Mozart.com then, others now

[mozartchris]

In 2006, I went through a lot of work to build up Mozart.com, and then someone came along and wanted to buy it. But they only wanted the domain name.

So I now own several domain names and am building up websites, and the same thing is happening, where I am trying to evaluate "build versus sell".

Any thoughts about this from website developers...is it worth it to build up traffic (from let's say 200 unique visitors/day to 5,000 unique visitors/day - to build it up takes me about a year) - it takes a lot of work, and sometimes i wonder if selling is easier on the beginning of that curve.

What is the relationship between traffic and sales price?

Thanks

[Seraphim]

In my opinion there is no better way to showcase a domain's marketing potential, than by developing it out (obviously income benefits aside). Even if the website hosted on the domain isn't in the same market niche as the potential domain buyer's, just the fact that it's developed will provide a tremendous amount of leverage to you while negotiating a strictly domain based sell price (at least in my own experience). Back links and search rankings can also be transferred to the new owner's website in most cases, assuming the site isn't kept offline for too long, and that in itself can also be worth a tremendous amount of money.

[copper]

Generally, traffic adds lots of extra $ when you sell domain.
But, for premium domain names such as Mozart.com, I am not so sure
unless developed theme and buyer's purpose match it.

Anyone who can afford domains like Mozart.com surely have
money to create great site with it or know how to bring targeted
traffics for his/her purpose.

Example...
YP.com - Yellow Pages do NOT care about traffics or developed site.
Limos.com - contents, memberships added tons of value to the price.