Have you ever bought or sold an affiliate website?

[MichaelCorfman]

Buying and selling websites has been part of the affiliate business for as long as I can remember. Frequently, it is just a domain name and the site that comes with it. Other times, it can involve all or part of an established business with content, relationships and even employees.

The subject has been on my mind recently, so I thought it would make a good topic for this week's poll.

Have you ever bought or sold an affiliate website?

As always, in addition to voting in the poll, please share your thoughts and experiences in a post. If you've bought or sold an affiliate website, what was the experience like? What did the transaction include, and were there any unexpected challenges along the way? If you've considered buying or selling a site but haven't done so, what has held you back?

Personally, my first acquisition was Rolling Good Times (RGTOnline.com) in June 2002. The site had been launched in 1996 and was one of the earliest consumer news websites covering the gaming industry. That acquisition included not only the website, but also its staff and syndication relationships with numerous authors. It was also how we first became involved in editorial content rather than focusing exclusively on directories. Rolling Good Times still exists today, and we subsequently created CasinoCityTimes.com as its successor.

I've made other acquisitions since then, the most significant to me being taking on responsibility for the GPWA. That was a very different type of transaction. There was a community to nurture and grow, but not new employees.

But despite having been on the buying side more than once, I've never been on the other side of the table and sold an operational website. That may be about to change. I'm currently in serious discussions to sell one of my sites. A purchase and sale agreement has been drafted and is being refined, so I've been getting a firsthand look at the process from the seller's perspective.

Michael

[allfreechips]

I bought a few duds, nodepositcasino.info not sure if it was the info or it was heavily penalized somehow but it would never rank for anything at all. Also sold a site for 30K years ago that was multiple top 3 NDC ratings but the new owner pushed links so hard it was de indexed shortly after, this one i regret selling. Another site was involved in a group venture that went bad and I ended up loosing the domain I really liked.

[big fish]

Great ? I've bought more and sold more than I can count since 2001.

[golfbettingsystem]

I bought a defunct competitor's site which proved to be under a google penalty so that wasn't the best of moves!

I've also bought some expired domains that were ex-affiliate sites in the gambling niche with mixed results.

[wonderpunter]

Yes I have brought various, I have sold domain names but never a ful working site.

[CasinosBroker]

Yes, plenty of affiliate sites in iGaming and other high-risk industries.

[Cash Bonus]

Me and my family once sold a working website some years ago, after coming to a decision that about it not performing as well as it initially used to. We were also really in need of the money from that sale.

[nwalker]

I sold mine about 16 months ago, and it took a little over 3 weeks to complete from start to finish.

I think it helps if you know what you want in terms of the deal. I didn't want earn out, i expected the purchaser to do their due dilligence properly and not de risk the deal to them by putting terms and targets in the contract. Mine was a straight cash sale, half up front, quarter after 6 months the rest on the 12 month anniversay.

You need to find a lawyer that will protect your interests, but work to your timescale and get the deal over the line.

It helps if you have a broker to do the negotion on your behalf, as it makes it easier to ask for things or say what you don't like.

Also finding a purchaser who has a similar outlook to you is a bonus.

Make sure you consider the tax implications and structure the deal accordingly. You can lose a lot in tax if you get it wrong. If your considering selling in the future, speak to your accountant to make sure you're set up to get all the tax breaks, you normally need 2 yrs in the uk to ensure the changes are ok for HMRC.

[Juan Roman]

I've bough several and sold quite a few over the last 5 years. Multipliers were way better back in the day, you could easily get 36x monthly revenue. Nowadays, with fake DMCA attacks, parasite sites ranking high and many affiliate sites getting penalised left and right, you'd be lucky to get 12x.

Don't think it makes sense to sell affiliate sites any more as nobody will pay what they are worth.

[golfbettingsystem]

Don't think it makes sense to sell affiliate sites any more as nobody will pay what they are worth.

If 12x monthly is what's on offer nowadays and your site still makes regular money then there's zero incentive to sell unless it's for fairly urgent financial/personal reasons.

[GlobalPokerSites]

I've bough several and sold quite a few over the last 5 years. Multipliers were way better back in the day, you could easily get 36x monthly revenue. Nowadays, with fake DMCA attacks, parasite sites ranking high and many affiliate sites getting penalised left and right, you'd be lucky to get 12x.

Don't think it makes sense to sell affiliate sites any more as nobody will pay what they are worth.

36x monthly revenue is the stuff of dreams, sounds like a great deal for you. Even most small businesses have always gone for 3x yearly SDE from what I understand.

[GlobalPokerSites]

If 12x monthly is what's on offer nowadays and your site still makes regular money then there's zero incentive to sell unless it's for fairly urgent financial/personal reasons.

Very hard to get proper value when selling iGaming affiliate sites.

[allfreechips]

36 months and 3X year is the same number.. making sure i read that right