How to sell / buy forums
In case you are unwilling to build your community website from zero (short of time, no experience, cash available to invest, etc) - the basics of the process and general guidelines how to start your forum I discussed in forum launch post - you have one more viable option: buy an established forum. Yes, a simple, efficient, but expensive way to become an owner of a web community.
The places to visit if you would like to check forums for sale are the same as I listed in the post on where to sell / buy websites So, you can combine your search of websites and forums and buy the property you like most.
You as a potential forum buyer should pay attention to most points mentioned in how to sell / buy websites but forums has some specifics that you should check additionally.
Here is a few extra points to go through while evaluating a forum (potential forum sellers should find these points also of some value – it will assist you to know what questions to expect from your prospects):
- is it a standalone forum or it comes with a blog or website or something else?
- check members list: date joined, last visit date (does membership grows smoothly, no unusual jumps in new members joining the community)
- posting frequency: check how many active posters the forum has (roughly in %), are there many lurkers?
- staff: who helps to run the forum? If there is staff how they are paid? Or are they volunteers? Who are moderators? Will they stay to go on with their work?
- check what mods the forum uses.
- does the forum come with some custom designed skin?
- read it for some time – can you get a feeling of community?
- check the forum reputation online: feedback, is it a well known community in its industry?
If the forum uses vBulletin software ask for VB admin Stats and Logs – you will see how many threads were started on a particular day, how many registered per day, how many registered members logged in per day. Does the seller include VB license into the sale?
You should be careful not to buy a forum that will go dead as soon as you buy it – the former owner could artificially boost much activity in recent days or weeks prior to sale – so, it is a good idea to browse the forum checking the dates of the posts.
If the forum owner is reluctant to reply to any of your questions or provide information you ask for - stop any negotiations.
Summary: Forums are great as they generate much content automatically. Yes, they are more difficult to monetize, but they take less time to run. Your business gets diversified – it is my belief that every forum owner runs websites, but not every website owner runs a forum.
Another great advantage of the online communities – you are less dependent on search engines. You will become more relaed when the next Google update comes and youwill not a frequent poster on www.webmasterworld.com (Google news section) where every second poster tries to find an answer to: why my pages go supplemental, why Google dropped so many pages of my dear website, why Google ignores my robots.txt file, why It does this and why It does that.
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