I have a setup of sites that I no longer use but unfortunatly I would love to see it active. I have no budget to put time and money into it anymore and in the past there have been quite a few offers for the site.

But how does this go?

It includes the following:

25 domain names
4 hosting accounts (shared) over 2 providers
8 communities with a portal, flashchat and game section, review section and private premium member section
It has about 2500 hits per day, not unique. But this used to a lot more.
There are no banners on the site, nothing commercial about it, but has potential to go that way.
Running vBulletin (1), MyBB (1), IPB (from when it was free) (1), phpBB (2) and SMF (3)
A total of 7500 members spread from all sites and total of 250,000 posts spread over all sites.
The topics range from games to music, from lifestyle to a bit of adult.

How do you do this? Post it with a bid number on a site, or sell everything per site or as a package? Anybody have any hints for me and my friend?

Hey Floris. Would you be able to post the URL to the sites you are willing to seel so we can see how much we would be willing to pay by checking PageRank, Style and Apearance, links, etc :)

Mak

Hmm, it does depend on a lot of things.

For example, the site running vB, if it is using a unique style or a paid style then the "nuts and bolts" would be worth more than a site running phpBB with the stock style.

Also, the activity of the sites would be a big key for me. Lets say there is a site with 3,000 members, but only 3 active members. That site would be of less interest than one with 1,200 members but 1,000 of whom were active.

As for "how to sell", I would probably offer everything as a single package. ie for someone who wants to buy it all. And then also offer each site separately. I would then gear it so that if someone took it all off your hands they would get a better deal than if each site were purchased individually.

Oh, and I assume you will be letting your vB-Fans know where and when these sites will be for sale. ;)

http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace/ and take a look and see what's comparable with what you've got for sale.

yeah, sitepoint is good for making more than your site is worth, was proved by someone on IRC a month or so back, cant remember who or what site. but should have only got about $400 for the thing and ended up with $1300 :P

lol, RESULT! :) ;)

If you want to separate it.. I suggest you go to SEDO to sell it.. They have option there for selling developed sites.. You could try to join other web communities and advertise from there..

The problem is that the value is often way less than you want to get due to the time and effort you put into building a community!

I've been dabbling into internet marketing and affiliate marketing and have been learning that if you build 'lists' of contacts, those lists can later be sold for an upwards of $100 per contact. More money for the more niche the market.

So, setting up a 'squeeze page' and forcing people to give you their name and email address could earn you $100 per contact, why isn't my developed forum with years of content and well over 5000 attentive, niche, members worth atleast $500,000?

The problem is that unless you are something new and exciting like Youtube or Myspace... It's a buyer's market. You'll only get what they are willing to spend... Which is often way less than you think it's worth.

However, I have seen people flog their communities on eBay successfully. And, if nothing else, you'll get a backlink and maybe some organic traffic which never goes amiss!