When to abandon a website?

[artcoder]

I exchanged links with some sites a year ago. I checked on the links now. Several of the sites have already disappeared.

I wish I could ask them why they had abadoned their sites. But I'm guessing that the effort needed to maintain the site is not worth the rate of return from the site. Sometimes it is the right decision to abandon a site because it is clear that it is not going to go anywhere. Then there are other times when people adobandon their sites too early before their site have a chance for any "return on investment".

My question is how long should one hang on to a site before one concludes whether the site is worth it or not?

[Blue Cat Buxton]

Once the site is set up, providing you have other sites covering the cost of hosting, then your costs are really only the renewal fees for the domain.

If a developed site is not covering those then it is probably time to throw in the towel.

[Chris]

Yes... and I personally find it very hard to believe that a site has trouble covering the yearly domain costs.

[allout]

It is often other factors besides cost. The most common is the website owner just gets bored. My first few sites were more a hobby than anything and I got bored and sold them if I could and dropped them if I couldn't.

The other factor could be that they just did not know enough about running websites and they just gave up. I do not think as cheap as you can register names and find hosting that cost is a big factor anymore. That is unless you take on too many sites at one time.

[Farmer77]

I exchanged links with some sites a year ago. I checked on the links now. Several of the sites have already disappeared.

I wish I could ask them why they had abadoned their sites. But I'm guessing that the effort needed to maintain the site is not worth the rate of return from the site. Sometimes it is the right decision to abandon a site because it is clear that it is not going to go anywhere. Then there are other times when people adobandon their sites too early before their site have a chance for any "return on investment".

My question is how long should one hang on to a site before one concludes whether the site is worth it or not?

What kind of website did that person have? Was it something that needed to be updated often? Abandoning a website is one thing, but deleting it is another story.

[Todd W]

Yes... and I personally find it very hard to believe that a site has trouble covering the yearly domain costs.

If that were always true then we should make a million sites making only $1 profit per-year (While it may sound low they would have to generate $6 to cover domains 6x1mill = 6mill and boy that adds up fast.) So, 7 income $1 profit for a million sites....

I think the problem is after you get a couple abandoned sites there really is a high possibility of them generating $0.

If you are board don't try to drag out the site... sell it and move on or if it's making $0 and wroth nothing let it drop.

[Generalissimo]

Yes... and I personally find it very hard to believe that a site has trouble covering the yearly domain costs.

What about your old AWS sites?

[Mr.Bill]

Chris, I have just started reading your "Guide to building a successful website", it's great reading. Thanks. As a newbie, I could use all the help I can get.

[Chris]

What about your old AWS sites?

Some of them dried up to nothing, but for them it was more about removing any association of myself with them incase there is collateral damage in a ban.

[reka20]

I think they abandoned their sites because it is not popular already. Maybe, they are not earning money. So i thinl that's the best they can do.