Will you sell a site that earns $600/month for $12,000?

The stats are not available for everyone but I think what made him interested is the number of Facebook shares and comments for every article as many of the posts went viral.

Another possibility is that they are preparing the ground for a UDRP to grab the domain name.

To win a UDRP, they must show they own a valid trademark, that your site infringes it, and that you are using the domain in bad faith. An attempt to sell the domain for a high price to a trademark owner can be interpreted as the latter,

Now, I know that they approached you, but it's not unknown for trademark owners to selectively provide evidence to UDRP panels (e.g. just the bit where you say "I'll sell for $12,000!). There is no real penalty for them (other than not winning the dispute), even if the UDRP panel finds out about this kind of misleading evidence.

Check domainnamewire.com's archives for many news stories (and other domain disputes generally) where this kind of thing has occurred.

My suggestion is to find out who they are, or who they are representing.

If it turns out their offer is legit, take the money. Your site is almpst certainly not worth more than $2,000 or $3,000. You can use their money to kick-start your next project.

Correct, I faced same issue for one of my domain name.

I smell scam, you should be careful.

Can I ask you about traffic of your website per month and the niches?

Does it relate to physical products ? Or you site may have some potential income.

The key if you are thinking of building a business for sale is not if you can replicate the business but someone who is looking to invest can achieve the same success.

The more systemised you can make things so you can step aside if required the better.

If you are thinking of selling in the future it helps to set up a variety of unique factors so when you are ready to sell you can just hand over the passwords and off you go.

It makes it clean for buyer and seller.

Regardless of whether you are considering selling now or later you should always build to make it easy to sell.

Silveraden,

I don't have a clue what your business is all about except you have a news site, but personally, I think you would be crazy to sell your site to a stranger right now.

I have no doubt, with a few minor adjustments, your site could be making 2 to 5 times the revenue it currently generates . . . and the site is less than a year old.

Keep your site, but adjust your revenue streams. Adsense is a tough business model by itself. But if you're making $600/month and revenue is growing . . . don't kill that golden goose.

If you strategically build a list of subscribers, add some affiliate products in the niche, and maybe even add some of your own products or some licensed products, you could easily double or triple your revenue immediately. How do I know?

Because you're getting a good amount of traffic already to make $600/month from Adsense (given their paltry commissions). You should easily be able to do $1,500/month with slight adjustments. And a year from now I would think you could do much, much better.

My point is . . . why sell for $12,000 now when you could make that much in a short order within a year or two on a monthly basis with some additional income streams.

And here's another thought: your site could be a wonderful venue to host advertisers from your niche. Business owners love news sites because they give legitimacy and credibility to businesses by association. This could be another income stream for your site - limited premium advertising spots for business owners in the niche.

Don't sell your golden goose . . . at least not until you have developed it to its full potential.

The very best to you,

Steve

If you can pocket over $10k and move the news site content to a different domain and end up getting the same results....that's a BIG win win for you.

A couple of questions come to mind:

1. If you have had the domain registered for one year and "Matt" really wanted it, why didn't he contact you previously? And, if he was so interested why didn't he put it on a pending backorder so he could capture it when it expired??

2. Get it in writing that he is buying the domain only and not the content and that you are free to use the content on a new site, if you so choose.

3. Be sure to use Escrow.com for a transaction of this size. Just because someone sounds nice and trustworthy on the phone or on Skype does not mean they are not a snake in the grass as the old saying goes.

I wish you success with whatever you decide - it would be nice if you post here later how the transactions goes.

How is this still a question?

You said the domain means nothing to you because it is a random name.
He doesnt want your actual site that is making $600/mo.
He just wants to buy your URL (which you said means nothing to you) for $12,000.
And he is cool with letting you keep your actual content and continue it.

And you're asking for advice?

I review my traffic and earnings in the last 4 months and I finally decided to keep the site. I think the value will only increase after 1 more year. This can be a long term plan as well so I decided to keep it. Thanks for all suggestions.