PETER THOMPSON <peter_at_dm-ad.com> WROTE:
> The last time there was any discussion of website
> valuation on this list was about 3 years ago. Does
> anyone know of up to date articles/ white papers/
> websites which discuss the problem of assigning a value
> to an internet property?
>
> The valuation model would need to include the capital
> cost of web design and construction; it should also
> account for the revenue stream from fees, ad revenues,
> or product sales. It could also include less tangible
> factors-- name recognition, number of site "members",
> number of page views, visitor demographics, search
> engine positioning, "web goodwill" or trademark value.
Hello -
I would have expected more people to pick up on this
thread, which has gained in popularity on several
different discussion lists I subscribe to.
A while back I started writing an article that deals
with the valuation of web sites. Although the article
is "still in progress", it can be found at
http://www.websitebroker.com/valuation.html. SOME of
the factors to consider when valuing a web site (or
domain name) are:
A. Profits and Cash Flow
1. Source of Revenues
2. Operating Costs
3. Growth Multiple
B. Assets
1. Technology
2. Content
3. Branding
4. Databases
C.Traffic
1. Number of "hits" per day
2. Ratio of visitors to page views
3. Number of Links to the site from other sites
4. Percentage of traffic from search engines
versus traffic from other links to site
5. Placement for relevant key words on search
engines and historical performance data
6. Traffic growth per month in last year
7. Access statistics available for what period
of time?
8. Automated messages
9. Does site use cookies
10. Are there mailing / discussion lists associated
with the site?
D. Motivations
1. Sellers motivation for selling
2. Buyers motivation for buying
Each of these sections (except D) is discussed in
greater details in the article. I also created a simple
Excel spreadsheet template helpful in determining the
value of a web site. It can be found at:
http://www.websitebroker.com/forms/forms.html. Please
note that both the article and the spreadsheet are
works in progress and should only be starting points in
any valuation.
We also have a listing of domain and web site appraisal
resources at:
http://www.websitebroker.com/links/Valuation/ and an
extensive listing of other domain and website brokers
(100+) in our resource section at:
http://www.websitebroker.com/links/. I hope this
information helps you.
Bahman Eslamboly
broker_at_websitebroker.com
http://www.websitebroker.com
Buy, Sell and Trade Web Sites.
Received on Fri Jul 07 2000 - 03:47:01 CDT
