Can you sell a website?

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birdwatcher

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We are using our website to see if we can get any bites on the sale of our guest house and I was wondering if and when we sell it and are no longer using this website can we sell it. Do people actually buy websites and change the contents? Our domain name is still good for another year although the host will have to be changed.
Have not thought of this but am trying to re-coup some of the initial investment into it. Any suggestions?
 
What are you trying to sell? The domain name: yourbnb.com or the whole website with all the b&b info?
If you sell your B&B as a home, no one is going to want the website. If you sell it as a business, it conveys with the business.
If you're asking if you can sell the domain name alone, sure, why not. If someone wants that domain name, they may buy it. Do you think it's a name someone is already interested in?
So, no, no one will want to buy your website with all the content, but, yes, someone may want the domain name for their own B&B somewhere else. If so, you get paid and then transfer the ownership to the buyer. They do with it what they want, but they won't also get your website, just the domain name.
 
If you have other friendly Inns in the area, it sometimes will pay to talk to them... If your site ranks highly in search terms popular for your area, they may be interested in purchasing and redirecting to their own site, at least for a little while.
Often, an Inn that is closing will GIVE their domain away to another area Inn in exchange for them redeeming your outstanding gift certificates, if you have any..
 
If you have other friendly Inns in the area, it sometimes will pay to talk to them... If your site ranks highly in search terms popular for your area, they may be interested in purchasing and redirecting to their own site, at least for a little while.
Often, an Inn that is closing will GIVE their domain away to another area Inn in exchange for them redeeming your outstanding gift certificates, if you have any...
Good point about someone in the area maybe wanting to use the site traffic to redirect. Not sure how that would be received by the guest unless they got a landing page that said 'XYZ inn has closed and ABC inn has taken over their reservations for your convenience.'
I think birdwatcher is closed, tho, so traffic may be really low by the time they sell. But they may have a really good domain name.
 
Oh ok, I understand now. I thought that I could sell the website and domain and the person that buys it would just change all the information...but hey its a thought about other Inns in the area. We are just now closed so some may just pop into my website. I just thought that once I'm done I would not want my website "live".
 
There is sort of a trinity in terms of the website. You can change any 1 item, and sometimes 2, but changing 3 is a guarantee to set the website back to square one.
  1. domain ownership
  2. content on the site
  3. hosting
There may be some value in your content, if you set up pages that really addressed the attractions in your area. However, most redirects will make those gains if redirected to another website, pretty short lived (a month or 2 at most). The exception to this would be if you had a lot of incoming links to the attractions page of your site. However for most b&B sites the majority of the incoming links are to the home page, not the attractions page.
The thing you have going for you is that "most' innkeepers don't know this. Some will buy up anything dangled in front of them.... especially if you know of some inn that already has a bunch of different domain names. They already buy into the incorrect assumption that more domain names is better.
 
I would think you could only sell the domain name, not sure why anyone who was not buying an entire B&B would want to buy the website? Or is it the B&B? Part of the sale if selling the business s/b including the website.
 
I would think you could only sell the domain name, not sure why anyone who was not buying an entire B&B would want to buy the website? Or is it the B&B? Part of the sale if selling the business s/b including the website..
There are bottom feeders (not within the B&B industry) that will buy up old sites and cover them with ads then ride them into the ground. It takes less than a year typically for them to lose their value..... and these bottom feeders are not looking to spend a lot of money to buy the site... so it is not really a money making proposition for a B&B site.
The biggest value would be to locals looking to acquire some content, but only if the content is unique and valuable beyond that particular property. Example: There is no value to my "reservations" page or my "policies" page. BUT my wine trail pages show up in the top 5 positions for most of the major wine searches for this region. (attracts about 150 visits per day to those pages alone). Local inns would be stupid/short-sighted to not want to buy them and simply put an ad for their inn on them.
So there can be value to pages that have content that goes beyond the scope of the one particular inn that the site belonged to, but I would say that the majority of B&B sites out there do not have that kind of value (though many of the sites of the regulars on this forum do, but they are the exception more than the rule)
Hint: Joey, your blog is more valuable than your site. ;)
 
I would think you could only sell the domain name, not sure why anyone who was not buying an entire B&B would want to buy the website? Or is it the B&B? Part of the sale if selling the business s/b including the website..
There are bottom feeders (not within the B&B industry) that will buy up old sites and cover them with ads then ride them into the ground. It takes less than a year typically for them to lose their value..... and these bottom feeders are not looking to spend a lot of money to buy the site... so it is not really a money making proposition for a B&B site.
The biggest value would be to locals looking to acquire some content, but only if the content is unique and valuable beyond that particular property. Example: There is no value to my "reservations" page or my "policies" page. BUT my wine trail pages show up in the top 5 positions for most of the major wine searches for this region. (attracts about 150 visits per day to those pages alone). Local inns would be stupid/short-sighted to not want to buy them and simply put an ad for their inn on them.
So there can be value to pages that have content that goes beyond the scope of the one particular inn that the site belonged to, but I would say that the majority of B&B sites out there do not have that kind of value (though many of the sites of the regulars on this forum do, but they are the exception more than the rule)
Hint: Joey, your blog is more valuable than your site. ;)
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swirt said:
Hint: Joey, your blog is more valuable than your site. ;)
"Alms for the poor, Alms for the poor!"
Our website needs a total overall, and every time i look into it, getting it up to date with page width resolutions etc, I am like the Tazzie devil and wear myself out and give up. New owners can do whatever they want to do - if someone wants to buy us they can have it all down to the bathroom sink(s) all 8 of them. :)
 
I would think you could only sell the domain name, not sure why anyone who was not buying an entire B&B would want to buy the website? Or is it the B&B? Part of the sale if selling the business s/b including the website..
There are bottom feeders (not within the B&B industry) that will buy up old sites and cover them with ads then ride them into the ground. It takes less than a year typically for them to lose their value..... and these bottom feeders are not looking to spend a lot of money to buy the site... so it is not really a money making proposition for a B&B site.
The biggest value would be to locals looking to acquire some content, but only if the content is unique and valuable beyond that particular property. Example: There is no value to my "reservations" page or my "policies" page. BUT my wine trail pages show up in the top 5 positions for most of the major wine searches for this region. (attracts about 150 visits per day to those pages alone). Local inns would be stupid/short-sighted to not want to buy them and simply put an ad for their inn on them.
So there can be value to pages that have content that goes beyond the scope of the one particular inn that the site belonged to, but I would say that the majority of B&B sites out there do not have that kind of value (though many of the sites of the regulars on this forum do, but they are the exception more than the rule)
Hint: Joey, your blog is more valuable than your site. ;)
.
swirt said:
Hint: Joey, your blog is more valuable than your site. ;)
"Alms for the poor, Alms for the poor!"
Our website needs a total overall, and every time i look into it, getting it up to date with page width resolutions etc, I am like the Tazzie devil and wear myself out and give up. New owners can do whatever they want to do - if someone wants to buy us they can have it all down to the bathroom sink(s) all 8 of them. :)
.
Sorry, in re-reading what I wrote, I realised it sounded like I was taking a dig at your main site. I was not. Your main site is great .... I just meant that what you do with your blog is very impressive and that if anything was being sold off separately, it would have quite a bit of value to it. ;)
 
Just wondering for those who build websites, do you ever go back and update a website? Or does the client have to pay for an overhaul? I guess they would have to pay. Never mind, answered my own question.
For purposes of "here is my portfolio" I would not want anyone to see that one though.
 
Just wondering for those who build websites, do you ever go back and update a website? Or does the client have to pay for an overhaul? I guess they would have to pay. Never mind, answered my own question.
For purposes of "here is my portfolio" I would not want anyone to see that one though..
We just got a quote for an update to our state association website - cost is more than twice what we were charged to build the original website. Sadly, I know that a brand new one would cost five times as much.
 
Just wondering for those who build websites, do you ever go back and update a website? Or does the client have to pay for an overhaul? I guess they would have to pay. Never mind, answered my own question.
For purposes of "here is my portfolio" I would not want anyone to see that one though..
My website was done by the above mentioned company and is about 3 years old Like dog years, internet years are about equal to 7 for each year. The quote I just got for a "refresh" of my website is about what I paid for it (approx $1,500) If you haven't seen their refreshes, check out their website. I'm definitely considering it.
btw, Muirford, it was great to meet you in person. Sorry I didn't get a chance to say goodbye!
 
Just wondering for those who build websites, do you ever go back and update a website? Or does the client have to pay for an overhaul? I guess they would have to pay. Never mind, answered my own question.
For purposes of "here is my portfolio" I would not want anyone to see that one though..
My website was done by the above mentioned company and is about 3 years old Like dog years, internet years are about equal to 7 for each year. The quote I just got for a "refresh" of my website is about what I paid for it (approx $1,500) If you haven't seen their refreshes, check out their website. I'm definitely considering it.
btw, Muirford, it was great to meet you in person. Sorry I didn't get a chance to say goodbye!
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ditto, BD. We took off right after lunch - we stayed through the prizes, then skipped out to head towards another innmate's. Hope your trip home was uneventful - after the airplane travails I heard about, I was kind of glad to be driving.
 
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