Let's see, they have about 9,000 registered users and over 200,000 posts, very active community and targeted advertising and sponsorships. I just started to wonder what the value of such a site would be, since I may take a shot at building a similar community site with the URL HostingForums.com.

WHT has been around a fair while, and there has been an amazing amount of support. There are a lot more hosting forums out there that have not taken off half as well. I guess the WHT team were either lucky, or just know what they're doing :)

They were one of the first, and IMO the best of all the web hosting forums. Awsomely designed forums and rules, good moderators make it a winning solution. WHT is practically famous, (Its been in Web Hosting Magazine) it didn't grow this large overnight.

But nobody wants to venture a dollar amount? What do you think? More or less than $25,000?

Originally posted by greggish
But nobody wants to venture a dollar amount? What do you think? More or less than $25,000?

Why? you want to buy it? :rolleyes:

Well WHT gets hosted for free by voxel.net , but their bandwidth I bet at this point is 80-100 gigs a month. If WHT came with the server, all the posts ect.... hmm, I really can't venture a guess. I know those ads up above cost a ton of money though. Many websites sell for about the annual profit of their site.

Originally posted by Rewdog
They were one of the first, and IMO the best of all the web hosting forums. Awsomely designed forums and rules, good moderators make it a winning solution. WHT is practically famous, (Its been in Web Hosting Magazine) it didn't grow this large overnight. Lookin' for a biscuit doggy??

:D

*pants*
:puke: SWR :puke:
Oops, just remembered I'm allergic to biscuits

I'll venture a guess... $40,000.

Originally posted by Varun Shoor


Why? you want to buy it? :rolleyes:

Sure, if I had the bucks. ;)

Originally posted by Justin S
I'll venture a guess... $40,000.

Are you guys serious enough !!. WHT had around 10 million hits few months back and i guess it must reach 20 million within few years, the web site with such hits and so many members will not cost less then $1,000,000 (one million).

The best part about WHT i like is the moderators are very fine and they know what should be posted and what not.

thumbs up for chicken, kunal and BC and other mods ;)

I bet after reading this they'll decide to sell out.
:)

Originally posted by mahinder
Are you guys serious enough !!. WHT had around 10 million hits few months back and i guess it must reach 20 million within few years, the web site with such hits and so many members will not cost less then $1,000,000 (one million).

Maybe you'd like to talk to the people at www.storagereview.com -- they've been getting about 7 million page views/month, but they're shutting down because they can't afford a full-time job which pays a couple hundred dollars a month.

Originally posted by mahinder


Are you guys serious enough !!. WHT had around 10 million hits few months back and i guess it must reach 20 million within few years, the web site with such hits and so many members will not cost less then $1,000,000 (one million).

The best part about WHT i like is the moderators are very fine and they know what should be posted and what not.

thumbs up for chicken, kunal and BC and other mods ;)

IMO that is nowhere near a realistic estimate.

Hi!
The recipe for WHT's success -
1) One Chicken (full)
2) Many cool cooks.....
Cook for 24/7/365 .......

I guess if you have that then WHT has some serious problems.

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

You forget, 10million hits only means there are a lot us (the same people) coming here all the time checking for updates. The value of this site would be based on a few things.

1) Unique Visitors
2) Increase Rate of Unique Visitors per month
3) Rate of new member signups
4) Revenue from Advertisements
5) Reputation.

With that , and under the assumption that whomever buys this site is going to have to move it since I don't think the free hosting would be very relevant anymore anyhow.

Yearly ad revenue minus hosting costs per year = $???.??

So now you take that number, plus the value of the domain. Webhosting talk is very VERY specific and is really only good for host directories and review sites and/or stand alone sites.

So the domain by its self is worth maybe 15,000 (20,000 at most)

So now we have 15,000 + Yearly Ad Revenue.

WHT has a decent reputation but 9000 members is fairly small in the large scheme of things. So I’d say reputation gives it a x2 MAYBE a x3 yearly worth value.

So

15,000 + Yearly Income x2
or
15,000 + Yearly Income x3

I can't really see the site going for more than maybe $100,000 at the most.

However, since there is really not much of a market for this type of site at all, you'd be lucky to sell it for maybe 50,000 at most.

Its such a niche site....... that the only people who would buy would either be, host directories or host search places, OR other web hosts who wanted to use it to get their name out (which defeats the purpose of the forums anyhow)

Ok I’m done now...

That’s my $33.05 worth of opinion.

Interesting...I also was thinking along the lines of $25,000 - $50,000...

One other thing to consider is that thios site is popular largely because the advertising is so limited. Anyone who purchased it would probably want to increase the advertising, and given the reaction from some people when Matt decided to run the add at the top of the page, you run the risk of losing the members who make this board the incredibly useful tool that it is. While I think the site is worth a lot more, I'm guessing that if someone were to buy it, they would offer between $15,000-$22,000.

I also think that if Matt wanted to make more money off the site, he could syndicate the content. Most hosting directory sites have dead forums, that get very few posts, if a site like that could integrate this bulletin board into their site, for a monthly fee of course :D. That would probably worth more money to them.

Of course, I'm not the best business person in the world, so Matt may not want to take my advice :).

uuallan this will again spoil the the concept of this web site, this web site is for general web hosts and web hosting related biz. and not for specific hosts.

oh, yeah, i guess i over valued the web site, but IMHO $100,000 should be considerable price.

i guess they Matt must be having $xxxx revenu from above ADs. ;)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>
DanielP
That’s my $33.05 worth of opinion.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Daniel, how do you calculate that ?

just my Rs.1
:cartman:

Originally posted by mahinder
uuallan this will again spoil the the concept of this web site, this web site is for general web hosts and web hosting related biz. and not for specific hosts.


Right, I agree, and again that's why syndicating the content to hosting directories and types of businesses like that would make sense without spoiling the concept of the site.

Of course, all of this is speculation, and in no way do I mean to tell Matt how to run his site, I think he is doing a great job!

Originally posted by bobcares
Hi!
The recipe for WHT's success -
1) One Chicken (full)
2) Many cool cooks.....
Cook for 24/7/365 .......

I guess if you have that then WHT has some serious problems.

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

Nah...I won't give WHT any problems. Like Jello...there's always room for more Hosting Forums. :D

This site would defintely not sell for anywhere close to one million. I'm not saying that it's bad...but that's just totally un-realistic.

Maybe Mahinder was talking about one million rupies!

Are you guys serious enough !!. WHT had around 10 million hits few months back and i guess it must reach 20 million within few years, the web site with such hits and so many members will not cost less then $1,000,000 (one million).

Excite was sold for a paltry $875,000 I believe (may be I am wrong about that or I missing a zero).

Anyway, Daniel explained it very well. The days of valuing a web site based on stupid hits (or uniques) alone, are long gone. In fact, it is a huge headache because the more users you have the more resources you need and the more it costs to run a site. If there are not enough revenues then having users alone does not matter. Sites like this one need a huge amount of server resources. In fact, it is very hard to run these type of sites without a sponsor (when/if you don't have enough revenues).

Originally posted by Rewdog
Well WHT gets hosted for free by voxel.net , but their bandwidth I bet at this point is 80-100 gigs a month. If WHT came with the server, all the posts ect.... hmm, I really can't venture a guess. I know those ads up above cost a ton of money though. Many websites sell for about the annual profit of their site.

Assuming they have gzip on I would be surprised if they use a 1/4 of that BW.

WHT here and now exactly the way it is - priceless

WHT bought out by nickle and dimers for profit - worthless

All WHT crew would have to do is post 1 message saying, heres our new project at .... and the room would be emptier than one containing a boring git at a party

At least then Softwarerevue would have a chance of beating Chickens post count then :D

Ok. Be surprised.

Originally posted by padders


Assuming they have gzip on I would be surprised if they use a 1/4 of that BW.

I think WHT cost about $30,000 as it's only a large forum and has nothing else. You guys are right on few things counting hits and number of users alone does not really justify the actual value these days.

hey certify, you need to fix your www in your profile...you've got a typo there... :)

Originally posted by certify
I think WHT cost about $30,000 as it's only a large forum and has nothing else. You guys are right on few things counting hits and number of users alone does not really justify the actual value these days.

well, there was some kind of directory and review section on wht for few days/month but i don't know why it was removed. :(

Man, I remember when WHT was just starting, of course, everyone does. But there was like 8 people on and the record of like 19. It was getting nice, the way a forum was, the first thread ever wrote, Annette replied saying she had a coyote say "I'm a genuis" and helping me on startup screens. I think this board has shown people growing as people. To sell this or even think about it is like selling the dog you have raised since it was a pup.

Let's not give Matt any ideas on selling. :D

I like the way this forum runs, and I do not want to experience any changes. I've been here practically since beginning, and I'm not going nowhere until I die. See how loyal I am? :)

'Web Hosting Talk Date: January 13, 2025'

Originally posted by Bogdan


'Web Hosting Talk Date: January 13, 2025'

hehehe, till this date we will be having 3D WHT where all members will be posting with virtual 3D text, images and sounds, and i will love to see all gls on this form ;) :D