Website Flipping

When buying websites, you’ll chance upon properties that you absolutely must get.  On the flipside, you’ll also come across ones that would be best passed over.  How do you know when an available website is best treated with a brush-off?

Search Engine Problems: If the website is banned by at least one search engine, it’s likely to get in the bad favor of others too.  No matter how good it looks, flipping the site will be an uphill battle – one you’re not likely to win.

Zero Promotion: New sites deserve bargain basement prices.  Even though the owner put in a ton of work on the technical aspects, it’s still a shaky buy, at best.  Unless the domain name is a keyword-goldmine, it’s usually better to pass.

Heavy Competition: If the site being sold is a small fish in a large pond filled with plenty of established players, there’s far too much work needed to bring it up to speed.  Unless you can successfully turn the site’s fate around, future buyers will be wary.

Short-Life Span: Sites about particular products or niches that are bound to be gone in a year or two (e.g. a particular movie or a game) are a losing gamble.  After the buzz passes, anyone who gets it will be left with residual traffic that may not even be good enough to pay for its own rent.

Easy To Duplicate: When you check the bargain basement sections of site flipping, you’ll notice the exact same types of properties for sale – wallpaper sites, proxy sites, arcade games, PLR blogs, etc.  With the right content and tools, those sites can be turned out in mass.  There’s no point buying them – just make ten of the same thing yourself.

Make sure to think twice about any website you do buy, many times if it seems to good to be true it usually is.  Make a checklist and go through it every time you are in the market for a new site.