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baw
Nov 5, 2008

RESIDENT: LAISSEZ FAIR-SNEZHNEVSKY INSTITUTE FOR FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY
So we had someone here who was selling his $80k per month web site. He explained how he managed to do it too.

However, I'm trying to be on the other side of the transaction (sadly I don't think I could afford his.)

I found a few places online that list income-generating domains that are for sale, but I'm really not sure who to trust or how to verify that the sites are actually generating an income. Does anyone have some experience with this? The biggest questions are how many months of revenue should I expect to pay up front for a website, and where to look for viable ones.

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Elephanthead
Sep 11, 2008


Toilet Rascal
Do porn sites still make money? Buy alibaba stock.

FrozenVent
May 1, 2009

The Boeing 737-200QC is the undisputed workhorse of the skies.
The most amazing date about this series of thread (He had one in A/T too) is the OP's regdate.

OP, there's a whole thread about making money with websites somewhere in BFC. People there might have answers. The funny thing is, making money is rarely easy.

the
Jul 18, 2004

by Cowcaster
Every domain that has any relevance has already been bought. There are millions of squatters out there buying everything up every day.

I'd imagine every single combination of letters and numbers from 3-6 characters for .com, .net, .org has already been purchased.

Juanito
Jan 20, 2004

I wasn't paying attention
to what you just said.

Can you repeat yourself
in a more interesting way?
Hell Gem

baw posted:

So we had someone here who was selling his $80k per month web site. He explained how he managed to do it too.

However, I'm trying to be on the other side of the transaction (sadly I don't think I could afford his.)

I found a few places online that list income-generating domains that are for sale, but I'm really not sure who to trust or how to verify that the sites are actually generating an income. Does anyone have some experience with this? The biggest questions are how many months of revenue should I expect to pay up front for a website, and where to look for viable ones.
Flippa has stuff for sale, but there is a ton of crap to sort through. The best deals will be word of mouth, if you can find an owner who wants to sell but hasn't advertised.

Depends on how the income happens that you can verify. They might give you login information, although more likely would be that you remote view their computer, and watch them as they log in, etc. If it's something like Adsense, they might let you put your own ads up a few days, and see if the views/clicks remain consistent with what they showed you. It depends on what kind of a site you're looking to get.

Obviously there are still ways to scam, so you just have to be careful.

http://feinternational.com/ are website brokers, and they post websites for sale a few times a week all the time. They'll send out an email with a few basic anonymous details, including asking price, and then you can ask them for the prospectus which has ALL of the details from the owner, how it generates the revenue/traffic, how long it's been in business. I've seen sites from about 15k to 500k. A lot of crap (hugely inflated asking prices from newish sites), but also some very longterm legit investments.

baw
Nov 5, 2008

RESIDENT: LAISSEZ FAIR-SNEZHNEVSKY INSTITUTE FOR FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY

the posted:

Every domain that has any relevance has already been bought. There are millions of squatters out there buying everything up every day.

I'd imagine every single combination of letters and numbers from 3-6 characters for .com, .net, .org has already been purchased.

I know that they've been bought, but they're also being sold. I'm not trying to buy a blank domain name, I am trying to buy a domain that is already generating revenue. Like spend $1,000 on a domain that brings in $50 a month or something.

Juanito posted:

Flippa has stuff for sale, but there is a ton of crap to sort through. The best deals will be word of mouth, if you can find an owner who wants to sell but hasn't advertised.

Depends on how the income happens that you can verify. They might give you login information, although more likely would be that you remote view their computer, and watch them as they log in, etc. If it's something like Adsense, they might let you put your own ads up a few days, and see if the views/clicks remain consistent with what they showed you. It depends on what kind of a site you're looking to get.

Obviously there are still ways to scam, so you just have to be careful.

http://feinternational.com/ are website brokers, and they post websites for sale a few times a week all the time. They'll send out an email with a few basic anonymous details, including asking price, and then you can ask them for the prospectus which has ALL of the details from the owner, how it generates the revenue/traffic, how long it's been in business. I've seen sites from about 15k to 500k. A lot of crap (hugely inflated asking prices from newish sites), but also some very longterm legit investments.

I suppose this will be a good starting point. It looks like feinternational verifies revenue and then certifies the sellers so that's awesome. Even with the remote viewing it's not scamproof and that's a lot of money to throw away at someone that might be conning you.

edit:

i'm surprised at how few websites they have for sale there. i was hoping to be able to buy many smaller websites instead of one or two larger ones, but i'll have to do more research

edit 2:

i'm thinking i'll dip my toes in one a flippa site or two and see how it goes. it does seem kind of risky though because if all of these were true then anyone could easily retire with $100,000.

baw fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Jun 26, 2014

EugeneJ
Feb 5, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
I wonder how much money the sites that squatted misspellings of "Google.com" have generated over the years

Juanito
Jan 20, 2004

I wasn't paying attention
to what you just said.

Can you repeat yourself
in a more interesting way?
Hell Gem

baw posted:


i'm surprised at how few websites they have for sale there. i was hoping to be able to buy many smaller websites instead of one or two larger ones, but i'll have to do more research

edit 2:

i'm thinking i'll dip my toes in one a flippa site or two and see how it goes. it does seem kind of risky though because if all of these were true then anyone could easily retire with $100,000.
The thing about FE International is that it's legit. There is a limited market. People buy the sites that become available.

With Flippa, there are people churning out sites quickly. There is a lot of crap, and a lot of fraud. Usually the best options will be something where clearly the owner has failed at optimizing/monetizing, and you can improve things. Or if it is really good, it will go for a lot.

One (of the many) way that I like to check if a site is legit, look at its Facebook page. If it has a high number of likes, and NO interacting (comments/likes) with the posts, that's a clear sign that they're buying Likes, and very likely have bought traffic for their site, etc. A legit site with a Facebook page will have actual fan activity.

baw
Nov 5, 2008

RESIDENT: LAISSEZ FAIR-SNEZHNEVSKY INSTITUTE FOR FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY
So you've made some purchases?

Juanito
Jan 20, 2004

I wasn't paying attention
to what you just said.

Can you repeat yourself
in a more interesting way?
Hell Gem

baw posted:

So you've made some purchases?
I have bought a few things, but I mostly browse occasionally to get ideas and just see what's out there. I've never done any large purchases on flippa, I don't have the budget, but I do send anything really good to my younger brother who has bought a variety of sites on Flippa, from a few hundred bucks to 20k, with varied success. He's gotten ripped off before, worst was like 6k, but he ended up getting 3k back. It was on Flippa, something that seemed too good to be true, which it was.

His two most profitable purchases have been word-of-mouth. One seller was a teenager he met through some random affiliate chat, and the other was a guy desperate for bitcoins to buy a better mining rig, so he sold his site cheap.

sim
Sep 24, 2003

I bought two different websites from Flippa about 2-3 years ago. One for $300, the other for $100. They were both honest about their traffic and I don't regret the purchases. But, I've been watching auctions in that same price range for the last couple months and it's all been crap. Seems like 90% is pumped out by someone obviously planning to sell it. Whether the traffic is organic or paid, it's still crap content I wouldn't be happy owning. Also, it seems like you used to be able to find deals, but now everything is either marked up too high to start, or gets bid up way past 24x monthly revenue.

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Juanito
Jan 20, 2004

I wasn't paying attention
to what you just said.

Can you repeat yourself
in a more interesting way?
Hell Gem

sim posted:

I bought two different websites from Flippa about 2-3 years ago. One for $300, the other for $100. They were both honest about their traffic and I don't regret the purchases. But, I've been watching auctions in that same price range for the last couple months and it's all been crap. Seems like 90% is pumped out by someone obviously planning to sell it. Whether the traffic is organic or paid, it's still crap content I wouldn't be happy owning. Also, it seems like you used to be able to find deals, but now everything is either marked up too high to start, or gets bid up way past 24x monthly revenue.
This really is accurate. There are a lot of people churning crap sites, and the market is flooded with it. Anything decent is ridiculously priced, or gets bid up too high. I have to think the sellers are the only ones profiting.

You also occasionally find people reselling something really expensive they'd bought on Flippa, 6 months later. But it is oh so profitable, and has so much potential.

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