How much would this database / domain sell for?

[Xyphien]

I have a forum with almost 40k members, and the sub domain I use has had a lot of money dropped into SEO so it gains a decent amount of viewers constantly.





I've let the website die in terms of discussions, and everything and I'm thinking about selling it. It consists of mostly Game Developers, Graphical Artists, Gamers, and Website Developers. I'm wondering how much this would run if I decided to sell them.

 

[Carlos X]

The funny thing is, I was eying the site before you moved to your main site. I was checking out RPGMMV(multiple domain extensions here). Yup. I was.

The thing is, I don't know how much traffic it got, I don't know much of anything about the site.

I bought a similar website for less than $1,000. I had 100,000+ members in the database (xenForo depreciates banned members, and awaiting accounts, etc.) I could have just kept all those members, but I realized that after mass e-mail, there was a lot of bounced emails. I was left with a lot of dormant accounts. I purposely bought the database, not because of the members, but because of the content. Thing is, though, the database had a uneven ratio of Posts against Members. There was more members registered than there were posts.

I believe that you are in the same boat as I am. So: You're going to sell that database, fully aware that you're not going to sell the database based on the members, but rather the content. My friend, who owned a 3 Million Posts database did the same: Dropped accounts that had Zero posts.

On CODForums.com, I have a similar ratio, but in this situation - the branding is way too strong. A lot of people know about the site, a lot of people know who I am, so people gravitate to my e-mails better with CODForums.com. Only a few trolls trying to use GDPR as a weapon against me, but I can handle it. On the flipcoin, though, when I acquired a large PlayStation Vita Forum with half a million posts, and 9 thousand members - everyone left after Sony implied that Vita won't be supported. I had to deal with the aftermath of an acquisition, being mired in controversy, because I was a longtime member who was very well-known, but was hated. It was a toxic acquisition. People unsubscribed, people acted petty, and whatever. The moral of the story, is acquisitions are good news, and bad news. It depends on what you did before, and after.

Make sure you sell it to the right person, I was the right person for the PSVitaForum acquisition, but the issue is I had to deal with petty members.

 

[Xyphien]

The funny thing is, I was eying the site before you moved to your main site. I was checking out RPGMMV(multiple domain extensions here). Yup. I was.

The thing is, I don't know how much traffic it got, I don't know much of anything about the site.

I bought a similar website for less than $1,000. I had 100,000+ members in the database (xenForo depreciates banned members, and awaiting accounts, etc.) I could have just kept all those members, but I realized that after mass e-mail, there was a lot of bounced emails. I was left with a lot of dormant accounts. I purposely bought the database, not because of the members, but because of the content. Thing is, though, the database had a uneven ratio of Posts against Members. There was more members registered than there were posts.

I believe that you are in the same boat as I am. So: You're going to sell that database, fully aware that you're not going to sell the database based on the members, but rather the content. My friend, who owned a 3 Million Posts database did the same: Dropped accounts that had Zero posts.

On CODForums.com, I have a similar ratio, but in this situation - the branding is way too strong. A lot of people know about the site, a lot of people know who I am, so people gravitate to my e-mails better with CODForums.com. Only a few trolls trying to use GDPR as a weapon against me, but I can handle it. On the flipcoin, though, when I acquired a large PlayStation Vita Forum with half a million posts, and 9 thousand members - everyone left after Sony implied that Vita won't be supported. I had to deal with the aftermath of an acquisition, being mired in controversy, because I was a longtime member who was very well-known, but was hated. It was a toxic acquisition. People unsubscribed, people acted petty, and whatever. The moral of the story, is acquisitions are good news, and bad news. It depends on what you did before, and after.

Make sure you sell it to the right person, I was the right person for the PSVitaForum acquisition, but the issue is I had to deal with petty members.

Thanks for the detailed response. One of the main reasons behind the low post count to members is I branded the website as a marketplace to buy and sell resources for game development. This means most people who joined did so to simply download or sell their game assets, and not converse with one another. The domain was first on google for about 5 years before I stopped, and I just got it to first on google for a few keywords again, but not nearly as much as before. I do own RPGMakerMV.co (use to own .com but let it expire) as well as rmmv.co as well.

As for finding the right buyer I completely agree. If I get the right offering from someone I'll sell it, but I'm not expecting that to happen any time soon. I'm honestly planning on focusing on it once again when I move to Indiana. Sadly this house I own isn't selling as fast as I'd hoped so it might take a few months to a year.

 

[Carlos X]

Thanks for the detailed response. One of the main reasons behind the low post count to members is I branded the website as a marketplace to buy and sell resources for game development. This means most people who joined did so to simply download or sell their game assets, and not converse with one another. The domain was first on google for about 5 years before I stopped, and I just got it to first on google for a few keywords again, but not nearly as much as before. I do own RPGMakerMV.co (use to own .com but let it expire) as well as rmmv.co as well.

As for finding the right buyer I completely agree. If I get the right offering from someone I'll sell it, but I'm not expecting that to happen any time soon. I'm honestly planning on focusing on it once again when I move to Indiana. Sadly this house I own isn't selling as fast as I'd hoped so it might take a few months to a year.

Well, that's good and well, but that site (RMMV - I'll refer it as that), has or had more potential than just the downloads, and whatever resource development stuff RMMV provided. The thing is, what you essentially have is a NeoGAF. What I mean by that is that you have a site with a niche of developers. NeoGAF used to be a place for gaming bloggers, "journalists," and developers. NeoGAF alienated much of that market right now, but the point I'm making here is that you have something there. I would've merged it into a general gaming site. Right now, that kind of 8 Bit/16 Bit retro gaming stuff is popular, so I don't understand how you couldn't have just like expanded RMMV into general gaming.

Thing is though, as it stands, you really do not have anything. I'm sorry but that's the reality.