RapForums.com for Sale
August 16, 2007 Posted by Tyler Cruz
First, to help set the mood, listen to this hilarious rap tribute made out to me:
My friend Feras owns RapForums.com and is selling it, but is having a difficult time. He’s posted it on various forums like Sitepoint, but he soon learned that people just aren’t willing to pay the all-important “potential” factor. People these days seem to only gauge a site on it’s current earnings, falsely appraising it with a ludicrous 12-month equation. I ran into the same wall when I tried to sell Movie-Vault.com, so I definitely feel for Feras. I’m therefore trying to help him get a decent price for the site, and get the word out.
That rap above was made by one of many talented members of RapForums.com. Apart from general rap discussion, the It also comes with an additional skin that is a very nice alternative.site also runs rap battles and tournaments (think 8-Mile…). I asked Feras to request one of the site members to make a rap about me (and include John Chow as well) and mention RapForums.com in it, as it would make good link bait and be good for makerting. It also helps show one of the many added perks to purchasing such a site; first, it’s producing unique and royalty-free music, but think about the added benefits of that. You’re getting free access to thousands of rappers, which essentially gives you free marketing tools. For example, hiring a company to make the above promotional rap for my blog might have cost me $500. But Feras got it made for free from one of the members, and it was done within 30-minutes!
Why is he selling?
First I’d like to answer why Feras is selling the site. Last week, his server crashed and his latest backup was several weeks old, thus resulting in a loss of over 15,000 posts, abruption of rap battles and tournaments going on, and hundreds of new member sign-ups. This setback really frustrated him, as it would anyone, and so he decided to sell it.
I can certainly understand that. It’s very disheartening. However, he’s considering keeping it now since the site has already healed itself back to life, as time often does, and is almost as it was before the crash.
Stats
- Premium domain RapForums.com (probably worth $5-$10k in my book)
- #1 on Yahoo and Google, and #3 on MSN for “Rap Forums”
- Currently 6,276 threads,51,852 posts, and 3,564 members
- Before the crash, the site was receiving over 1,000 posts a day, and over 30 new members a day. Unfortunately, the crash hurt traffic a lot, and it is now receiving only around 50 posts a day, but still 10-15 new registrations per day.
- Before the crash, the site was receiving around 1,000 uniques a day, but dropped now to around 500. This is partly because the site was down for a while and many members migrated to other sites. An e-mail newsletter would hopefully bring back some of the members who left.
- Full screenshots of stats and traffic from before and after the crash can be found here.
Additional Information
Feras will also provide the new owner with the contact information of the person that he had managing and administering the site for him. He paid him a monthly fee, which if I remember correctly was around $200. That’s a possible solution for buyers wishing to buy the site but not having the time to run it.
The site comes with everything: custom skin, domain RapForums.com, database and site, and vBulletin license. It will also come with an additional skin that is a very nice alternative.
Site Income
RapForums.com was never really monetized, and as such, you can assume it makes nothing. This is obviously where the potential factor comes into place.
Conclusion
RapForums.com is not making anything, and it’s traffic took a huge hit after a lengthy server crash a bit over a week ago. Yet, the asking price is still very reasonable. Buyers are getting a premium domain name (which in my opinion is worth $5-$10k), and custom-skinned forum with over 3,000 members which is ranked #1 on Google and Yahoo for “rap forums”.
I had actually bid on RapForums.com when it was up for sale, but didn’t win it obviously. I’d love to have RapForums.com in my forums collection, especially since I could make great use out of all the artistic talent on there, but I just don’t have the funds at the moment, especially with a little vacation I have planned for two-weeks from now.
I wouldn’t have offered to blog about his site and try to help him sell it if I didn’t think it was a good opportunity.
Asking Price
Starting Bid: $8,000
Bid Increments: $100
BIN: $20,000
Payment must be made via either Bank Wire or Escrow.com
If you’re interested in bidding or have any questions, please do so by commenting to this post. Do not e-mail me! Feras will be checking up on the comments and will be available to answer any questions or concerns people may have.
Haha, i love that rap. That is great.
I saw the site on sitepoint, that’s a real big shame about the crash. It really teaches you to backup more often. The sale doesn’t really interest me much, yet i see the potential and it can be sold for much more with a domain like that. Good luck with the sale Feras.
Tyler, Why don’t you take over the site? Surely it would fit into you realm of forum based sites and you know it has traffic etc….?
As stated in the post, I actually bid on the site, but I’m broke and don’t want to invest that much cash at the moment. Especially with an upcoming mini-vacation coming up. Plus I shouldn’t be buying any more sites anyway.
Try advertising this on http://www.itsbx.com – its another urban community, and I know there might be some interest there.
🙂
With only 500 uniques a month, $8000 is just too much money. Its not like there is potential to get higher search rankings for “Rap Forums”.
If you whored it out with ads, you could make a couple hundred a month from 500 uniques, but that would really degrade the user experience, and some key posters might defect. Thats the problem he is facing.
He is probably better off keeping it than selling it. Let it grow a bit more, and then it may be worth more down the road, but very few people are going to be interested at this price.
[…] Cruz – RapForums.com for sale Tyler is helping his friend sell rapforums.com – the domain is great, although i still think it is […]
Very tempting indeed… maybe if the starting offer was a couple of K less. It’s just a shame he lost all that data recently!
I’m not sure the domain itself is worth that much — in my opinion something like RapForums.com is only worth maybe at most $1k. I say this because while it’s a great name from a search engine standpoint, I don’t think many people will actually type this in. Plus forum sites are usually not that valuable for type-in traffic, since there’s no immediate conversion goal. But, regardless tell your friend — good luck with the sale!
[…] RapForums.com for sale — Tyler Cruz posts about RapForums.com being for sale. Okay, okay, it’s not that interesting, but the rap piece one of the forum members put together make it totally worth it! […]
haha that song was hilarious!
Nice track