ZeldaUniverse.net

[AnakiN-]

I'm considering selling off Zelda Universe, mainly because I've gotten an offline job, and with me going to school I don't see myself having the time to manage this site, plus the cash will obviously come in handy.

Two months ago or so I received an offer for $20,000 USD, but I rejected it. Today I will accept it, to put it like that.

About the Site
It's been running since early 2001, and it has been established as the web's most popular Legend of Zelda fansite since around 2003. Currently it averages with around 10,000 unique visitors per day, but a steady increase is expected as a new and more mainstream Zelda game is being released at the end of the year.

The site itself is fully powered by Mambo Content Management System, Coppermine for the Media Gallery, and vBulletin for the forums.

The site has more than 17,000 registered members on the forums - This used to be tied up (site and forums), but the latest version of the Mambo <-> vBulletin bridge had some issues, so I've put that on hold until a more stable bridge is released. As far as I know, testing phases are almost complete for a new integration component called Mambull.

Profits
The site generates a very decent profit, averaging with between $50 - $100 every day - It fluxtuates quite a bit depending on how much inventory is filled by the first tier network (currently BURST! Media), and what the CTR prices for AdSense are, but on average it's somewhere in between that.

All revenue is from advertising.

If you PM me I will give you screenshots of the Ad Stats to verify the ad income.

[fryman04]

I am currently advertising on this site and I must say that it sends a very nice amount of visitors to my site, so the traffic is very good. Congratulations to whoever buys it and I wish to keep advertising on it.

[LeeD]

please PM proof of revenue and traffic. I am very interested.

[gu_webby]

Just logging my interest... Could you please PM me your traffic and rev stats please Anakin.

[jdk]

I am also advertising on the above site and like the return in traffic I receive from it. I have also poked around the site a bit and it has a LOT of content.

[impulse]

1) How much time do you spend running the site?
2) It looks like most of the articles on the site are written by you. Is there anybody else who can take over posting new content?
3) Is the rest of the staff (as listed on the site) going to stay with the site after you sell it?
4) Is any of the staff paid?
5) What are your monthly expenses?
6) Do you pay to advertise?
7) Where does most of your traffic come from? Is there any reason it will decrease once you sell the site?
8) What ballpark net CPM rate do you get from Burstnet?
9) Is the site running on a standard Linux server?

- Eric
Bored.com

[LeeD]

I have those same questions and more...as well as what I said in my above post...

I am very interested and am ready to buy with questions answered!

[patsensei]

HI also interested. If you could please PM me the answers to the above post.
Thanks.

[Czar]

Ditto to that. I'm interested in the answers to those questions, as well as seeing proof of revenue and activity.

Great site!

[AnakiN-]

Hey mates - I'm not at home right now, but I'll PM those who asked for it the stats in a couple of hours, once I'm home (should be a few hours).

I'll answer the questions though

1) How much time do you spend running the site?
2) It looks like most of the articles on the site are written by you. Is there anybody else who can take over posting new content?
3) Is the rest of the staff (as listed on the site) going to stay with the site after you sell it?
4) Is any of the staff paid?
5) What are your monthly expenses?
6) Do you pay to advertise?
7) Where does most of your traffic come from? Is there any reason it will decrease once you sell the site?
8) What ballpark net CPM rate do you get from Burstnet?
9) Is the site running on a standard Linux server?

1) Through the years since I started the site I've spent -countless- hours working on it - The past years or so the site has been more or less "complete" however, and most of the work relates to maintenance and news posting. There really isn't a specific amount of hours I spend every week - The past couple of weeks for instance, I have barely looked at it.

2) I haven't talked to the staff about an eventual sale, so I don't know who would be staying on and not. Just as a wild guess, I would assume that at least two or three would be very interested in staying on and possibly taking charge of the whole show.

3) Kinda touched into this one on the previous, but I should probably mention that only three of the staff members (apart from me) as listed on the site, are actually still involved. I would assume that they would want to stay on though.

4) No. They are and have always been volunteers.

5) Server bill - A Dual Xeon 2GB RAM from The Planet. Around $200

6) No - I've never paid for advertising for this site.

7) Most traffic comes from SE's, type ins and "word of mouth" - I don't see any reason at all why traffic would decrease with a shift of ownership for the site - It's the quality of the site and the content that draws the traffic, and I hardly believe that this will change. Of course regular updates helps maintain the interest of the fans, and I will reccomend whoever buys to alliate with someone to make sure that the site is updated around two times a week, as that is enough to sustain interest during the "slow" times (such as inbetween games etc).

8) The CPM and fill rates from BURST! does, like I said, fluxuate quite a bit. Looking at my stats for yesterday, the eCPM for the BOX was $1.09, and the Leaderboard $0.52 - Coupled with decent fill rate this makes for a good day. As anyone with some experience in the ad business will understand, there is a lot of room to expand the profit margins here, especially if you had the contacts to sell ads directly, as you could command much higher rates. Personally, I don't have contacts, experience or time for this, and I am also pretty happy with the return the site is generating for me as well.

9) Yes - I mentioned the main specs above.

Hope that took care of most of your questions - And like I said, I'll be sending you screenshots of ad stats once I get home.

[Banned: domaintalk]

I will like to get all kind of proofs and so.

Plus whats your bin price?

Whats the start bidding price?

I will bid 10k.

Regards

[impulse]

$12,000

- Eric
Bored.com

[Banned: domaintalk]

13,000 USD $.

I am still waiting for the proof of income.

Regards

[littlenicky]

SOLD at your asking price of 20k pending your last 3 months of revenue proof and a few questions that I PMed you about.

[LeeD]

Made offer through PM.

[littlenicky]

Just to let you, and others know, that if everything checks out, which I am sure it will, I am taking it off your hands for your quoted price in your OP.

"Two months ago or so I received an offer for $20,000 USD, but I rejected it. Today I will accept it, to put it like that."

[LeeD]

My offer is at $22,000.

[croupier]

Two months ago or so I received an offer for $20,000 USD, but I rejected it. Today I will accept it, to put it like that.

Was this a BIN? even if you read it as a BIN he clearly said 'Today' and the $20k offer was made the next day - therefore outside the 'BIN's' time period.

[littlenicky]

Well, if you really want to be technical, we can have the mods verify the timestamp on when I PMed him. I PMed him way before the bids even started taking place. It's just that he didn't answer so I just decided to write it out on the forum. I really hope anakin does the right thing as he did mention 20k in his original OP. Because of the delay in responses, it was hard to have a confirmed buyer in that supposedly "today" timeframe.

[impulse]

By "today" I assumed he meant now, as opposed to 2 months ago when he got the previous $20,000 offer. Nothing to do with actually selling it the same day he posted it.
But, that is just my 2 cents. As said in the previous post, if an offer was pm'd that same day then the date is not an issue anyhow.

- Eric
Bored.com