How do you value a blog?

[SteveParis]

Hi guys,
I've finally decided to move on and sell all my blogs/domain names.
My questions are:

How do you guys value a website/blog?
I heard that you take the average yearly earnings, multiply it by 3 to 10 and that gives you a number. Is it accurate?
I know that the name of the domain also plays a role, and so does the traffic, the content...

Now my other question is.
My blogs made in 2010: $29.000, in 2011: $35000 and in 2012: $5000 total.
2012 is pretty bad just because I lost interest and stopped working on the blogs so much.
Is 2012 the most important number here?

Any advices appreciated
Thanks
Steve

[SteveParis]

Edit: 2012 is $10000 so far

[StunnerJesse]

With blogs it isn't usually a yearly multiple but a monthly multiple to be negotiated.

And yes, 2012 is going to be all that matters, sadly.

[rob]

2012 is all that matters. Try 1 - 1.5 times the yearly revenue - I would get up to 10 out of your head.

[SteveParis]

2012 is all that matters. Try 1 - 1.5 times the yearly revenue - I would get up to 10 out of your head.

That's already way more than what I had in mind so it's good enough for me
Thank you guys for the feedback, I appreciate it
Steve

[nickbaer]

When I was at the European Summit in Prague in 2011, the figure I heard was 10% being offered by a big name in the blog/Tube biz.

I sold a biz some years ago for $10,000 + 30% of collected monthly revenue for 12 months. It was doing about $100K/year. I probably got about 35-40% total.

With $30,000 being a respectable income for 1 person working from home, in this over-saturated biz, why would you have lost interest? Unless SEO changes hit you like it has hit so many of us?

And then there was the 2012 US Election season, and now Hurricane Sandy, the US debt/Fiscal Cliff thing, and the European austerity programs.

For several years here, $3K/month net has been a benchmark. How many toiling employees of big blog/paysite/Tube conglomerates take home $3K/month net, or even sole-prop bloggers who sit all day posting in 3-letter or 2-letter forums?

Then there's bloggers and even studio operators with employed spouses, who work from home as a home maker and blogger, for much less, while Sugar Daddy works corporate and pays the rent and bills.

[nickbaer]

There was a post some months ago another forum where the person got bored making I think $40k on a typical copy/paste blog, with lots of CCBill sponsors.

Then not long ago, the same "seller" got on there and complained that so-and-so buyer trashed the site and stopped paying.

I suspect the financials were not in order.

If you have a blog that did $30K, and now $10K, you should look into restoring your former glory. Unless Panda bit off your ass, and due to duplicate content from copy/paste affiliate updates, you got penalized.

[SteveParis]

Thanks Nick for your advice. I don't copy and paste content, I actually dislike doing that. All my posts are new and personal. I even make my own video previews because I like to show what I want. It just became total boredom and it's not that exciting anymore.

I might give it another try and mix it up with some other sponsors, and see if I get more excited about this.
Thanks

[nickbaer]

Nothing about Google is pretty when it comes to Adult, and adult webmasters. If you dropped from $30K to $10K being creative and unique, then that's another victim of Google's pillage.

I think I hurt myself a year ago when I spent some time doing Google Analytics, and site maps and merchant feed, etc. I've slowly been getting rid of those "tools" with Google. Some say, they do nothing but aid Google to discriminate against you, especially if you do not pay their bribe/ransom adwords.

I added some PHP code to my sites over the past few months, that tracks HTTP_REFERER, QUERY_STRING and HTTP_USER_AGENT.

Google hardly comes to my sites. Bing does a lot more.

There's 10 other Bots that I have been adding to my robots.txt file, because they aren't from commonly used search engines. No use pretending I've got traffic, if the traffic is bots from weird places. Some estimates are that as high as 50% of web traffic is non-human.

Even if you're making $10K, those are pennies from heaven, that are more valuable to you than to anyone else.

I don't have a member pay site, so I don't have sponsor promo material for you, but as Luke started a thread about some months ago, and Bec seems to affirm, being an affiliate of the top VOD sites AEBN, HotMovies and BadPuppy's DogGone Video is worthwhile, and worth some effort.

As a studio, I post info about my new and older movies on all 3 VOD sites, from time-to-time, especially lately in the Foreskin Fridays, and Ass Wednesdays.

[nickbaer]

The other thing is the for the past 10 years that I have been doing this "full time", my worst months always have been Sept and Oct of US election years.

This year, with the marriage initiatives on the ballot, and the effort to get President Obama re-elected, August was not as good either.

Then came Hurricane Sandy. There's still customers without electricity and heat. Then the European austerity. Then the US Fiscal Cliff thing on the TV news 24/7.

The November post-Election rebound did not happen - across the board! FInally having some good days this month.

[jIgG]

Hm, if I were to do it - how much money it made in the last 1 year, broken down weekly and monthly to see the trends if revenues are going up or down. Visitor trends, visitor countries, where traffic comes from. In the end monthly earnings x maybe 6, x12 if it's a really good blog with a really good name, maybe.

[SteveParis]

Thanks guys. After reading your comments and talking to several people, I've decided to keep them. I'll start working on them more and see where it goes. I just need to get rid of some sites that don't do well anymore and replace them with new ones.

I appreciate your time
Thanks
Steve