Thinking about selling longtime domain

[CBasken]

I don't know if this is the right forum to talk about this. I apologize if I'm in the wrong place.

I've owned werewolf.com since 1995 (I have been the only owner). Through the years it's seen ups and downs of activity, most recently in the mid-2000s as a fairly active forum.

When I have time to put effort into the site, it gets a lot of attention and traffic. "Werewolf" is a very popular word these days, what with various supernatural movies and books being released. I think someone with the right ideas could make a lot of money off of it. Last time I looked into it, it ranked pretty well in Google.

But I don't want to sell it unless I can get a decent amount of money for it. I've had it for going on 18 years now and I've put a lot of money and time into it. So I think it's reasonable to want to have something to show for it.

I guess I'm just looking for general advice. Does it seem like the kind of domain that would sell well, or would it be better to park it and try to draw in some kind of ongoing revenue?

Thanks!

 

[rngrdanny22]

You have yourself a very strong domain name here. As for development, I'm not sure what you could do with it, but I'm certain many end-users exist.

Have you considered consulting a domain broker?

 

[Keith]

If you want the bottom line, it's low to mid $xx,xxx :imho:

Nice domain there!

 

[Zoltan P.]

Love the name! Joe Rogan would love to own it.

Agree:

If you want the bottom line, it's low to mid $xx,xxx :imho:

Nice domain there!

 

[Kenny]

I don't know if this is the right forum to talk about this. I apologize if I'm in the wrong place.

I've owned werewolf.com since 1995 (I have been the only owner). Through the years it's seen ups and downs of activity, most recently in the mid-2000s as a fairly active forum.

When I have time to put effort into the site, it gets a lot of attention and traffic. "Werewolf" is a very popular word these days, what with various supernatural movies and books being released. I think someone with the right ideas could make a lot of money off of it. Last time I looked into it, it ranked pretty well in Google.

But I don't want to sell it unless I can get a decent amount of money for it. I've had it for going on 18 years now and I've put a lot of money and time into it. So I think it's reasonable to want to have something to show for it.

I guess I'm just looking for general advice. Does it seem like the kind of domain that would sell well, or would it be better to park it and try to draw in some kind of ongoing revenue?

Thanks!

Hello CBasken, and Welcome to NamePros!!!! :wave:

From what I gather, you are looking for an appraisal.
This is not the proper section, so I have notified the mods to move this for you.

I notice you have had a vB forum up on this site for several years. Nice.
Were you, or are you now earning off this site?
That information would go a long way in trying to valuate the domain.
Do you have recent traffic stats, relevant backlinks, etc.?

Let us know and it will help us help you.

Peace,
Cyberian

 

[lothos]

From what I gather, you are looking for an appraisal.
This is not the proper section, so I have notified the mods to move this for you.

He is asking for advice, not an appraisal.


CBasken,

It's definitely a domain with good sales potential. I wouldn't park it unless the domain is getting a lot of traffic. Do you have a lot of visitors? Did you make anything off the site when it was a forum? If you're looking for revenue from the domain I would develop it instead of parking it.

Have you received any offers for the domain before? If you're looking to sell, you could try sedo.com. There's also a few big auctions every year. You could also try a broker, who will sell the domain for you. I haven't used one before, but I believe they charge a fee around 10-15%.

It's a great domain, best of luck to you with it

 

[PolishGuy]

As someone has said, this domain could be worth 50K. Honestly I don't think you can earn nearly enough with small-scale development.

 

[CBasken]

Wow, very interesting responses. Let me see if I can answer everyone's questions.

• I have not considered a broker. I'm new to this and I'm not really even sure how brokering a domain name works. Some quick research tells me that a broker might be able to better target a buyer, but I have no idea how to even begin with that. Warrants looking into further, certainly.
• The appraisal numbers people have been suggesting are very encouraging, but I didn't post the thread simply to get an appraisal. I'm basically looking for "Selling Your Domain 101," so I guess getting an evaluation of the domain is part of that. Thanks for all the feedback!
• I've had vBulletin on the site since about 2003. Before that I tried PHP Nuke and then before that I had UBB. I love vBulletin; very nice to work with.
• I could never really figure out how to monetize the site. I did dabble in werewolf.com-themed merchandise and using to it fuel my amazon.com association, and for the year of 2007 (I think) I let Dotzup "own" my home page. That got me anywhere between $30 and $180 a month, but it didn't last long. I still have a link to their "information-on-werewolf" portal on my front page, but I don't get any money from them any more.
• Since I'm not putting much effort into the site right now, traffic is way down. I get about 40k monthly visits (the range for 2012 was from 17k to 67k). Back when I was putting more effort into the site, I routinely saw in excess of 1.5 million visits per month. I don't know how hard it would be for me to get back to that; I have a full time job and a 16-month-old now.
• Who is Joe Rogan, if you don't mind my asking?

Thanks for all the friendly responses. I'm a little intimidated by all this, but you're making it a little less scary. :D

 

[mjnels]

Who is Joe Rogan, if you don't mind my asking?

he is powerful. powerful joe rogan.

guy that used to host the tv show "fear factor" in the usa, is a commentator for UFC, also has a podcast.. not sure why he'd want werewolf.com tho

anyway, re: the domain.. have you gotten offers from people trying to buy the domain through the whois email address throughout the years? what about the last couple years? current interest can be valuable too.

 

[Bannen]

First, welcome to Namepros, glad you're checking into things carefully rather than making any hasty decisions.

Werewolf.com is a killer domain name. Term gets over 160K exact monthly searches on Google, and is part of the string of many other search terms, for example 'werewolf games' receives about 10K monthly searches. It is also part of the domain string of hundreds, if not thousands, of other domains, so is very desirable to all those other dn holders.

Extremely attractive for any publishing or production company dealing with horror, scifi, etc. in any media from film to tv to books to online media.

I find your website/forum has a serious identity crisis; kind of all over the place in trying to cover every related thing to do with werewolves, but not doing anything really strongly, clearly, in a memorable, brandable way. You'll still always get very strong traffic to the site, but if you made a concerted marketing effort to really focus on a look to make the site stand out more, and a more focussed purpose and service to visitors, then you'd get your traffic back there into the 7 digits. Better logo and header would help to begin with, some serious over-the-top werewolf artwork instead of the stock wolf art up there - it's pretty, but this is a werewolf site, man. Get some wild werewolf art to sprinkle around the site, cater to your target market - which isn't grandma and grandpa watching 'Nature', it's mostly kids and youths looking for a thrill.

With your current traffic it is very possible to make a good living from ad income on your site, just need to organize things more clearly, excite the visitors more, and target the ad placement smartly.

Conversely if you want to make a whack of cash now, instead of earnings over the future, this is the kind of exciting name that will attract big time buyers in the entertainment industry... movie makers, television, gaming, as well as being brandable for a wild assortment of other industries.

I think any appraisal in the 5 figures is sober, but I think it's such an exciting name, with a lot of built-in traffic already going for it, that you could realistically receive into the 6 figures for it. Probably not far into them, but I think in the $40K to 120K range is a good spread to expect in a well-publicized sale.

You might try auctioning at Flippa.com, they specialize in selling developed websites. You might hire a broker at Sedo.com. You might simply list it at Sedo, put a minimum bid of $50K on it (contact a sedo rep for that; you have a premium domain, they will list it in their top domain list and they must manually set any minimum offer amounts over $10K). If I were selling it I'd place it on Sedo with that minimum bid, then compile an email list of a couple thousand possible end user buyers and tell them where they can make an offer. When one of them bites, you can then push it to a 7-day auction at Sedo, email everyone again and let them know the auction schedule.

Congrats, very thrilling name.

 

[GoKaizen]

Definitely don't park the domain as Google and other search engines don't like that much. Others have offered good advice.

[ame]http://youtu.be/eF8i6rKojXQ[/ame]

 

[CBasken]

I can't argue with the site having an identity crisis. Although you'd be surprised how many werewolf fans do see it as a kind of nature show. They exist kind of at odds with the younger kids looking for thrills.