I’ve had more than a few people ask me what I think about certain auctions for websites around the net, especially Flippa. I’ve been buying and selling websites for the past 7 years. Not as much lately but used to sell quite a few when it was Sitepoint. I think there is tremendous opportunity to buy established websites and revamp and tweak them to produce steady income. But there is a lot of junk out there. I thought I would try and pick out a few each day that I thought show value or promise. Remember this isn’t about the domain. It’s about site. The age, the income, the links. They are what we are talking about here. The domain will only be a bonus. Here are the first picks of the new series.
MusoFinder.com A band mate finder website. One of the few aged sites and dates back all the way to 2003 so it ranks well in Google for related terms like guitarist wanted and other important terms. PR 4, a good number of links, but the site needs a little work. Makes a few thousand dollars in profit a year from subscriptions but that seems to be declining. The price is a high $6500 reserve but there’s a big group of people waiting to pounce on a lower price. It’s going to be the term constantly heard here, good potential.
Insurance-3.com Most of the sites on Flippa are less than 6 months old. 75% seem to be less than 3. This one is 6 years old. It is also a PR3. It hasn’t made money in a while but if you go to the site you’ll see why. It’s going to need a little makeover but if you can get this for a few hundred dollars I don’t think you’ll have much trouble getting your money back.
FurnishedRentals.com I admit it, the domain caught my eye first. Second was the fact the site actually had a little age. Site was started July, 2009 and the domain is 11 years old. 12,000 links in and a PR2. Owner has done a little Twitter and Facebook work as well by establishing both accounts and gathered or purchased some fans. These come with the site. The actual site looks pretty nice and could be very functional if the back end had real data. It has a ton of potential but……………..he thinks he is going to get $40K for it. Way out of line. It would be worth contacting the owner and trying to renegotiate a price. Good potential here
Lions.org For one thing its a pretty solid domain. But that’s not going to be worthy of $5K plus. The site is already listed in the top 3 of the first page of Google for Lions, which is no easy task considering that the Detroit Lions get most of the attention in the US. Domain is from 1995 and the monthly income is improving. On pace to make $4k this year. The 20,000 monthly uniques warrants more than that, even if the keyword is tough to make money with. You have to make sure no Detroit Lions ads show up so you don’t lose the name. Looks to be one of the better auctions in the past few weeks if the reserve isn’t ridiculous.
TheTubeGrabber.com For the price, could be a handy little site. I realize it can be duplicated but I feel with a little work you could get really improve traffic. It also requires essentially no daily work other than trying to build traffic. Its a stand alone, do just one thing, site.
Finding private sellers can be a more lucrative option. Just picked up a website with 400-500 visitors/day for a very inexpensive price (should be made back within 2 months)
Way better than anything I generally come across on Flippa.
The golden eggs are out there–just gotta dig a little 🙂