is my PR5 site worth $23K?

When you say, "how to recoup the $23,000 investment, you mean that you actually paid 23k for the site?

How much traffic does it get per day/month?

OK so the issue is - you have purchased a site, you now own it and have no clue how to make money from it?

That's a lot of money to spend on a site without knowing what it's worth or having a plan as to how you're going to use it. What were your plans when you bought the site? Is it currently bringing in any money from Adsense/Affilliate Sales?

It's typically a fairly substantial misconception. People believe all kinds of strange things (especially when it comes to SEO) with little underlying basis in reality.

First point: there's no such thing as "a PR5 site". Websites don't "have page ranks". Only pages have page ranks. What people are actually referring to when they mistakenly (or - when selling backlinks or websites - often "misleadingly") use the expression "a PR5 site" is actually a website whose own home page has a PR of 5 at the moment. That's all.

Backlinks on that page (the site's own home page) are therefore backlinks from a PR5 page. Their value, as backlinks, still depends on the relevance of the site linked from to the page linked to, of course (as well as being in inverse proportion to the number of links on the page).

Some people (and especially backlink-sellers and SEO service providers!) believe or claim to believe that backlinks from other pages of the site are somehow "worth extra" just because the site's own home page happens at the moment to be PR5. And they like to refer to that (among other things) as "domain authority" or "site authority". Good luck to them.

I have several niche sites with PR5 homepages, myself, and one or two that are now PR6, and have done for a long time. It's of absolutely no consequence or value to me whatsoever. I don't even check my page ranks very often - that's how little they're worth to me.

Nobody knows when/whether Google will next do a major PR update, anyway.

Google has publicly and repeatedly announced that they regard "no longer publishing any PR information at all" as a long-term objective. (Admittedly they were saying that as long ago as early 2013 and it may not mean too much, but nothing about "PR" actually means too much, realistically: http://www.warriorforum.com/off-topi...ar-2013-a.html ).

With the exception of sites with obviously hugely valuable domain-names, about 90% of the value of a website depends on the stability and duration of its proven income. And it's about as simple as that. Various other factors, including the PR of its own home page, really make very, very little difference indeed.

Realistically, there may be some value in that, because the world is full of people who will pay money for (what they see as) "PR5 backlinks" without even being concerned about the relevance of the site linked from to the page linked to. As I said, people have all kinds of strange beliefs, especially when it comes to SEO!

Perhaps so. (But you certainly haven't said anything in your post that demonstrates that.)

Undoubtedly.

Google is committed to identifying and penalizing backlink sellers. They say so repeatedly, consistently, loud and clear. They say so on their websites and blogs; they say so in videos; they say so in staff interviews on other websites and in computer/internet magazines. This policy has been information "in the public domain" for years. As are some of its results (for example "blog networks" being de-indexed and their users'/customers' sites being penalized, etc. etc.)

It may do that anyway. One can't tell. Which is why "having a PR5 home page" doesn't in itself necessarily make a site more valuable, as explained above. But if they think it looks like you're selling backlinks, then definitely.

"Authority" (which is a term used by different people with different meanings, just like "link diversity" and all the other nonsense these backlink-sellers talk about) is a very vague concept. Not something monetizable in itself.

I'm not clear why you've bought this (or why so many others apparently wanted to), but I wish you very good luck with it!

Please note - SEO questions belong here: Search Engine Optimization

You need to develop it.

The site, as it is now, cannot be effectively monetized.

In the 2 minutes I spent browsing, here is the initial idea I had (and keep in mind that when I develop a site, and I do this with regularity, weeks and months - not 2 minutes - can go into it):

Turn it into an information rich platform for people to come and learn to be "better caretakers of the earth." Open it up to writers. I did this with some of my own entities. You can use a similar system to EZA (a proven model): offer free author accounts with bio boxes and then incentives to upgrade to premium author accounts. This way, you're monetizing (recurring memberships) and getting rich content. You must also think of the social and viral aspects and endeavour to create a campaign to take either the entire site or simple articles viral. You have a long road ahead. But the site has plenty of potential. If it were mine, I'd have it earning big in around 6 to 12 months.

GRM

wow backlinks from nasa....the site is indeed very authoritative

As for what to do with it, revive the site the way it was before you purchased (so the strong backlinks don't get lost) and add whatever new content you want, it will rank so easy.


PS: I still think you spent way too much even for a site like this because you can rank for hell of a lot of stuff for $23K and build an amazing PBN.

I don't have time to look at the site/links but either way even If it did have SEO value it's not a smart move to post a domain/URL on a public SEO forum asking what Google will do to the site via SERPs. The domain is even in the thread title, lol. Then you mention Adsense revenue, which is against Adsense policies..

You really need to get a grip on keeping private details off public forums.

I think based on the content, links and traffic (100k per month) it's worth more than 23k. I would say at least $50k. The last thing I would check is PR5 - that's completely irrelevant for your site. SEO's who want to buy such domains don't want to waste more than couple of thousands. BUT your site definitely has his own value.

I bought similar site few months ago for $40k, but I had a laser-targeted idea so I just had to buy it. Try listing it on flippa.

P.S: If you are interested in quick cash (<$20k), I can have a look at your site (but I need GA access to confirm the 100k traffic etc).

WOW that's a lot of cash for a site that makes only $200 a month.

PR per se is irrelevant, it's all about earnings when buying a site.

Looks like we might loose PR next year, according to Google's John Mueller PageRank might not be updated again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Glx...tu.be&t=20m30s implication being if they don't update it, why show it publicly long term?

Generally speaking most site buyers pay a multiple of monthly income (usually under 12X) and maybe extra for something special. Without looking at the site sounds like it's worth under $2,000.

David

Looking at the flippa auction page for this, I have no idea why you bought this without a solid plan to monetize.

Even their own Adsense data provided showed they were only making a few hundred a month - which will be tough to recoup a $23k investment with.

What about the articles with Amazon? Are they properly changed to YOUR code? I looked at one of the DIY soap articles with a few links to amazon, so make sure everything is updated (if acceptable) to your affiliate ID.

Quite honestly, $23k for this site just doesn't seem like a good deal. Not sure why anyone was bidding more than about $5000 for this.

Well I can't see anything as you were wisely told to take it out of your OP but if selling links on the basis of the PR is your only idea for the site you way overpaid

Checked a few articles and doesn't even look like all unique content.

Go to some of your articles, find a unique bit of text at least a couple of paragraphs down and search Google for the text in speech marks.

"Environmentalists argue that we already have the technology and the legal tools to"

Your site isn't even listed.

If a lot of the content is like this I wouldn't have bought the site, sort of site Google tends to downgrade long term.

I only looked at a couple of posts, if you find this sort of picture for a lot of the content I'd be seriously concerned long term. You need to check the percentage of unique to copied content, you can get away with some duplicate content, so it's about how much in unique relative to dupe.

David

PR is no longer an issue, Google is scrapping the PageRank system:
Google Won't Renew PR Anymore

You will no longer have to worry about the PR.

I don't think you should sell links... perhaps a few, but Google's new Penguin 3.0 could get your site penalized if you overdo it.

I think you should measure all the other metrics: social metrics, DA, PA... and perhaps you can sell your site at Sedo.com (or elsewhere).

Thanks for all the helpful feedback. So, what approach to monetization would you guys take on a site like this? Why do you think that nothing converts via the affiliate programs currently in place? They are relevant and getting a good number of click-throughs.

Conversions is all about targeted traffic. Check where your traffic is coming from (referral traffic) and what keywords people are using to find your site organically (Webmaster Tools) and plan your sales strategy from there.

This site should already have garnered a fairly large email list... this in itself is an asset but I'm an SEOer and email marketing isn't my cup of tea so I'll refrain from trying to advise in this regard.

Hey guys - I appreciate everybody's input which helped me to validate my decision that the site should indeed go back to the original owner.

Question - how can I get the site name removed from all of the subject lines of the replies? Apparently google took exception with the original question I asked about whether or not selling links was any bit of any option. I'm not sure why I'm no longer allowed the free speech of asking questions about things I don't know, but apparently Google doesn't want me to educate myself via public inquiry even though it was extremely effective.

@ibeachmike

Submit a ticket via the help desk (link on nav bar above).

What was the reason many people were interested in buying that website for $23k? There must have been some reason why people were interested in shelling large amount for the site. It is not just because of its PageRank as you know there are many places where you can get PR 4 or 5 sites for much less (maybe less than $500).

So, it means the site must be having something like lots of traffic, email or RSS subscribers etc. The point is to use these to your benefit. You already have a pre-built audience which you should think of growing further and also monetizing. You have to experiment different things while monetizing but don't be too aggressive as you might lose the people.

By the way, what were you thinking when you purchased the site? Just because other people were interested in buying it for that price is not adequate justification why you jumped in. You must have had a plan for buying that site. And you must have been little familiar with the niche before spending so much cash.

seriously , lol
i want to meet more people like you

all those bids at 20k where fake bids, you were tricked.

30k hits with 30k pageviews ? = bot traffic to inflate stats.

If you can get your money back do it.

pr is so outdated!!! i always check other tools even alexa to monitor website power!

I wouldn't sell backlinks if I were you. Any kind of human review would devalue the site essentially anybody willing to buy your website in the future would be kind of a turn off from buying it.