Buying and selling websites is a very common business nowadays. It has, in fact, evolved as a big business. There are thousands of sites specializing in website valuation, buying and selling sites or functioning as broker sites that facilitate the transactions. There are people making millions from this business.

But how do you evaluate your site? I have found many popular sites that will tell you how much your site is worth, along with elementary statistics like the number of unique visitors, page hits, inbound links, ranking, etc. I have been using such services to understand the basic things about sites I am dealing with. In such valuation sites, if you want to know how much your site is worth you just have to enter the URL of your site.

But I started doubting about the reliability of such website valuation, because the same site will show different values and statistics in different web valuing tools. What does it mean? It simply means that you cannot take those values as true or the real value of your site.

As there could be a more reliable method for website valuation, I searched the web and found some other sites that ask you to fill in fields relating to domain name, income from the site, expenses on advertising and hosting, type of site (like a blog, forum, product sale, directory, etc.). Then there are optional fields (for more accurate valuation) like time required to run the site, unique visitors, page views, opt-in subscribers, uniqueness of content, etc. Filling such information gave a better website valuation, though different site valuing services gave varied values for the same site.

Then how do you find out the exact value of your site? In fact, it is not easy, as various valuation tools and experts use varied parameters for valuation.

Suppose, per month, you make advertising revenue $7,000, spend about $600 for the site, and expect advertising revenue $10,000 by next year, for what amount will you sell your site? Tricky question! Any person who wants to buy your site will surely consider your current net income from the site, cash flows, capital invested and the future possibilities. So, it is a complex set of facts and parameters to determine the true value of your site.

However, there are many financial experts, website valuation sites, brokers, auction sites, etc. exclusively dealing with website valuation, though none of them can give you an accurate valuation. It is just like trying to find out the value of a classic artwork or real estate. The real value is what the buyer can pay you. So, try many sources before selling or buying sites.