Market Snapshot

Website Flipping Market Snapshot: 7-25-10

The data for the Most Actives, Top Sellers, Top Selling Niches, and Most Active Site Flippers is based on the market activity at Flippa.com. As the largest and most popular marketplace for site flippers right now, the market activity there provides valuable insight on what people are buying and selling.

MOST ACTIVES

www.AbsoluteFitnessEquip.com – 47 Bids
SOLD: $6,600

Established: February 1998
Unique Visitors/Month: 68,452
Net Profit/Month: $1,398
Description: Portfolio of 5 AdSense/Affiliate sites.

Comments: This seller was selling a portfolio of 5 WordPress autoblogs that were monetized by AdSense, Amazon, eBay, and Commission Junction. The stats shown above are for all of these sites combined. I don’t know what it is, but these autoblogs drive me crazy. Personally, I think they’re junk sites but apparently I’m in the minority as they are very popular. I suppose as feeder sites and as sites that generate small amounts of side income, they serve a purpose. See auction here.

www.GraniteCounterTopsColors.net – 40 Bids
SOLD: $630

Established: December 2009
Unique Visitors/Month: 542
Net Profit/Month: $49
Description: AdSense site about granite counter top colors.

Comments: This auction was a real yawner but it still generated 40 bids. I can’t imagine anything more boring than counter top colors! There is very little to comment on this site as it was a simple AdSense site that had little traffic and minimal revenue. The success of this auction, however, demonstrates the demand there is for AdSense sites that are making money – no matter the amount of money. See auction here.

www.SmallKitchenSinks.net – 35 Bids
SOLD: $580

Established: February 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 189
Net Profit/Month: $34
Description: AdSense site about small kitchen sinks.

Comments: The seller of this site was the same seller of the site above (GraniteCounterTopsColors.net). He was obviously clearing out some of his AdSense sites. My comments for this one are the same as the one above – a real yawner but an auction that still generated a bunch of activity. This site didn’t have as much traffic or revenue as the other one but it still did o.k. generating 35 bids and selling for $580. See auction here.

TOP SELLERS

www.PowerSignups.com – $78,000
BIDS: 1

Established: March 2009
Unique Visitors/Month: 2,300
Net Profit/Month: $8,000
Description: A website that sells guaranteed signups to users sites.

Comments: Something about this auction smells fishy. Reading through the auction listing makes the whole system seem like a scam – or at the very least overly hyped. Apparently, you can run this business under 30 minutes a day and make $8,000 per month doing so. I call bullshit. What is also suspicious is that the seller kept lowering the BIN and then magically (without any bidding activity at all), it sold for $78,000??? I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets relisted again with some kind of disclaimer that the previous buyer wasn’t able to complete the sale. If it was a legitimate sale, than kudos to the seller. I just have a hard time believing you can run a $8k+ per month business putting less than 30 minutes in per day. See auction here.

www.TrueFoodsMarket.com – $75,000
BIDS: 4

Established: September 2000
Unique Visitors/Month: 34,457
Net Profit/Month: $3,196
Description: A portfolio of health food dropship websites.

Comments: Now this was a legitimate online business for sale – at least on paper – sold by a true professional businessman. Here you had a 10 year-old business that was generating six figures per year in gross revenues. This was not only a solid business for sale, but the listing was solid as well. The seller provided ample details and attachments to backup all of his claims, and he was very detailed in his responses to all the comments that were left. I wish there were more online businesses like this for sale on Flippa! See auction here.

www.NannyNeeded.com – $42,500
BIDS: 9

Established: April 2004
Unique Visitors/Month: 10,000
Net Profit/Month: $1,612
Description: Nanny classifieds website monetized by AdSense.

Comments: Who said you can’t make money with classified sites? I love these highly specialized niche-focused websites. It just goes to show you what kind of success you can have when you focus on a specific micro-niche. This concept was brilliant. As a parent myself, I wouldn’t have a clue where to look for a nanny if I wanted one. And while the “nanny space” isn’t that big compared to say other services such as plumbers or electricians, obviously there is a demand. This website should get your wheels spinning. What other types of “simple” services are people looking for that they can’t easily find? See auction here.

TYPES OF WEBSITES MOST WATCHED BY BUYERS

This metric provides a lot of insight on the website flipping market. These are the types of websites that buyers are watching. In other words, these are the types of websites that buyers are interested in buying today. As a potential seller, this is great information because if your website falls into any of these categories, be sure to tag them as such when you list them. And if you’re a short-term flipper, these are the types of websites you should be building for sale.

AdSense: 51 buyers watching

WordPress: 50 buyers watching

Ecommerce: 45 buyers watching

See Past Website Sales For The Most Actives
and Top Sellers For Every Month!

27 July, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Market Snapshot Comments (6)

Website Flipping Market Snapshot: 7-18-10

MOST ACTIVES

www.FaceFanz.com – 52 Bids
SOLD: $14,800

Established: June 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 1,040
Net Profit/Month: $3,200
Description: Business that sells Facebook “fans” for Facebook promotions.

Comments: These types of sites have been selling well on Flippa. By “these types of sites” I’m referring to sites that sell fans, followers, leads, etc. The markups on this type of business are ridiculous. In this case, the owner was paying just a $1.50 for 1,000 fans and then turning around selling a 1,000 “fan package” for $39.99! See auction here.

www.CornerKitchenSink.net – 51 Bids
SOLD: $650

Established: February 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 137
Net Profit/Month: $43
Description: AdSense site on corner kitchen sinks.

Comments: Another interesting AdSense site generates a bunch of bids – 51 to be exact. I say interesting because it was about corner kitchen sinks of all things. Talk about micro niches. And if you’re curious, the .org version of this domain is ranked #1 and is also a plain-Jane AdSense site. The .com version doesn’t rank but the domain is available for sale. See auction here.

www.WhatsOniPhone.com – 44 Bids
SOLD: $15,000

Established: May 2008
Unique Visitors/Month: 56,853
Net Profit/Month: $350
Description: iPhone app review site monetized by ads.

Comments: Had there not been a trademark term in the domain, I would have been seriously interested in this site. With over 56,800 monthly uniques and over 7,500 registered members, there was a lot of potential here. A site like this, however, would require a ton of work as there are thousands of apps out there and more being released everyday. See auction here.

TOP SELLERS

www.UltimateFreeWebsite.com – $28,100
BIDS: 23

Established: March 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 5,829
Net Profit/Month: $7,000
Description: Hosting affiliate website.

Comments: I love the concept of this business. You get people looking for free websites and then you sell them on the need to have their own website for a nominal hosting fee. As the owner, you are providing a legit service and you get a healthy affiliate commission. It’s brilliant. See auction here.

www.vBStyles.com – $20,000
BIDS: 7

Established: January 2003
Unique Visitors/Month: 20,000
Net Profit/Month: $1,700
Description: Design site selling vBulletin skins.

Comments: Something tells me this site was undersold. It was over 7 years old, had 20,000 uniques per month, was a PR6, and ranked #1 in Google for some of the key terms for this business. Granted, sales were trending downward but in its heyday it was making as much as $5,000 per month. Even the seller said the net monthly profit claimed ($1,700) was conservative. I would have guessed this site would sell for at least 18X monthly net profit ($30,600). See auction here.

www.uFLiQ.com – $19,000
BIDS: 6

Established: January 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 2,105,947
Net Profit/Month: $6,100
Description: Online storage website monetized by ads and membership payments.

Comments: How do websites generate this kind of traffic in so little time? It boggles my mind. I suspect this site was generating the reported $6,100 monthly net profit for a brief period of time – perhaps no more than one month. That is probably why this site didn’t sell for as much as you would think given the profits. Had it been making this kind of money for even three months time, it would likely have sold for much more than it did. See auction here.

TYPES OF WEBSITES MOST WATCHED BY BUYERS

AdSense: 49 buyers watching

WordPress: 49 buyers watching

Autoblog: 42 buyers watching

See Past Website Sales For The Most Actives
and Top Sellers For Every Month!

20 July, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Market Snapshot Comments (4)

Website Flipping Market Snapshot: 7-11-10

MOST ACTIVES

www.MyWhiterTeeth.org – 36 Bids
SOLD: $300

Established: November 2009
Unique Visitors/Month: 5,100
Net Profit/Month: $10
Description: Teeth whitening niche blog monetized by ads and Amazon affiliate program.

Comments: This was the classic startup site in a very popular evergreen niche, “teeth whitening.” The one thing that was unique about this startup, however, was that it was getting traffic. Although looking at the Google Analytics report, I don’t see 5,000+ unique visitors per month so I’m not sure what’s going on here. It doesn’t really matter. This was just your regular startup site selling for what “good” startup sites sell for. See auction here.

www.CheapGraniteCountertops.net – 35 Bids
SOLD: $1,500

Established: February 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 380
Net Profit/Month: $71
Description: AdSense site about cheap granite countertops.

Comments: This one really has me scratching my head. How does a startup site with less than 400 unique visitors per month, making $71/month in AdSense, and on a .net domain to boot generate 35 bids and sell for $1,500??? The seller got very lucky on this one. The site doesn’t even rank for the keywords the seller claims the site ranks for unless you search for the terms as a “phrase match.” I could *maybe* understand the interest if you were a local business that sells “cheap granite countertops” and you felt this site could maybe generate some leads, but aside from that, I don’t get it. In my humble opinion, this was was over sold. Lucky seller:) See auction here.

www.InNews.tv – 33 Bids
SOLD: $450

Established: June 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 1,000
Net Profit/Month: $100
Description: Auto-generated news portal and two Forex sites monetized by ClickBank sales and AdSense.

Comments: More proof that the website flipping world has gone mad. Again, we have another starter site with little to no unique value to it – despite what the seller wants to claim – and it generates 33 bids. How many general news portals are out there? Do you really think you can compete with what already exists out there? Now granted, this sale included a couple other websites and together all 3 websites were generating a profit but still – an auto-generated news portal? Please. And what’s up with the seller only accepting wire transfers or Western Union as a method of payment? See auction here.

TOP SELLERS

www.MyBannerMaker.com – $100,000
BIDS: 3

Established: October 2005
Unique Visitors/Month: 400,000
Net Profit/Month: $8,704
Description: Banner making website monetized by sales and AdSense.

Comments: Finally, I get to comment on a website with QUALITY! Where does a guy start with this one? It had everything you’d want in a website investment. It had age (almost 5 years), tons of traffic (400,000 uniques per month), great profit ($8,700 net per month), tons of backlinks (900,000+), and ranked number 1 for many of the keywords in its niche. See auction here.

www.PriceExplorer.com – $35,000
BIDS: 1

Established: December 2006
Unique Visitors/Month: 377
Net Profit/Month: $51
Description: Comparison shopping/deals site monetized by ads and affiliate income.

Comments: Hmmm. This one is interesting. The seller claims this comparison shopping site will beat PriceGrabber.com “soon.” Ya, good luck with that. PriceGrabber.com is one of the largest comparison shopping sites on the Internet with literally millions of searches conducted on its site every month. This site only has 377 unique monthly visitors and is currently powered by a free data feed. There is no way in hell this site will be competing with PriceGrabber anytime soon. This is another auction that has me scratching my head. I have no idea why it would sell for this kind of price given the traffic, revenue, and the fact that it is powered by a limited, free data feed that anyone can have access to. See auction here.

www.TheGlamourousLife.com – $20,000
BIDS: 19

Established: May 2007
Unique Visitors/Month: 103,039
Net Profit/Month: $1,300
Description: Entertainment and lifestyle blog monetized by ads.

Comments: This was a solid site in both quality and in terms of revenue generation. I love it when potential buyers feel the need to argue with the seller publicly that their site isn’t monetized the right way or that the BIN is “way to high.” Please reserve your opinions for private messages with the seller or move on already! In this case, the seller wasn’t hiding anything. He was selling a blog that generated $900-$1,300/month – period. Some people were commenting that the BIN was unjustified and that the traffic was somehow not the right kind of traffic??? At any rate, you should visit this auction as the seller provides a video on how he places ads on his site to generate the ad revenue. I don’t know how long he’ll have it up but take a look at it while you can. See auction here.

TYPES OF WEBSITES MOST WATCHED BY BUYERS

WordPress: 48 buyers watching

AdSense: 45 buyers watching

Ecommerce: 42 buyers watching

See Past Website Sales For The Most Actives
and Top Sellers For Every Month!

13 July, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Market Snapshot Comments (2)

Website Flipping Market Snapshot: 7-4-10

MOST ACTIVES

www.TheCanadianTeacher.com – 36 Bids
SOLD: $4,100

Established: February 2000
Unique Visitors/Month: 9,000
Net Profit/Month: $245
Description: Resource website for Canadian teachers monetized by AdSense and ClickBank affiliate sales.

Comments: This website was a sleeping giant if you ask me. This was a 10 year old website that had a PR5 and was listed in the Dmoz and Yahoo! directories. The forum for the site had over 6,000 members and there was an email list of around 11,700 subscribers. Despite all this, the site was generating less than $250 per month. Anyone that is good at email and/or forum marketing would be able to significantly increase the revenues for this site. See auction here.

www.BeachTowelsClearance.com – 36 Bids
SOLD: $596

Established: April 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 710
Net Profit/Month: $80
Description: Niche blog on beach towels monetized by AdSense and Amazon product sales commissions.

Comments: Who would have thought that a very basic, no-frills startup website about clearance beach towels would sell for almost $600! I personally don’t get it as I can’t imagine this would be a very lucrative niche but what do I know…lol. I will say this, I do like how the seller put together her auction listing. It is very detailed and has all the information you’d ever need – including testimonials from past customers, BIN bonuses, and a link to sign up for her private list. If you sell startups, take a look at her auction to get some ideas on what to include in your listings. See auction here.

www.QuizzNotes.com – 33 Bids
SOLD: $2,500

Established: March 2009
Unique Visitors/Month: 44,000
Net Profit/Month: $68
Description: Site with user submitted quizzes and questionnaires for Facebook monetized by ads.

Comments: This seller “violated” every rule in the book when it comes to posting an auction and yet his listing still generated 33 bids and sold for a respectable $2,500. The headline was terrible and the listing itself was very brief. The tags he used were also useless as nobody was looking for any of the tags he used (although “social networking” did have some popularity). What was purchased here was potential. The site has over 44,000 unique visitors per month and has a Facebook fan page with over 10,500 fans – with the demographics being 80% female between the ages of 13-24. That is the key stat – the buyer knows exactly who his market is. As long as he knows how to monetize this demographic, the $2,500 purchase was probably a great deal. See auction here.

TOP SELLERS

www.PhotoshopStar.com – $42,500
BIDS: 8

Established: June 2006
Unique Visitors/Month: 270,000
Net Profit/Month: $2,000
Description: Adobe Photoshop tutorial site monetized by AdSense and BuySellAds.

Comments: The seller previously had this site listed for sale as part of a bulk sale where he was offering all of his websites for sale in one auction. The bidding only went to $46,000 and ended without a winner. Obviously the reserve wasn’t met but that was probably a blessing in disguise for the seller as he figured out he could probably make a bunch more money selling the sites off individually. Just one of his websites (the one highlighted here) sold for $42,500 alone! The lesson here is if you own several high-valued websites, DON’T sell them as a portfolio of sites. It’s too much for the average buyer to manage. Sell your websites individually to attract more buyers and more bids:) See auction here.

www.UrgentCashTillPayday.co.uk – $28,000
BIDS: 3

Established: April 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 3,500
Net Profit/Month: $4,100
Description: Online payday loans business monetized via affiliate commissions.

Comments: Payday Loans are hotter than ever right now given the current state of the economy. This site was only two months old but was already generating around $4,000 in net monthly profits. The site had more than 1,000 payday loan applications filled out with just 3,500 visitors. That’s a 29% conversion rate! If you are in this niche, you should study this site to see what they’re doing to get that kind of conversion rate. See auction here.

www.StraightSilver.com – $25,000
BIDS: 1

Established: October 2008
Unique Visitors/Month: 7,000
Net Profit/Month: $5,000
Description: Silver bullion business.

Comments: As an investor in silver myself, I had a passing interest in this opportunity. What ultimately scared me away – and what I think scared other buyers away as well – was the amount of expenses and work necessary to run this business. This business required that you buy and maintain the inventory yourself (i.e. the actual silver). And the way the current business was setup, all the coins were custom made so you had to have an eye for coinage design or outsource it. The seller’s terse responses to the comments didn’t help his cause either. I believe it is for all these reasons why this business only sold for 5X the monthly net profit. Any other ecommerce store of this caliber that was easier to manage would have sold for 2-3 times more money. If I would have been the seller of this site, I would have sold directly to an existing precious metals dealer. That would have been another way to get at least $50,000 for it. Flippa wasn’t the right avenue for this type of ecommerce store. See auction here.

TYPES OF WEBSITES MOST WATCHED BY BUYERS

WordPress: 47 buyers watching

Adsense: 43 buyers watching

Autoblog: 42 buyers watching

See Past Website Sales For The Most Actives
and Top Sellers For Every Month!

06 July, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Market Snapshot Comments (2)

Website Flipping Market Snapshot: 6-27-10

MOST ACTIVES

www.BlogFlipz.com – 55 Bids
SOLD: $20,000

Established: November 2009
Unique Visitors/Month: 5,000
Net Profit/Month: $4,049
Description: Network of websites and auto blogs selling a ClickBank product on creating and selling blogs.

Comments: Given the niche of this listing I was naturally interested. In a nutshell, this was a website that sold a “how to guide” on building and flipping WordPress blogs. This listing demonstrates the power of having an army of affiliates working for you. This site was just launched in late March 2010 and in just a few months, it generated just over $13,000 in net profits – all thanks to affiliates. The lesson here is if you launch a new ClickBank-ready site, spend some time recruiting affiliates to get your revenues rolling in quick. Then flip it for a higher premium, or do what I would do – hang on to it for a while and enjoy the passive income:) See auction here.

www.ThirdEyeGames.com – 33 Bids
SOLD: $600

Established: March 2005
Unique Visitors/Month: 17,626
Net Profit/Month: $194
Description: Automated games download site monetized by affiliate income.

Comments: Gaming sites are always popular so I’m not surprised to see one in the most actives list. If what the seller was claiming is true – that the site was making around $200 in net profit per month – the buyer got a great deal. See auction here.

www.TheBridesHeart.com – 31 Bids
SOLD: $10,505

Established: January 2008
Unique Visitors/Month: 18,500
Net Profit/Month: $611
Description: Wedding site monetized with AdSense.

Comments: Cary Bergeron, author of the AdSense Report, would be proud of this seller. The seller created a content-rich site, promoted it via SEO only, monetized it with AdSense, and made a respectable $600 in monthly net profits. Then flipped it for $10,505! As the seller admitted, he left a lot of money on the table by not building a list with all the traffic or by adding other monetization methods. He also might have been able to get even more for this site selling directly to a local wedding business (following the Local Flip Formula). Still, though, the seller did o.k. and I enjoyed the personality he injected into his auction listing by telling his personal story. See auction here.

TOP SELLERS

www.Codecall.net – $33,000
BIDS: 10

Established: October 2005
Unique Visitors/Month: 350,000
Net Profit/Month: $1,000
Description: Programming forum monetized with ads and paid membership/donations.

Comments: How many times now has a forum or community-driven website been a top seller or most active – despite the relatively low revenue in many cases? I wish I knew a thing or two on how to build and develop a forum. This was a monster of a forum having been around for over half a decade and boasting around 2,500 posts per week! I would think with this kind of activity and with 350,000 unique monthly visitors, any smart forum marketer would be able to easily improve the monthly net profits of this site. See auction here.

www.AnimeInternational.com – $30,800
BIDS: 10

Established: April 2002
Unique Visitors/Month: 300,000
Net Profit/Month: None since 2007
Description: Online anime community/store.

Comments: See what I mean? Here we have another well-established, community-driven website that makes the top sellers list. Allow me to borrow a phrase from Hillary Clinton, “It takes a village…” to build a valuable website that can be flipped for a pretty penny:) This was another massive community with 100,000 members and over 60,000 newsletter subscribers. The odd thing about this listing is that the site ceased making money in 2007 when the owner had to focus on other projects. Prior to that, the site generated $80,000 going back to its inception in 2002. I don’t understand why someone would just shut off the revenue spigot for a site that is so popular – and continues to grow. Despite the lack of revenue the past few years, I have a hunch this one under sold and the buyer got a good deal. See auction here.

www.BlogFlipz.com – $20,000
BIDS: 55

Comments: I already covered this listing but there is something I didn’t mention. Pay attention to the sales funnel the seller created for this product. It provides a great example of how to upsell customers. He also mentions the WishList Member WordPress plugin – a plugin he uses to create and manage WordPress membership sites. See auction here.

WordPress: 46 buyers watching

AdSense: 43 buyers watching

Ecommerce: 41 buyers watching

See Past Website Sales For The Most Actives
and Top Sellers For Every Month!

29 June, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Market Snapshot Comments (0)

Website Flipping Market Snapshot: 6-20-10

MOST ACTIVES

www.CPACashExplosion.com – 47 Bids
SOLD: $2,225

Established: November 2009
Unique Visitors/Month: 750
Net Profit/Month: None
Description: ClickBank site selling a CPA video course package.

Comments: Well this was certainly an entertaining listing to read through. The seller was really trying to pump up the “massive potential” this site supposedly had. The seller was pulling out all the stops offering a $900 email blast at a reduced price for the lucky winner and a complete AdWords campaign for the site to kick start the promotions. I wonder if the seller is upset that this site only sold for $2,225 since he said, and I quote, “…this site will definitely sell for more than $2-$3k.” The seller still did o.k. on this flip because he bought the site for $1,250 back in February of this year. See auction here.

www.GableAtticFan.com – 37 Bids
SOLD: $620

Established: April 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 234
Net Profit/Month: $34
Description: Niche site on attic ventilation fans monetized by AdSense and Amazon.

Comments: I like the seller of this site as she was very professional in her responses to potential bidders and clearly she’s an effective Internet Marketer. She goes by the affectionate moniker, Pot Pie Girl, and she’s an active member at the Wealthy Affiliate forum. While she had a great payday on this one, I think the buyer over paid. The site itself is very basic with not a lot of content. What I would have done if I was interested in this site (HINT HINT) is basically copy the site’s success. By that I mean, study the sites very basic structure and look at the content on it – and take notes on how the AdSense ads and Amazon links are incorporated. Even if you outsourced everything – including getting backlinks – you could probably create the same site for half of what this site sold for. And your site would probably make just as much money too! See auction here.

www.TF2Wiki.net – 33 Bids
SOLD: $69,999

Established: September 2007
Unique Visitors/Month: 600,000
Net Profit/Month: $1,930
Description: Resource site for the game “Team Fortress 2″ monetized by ads.

Comments: This site is a perfect example of how powerful a community-based website can be. The site was generating around 600,000 unique visitors per month and the seller wasn’t adding any content to the site! All the content generated was from the community. They essentially built the site for the seller. How nice is that? Given that and the massive traffic the site gets, I’m not surprised this was such an active auction and that it sold at over 36 times monthly net profits! See auction here.

TOP SELLERS

www.Vectorious.net – $81,000
BIDS: 2

Established: September 2008
Unique Visitors/Month: 25,000
Net Profit/Month: $3,400
Description: Vector illustrations membership website.

Comments: One thing I’ve noticed this year is that sites about design sell very well and this one is no different. This is a membership site where members can buy vector illustrations on the cheap. Most of the traffic to this site was by referral so that says a lot about the site’s reputation. If you can pull in around 25,000 unique visitors per month mostly from referral traffic, you’re doing something right. There is a lot of potential with this site with virtually no SEO done with it to date. See auction here.

www.TF2Wiki.net – $69,999
BIDS: 33

Established: September 2007
Unique Visitors/Month: 600,000
Net Profit/Month: $1,930
Description: Resource site for the game “Team Fortress 2″ monetized by ads.

Comments: I already touched on this one but suffice to say, learn from this listing. Find a hungry, passionate crowd (in this case gamers) and then give them an outlet to express their passion and to help build the site for you! See auction here.

www.WPReviewEngine.com – $35,100
BIDS: 10

Established: February 2009
Unique Visitors/Month: 2,500
Net Profit/Month: $5,420
Description: Site selling a WordPress review plugin.

Comments: Despite the seller doing a few things wrong with this listing, he did o.k. As to the things he did wrong, he not only deleted comments (a big no no) but he even stated in his auction listing that he would delete all comments from anyone without a serious intention of purchasing the site. Say what? He also didn’t do a good job with his tagging and the overall format of his listing was hard to read with so much text. I may be a little nitpicky here but I’m a stickler for details. It just goes to show you that if you have a quality website for sale, it’s pretty hard to screw things up. Even if you do a few things wrong, your site will still generate bids and sell for decent money. See auction here.

TYPES OF WEBSITES MOST WATCHED BY BUYERS

WordPress: 46 buyers watching

Adsense: 42 buyers watching

Ecommerce: 40 buyers watching

See Past Website Sales For The Most Actives
and Top Sellers For Every Month!

22 June, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Market Snapshot Comments (2)

Website Flipping Market Snapshot: 6-13-10

MOST ACTIVES

www.ThePaintGuide.com – 34 Bids
SOLD: $2,000

Established: September 2009
Unique Visitors/Month: 1,629
Net Profit/Month: $110
Description: Collection of 19 AdSense websites.

Comments: Since my interview with Cary about how to make money with Google AdSense, every AdSense site is grabbing my attention – and here you had 19 AdSense sites for sale:) The most promising of the bunch was ThePaintGuide.com, which was bringing in around $20/month. The seller claimed that all of the sites combined made $130 in net profit. That’s a good start for the buyer but what made me laugh is when the seller claimed “no work is required” to maintain the sites. Ya, that’s true if you only want to make $130/month and you are willing to wait over 15 months to get your investment back! There is no such thing as a maintenance-free money earner!! See auction here.

www.DeviantBastard.com – 33 Bids
SOLD: $4,500

Established: April 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 400,000
Net Profit/Month: $550
Description: Viral media site monetized by ads and affiliate programs.

Comments: These viral sites are always fascinating to me because they always seem to have such huge traffic numbers with very little effort (hence the name “viral” – duh). I guess I’m just jealous because it would be nice if I could boast those kind of traffic stats for my sites without doing anything! The buyer of this site instantly has 400,000 unique visitors to monetize. I have to admit, the site is addicting. I’m sure this site has great stickiness to it, which will work in the buyer’s favor. When I checked it out for this update, I spent about 15 minutes (without even realizing it) browsing through all the pictures:) See auction here.

www.Killroys.com – 25 Bids
SOLD: $12,500

Established: June 1997
Unique Visitors/Month: 30,000
Net Profit/Month: $175
Description: Fly tying site monetized by AdSense.

Comments: A stupid domain name but a great investment opportunity. You had a 13 year-old site in an evergreen niche with 30,000 unique visitors, and a net earner of about $175/month. The site was butt ugly and obviously under monetized with just AdSense. With a complete makeover and additional monetization methods – which there are plenty in this niche – the buyer should be able to significantly increase the monthly revenues and the overall value of the site. This would also be an ideal site to add a forum to since the people in this niche are so passionate. This was one of those rare websites for sale with so much going for it: age, content, traffic, under monetized, and a fixer upper to boot. See auction here.

TOP SELLERS

www.HealthProductReview.org – $65,000
BIDS: 13

Established: October 2008
Unique Visitors/Month: 83,144
Net Profit/Month: $13,356
Description: Network of health blogs earning affiliate income.

Comments: This auction was right up my alley because it was a pure affiliate play in a niche I’m very familiar with – health supplements and products. All the revenue generated from this network of sites was strictly from affiliate income. It just goes to show how lucrative affiliate marketing can be if done right. I think the buyer got a great deal paying only a 5 times multiple. These sites ranked very well for some highly competitive terms and among all the sites there was over 6,881 posts! That’s a lot of content. See auction here.

www.DzineBlog.com – $55,000
BIDS: 1

Established: February 2008
Unique Visitors/Month: 178,000
Net Profit/Month: $2,867
Description: Design blog monetized by ad sales and AdSense.

Comments: Do you want to know how to create a successful blog? Study this blog! It was just over two years old but already generated 178,000 unique visitors per month. The interesting stat was the blog brought in the bulk of its revenue from BuySellAds.com (HINT HINT to you blog owners). I think the real potential of this site was for a designer or design company to buy it to offer their services. See auction here.

www.SlideshowPlugin.com – $15,000
BIDS: 3

Established: May 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 4,114
Net Profit/Month: $1,200
Description: Website selling a photo slideshow WordPress plugin.

Comments: If I was a developer or had a developer I could rely on long-term to keep a WordPress plugin current, I would have snatched this one up myself. My blog here (FlipWebsites.com) had a slide show when it first launched and it was a major pain in the butt to develop (and very costly). I had to remove it because it was just too clunky and difficult to maintain. This plugin could have saved me a lot of money and headache. These slide shows really make a website pop, but unless you have a theme with one built in it (like some of the Woo Themes), they are difficult to develop. If the price of this plugin remains low – currently costing anywhere from $20-$60 depending on how many sites you want to use it on – it should sell well for the new buyer. See auction here.

TYPES OF WEBSITES MOST WATCHED BY BUYERS

WordPress: 45 buyers watching

Adsense: 43 buyers watching

Ecommerce: 37 buyers watching

Were You Flipping Websites Last Week?
Share Your Experiences In The Comments Below!

15 June, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Market Snapshot Comments (7)

Website Flipping Market Snapshot: 6-6-10

MOST ACTIVES

www.4OptIn.com – 40 Bids
SOLD: $1,250

Established: March 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 70
Net Profit/Month: $1,233
Description: Email marketing business.

Comments: This auction has me scratching my head. This business sold back in March of this year. In fact, it was a “Most Active” listing on one of my Market Snapshots in March. The buyer, who paid $6,000 for the business, was only interested in the leads for his own business. He didn’t want the domain nor did he necessarily want to take the leads and create a business with it. Somehow the seller retained the rights to the leads and was able to basically resell the business again? I’m not sure how that works.

Regardless, it seems the buyer the second time around got a much better deal as it sold for only $1,250. I would think the first buyer would be pissed as he paid $6,000 for the same leads. I’m sure I’m missing something on this one (and that wouldn’t be the first time…lol). This is a great auction listing to read, however, because the seller provides all kinds of details in his comments on how the whole “leads business” works. See auction here.

www.Buzzerx.com – 36 Bids
SOLD: $420

Established: April 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 1,100
Net Profit/Month: $200
Description: News portal monetized with ads.

Comments: This listing just has a funny smell to it. It’s basically a website that aggregates news from a variety of sources. The concept certainly isn’t unique and neither is the content so I’m not sure what kind of long-term staying power a site like this would have. What smells funny about this listing is that the seller says the site works by getting data from a variety of sources and then mixes them in such a way that makes the content look “quite original” to the search engines and users. Something just doesn’t sound right about it and at the very least, mashing content together like this can’t last over the long-term. Despite the lack of quality of this site, the buyer will likely get his investment back having only paid $420 for a site that generates around $200 per month in AdSense. See auction here.

www.BlogMarketingExposed.com – 35 Bids
SOLD: $240

Established: July 2009
Unique Visitors/Month: 2,431
Net Profit/Month: None claimed.
Description: WordPress blog on the blog marketing niche.

Comments: This listing makes me laugh because what you have here is your typical over-hyped startup blog of sorts. I say over-hyped because the seller brags about all the “potential” the site has even though the site was established almost a year ago and hasn’t made a dime in revenue. I’m sure the domain itself is a year old and the site itself was just launched but still, it is kind of funny. What really makes me laugh though is the seller says the term, “blog marketing,” gets lots of searches – which it does – but that the competition is very low. Really? I found almost 1,000,000 pages on Google optimizing for the term. That’s not exactly low competition…lol. $240 for a decent startup blog and an o.k. domain is par for the course so the buyer didn’t do too bad. I just hope the buyer didn’t buy into all the hype because there is actually a ton of competition in this niche so this baby will require lots of time and effort to pay off. See auction here.

TOP SELLERS

www.List-Of-Companies.org – $200,000
BIDS: 26

Established: January 2005
Unique Visitors/Month: 1,900,000
Net Profit/Month: $19,600
Description: Business directory monetized with AdSense.

Comments: Again I ask, who says there isn’t money in directories? Granted, this wasn’t just any other business directory for sale. The sale included 42 multi-language subsites and around 1TB of data! And according to the seller, it was generating between $15,000 – $20,000 per month in AdSense revenue. See auction here.

www.BurnYourToDoList.com – $85,000
BIDS: 2

Established: September 2009
Unique Visitors/Month: 17,927
Net Profit/Month: $5,697
Description: Outsourcing membership site.

Comments: This site had sold before just a few weeks ago for the BIN of $180,000. Unfortunately for the seller, the buyer backed out so she had to relist. What’s interesting is that the seller dropped the BIN of $180,000 the second time around so it ended up selling for what the market would bear – $85,000. I just wonder why the seller would not only completely eliminate the BIN but then also be willing to accept so much less than what she apparently thought the site was worth. Either way, she did o.k. getting around 15X monthly net profit. See auction here.

www.Snipplr.com – $40,000
BIDS: 1

Established: January 1 2008
Unique Visitors/Month: 470,000
Net Profit/Month: None claimed.
Description: Programming language authority website.

Comments: This was another “repeat” listing on Flippa last week. This site sold originally back in February for the same amount it just sold for last week – $40,000. And like before, this time around there was no bidding. Someone just stepped in and exercised the BIN. I’m assuming the most recent owner is the guy who bought it back in February. If it is, he didn’t do anything with the site as it still makes no significant revenue. He probably bought it and then realized he didn’t have the time or interest in doing anything with it so he threw it back on Flippa. Hopefully the new buyer can find a way to monetize 470,000 unique visitors and over 17,000 registered users;) See auction here.

WordPress: 44 buyers watching

Adsense: 40 buyers watching

Ecommerce: 37 buyers watching

Were You Flipping Websites Last Week?
Share Your Experiences In The Comments Below!

08 June, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Market Snapshot Comments (3)

Website Flipping Market Snapshot: 5-30-10

MOST ACTIVES

www.Farmviller.com – 47 Bids
SOLD: $26,000

Established: September 2009
Unique Visitors/Month: 105,000
Net Profit/Month: None claimed.
Description: Wiki on FarmVille, a popular Facebook application/game.

Comments: The theme this week is going to be, “user-generated content is golden.” This wiki-based site is all about the popular Facebook application, FarmVille. As a wiki-based site, the users generate all the content. How slick is that? Despite having over 100,000 unique visitors per month, the seller never monetized the site but I don’t think he’s too sad given the sale price. His reserve price was set at only $5,000. The fact that he got over 5x what he was probably expecting, I’m sure he’s smiling all the way to the bank:) See auction here.

www.GetYourFreeVoucher.com – 38 Bids
SOLD: $900

Established: April 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 23,664
Net Profit/Month: $733
Description: Gift voucher reward website monetized via affiliate income.

Comments: No offense to the seller but this whole listing smelled funny to me and the “opportunity” just seemed sleazy. This was a site that was just over a month old and yet it somehow managed to generate over 23,600 unique visitors without PPC? According to the seller, all the traffic was real and came from Twitter and links from forums and blogs. If everything the seller said was true, then that’s pretty amazing but I have my doubts. The sleaze part of the opportunity is that this site is created strictly with the intent of making money by wasting visitors’ time. However, to the seller’s credit he did make this disclaimer in his comments: “This website is a pure commercial set-up: it’s made to make you money. If you feel sorry for people that they have to spend masses of time to gain points, then this kind of site is not your cup of tea.” See auction here.

www.GoTop100.com – 35 Bids
SOLD: $46,000

Established: June 2004
Unique Visitors/Month: 680,000
Net Profit/Month: $1,169
Description: Free “top sites” hosting site monetized with AdSense and subscriptions.

Comments: This was another user-generated website. Users create “top lists” of their favorite websites, which are then voted and ranked so that the websites move up or down the “top lists” accordingly. This website, which is very Web 2.0ish, was a little ahead of its time having been established in 2004 – just as Web 2.0 was becoming known. And while it certainly had a Web 2.0 flavor to it, the technology behind it and the look and feel of the site was a bit dated. With around 680,000 unique monthly visitors and being under monetized, it didn’t surprise me it got so much activity and that it sold for so much. See auction here.

TOP SELLERS

www.GoTop100.com – $46,000
BIDS: 35

Established: June 2004
Unique Visitors/Month: 680,000
Net Profit/Month: $1,169
Description: Free “top sites” hosting site monetized with AdSense and subscriptions.

Comments: Well there’s no sense covering this listing again as I just commented on it. However, I will say that the multiple paid on this one is pretty impressive. It sold for over 39 times monthly net profit! See auction here.

www.MyNextCollege.com – $29,250
BIDS: 2

Established: December 2006
Unique Visitors/Month: 8,000
Net Profit/Month: $2,000
Description: Site with information on college education monetized with textbook sale commissions and affiliate revenue.

Comments: This was a great website for sale. It was well established, had tons of unique and useful content, and was built on WordPress to boot! Sadly, I think the seller left about $6,000 or more on the table. For starters, he used the three worst tags imaginable. None of the tags he used were popular. If he would have used AdSense, WordPress, and Affiliate as his tags he could have had a lot more views. Second, he should have started a site like this at $1 and let it run with a realistic reserve to protect himself. There is no doubt in my mind that with just those two changes, he could have netted an additional $6,000 or more. Don’t get me wrong, he still did well. I just hate seeing sellers make mistakes that cost money! See auction here.

www.Farmviller.com – 47 Bids
SOLD: $26,000

Established: September 2009
Unique Visitors/Month: 105,000
Net Profit/Month: None claimed.
Description: Wiki on FarmVille, a popular Facebook application/game.

Comments: It’s rare that so many “most actives” are also the top sellers. With 47 bids and a sale price of $26,000 you would expect it to rank in both categories. I can imagine how thrilled the seller was having a payday of $26,000 after not making a dime on the site for months! See auction here.

TOP SELLING NICHES

Health – (Fitness)
Internet Marketing – (Website Flipping)
Gaming

MOST ACTIVE SITE FLIPPERS

These are folks that are obviously selling on a regular basis. And if they’re doing this on a regular basis, then they must be doing well or they wouldn’t bother. You should check out their profiles and see what they’re doing. As a buyer you may find a site that interests you and as a seller, you can see what type of site flipping business they operate to give you some ideas;)

*You can view the profiles for these sellers by clicking on their names but you need to be logged into your Flippa account to view them.

izo4ever – had 8 sites for sale

shankey – had 6 sites for sale

tristlss – had 5 sites for sale

TYPES OF WEBSITES MOST WATCHED BY BUYERS

WordPress: 45 buyers watching

Adsense: 39 buyers watching

Autoblog: 31 buyers watching

Were You Flipping Websites Last Week?
Share Your Experiences In The Comments Below!

01 June, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Market Snapshot Comments (2)

Website Flipping Market Snapshot: 5-23-10

MOST ACTIVES

www.FindAnotherJob.com – 45 Bids
SOLD: $4,300

Established: April 2008
Unique Visitors/Month: 500
Net Profit/Month: $233
Description: Job website monetized by AdSense.

Comments: The seller touts in his listing that this is a, “very high paying job website niche,” and yet it was only generating about $233/month in AdSense revenue over the past year. The seller also hyped up the fact that the content on the site is so targeted so you get a great user experience and highly targeted ads for a high click through rate. I’m not so sure about that. I visited the site and while the writing was o.k., I thought the overall organization and content of the site was lacking – and the ads I saw weren’t that targeted. Nonetheless, the fact that this site has been a consistent $200+ earner every month for the past year generated a lot of interest with 45 bids.

One thing to note about this listing (and all listings for that matter), take a close look at the analytics information. This site was getting almost 90% of its traffic from a few article directories and less than 10% from search engine traffic. That may be a good or bad thing depending on your goals with the site. Personally, I would rather be heavy on search engine traffic vs. article directory traffic. See auction here.

www.FlipMyText.com – 35 Bids
SOLD: $6,100

Established: June 2008
Unique Visitors/Month: 58,000
Net Profit/Month: $75
Description: Social media resource that allows you to display text in various ways.

Comments: I was so tempted to include some “flipped text” here but I resisted. Is it just me, but I don’t get it. Why would anyone want to be able to have upside down text for anything? Call me old school, but it seems like a waste of time to me and trying to read upside down text drives me crazy. I’m obviously in the minority as this was the second most active listing last week with 35 bids. This was the third attempt by the seller, however, to sell this website. He tried a couple times in the fall of 2009 and was only able to generate 15 bids with $2,200 being the highest bid. Like they say, third time’s a charm:) See auction here.

www.MakingWine.net – 30 Bids
SOLD: $510

Established: January 2006
Unique Visitors/Month: 831
Net Profit/Month: $17
Description: ClickBank site selling an ebook on making wine.

Comments: This was a difficult listing to assess. You had a premium two-word keyword domain (albeit on a lesser valued .net) that ranked #2 on Google for its main keyword, “making wine.” According to Google’s own keyword tool, the exact phrase match for that keyword gets around 50,000 visitors per month. I know Google’s numbers are inflated some, but you would think the site would get more than just 831 unique visitors per month. I don’t get it. Regardless, for $510 I think the buyer got a good deal for a 4-year old site and a two-word keyword domain that comes complete with an ebook and is ClickBank-ready.

You’ll notice that the seller goofed here with the tags. He used two meaningless tags that virtually no buyers were watching (revenue and product selling). He may have been able to generate more interest (and thus more bids) had he used the tags, “established” and “clickbank ready.” See auction here.

TOP SELLERS

www.Feboz.com – $40,000
BIDS: 1

Established: September 2009
Unique Visitors/Month: 300,000
Net Profit/Month: $10,000
Description: Social network monetized with ads.

Comments: Social media has been and continues to be very hot and any social networking site that has a decent user base with good traffic will sell well. This social networking site has over 500,000 registered users and was getting over 300,000 unique visitors per month. According to the auction description, the site was generating any where from $10,000 – $16,000 per month. However, the seller only posted two month’s of revenue so those earnings may not have been typical. Regardless, I would imagine it wouldn’t be too hard to monetize a site with such a large user base and with so much monthly traffic. See auction here.

www.FederalReviews.com – $40,000
BIDS: 14

Established: April 2006
Unique Visitors/Month: 15,000
Net Profit/Month: $3,700/month
Description: A site the provides reviews of “make money online” opportunities.

Comments: This seller did very well and while the seller and the business he was selling was probably legit and honest, it just rubbed me the wrong way. Why? I hate it when Internet Marketers talk about their lists as if they are just cash machines. The whole value in this sale was in the list – a subscriber base of over 30,300 – in the highly competitive “make money online” niche. I can certainly appreciate the value of a list, but I’ve never treated the people on my list as a cash machine and I never will. Then again, I’m not a 6+ figure a year Internet Marketer either…lol. Like I said, I’m sure the seller was providing value to his subscribers and was likely offering legitimate help on how to make money, but it just bothers me when Internet Marketers treat their lists as money trees. See auction here.

www.Materialicious.com – $35,000
BIDS: 16

Established: May 2010
Unique Visitors/Month: 48,000
Net Profit/Month: None claimed.
Description: User submitted architecture and design site monetized with ads.

Comments: What a cool domain name and very fitting for a site centered around architecture. The revenue figures for this one are a bit deceiving. Although no revenue was officially claimed on the listing, the seller did say in his listing description that he has made $1,000 – $4,000 per month with ads. There was a lot going for this site. It was a PR5 three year-old site with 900 registered users. It was also getting around 48,000 unique monthly visitors. See auction here.

TOP SELLING NICHES

Health – (Fitness)
Internet Marketing (Twitter)
Gaming

MOST ACTIVE SITE FLIPPERS

*You can view the profiles for these sellers by clicking on their names but you need to be logged into your Flippa account to view them.

hourtrading – had 8 sites for sale

invictus7 – had 6 sites for sale

shankey – had 6 sites for sale

TYPES OF WEBSITES MOST WATCHED BY BUYERS

WordPress: 44 buyers watching

Autoblog: 39 buyers watching

Ecommerce: 36 buyers watching

Were You Flipping Websites Last Week?
Share Your Experiences In The Comments Below!