How much is a web forum worth?

[Zirojtan]

So, now that I'm making some pretty decent money with my dad, I was wondering, how much is a web forum worth?


A discussion has erupted on another website where the exiles of alternatehistory.com normally go about purchasing it from its current administrator, who seems to take very little interest in his website besides banning people.


How do you determine the worth of a website? I mean, to me, if the website isn't making any money, and I can't imagine how AH.com would actually pull in money for the administrator, how much would one have to offer realistically?

[Zirojtan]

No?

[RogueIce]

Whatever the owner says it's worth. It's not like there's a Blue Book value for already owned websites (domain squatters aside).

Which means it could be anywhere from "whatever I'm sick of this shit just take it, here's the info" to "I'll never sell because I want to keep it" for whatever reasons they have. Sure if you had some absurd amount like a million dollars I suppose they might go for it regardless, but otherwise literally all you can do is ask, and either they'll quote a price or tell you to fuck off.

[InsaneTD]

There are sites that will "Value" a website. They mostly just go off the sites traffic though. It's not even a good way to judge it cause as RogueIce said, it's only worth as much as the owner is willing to sell it for/what you're willing to pay. And unless it is infested with adds, it wouldn't be generating any revenue and would more then likely be costing the guy.

From personal experience with forums changing hands, keep in mind that he might be hosting it on his on server and will either charge you rent or tell you to move it. Which doesn't sound like a problem till you realise just how good his server might be or how much an equivalent server will cost. Find out what the site needs in the way of hosting and where it's hosted now before making any offers.

[Spekio]

Question: Why don't you just open a new forum?

ALTERNATE-HISTORY.ORG is vacant, for instance.

[Mr Bean]

What is the worth of a forum? Nothing
Better to ask what is the worth of the forum's name
That may or may not have value, the old line about a bag of gold being pretty cheap on a deserted island compared to a bag of potatos comes to mind.

You can't buy a community and something like a commercial takeover of indie websites normally leads to them dieing. In this case you could buy the website and most like maintain the community... but the price? Would be highly specific to what the buyer can pay and what the seller has to give.

[Thanas]

Usually websites sell for six months worth of the ad revenue they generate.

EDIT: However, if you purchase alternate history whatever, I will laugh at you.

[Zirojtan]

And why is that, Thanas?

[Thanas]

Because it is a joke of a website where the vast majority of people are more preoccupied with wanking their favorite group of people (AKA Romans win at Teutoburg, then go on to build greatest empire ever) instead of putting effort in their posts.

[Zirojtan]

Because it is a joke of a website where the vast majority of people are more preoccupied with wanking their favorite group of people (AKA Romans win at Teutoburg, then go on to build greatest empire ever) instead of putting effort in their posts.

I would say that it's a "joke of a website" more because the administration applies the "rules" on a completely arbitrary basis, normally in the interest of making sure that only certain points of view are allowed to be discussed, thus fostering an environment where nearly everything is utterly one-sided, and where whining and snitching are encouraged behaviors.


As far as the timelines are concerned, there's a wealth of very good and very interesting ideas, however I will admit that things like that come up rather often, usually to get shot down pretty quickly in the interest of realism.


Buying the website from its current owner would obviously mean that there would be a very big mess to clean up, and that would have to start with some modification to the very generalized rules that check both the behavior of the members and the staff.

[Zaune]

Honestly, I'd just set up a forum of your own; there's numerous software providers for it, many of them free, and hosting could be as simple as buying a secondhand server for a couple of hundred quid and paying your ISP an extra tenner a month. Call it, I dunno, Alternate Timelines or AHRefugees.Com or something.