I’m about to begin brokering what is likely to be the largest blog ever sold. As most people know, blogs are sold all the time. Most are somewhere in the top 10,000 blogs around, and they go for a couple of grand.
This is one of the defining blogs in the industry. When I go to conferences and mention the blog, and the author, I get an “oh yeah!” kind of response. Everyone knows this blog. It’s no Engadget, but it is in the top 100 blogs in the world (in every measure but Technorati, which is inherently flawed since it counts all time links).
It’s made every other top 100 list out there, receives numerous awards, is quoted in major newspapers around the world on a weekly basis, has a PageRank of 7 and currently makes about 2,000$/month. Though, with the traffic it was, there’s no reason it couldn’t make 2-3 times that with the right manager, designer, etc.
We’ll be putting it up for auction later this week, however we wanted to give serious buyers a chance to take a look beforehand. We won’t accept any bids under 40,000$, we will accept a 50/50 deal (ie: 50 percent up front, and 50 percent in 4-8 weeks).
As I said, this is a defining blog in its industry. It’s currently hitting just shy of 1M pages per month, has a PR of 7 and pushes massive traffic around with its links. It has more than 150,000 pages indexed in Yahoo/MSN and 60,000 in Google.
By all accounts, this is a huge blog.
If you are seriously interested, and have the money, I’ll be handling private conversations for the next 24-48 hours, largely because I know a few folk would be interested in this. Email me if you want more information.
Oh, and no I’m not talking about Ensight :p Also, when the auction goes public, it won’t be an eBay auction and it will allow private bids.
Ta! 
Update: As TDavid mentioned below, blogs belonging to a few of the blog networks (About.com, Weblogs, Inc) that have sold have gone for considerably more than this. He’s right. I wasn’t even thinking of individual blogs in individual networks. My apologies. This will not be an Engadget or Autoblog or whatever level of sale. As far as I’m aware, this is still the most highly ranked site to be sold. That said, I’m happy to be wrong. After all, whether it is or isn’t doesn’t really affect the value of the sale.
Update 2: Thursday is Blog Bid Day.
Update 3: Because of the large amount of private, pre-auction, interest, the public auction has been delayed until Monday.
#1 by Paul Short - January 11th, 2006 at 11:57
Technorati is counting links over the past 6 mionths for their top 100 list. I think this only went into effect recently.
#2 by Jeff - January 11th, 2006 at 18:01
This is s HUGE first for the blogging community, I wish you luck with the sale!
#3 by Scrivs - January 11th, 2006 at 19:03
When you say industry can you at least give a general idea of the industry? I know some people always on the lookout for sites if the industry is right.
#4 by Jeremy Wright - January 11th, 2006 at 19:09
Hey Paul, I hear where you’re coming from, but if I told you the industry you’d know the blog. If you want to forward my information to them, I’d be happy to talk to the individuals one on one.
#5 by A.H - January 11th, 2006 at 19:14
Very interesting, i’ll be looking forward to see which blog are you talking about =)
A.H
#6 by Johnny Debacle - January 11th, 2006 at 19:20
How can $40k be the minimum bid for a property that generates ONLY $2k a month. If you assume it loses no traffic (which seems unlikely given the disruptive nature of switching ownership) the minimum bid values it at almost 2x revenue.
Seems like a ridiculous price to pay IMO. Does the writer/staff come with it? Some portion of the value of a given blog operation is the fixed asset of the blog itself (the stored value which has been created) and some of the recurring value add from the contributors which can be expected to continue (a discounted valuation of expected future value creation).
So is someone JUST buying an existing blog, with no staff? What are the traffic trends like? Is it declining? How much effort and money does it require to maintain the traffic levels? What is an approriate valuation for a staffless blog? 1x revenue? $2cpm * monthly traffic annualized? What do comps sell for?
Why are they selling?
#7 by Jeremy Wright - January 11th, 2006 at 19:21
Johnny: If it wasn’t an industry leading blog, and a Top 100 blog, you’re right: 20x earnings would be crazy. However there’s more in play here than just revenue.
As far as the rest of your questions, they’ll be answered in the public auction on Friday/Monday or to potential buyers as they contact me.
#8 by Amit Agarwal - January 11th, 2006 at 19:42
Is it Google Blogoscoped (Philipp Lenssen) ?
#9 by David - January 11th, 2006 at 20:15
I am pretty sure I know what it is, and only want to say that I really hope they change their mind, as I don’t want that site sold. I love the voice that it has and I read it all the time. If the site is sold it will change and never be the same, and then where will I go?
#10 by TDavid - January 11th, 2006 at 20:51
Largest blog ever sold would be AOL/Weblogs Inc which overvalued many of their blogs, Engadget and a few others aside, frankly
I know one blog with those type numbers (except the monthly site income is more) and I doubt the owner of that blog would sell for anything less than seven figures. Maybe times have changed, I’ll have to give them a call. I’m somewhat curious if it’s the same folks.
If it sells for $40k I’ll be surprised (that’s it doesn’t go for more). In this day and age almost everything sells for much more than its actual value. But then good questions have been asked above like what about the existing writer(s)?
If they aren’t part of the deal the value start to plummet. Subscribers come to expect a certain tone and changing wriiters can alienate subscribers in a hurry. Replace Stephen King with John Saul and despite both being bestselling authors, people *will* notice and will care.
#11 by Jeremy Wright - January 11th, 2006 at 20:58
TDavid, AOL/WIN wasn’t a blog, it was a network. As far as I’m aware, this will be the largest (traffic, ranking, etc) blog sold all on its own. I didn’t think including networks (like About.com, for example, where the average blog sale price was about 1M$, much more than in the WIN deal).
While replacing Stephen King with Saul would cause a change, how would changing reporters at the Times or the Post change things? Not much if the tone remained the same, right?
As I said above, this blog reports on its industry. Plain and simple. Tone is certainly part of it, but people aren’t coming because of the writer’s writing. They’re coming to find out what’s happening in the industry.
#12 by Johnny Debacle - January 11th, 2006 at 21:27
“While replacing Stephen King with Saul would cause a change, how would changing reporters at the Times or the Post change things? Not much if the tone remained the same, right?”
A lot. That’s part of the reasons the second tier newspapers are starting to get killed. Lower ad revenues and reduced subcriptions lead to laying off reporters, frequently the higher quality and more expensive ones who are closer to pension and thus higher risk. This in turn has led to a dillution of the quality of their content and further subcriptions loss and so forth. Gloomy time to be a senior worker at a newspaper or periodical.
I mean Gizmodo managed the shift well when Joel left and was replaced by theGizborg who copied his style and tone, but it had been long planned and was an easy style to replicate in the format.
How does 2x revenue = 20x earnings? Doesn’t that imply that the Mystery Blog somehow has 10% margins? That seems remarkably low for an industry with such obvious operating leverage.
My instinct is that this is a classic winner’s curse situation and someone will be overpaying by several mulitples because people don’t have the discipline to discount future blogflows accurately. But this will all be solved when I create my Discounted Blog Flow model.
#13 by TDavid - January 11th, 2006 at 21:30
Of course I know WIN was a network, duh, my point is each blog in that network carried a value and one could argue that Engadget and a couple other blogs fueled the price of that network sale and this one won’t even scratch the surface of that deal, sorry. To say this blog sale will be the biggest blog sale is flawed right off the bat. Somebody even broke down the value by links (Tris Hussey maybe?).
Ok, technically you might be able to hype this up as the “biggest *single* blog sale” but I’m not buying anything about the writer’s voice not being central to the blog, no way. You are smarter than that and to play it off like that is wrong. If the writer’s voice is that inconsequential to the blog value than how it did it get so popular to begin with? Somebody with good writing and/or editorial skill had to be behind the site, and I would expect the subscriber base to tank if they don’t replace the main talent quickly.
Another attempt to sidestep how valuable writers are in the equation.
#14 by dan - January 11th, 2006 at 21:39
$40,000 is hardly the biggest blog sale. i’m pretty sure a mac blog site called maccentral sold many years ago for about $1 million and i believe macnn sold for something similar.
#15 by Jeremy Wright - January 11th, 2006 at 21:43
TDavid: I know you know. I’m just saying why I didn’t even think about them. After all, they weren’t bought or sold individually. If you break down this blog by links, it’s worth about 1M$ (using the calculator that guy created) (Dane Carlson, right?). Now THAT is flawed.
It seems like you’re trying to make an issue out of nothing. Again. This has nothing to do with the value of writers. Unless, of course, you count the 2+ years this writer put into his work, and the payoff he’s now getting.
Or, are you going to try and undermine this on one hand for not being big enough, and then try and say I’m not valuing the blogger who actually did invest his blood sweat and tears into this on the other?
My point is that any quality writer could make this succeed. Which is totally different than saying the writer doesn’t matter. You’re often overly touchy with me on this issue, and I’ve yet to figure out why.
Johnny: I know quite a few blogs that have made the transition fairly well, including Threadwatch. It’s one thing when it’s a blog driven by an individual. It’s another when it’s effectively a resource blog.
#16 by Jeremy Wright - January 11th, 2006 at 21:45
Dan: As I said above, the “biggest blog” bit isn’t really what concerns me. Happy to be wrong, because the claim doesn’t have anything to do with the value. Whether or not it’s the biggest, 5th biggest or 9th biggest ever sold is immaterial. It’s a large blog. It’s popular. It’s doing well. It’s good value, and to the right buyer it’s a great buy.
#17 by Johnny Debacle - January 11th, 2006 at 21:55
Slashdot — if you back out how much Andover.net paid and how much VA Software paid for Andover.Net a year later, it was probably the biggest blog sale ever. And, despite the current value of the pay they received (lots of LNUX stock which cratered before they were able to sell it, Im sure), the value of their compensation at the time has to dwarf anything else.
#18 by Jeremy Wright - January 11th, 2006 at 21:59
Johnny: Great point
#19 by Interested Buyer - January 12th, 2006 at 11:07
Can you please just list the industry… even high level? I don’t want to waste my time.
#20 by Jeremy Wright - January 12th, 2006 at 11:13
Interested: The blog reports on internet-related activities. A subset of them, to be sure (no, it’s not TechCrunch), but the blog has been doing it for nearly 3 years. In its industry it is the largest reporting site out there, though a number of newer sites are popping up and gaining influence as well.
Feel free to email me and I’d be happy to share some more specifics.
#21 by Robb - January 12th, 2006 at 13:56
It seems to me like a blog with that kind of profile and traffic must be very hard to monetize if it is only generating $2000 per month. When you think about it, if this blog is getting almost 1 million visitors per month. That is proabably somewhere around 30,000 per day.
#22 by Jeremy Wright - January 12th, 2006 at 14:14
Robb: What it really means is that it isn’t currently being properly monetized, which is true. A new design would do wonders for monetization, as the current one has very few ad spots built in (at least effectively).
#23 by Johnny Debacle - January 12th, 2006 at 17:20
If that’s the case then you should advise the seller to hire someone to fix the layout, design, improve monetization and THEN sell it. He is leaving purchase price multiples on the table and that’s just not smart.
#24 by David - January 12th, 2006 at 19:37
Or someone coudl come in and buy it and redesign it. Either way excited to know more.
#25 by Angsuman Chakraborty - January 13th, 2006 at 03:30
My guess is -
Jalopnik
http://www.jalopnik.com/
It appears to be the only logical choice, if everything you said is correct.
Specifically - PR 7, was Top 100 in Feedster before (initial post) and now in top 200 (after your correction), gets over a million page views per month, defining blog for the industry etc.
#26 by Angsuman Chakraborty - January 13th, 2006 at 03:36
And not a personal blog etc.
#27 by Johnny Debacle - January 13th, 2006 at 12:42
“Or someone coudl come in and buy it and redesign it. Either way excited to know more. ”
But in that scenario, the seller is leaving a lot of money on the table.
#28 by Johnny Debacle - January 13th, 2006 at 12:44
And Jalopnik is a Gawker site so it wont be that one.
#29 by Arun Kumar - January 14th, 2006 at 15:59
And I think its a safe bet to say that Jalopnik makes more than 2K/month.
#30 by Emile Rateltand - January 15th, 2006 at 08:16
Top 100 website with only 1M visits a day?
Damn, how many will our weblog be worth after all..
#31 by Aaron - January 18th, 2006 at 23:53
I agree. Definitely don’t think it’ll be Jalopnik. I’m interested to see where this one goes.
#32 by Aparaty Cyfrowe - January 27th, 2006 at 06:26
I agree from Johnny Debacle, also yes I attend.