What is Your Websites Value?
The Dispatch.com iPhone Application, while ornate, may not drive much loyalty from its users
By TJ Warren
If two websites are identical in terms of their use of graphics and imagery as well as their use of modern web techniques does that mean they also will get the same amount of visitation from web users? And how does the quantity of visitation relate to a websites value? We set out to answer these questions by comparing two seemingly identical websites, those of local Ohio newspapers. At first glance, The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s online home (Cleveland.com) and The Columbus Dispatch (Dispatch.com) appear very similar. However, this appearance is only skin-deep. Here are some figures to consider:
Alexa page rank:
Cleveland.com- 3,878
Dispatch.com- 16,672
Daily page views:
Cleveland.com- 263,283
Dispatch.com- 47,907
Daily ads revenue (potential):
Cleveland.com- $792
Dispatch.com- $146
Estimated worth (websites value):
Cleveland.com- $578,379
Dispatch.com- $106,704
Cleveland.com is estimated to be worth $578,000 while Dispatch.com is estimated to be worth $107,000. These estimates were derived from daily page-views on each site as a function of how many dollars in advertising revenue each website could generate if that were there business model. The more page-views to each site, the more they may charge for ad space. There are many ways to value a website, and this is one of the more popular methods.
Cleveland.com offers a simpler layout and no iPhone app, but has 5 times the number of pageviews as Dispatch.com
Cleveland.com has around 263,000 page views a day while Dispatch.com has about 48,000 per day. While both sites are valuable assets, Cleveland.com somehow is able to drive up their daily page-views relative to Dispatch.com. There are several possible explanations for this comparison. First, the Plain Dealer has a circulation of 450,000 newspapers delivered daily compared to 350,000 by The Dispatch. Also, while Columbus is the most populous Ohio city, Cleveland has the larger metropolitan area, with 2.25 million people compared to 1.73 million in metropolitan Columbus. However these advantages do not clearly indicate why one newspaper would have over 5 times as many daily page-views as the other. It may very well be that Cleveland.com offers better content or does an excellent job of inspiring its readers to engage online.
Whatever the reason, the larger volume of visitors results in higher estimated ad revenue for Cleveland.com ($790/day as opposed to $145/day). This estimate means that Cleveland.com could use the extra revenue to further distance themselves from Dispatch.com in the future. The overall lesson is to look further than just the appearance of a website to determine how valuable it is. There are many things that go on behind the scenes which contributes to the relative success and visitation of a website.
Free tools worth checking out include:
http://alexa.com
http://websiteoutlook.com
References:
http://factfinder.census.gov
http://www.infoplease.com/