Just curious, but what makes you say that it is an authority site?

Also, what is the age of the site?

All else aside, the consensus seems to be that a fair market value would be 1 year's earnings.

You could give Sedo a try, but I wouldn't count on a quick sale there.

I know the definition of "authority site" is subjective, but it is listed 3 times in DMOZ and in the Yahoo directory and ranks extremely high in Google for all its main keywords with double listings (which I don't know if I'm allowed to specify). I can easily create a new web page and have it rank highly for its KWd's within a few weeks.

My keyword ranking Excel file list is located on my sale information page <snip>

The site was started in May 2004.

Sites usually sell for 1x yearly earnings? From a business perspective, that seems a little undervalued, if that is indeed the case. If all Adsense sites sold for that ratio, I would simply accumulate $20,000 worth of sites, earn back my investment in 1 year and make $20,000 each year after that! Forget investing in real estate.....Its just too easy for the buyer at that PE ratio......

[edited by: trillianjedi at 2:22 pm (utc) on Oct. 24, 2006]
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If all Adsense sites sold for that ratio, I would simply accumulate $20,000 worth of sites, earn back my investment in 1 year and make $20,000 each year after that!

The problem is that the income could be wiped out overnight if/when the search engines change their ranking algo. The income is fairly unstable and therefore riskier and worth less than B & M biz cash flows. Vous Savez?

I definately see your point. If I were to invest in sites, I would rather buy many smaller ones rather than one large $20-60,000 site. If you have a portfolio of small sites, you are well diversified against individual shennanigans.

Anyhow, I sold my site for $6,000 to a very pleased buyer. Thanks!

Eurotrader, in your definition of an authority site you mentioned a bunch of things except the most important criterions. - people and how they useful the site is for them.

It's easy to have a successful well ranking site. But good optimization has nothing to do with being an authority.

Authority sites don't bother with that because by default, they always come on top, not because of good keyword stuffing, but because they are the ultimate reference in their topics, more credible and used than any upstart, more trusted by its industry and so on. They may even have bad contents and few updates, but by sheer force, their weight crushes the competition.

I have sites, like the one you mentioned, but they are far than being authority sites. I may be more proactive, refresh more often and often offer superior contents and do quite well in the search engins, I'm just not one of the popular kids in my industry.