Breaking Down the BankRate Purchase of Bankaholic Blog for $12.4 Million Dollars
October 2, 2008 by Pablo Palatnik
It is reported by PaidContent.org that banking blog Bankaholic has been bought out by BankRate for $12.4 million dollars! Another $2.5 million is possible in earnout over the next 12 months.
How do you put a price tag of $12.4 million on a one-man operated blog? That’s hard to say and I dont have an answer but lets look at certain components that may have been looked at.
-Advertising: The financial sector is one of the industries that pays out the most advertising wise. Whether you are putting adsense on your website or selling banner ad space, if you have a high traffic website or blog, you’re sure to make some good money. His adsense clicks most likely pay $1.00+. His affiliate revenue must be pretty good considering the page converts well since it seems a trustworthy source averaging about 15-20 comments per post. I’m sure BankRate will use this as a platform to generate leads which we all know go for a lot of money as well (not sure how much now that the banking system has gone to crumbles)
Traffic: The traffic isn’t the greatest. According to Compete, in July it had about 350k visitors. Without a doubt it is a growing blog but you would think for a $12.4 million dollar buyout, it would have a bit more traffic even though the forecast as it continues to rank well for many desired banking keywords looks very good.
Keywords such as cd rates, best cd rates, highest cd rates, credit card offers and more are very expensive keywords to buy through paid search will this site ranks well for and so does BANKRATE. Now, they will have a lot more territory covered.
Branding: I’m sure the domain itself had a bit to do with the consideration of price. Bankaholic.com, what a great domain name. It has potential to become a lot bigger than a blog and I’m sure with more funding, may be something that BankRate will potentially brand in a near future to build out their company.
Domain Age: If you can believe it, Bankaholic.com has only been around for 2 years and 1 month as of today. In 2 years the blog was sold for $12.4 million dollars!
PageRank: The Bankaholic.com pagerank is currently 5.
Google Indexing:It has currently about a little over 500 pages indexed by Google which is not too much considering the time it has been around so since the blog has been started, new content was not put up every day.
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Comments (6)
that’s a nice breakdown there, pablo. do you know how much this blog was making a month with affiliate marketing and ad sales?
@ Daryl,
Like I said in the post, the financial sector of the online world pays well, whether its a click or a lead, it should pay pretty good.
I’m guessing this blog makes anywhere from $15k-$50k a month…I know its a very broad range but I couldnt really say.
[...] As the owner of a new financial community, Bullish Bankers, I have been absolutely astounded by the recent sale of financial website Bankaholic.com to BankRate.com for $15 million dollars. $12.4 million in cash [...]
[...] Sein Blog „Bankaholic“ wurde vom Betreiber der Seite Bankrate.com zum sagenhaften Preis von 12,4 Mio. US-Dollar [...]
Very nice breakdown on Bankoholic. Thanks for posting this factors, it really help me understand alot on traffic.
Good job Pablo. Very interesting breakdown. Thank you