Make money online: Annual Revenue of different websites
I don't know how many times in my life I heard someone ask me why I spent time to make website. I always answer the same thing : "To make money online". But then comes the question "How can you make money from it ? It's free !". It's not because you don't charge your visitors to use your site that you will not make money from it.
There is 2 major types of income on the web: advertisment and monthly fee. If you want your site to be free you will have to place banners that display ads. Advertising can generate a lot of cash if you have enough traffic. If you don't want to put banners, you will have to make your visitors (members) pay a one-time fee or monthly fee.
There is another way to make money with a website and it is by selling it. If you have enough of running your website and want to retire from it, you can sell it. Normally a website is sold for 5 times it's annual revenue. It can be sold for more or less depending on the potential of your website.
At first when I started my own (dating) websites I read a lot on the potential of those kind of websites. In this article I'll show you some stats about existing websites on the web and their annual revenue. I focus more on dating sites because this is that kind of websites that I have (iseduction and QuebecSexy).
PlentyOfFish.com
POF is a 100% free dating site. It is by far the most money-making free dating site on the web. If you check what it's like you will find that this site is not the best visually-looking website on the web. And it is a lot better now than it was before. If you want to see what it was looking on the past, just visit the WaybackMachine.
Annual Revenue (as of 2008) : 10,000,000$ USD
The man behind this : Markus Frind
This site has been (and may still be) the top AdSense earner, with over 5M$ only with the AdSense program. If you search the web for "Markus Frind Google AdSense", you will find pictures of him holding a huge Google AdSense check like this one :
AdultFrindFinder.com
AFF is a sex dating website. It's only revenue source is the monthly fees their member pays to date people.
Annual Revenue (as of 2007) : 200,000,000$ USD
Sold to Penthouse for : 500,000,000$ USD
The man behind this : Andrew Conru
AmericanSingles.com
This normal dating site is focused primarily on dating American people. It has some intersting features like the "Click" feature.
Annual Revenue (as of 2004) : 35,000,000$ USD
The company behind this : Spark Networks
JDate.com
This normal dating site is focused primarily on dating Jewish people.
Annual Revenue (as of 2004) : 24,000,000$ USD
The company behind this : Spark Networks
eHarmony.com
This normal dating site is a little bit different than other. On normal dating sites you can browse people for free and you need to pay if you want to contact them. On eHarmony, you must pay for everything you do.
Annual Revenue (as of 2007) : 180,000,000$ USD
The man behind this : Neil Clark Warren
Match.com
This is a normal paid dating site. It is great-looking and has some intersting features.
Annual Revenue (as of 2008) : 350,000,000$ (USD)
The company behind this : IAC/InterActiveCorp
Google
Everybody knows (and loves) it. The main revenue of Google is their own AdSense program.
Annual Revenue (as of 2008) : 22,000,000,000$ USD
Annual Profit (as of 2008) : 4,200,000,000$ USD
The guys behind this : Larry Page and Sergei Brin
In the end...
In this article I only showed big websites that has been on the industry for years. If you start a website, don't imagine you will be competing with them at an early stage. You will be among 1000's of litle and medium sites a long time before being big ! I wrote stats for 6 dating sites but on the web we can find more than 1000 different dating sites. Because we can't really count them, the number may be a lot higher than this.