Hey all. Recently I've been itching to start a new forum and the topic I want to do is World of Warcraft. I came across WoW World of Warcraft Forum - Powered by vBulletin and it was a dormant forum and thats a great domain name so I decided to send the owner an email.

After he said that he would entertain offers I asked him what was currently invested in the site that he had mentioned. He said that he'd consider the domain $500 but said he believes its retail is double that, and he said the vBulletin and custom skin was $1000 for a total of $1500 invested. I find it hard to believe he spend $800+ for that skin. My main interest is the domain so I'm not sure if he would be willing to only part with that or if its everything or nothing (I'm assuming its the latter).

The forum is #4 in google for "world of warcraft forum" and 7 for "world of warcraft forums". He has done no promotion, all organic or type-in traffic. From September to December it got about 2,000 uniques per month and each month before that was less.

I know the first to make an offer is usually the loser but he says he wants me to make him an offer now that I know his level of investment. My budget is pretty limited but I also see huge potential with this domain. Any advice is appreciated!

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LOL

That about sums up my responce!

In all seriousness though; I dont think he spent $500 on a forum skin to be honest - unless he went to a seriously overcharging designer...

But other than that - just look at the site stats. Are you really ready to pay that amount of money for such a seemingly unestablished forum? Dont get me wrong - the site has potential - but i dont think that justifys the price.

You should find out how much revenue is made on the Adsence per month and anum. How much the hosting costs are too. Weigh it all up - then make a choice.

I personally wouldnt be prepared to spend even nearly that amount of money on that site.

The domain seems worth it though - ill give him that

Maybe thats just me?

Investment required is too high and the competition too fierce.

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Normally I don't comment on design work in a negative way, however, if he paid $500-$1000 for the design that's shown on the forum now, he was seriously overcharged.

He basically paid for a header image that would have taken less than 30 minutes to create and a few category background images.

If your dead set on purchasing the domain, make him aware of it and offer what you feel would be an acceptable amount.

Keep in mind, if you buy the domain without the content/forum, unless there's a multitude of websites linking to it, the overall ranking will die down as will the traffic.

From what you stated, the traffic is organic. If the current content that has already been indexed is removed, it will 404 or error out when searched on which will cause the links to phase out of the indexes.

The domain is a nice one, though I'd look around for a real domain appraisal before committing. Check Web Hosting Talk - The largest, most influential web hosting community on the Internet in the domains section, normally they are pretty good about giving an estimated value.

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Well normally I would definitely want the content, but really there is none. Nearly all the posts in there are chinese gold farmers or like spam posts.

I also don't think the skin is worth what he claims, and really if I got the domain I wouldn't use that skin.

James, I wouldn't pay that amount for the traffic he gets, but I think the domain and its ranking in google for the main keywords is worth quite a bit.

Normally I'd rather start from scratch because my budget is pretty tight and I've just always been careful about making big purchases, but I see a lot of potential with this and I think I could make back what I spend fairly quickly with the right promotion and monetization.

I'll probably ask him if he'd part with only the domain and also tell him my thoughts on the skin. But before I do I'd still like to hear any additional input you guys have.

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Wow... that skin is terrible for the price he paid..

Sorry but i have advice to give i just wanted to comment on the skin haha

Good luck!

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What about "wow forums", "wow", "wow community" for search results? I'm fairly certain people type in wow more than world of warcraft.

The domain is good. If he wants 1k for the forum, I would say redo it yourself. I could do that vb skin and I don't even use vb. $500 is quite a bit but the domain is good. I think with better titles and more content you could easily rank better.

I personally would ask just for the domain, I think it's worth more than the design and software alone.

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The skin does look cool, though, not worth $1000. Best of luck for the deal(if you are willing to pay $1500!)

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500 for the domain i think would be an alright buy, if he offered you 500 though try him at 350 and see if he bites

Do you mean redo it myself with a different domain, or try to get his domain only?

And I doubt I can get him below $500 for the domain because he said he thinks the retail for it is $1000. But I suppose I can always try.

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