When Should You Give Up on a Site and Move On?

[smithy]

I'm trying to figure out what my best course of action would be, including whether I should give up on a site.

Some background info:
I recently sold a site for ~$50,000 to give me a bit of financial security, and so I can reinvest. I also have another site that I was planning to sell in a couple of months for ~$120,000, which would again mostly be for the financial security aspect.

Options:
Original plan: I was planning on going all out on a site that currently has 130 posts, but I am starting to reconsider because it is currently performing very poorly. It used to get around 200 sessions a day, now it's dropped to 100. This is built on a decently powerful expired domain (21 DR, 400 referring domains), so it's not like I started from scratch. While by no means large, I started a content push in August. I'm unsure if I should just give up on this site at this point. Are some sites just duds, regardless? My gut feeling is that this site just won't work out.

New plan: Instead of selling the other site for six figures, go all out, pump content and try to get it to $7,000-$10,000 in a couple of years. It currently gets 40,000 sessions a month. While the site has yet to be affected by any updates, it makes me a bit uneasy that if something were to happen to this site, including if Amazon were to once again change things, then I would have lost out on a six figure payday in addition to having my income reduced.

In both instances, I was also going to drop a few thousand on an expired domain and build out both at the same time. Working on two websites simultaneously seems like the limit.

 

[Ryuzaki]

a site that currently has 130 posts, [...] It used to get around 200 sessions a day, now it's dropped to 100.

How long have those 130 posts been live?

130 posts getting 100 sessions a day is really bad. I'm not implying you did anything wrong, considering you're having other successes. There's a lot of unknowns regarding your on-page optimization, keyword research, whether you're obtaining any new links, etc. But of course all of those can influence each post's performance.

Are some sites just duds, regardless?

New SEO Insight Into Why Some New Sites Seem Blessed While Others Are Doomed

I wrote the post above a while back in 2020 when a theory of mine was finally confirmed by John Mueller. Without rehashing the whole thing, the summary is that Google can't give every post a honeymoon phase any more so they try to extrapolate how a site may perform based on how similar it is to good or bad sites. Leading to the phenomenon where you see some sites get "blessed" by the grace of Google and some sites seem eternally cursed and doomed for no apparent reason. I propose some solutions to the issue too. Worth a read.

I feel like you should have been able to drop 130 decent posts on that DR21 domain and done nothing else and at least hit 50k-80k sessions a month (2,500 a day rather than 100). If not more. I probably wouldn't continue with it.

it makes me a bit uneasy that if something were to happen to this site, including if Amazon were to once again change things, then I would have lost out on a six figure payday in addition to having my income reduced.

Yeah, it's hard to make the call. I'd question how much of this is desire and how much is need, and how your risk assessment changes depending on which it is. Because holding and growing offers a big upside, too. It's easier to take a successful site higher than it is to take a new site to okay earnings. And with the multipliers as they are these days, that can make a big difference in the liquidation, too.

 

[smithy]

How long have those 130 posts been live?

130 posts getting 100 sessions a day is really bad. I'm not implying you did anything wrong, considering you're having other successes. There's a lot of unknowns regarding your on-page optimization, keyword research, whether you're obtaining any new links, etc. But of course all of those can influence each post's performance.

The mini content push was in July/August. So while the posts have had some time to age, they haven't aged fully. In any case, it's not as if they were all high competition keywords, so I would have expected better results by now. But, yeah, 100 sessions is awful. It's the worst I've experienced.

New SEO Insight Into Why Some New Sites Seem Blessed While Others Are Doomed

I wrote the post above a while back in 2020 when a theory of mine was finally confirmed by John Mueller. Without rehashing the whole thing, the summary is that Google can't give every post a honeymoon phase any more so they try to extrapolate how a site may perform based on how similar it is to good or bad sites. Leading to the phenomenon where you see some sites get "blessed" by the grace of Google and some sites seem eternally cursed and doomed for no apparent reason. I propose some solutions to the issue too. Worth a read.

I feel like you should have been able to drop 130 decent posts on that DR21 domain and done nothing else and at least hit 50k-80k sessions a month (2,500 a day rather than 100). If not more. I probably wouldn't continue with it.

I read the entire thread, definitely interesting stuff.

Yeah, it's hard to make the call. I'd question how much of this is desire and how much is need, and how your risk assessment changes depending on which it is. Because holding and growing offers a big upside, too. It's easier to take a successful site higher than it is to take a new site to okay earnings. And with the multipliers as they are these days, that can make a big difference in the liquidation, too.

I'm going to give up on this site and start going all out on the other one instead of selling. As you say, it's easier to grow than start again from scratch, even if I use a powerful expired domain. 60% of revenue currently comes from Amazon, which actually isn't too bad. I'm sure I can reverse that once I have enough traffic for Mediavine.

 

[bernard]

I think ultimately the decision between holding and growing for a big exit Mr. Money style or growing and selling after 1-2 years is a very interesting discussion.

In order to grow for the big payday, it seems to me you really need to be a good manager.

If you want to be more of a professional flipper, then you need a good system and quality control, more than being a great manager.

Both generate income and both are viable methods that won't dissapear in the next few years.

Fundamentally, I am not sure everyone is cut out for the big payday strategy.

It's also ok to keep making new sites and selling to other people. Provided you know what you're doing of course, because if you're new, you might have lucked into a great niche.

Which is why I probably wouldn't sell a site like mentioned here, if it is in a niche you are sort of interested in.