I’ve just bought a PR4 directory on Sitepoint. I will talk about it on another post, but here I want to talk about the system of Sitepoint.

In the old system you used to get an instant alert when someone put a comment or bid. It was very good because most of the time the comment was already in the email, saving you time.

In the new system you get ‘auction digest’ which is very poor. First it is not instant and arrive with some delays. Second you just get a message saying ‘there is new comment and 1 new bid’

but worse of it – you don’t get alerts when it matters. On this auction I discovered 27 minutes before the end that I am not the higher bidder. Why? because the seller didn’t accept the bid. Why sellers need to confirm bids? I don’t know.

In this case I put more bids as some others, and the seller accepted them only hours after the auction ended. So I didn’t know if I won or lost until the day after.

I’ve talked long ago about the problem with each bid extending the auction by another 4 hours. It is so annoying that you can never know when the auction ends. This is not a real auction in my point of view.But in the new system it is even worse – not only it reset the time, it adds 4 hours to the time that was left. So if the auction should ended in 3 hours when a new bid comes, the new end time is 7 hours forward. Gosh.

And last thing – Buy it now , you have to pay the full amount to secure the website. I can see the logic, but most of the time I won’t pay 100% in one payment. I prefer to split it into two so I am sure I am not dealing with a scammer. I wanted to buy it now, but I was put off by the immediate payment request.

All of these and some other odds things make the buying experience not user friendly and you waste a lot of time try to buy one small website.

Shame

A year ago or so Sitepoint has opened a new section called ‘Premium Web Sites for Sale‘ I can understand why they did that, and it makes a lot of sense to dived the bigger website from the smaller ones. It is also a good way to charge twice insert fees.

But from investment point of view you can’t really find good deals there. Why? because the seller already treat his website as premium and expect to get premium price for it. This is good if you want to sell a website, but not so good if you look for good deals.

So most of the time the price is well out of proportion there. Just a quick example:

Have a look on this auction this is a forum with $20 monthly income. And the starting price is $5000 buy it now $9999. This is a joke. No one will pay this money for $20 a month. Yes it has traffic so?

Looking for good deals? don’t search there. Having said so, if you are looking for buy an established website with income and traffic and you don’t mind paying premium price, this is your place

It is not enough to have a great website that you want to sell. You need to know how to market it to potenial buyers.

I was about to write an article how to avoid the ‘no bids’ effect but I did some research and found this article.
It sums all the points you need to consider before you put your site for sale.

My thoughts about ‘Buy it now’ button I always put it with 50% more than my reserve price. You can never know, sometimes it works.

Have a great sale!
Assaf

Today I’ve checked the keyword ‘websites for sale’ to see who are the top 10 on Google. Not a real surprise that Sitepoint leading the pack on Google.com

But on Google.co.uk Sitepoint are only number 2. And who is number 1?
This website: ukwebsiteforsale.co.uk

This looks like a seo excersise rather than a real website. A quick check on Google links doesn’t solve the mystery – How come a site with 2-3 stupid paragraph about websites for sale beats a site like Sitepoint?

Not to mention this blog about websites for sale that only ranks 72 for the same keywords. Google knows…

Assaf

A month ago or so, Sitepoint as launched their new marketplace system. They claim that they worked on that more than a year. For those who didn’t visit the site lately won’t be surprised by the change. The changes are minor and you need to have a careful look to see what’s new.

So what’s new?

1) the look – is seems to be cleaner – not a huge difference – a different font, the upgrade listing has moved to the left- that’s it I think. Overall it looks better.
2) Sorting – you used to be able to sort the auctions by ending time. You can still do so, but then it gives you all the auctions that have been already ended. Why? I don’t need this information. Now I have to go to page 5 to find the ones that are about to end. Sorry but this is stupid. In 2-3 month time you will need to go to page 15 to find this information. Just remind you this is an auction site, so the ending time is one of the most important information. Now they buried it. Huge disappointed.

3) Buy it now – According to the new system when the reserve price is met the buy it now disappear. This to encourage people to use the buy it now. I don’t like it. As a seller I prefer to have a full control on the sale and not use artificial rules.

4) Conditional bids – Now you can submit a bid with condition – something like : I will bid for $400 if you can send proof of income. Again I don’t like it. This is something that the buyer should ask before he bid.

5) Legal binding – Sitepoint claim that now if you sell a website and there is a winner (if you didn’t reject his bid) you must sell the site to him. Likewise if you are a buyer you must buy. This is good but I can’t see how they will monitor it. It is not E-bay where they have you paypal account and your personal details. Anyone can open an account bid not pay and disappear.

6) Feedback – Buyer and seller can leave feedback on each other. It is one of the things that were missing in the old system. It is too early to say how it works on the new system, but it is a good news to have it.

These are the major changes. The bottom line is a bit disappointing. Yes there are some good new features, but it seems to me that Sitepoint are afraid to go all the way and have an auction section like ebay. Why? I am sure they have the answers.

What I like with Sitepoint is that they are always tried to improve things, and they are listening to what the users have to say. This is great! And I wish more websites will do so.

I read today in a blog that Digital point forum is better place to your site for selling. I couldn’t disagree more. With DP you just feel lost. Hundreds of posts per day give a great traffic, but you can never track what is going on there. Which one you are bidding, and who where is your site there. In Sitepoint it is much easier to get your fingers with what’s going on.

But Sitepoint has their own problems which they try to fix. The biggest problem is that biddings are not binding. You can place a bid and doing nothing with that. The reputation system can help, but it will not solve the problem.

Another thing that I would like to see change is the interface. Long lists of websites just create confusion. The Internet was taking off with Yahoo directory, because they had categories. This makes life easier for searchers. Then Google took over and the ‘keyword’ is the king. I would like to see both of them. For example search PR5 sites under sport websites. Easy!

Sitepoint says that they are going to add more info per URL like PR and Alexa rating. I do hope that we will be able to search for them.

The more I think of it, the more points I have. I’m sure the good people at SP don’t need me to tell them what to do. But I am envy them that they are in the middle of the process of improving things and create better platform. I wish I could help
Have a nice weekend,
Assaf