue are very important.