Web Ladder - Websites for sale blog

Hi all,

Just bought this new webmaster forum for $510 via sitepoint.

The deal went without any problem and the seller was great. I divided the payments into two, so when he transferred the domain I paid the second half. It took an hour to finish the deal, only because I had to eat in the middle Quick, very quick.

Why I have bought it? it has a lot of traffic, and the site is a true ceo friendly - you can tell that a lot of work has been put in order to optimise it. And with all my directories and sites it can be useful…

Assaf

Hi,

Those who read the my posts here,  know already that it is not easy to find a good website to buy. The amount of crap websites without any feature is amazing. But as always you can find some good ones at Sitepoint market place.

Today I want to recommend to buy this image hosting website for sale. It has good income ($300 a month), and very good traffic (50000 pages). The problem is the high cost of the dedicated server ($220) that bits the profit.

But I think that you can easily find cheaper dedicated hosting plan ($100-$150) so without a lot of hassle you can increase the profit. With a bit of promotion in forums you can double the traffic and the income. After all this image hosting service is great for forum posters. And there is myspace of of course…
What I like with this site that it is easy to use, simple and clean. You don’t need to be a php developer to run it, which is a bonus.

The price is also attractive - at the moment it starts with $2100 without bids. If you can get it for this price, go for it!

So the big question is why I don’t buy it? maybe I would

Assaf

Hi all,

Long time I know… it is just I am busy with buying and selling properties, so I don’t have a lot of time to look for new websites. But I noticed this one:
http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace/auction/5792

Nice one - PR6, 200 customers and $700 net profit not bad. There were 2 hours left for the auction to end, and I put $6000 bid. I thought the site is mine. 10 minutes after it got another bid of $6100. I tried to shake off the rival and immediately put another bid fro $6200. It didn’t help.

A third opponent joined and tried to scare us with $6500. He did at least in my case. But I wanted this site, so I called to a friend explained the situation and offered him to join me for %50. He said ok. We set up our limit to $8000. I submitted a new bid for $6600. Again my rival raised their game and put $7000. And $7100 and $7500. I tried to stop them with $7600 but they really wanted the site so they bid for $8000 and 2 minutes later there was a $9100 bid. Game over.

The seller couldn’t believe his luck because an hour latter the bar was set on $13,500. They fought for this site like mad. The buy it now was $25000 and this is what one of the comment was about it:

Ok so site is making roughly $700 net profit after expenses
so why are you asking $25,000, seems a bit steep

And the seller response was:

I am really asking around $7k. Yes $25000 is too much. But still this is a great business. I think it is really worth around $10.

And he was right of course - The site is not worth more then $10k and defiantly not $25. But one of the bidder felt that he needs to use the ‘buy it now’ button otherwise he will lose the auction. And so he did. Maybe he had to go to sleep, and this could be drag for days with sitepoint system that every bid extends the auction by another 4 hours. This system gives the advantage to the seller so the bidders end up paying more.

If it was like eBay I would wait till the last minute put a $6500 bid and get the site. But Sitepoint prefers to give the advantage to the seller. Fair enough.

But $25000 for this website is madness. It will take 3 and half years to get their investment back. Good luck

Assaf

Hi All,

Have a look on this auction

It is rare to see site that sell a real products these days. We all got used to the websites that sell links, memberships, ads etc… But real products? It is so nineties

But still it is a good business. The seller asked for my help to value this website. He gave me all the information I asked and he is someone you can trust.

I think that for a site that makes $500-$900 a month from selling real products the starting price of $9000 is more than fair. It has 700 registered costumers and good Google ranking for a lot of keywords.

If you are looking for a small business to run it from home this is the website for you.

Strong buy.

Assaf

Hi all,

Have a look here:
http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace/auction/5463?

This is a very interesting website that has $5000 monthly income just from ads on digitalpoint.

It is a good website that offer a real value and a real product. At the moment they have $15,000 and it ends in one day and six hours. I think the value of this site is $25000. Anything below that you should buy without hesitate.

Why I don’t buy it? Because it involves dealing with costumers. I just don’t have the patient for that anymore

Enjoy!

Assaf

Hi all,

Since last Google update things are not really clear with PR. Quite often I see ads like: “PR6 website for sale” only to see the small green bar showing something else.

So use this tool to check the website PR in all of Google data center. If you see that most of them are 6 for example then you can assume that this is a real PR6 website. But if most of the data center show PR5 and only 2 or 3 show PR6 then it is more like PR5 then PR6.

Bottom line is if PR is an important factor for you when you buy a website (like when you buy a directory or so), you must check it before…
Have a nice weekend,
Assaf

Hello all,

Usually I try to buy low and sell high. But this time someone else did the trick and I bought this site for a bit high:

Web directory

He bought it for $500 and sold it to me for $680. He didn’t make a huge profit but still he didn’t do much to earn $180… If you could only sell websites like this every day

So why I bought it? It may seem a bit expensive for a web direcorory with PR4-5 (you can’t know these days with Google what is the real PR). But for long time I am looking to buy a directory that can be a good basis for passive income for me. This one seems like a good base that I can take forward. If I can increase the PR next Google dance (and I think I can) this site could be very profitable.

The good things about directories site that they don’t require a lot of time. You just have to confirm the links and add some links in website like directory critic and you get a lot of traffic.

My recommendation: look for web directories for buying a website. Something like this:

http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace/auction/4466

Good luck,

Assaf

Hi All,Have a look here:
http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace/auction/4103

This website was put for an auction yesterday. It is one of the most interesting website that put out for sale recently. No wonder that members of Sitepoint went crazy.

You don’t see a PR7 website for sale with $1700 income on the market everyday.

The sellers put a starting price of $10,000 and buy it now for $40,000. I thought that the real value of this website was 20k and I was willing to pay 22k no more then that. But I knew it will be tough. It had fierce competition and every hour raised another bid. But I didn’t think he will get the ‘buy it now’ price. After all it will take 2.5 to get your invest back. And it is a risky business. This site can easily lose its PR7 and then it is the end.

But someone thought different and bought it for 40k.

Crazy!

Have a nice weekend,
Assaf

Hi all,

Have a look here:
http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace/auction/4058?

Two websites on PR6 one PR7 were for auction.
The buy it now price was $5000!
With the income of both sites the seller could ask for $15000.

No wonder after 10 minutes he sold them both for $5k.

I was so upset because of the time difference – so when I woke up in the morning I saw this auction and it was under ‘SOLD’ status.

You need to be quick to get cheap websites.

 Assaf

Hi all,

I was looking to buy this website:
http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace/auction/3724

At the moment it has $500 bidding, and I put my limit on $750 - so I thought I have a good chance to take it.

But I changed my mind. Why?
One of the users submitted these questions to the seller:

i like the site, its clean, simple etc. gotta couple of things i just wanna clarify…

if you had the skills to run the actual backend process, ie creating tableless xhtml and css, i dare say wouldn’t you have the skills to build a clone of this site in 2-3 hours tops?

I know you must be thinking…HEY, what about all the links and promotion I’ve done…?

I had a look and essentially your traffic has been steadily dropping, and your main source is removed upon sale ( colourmod.com )

one last thing, you list the site’s revenue as $250 permonth but you’ve had the site for two motnhs and said you’ve done $278 worth of work… I’m no maths whiz but doesn’t make it $139 per month?

even then, wouldn’t it be fair to assume that 9.5 out of ten “enquiries” are just tyre kickers? without actual work completed they seem like shaky figures to be using for “due diligence” yah?

if you get more than $500 for this site, i think might have to start making clones and selling them myself on site point.

Valid questions. Spot on! and what was the seller answer? He just deleted the questions. Very mature. It gives you the right signal not to do business with him. This site is not a scam, but it is not beautiful as the seller try to draw it.

Assaf