Site Flip - Flipping Web Sites, Web Pages and Domains

Site Flip is the Web's first blog dedicated to the business of flipping websites! Flipping means buying a website, improving it, and finally selling the website for a profit.

Site Flip: Buying and Selling Websites for Profit

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

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My newsletter's tips teach you site flipping twice a month, plus share privileged info on website deals!

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Monday, June 26, 2006

Smart Buyers Taking Advantage of Less Experienced

From Earner Forums comes a story of someone who nearly got bought ought before he realized his potential buyer was a shark.
"About a month ago, someone emailed and inquired about one of my very (and I mean very) small sites. I have put so little effort into this site.

Anyway, he just asked if I would consider selling it. (which I had not ever considered before)

I didn't reply, but then got curious. He wanted the entire site. As is. (keeping in mind it's just a small site with only about 45 articles on it and a vbulletin with under 500 members)

With not ever experiencing this, I asked how he wanted to proceed. Did he want appraisal? traffic stats? revenue?

He replied he didn't want to insult me with offering too little, so to tell him what I wanted for it and to send along the stats.

Then I googled his name and was surprised to find out who he was and felt terribly naive. Like ok, I'm in over my head lately. You know..they know the game better than I do, but I'm not entirely stupid either."


What would you consider in that situation? Would you have been smart enough to Google the buyer? Do you think experienced buyers take advantage of the newer people?

Related articles are archived in the topical categories , .

Friday, June 23, 2006

Website Marketplaces Directory

To flip a site, it's useful to have a website marketplace directory, that is, to know of all the places you can list a website for sale. So I made a directory of website marketplaces.

I've tried to order the markets listed according to the places I know and trust, or at least trust to some extent. I'm still learning how to flip websites, so please don't take my word for absolute truth, think critically and find the best solution for your particular website. A few sites were left out because they looked like scams. This website marketplace directory has a few sites listed that aren't hugely reputable, but still looked legitimate in the sense that their sellers would deliver a website that was promised without taking advantage of a buyer (too much). I take no responsibility, legal or otherwise, for your use of this directory of the markets listed.

If you know of any markets for buying and selling websites that I missed, post a comment and I'll add it to the list. If you can point to some reputable sites that vouch for the market, I'll even place it somewhat high in the list!

Markets that allow you to buy and sell more than just websites may occasionally be referred to as malls or shopping centers.

Anyways, here the website marketplace directory:

Sitepoint's Website Marketplace - Costs 10-20$ to sell a website or domain. There are markets for other website-related things (design, coding etc.) too.

UK Website for Sale - Includes a helpful section on website appraisals. An appraisal is an estimate of something's value. They also have a US page. The catch is that listing prices are relatively high: 59$ for two weeks! They argue that Alexa rates them as the most visited "website for sale marketplace," though I haven't verified the claim (not because I'm lazy; I just don't know how). Domains can also be listed for sale for 10$, which seems, again, high compared to the competition.

Website Auction Hub - I know the owner personally and am helping him out with SEO. The place is trustworthy, if a bit small. The listings are free, so it is a good place to gain a backlink or two, if nothing else.

Search Engine Forums' Site Market - Part of a search engine forum community, with lots of threads, free listings, and a useful post on the forum about listing websites for sale in forum marketplaces. (You should know that I'm a little biased towards trusting forum communities though, and SEO communities in particular, as I'm an SEO specialist myself.)

Ebizstore.net wants you to sell them your websites - Their interest is in sites with PageRank 4 or better, good, original content, and have a preference for older sites and sites that are US based. No interest in porn or gambling sites.

Website Broker - Free listings, clean looking website.

Hot Websites For Sale - Offers buyers and sellers the ability to buy or sell websites for free. The tips, while being basic stuff most people know, seem to suggest it's a legitimate site.

Creabiz market/mall - Variety of markets, including complete sites, databases (that's where they got my email!! just kidding, of course) and regular business opportunities. Offers free 90 day trials, paid advanced memberships.

Sedo.com Domain Market Apparently, there are 4 million domains listed for sale here. They also allow you to sell developed websites, and provide domain appraisals for a price. They don't charge a listing price, but rather take a 10% commission, with a minimum 50$ for everyday .com, .org type domains, escalating to 100$ for domains like .co.uk, and to 150$ for domains with odd endings.

eBay Website Auctions - Listed lower down because, while I trust the site and have used it to purchase music instruments before, some of the sites look shady. By the way, as a tip, look out for that; people selling 10K$/month revenue websites is too good to be true.

Our Town Center is the market for Women's websites and domains. The SEO could be better, considering the site uses links with anchor text like "here." An interesting concept at any rate.

Daniweb Webmaster Market - Registration is free; I couldn't tell if the listings are. Webmaster shopping center.

Domain Forte is ... a developed website marketplace! - Tiny place, simple, quiet. "Listing cost starts at $10.00 for a single 180-day listing and goes as low as $5.00 for multiple listings."

Time 2 Sell - Offers buying of expired domains, an annoying search feature for listings that isn't simple to use and that seems aimed at artifically increasing page views, and amazon ads. Hard to say spefically what bothers me, but it doesn't rank highly in my humble opinion. The one site with nice potential I saw had irrelevant link partners that were susceptible to having it penalized by Google (Like I said above, I'm an SEO specialist.)

Website Buy Sell - Don't know much about it, looks useful. Free listings, few replies... I like the idea of offering tips articles, but their SEO advice is mostly garbage that is dangerous to your site's health. For instance, they suggest you list with Free For All websites, while Google in fact says not to use link farms, as they will consider you a spammer in that case. Sketchy place...

Update: here's another listing for this website marketplace directory.

Website Lot
- List your site for sale for a cost of 10 bucks.

Update: Performancing.com has just created a blog exchange/market! You can buy and sell blogs, and of course, bloggers are for hire, along with other services.

Related articles are archived in the topical categories: , , , .

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Thursday, June 22, 2006

Site Flip - Flipping Archives

Site Flip's topical archives allow you to see all the posts on a particular topic. If you enjoy the reading, consider our free newsletter, with the latest tips, news and research on buying, fixing and selling websites - flipping.

To date, the topical categories in existence are:

Site Flip - Flipping Sites, Blogs, Web Estate

Site Flip is about flipping websites, flipping blogs and generally flipping any internet real estate or "web estate." The idea is to build a website and resell it soon after for a profit, or alternately to buy an established website that is underperforming, fix it up, and sell it for a profit.