There are many subjective ways of valuating a website, and there are equally many objective stats-based approaches that focus purely on the site’s monetary income. If you like a website, engage with its content, or just really want that domain name, it could be worth more to a particular individual than the pure stats would suggest. Here’s a brief run through of all the most popular variations.
By eye/reputation
This is obviously the most error prone method but also the easiest and cheapest! Professional or intuitive design, a simple forthright name and a large user-base are all hallmarks of a valuable website. Be sure to check unique monthly page views, listed income and mailing subscribers or membership numbers. Be wary though, since some of these stats can be artificially manipulated. So, for example, if a site has barely any content and doesn’t look good but has thousands of monthly page views, something might be amiss. Having said all that, if you’re serious about valuation you should probably use one of the other methods.
Comparisons
Find the average monthly income (or AMI) and the monthly page views, then find a similar site of comparable stats that was recently sold or one you can email asking for a valuation. There are tonnes of websites that deal in buying and selling other websites, so there’s plenty of comparative opportunities out there for you to find the best match to your site.
Stats
The best stats that are indicative of a websites value include sales conversion rates, opt in mailing list subscribers and unique page views. However be wary of putting an arbitrary valuation on any of these statistics alone, when not considered within the wider context. For example, a shock or meme website might have a high number of page views but little to to no returning visitors or monetisation opportunities for revenue. Or consider a niche e-commerce site: looking solely at the sales conversion rate you might expect a high valuation, but this could easily be paired with a low customer base. In sum, there are many factors that effect a websites valuation, and it is only by considering them all you can come to a clear and precise price.