Although there are many tools for calculating a website's worth online, they may not always be accurate. It is for this reason that you ought to understand how to evaluate the value of your website. For example, some of these websites use only income gained from Google AdSense. This is wrong because numerous websites have many other income streams other than Google AdSense. Secondly, income from Google AdSense cannot be considered the standard of measuring ad income since it's actually very low.
Another factor that has been wrongly used to measure the value of a website is Alexa ranking. Although this is a widely used measure, it is mainly based on the amount of traffic to a given website. To be considered, users must have an Alexa toolbar installed. This eliminates the count of many other visitors to a given site. Secondly, a high number of visitors to any given site does not necessarily equate to a high income. Income is mainly based on the business model that any site employs.
Accurate Methods of Determining a Website's Value
Although these methods may appear tedious, they are the best approach in determining how much a website is worth. Another factor to bear in mind is that only a website's owner can accurately calculate its worth. This is because only he or she has custody of the website's data.
1. Amount of Revenue Generated
There are many ways to monetize a website. The most common include:
- Offering ad space – examples include AdSense, Infolinks, and affiliates.
- Product sales – examples include eBooks, brand caps, and T-shirts.
- Subscription based payments – examples include online courses and membership based resources.
A website that has these, or any other way of generating income can be valued based on the amount of money it generates daily, monthly, or yearly.
2. The Age of a Website
This offers additional value to a website because search engines, especially Google place more value on it. This is based on a number of parameters including:
- Brand recognition – the older a site is, the higher the possibility that it has grown into a known brand.
- Number of backlinks – older websites have more backlinks that newer ones meaning higher traffic.
- Trust – People will definitely place more trust in an older website than one that has just been created.
Although there may not be a definite monetary value, age places an older website at a higher value.
3. Domain Name
The factor you should consider here is the market potential of the domain name. A domain name can determine a brand's competitiveness, marketability, and SEO. An easily recognizable domain name is easy to find and remember. This automatically translates to higher traffic and therefore higher potential income.
4. SEO Analysis
Websites vary greatly in terms of the way SEO has been applied. A site that has high quality SEO is definitely more visible than one that does not. As such, it will be of higher value.
5. Web Content
There are websites that automatically attract numerous visitors, including unique pageviews due to the quality and the value of their content. One such example is a news site that is well written and has new content every day. Others are educational sites. Such sites will bear higher values owing to the value of their content. This is also an indicator of the amount of work that has been put into building the site.
6. A Website's Assets
These are all the additional features that a website has in addition to the basic structure. These can include:
- An advanced theme
- An email list
- Professional type plugins
- A premium domain name
7. Traffic
A website that attracts a high amount of traffic has a higher potential of business than one that does not. The higher the traffic, the higher the market value.
Top 5 Free Website Worth Calculators
The tools listed below are some of the best free tools for checking a website's worth, based on the parameters they use.
1. Website Value
Website Value is free website value calculator that helps rank and estimate the value of your website using Alexa and Google rankings. Plus, it is able to estimate how much daily ad revenue your website brings in.
2. Website Outlook
This site evaluates the worth of a website based on Alexa Ranking, Dmoz listing, revenue from ads, daily page views, and so on. It is popular because it also offers suggestions on how to further improve the value of your site.
3. Your Website Value
The Your Website Value team brings 18 years of experience to help you appraise the worth of your website. It shows your web traffic graphically and also gives you a score based on how fast your page loads so you can troubleshoot potential drops in user traffic based on speed performance.
4. Website Value Calculator
Values not only scores your website but also gives you the name and value of the top websites online so you'd have an idea of how your site compares to more famous names like Google or Twitter.
5. Site Price
This is a free tool that uses an assortment of factors to calculate the worth of a given website. Its key pricing parameters include:
- Number of daily visitors
- Backlinks available
- Visibility within search engines
