Web Ladder

Hi all,

I came across this website.

It has some nice features like search by PR, search by category and the option for users to give their opinion about how much a site worth.

This is the good things. But the bad things are the design. It is awful! You can’t understand a thing from the lists on the main page. They are mean less. You don’t get any real info about the sites. Then when you click inside it is even worth.

Come on people hire a good designer that will use nice colours and try to think what people want to see.

Really bad website.

Hi all,

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

Hi all,

From today you can subscribe for email updates whenever there is a new post. Thanks to feedburner just insert your email address on the top right click subscribe and that’s it…

Assaf

Hi all,

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.

Hi all,

Have a look here: http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace/auction/20371

This is a very good site that generates a lot of leads per month. But this is not what I want to talk about. Look at the bidding history:

• 22 Feb 2008 05:39

  $120,000 - chip2447

• 19 Feb 2008 12:08

  $80,500 (Private)

• 17 Feb 2008 03:39

  $80,000 (Private)

I can understand that someone has decided to raise his bid by $500 (the second one) but it is beyond me to understand why user name chip2447 has decided to raise the bar to $120,000 4 hours before the end of the auction. It is not that there are 10 bidders that are fighting for this website.

It is a lot of money to put, and I don’t think that many buyers have this sort of money. Apart of that, to run this website you need to be a lawyer , and again this limits the cometetion.

So why do raise the price to $120k? I really don’t know…

Assaf

Hello all,

It is about time that someone will offer a good system for webmasters to trade their sites.

We came with a very good auctions system that should answer all sellers and buyers needs.

Some of the features are very impressive:

1) For the first time you can rate the buyer and the seller like Ebay. No one offer this yet.

2) User can choose to verified their account, by paying a small fee from their paypal account.

3) 8 Categories, so it easy to find what you are looking for. We will add more according to the demand.

4) You can upload pictures and even a media file like small video.

5) It is almost free. You can post a new auction for free. All we charge is 1% from the final price. So if you didn’t sell you don’t have to pay. This is only fair.

We do hope to see here many auction, and we believe that this site is offering you the best solution for buying ans selling website.

If you have more suggestions and request please feel free to contact us.

Enjoy!

Hi all,

This week I sold a site using Escrow.com for the first time. For those who don’t know what escrow is and how to use it, here is a small explanation.

First of all what is escrow?

Escrow is a service that offers you protection when you buying or selling products. It is designed especially for virtual products like domain names or websites. Unlike paypal, they take care of the transaction, so if something goes wrong, both parties (seller or buyer) have a protection.

For example let’s say you want to buy a website. You contact the seller and you agreed on a price. Now here come the tricky part. You need to transfer him the money before the seller transfer you the domain. If you are using paypal you take a risk. You can send him the money and he can disappear without transfer you the domain. Paypal will do nothing about it, no mater how much you will complain. They will response that they don’t take responsibility for virtual transactions. Believe me, I tried

It is not that bad if you sent $40 for a service and you never got it. But if you send $2000 and the seller is gone with the money, you $ucked.

So if you are sending more than $200, use escrow.

How to work with escrow?

I have to admit that I had a lot of luck with my transaction. I wrongly used the system and I was in risk to lose my site and not to get the money. Why? Because I didn’t follow the procedures…

So let me save you some time. Here is the right way to do it:

1) The buyer login to escrow and open a new event. He/She sets the terms and conditions.

2) The seller will get an email asks them to login to their account (or to create one, if they don’t have) and accept the terms and conditions.

3) The buyer will have to pay using credit card or other method. Then Escrow will ask the buyer to send a fax to confirm the identity of the card holder. Once the buyer do it, the seller will get an email asking to login again to the account.

4) In their account the seller should choose the domain registration company, and send a request to transfer the domain.

5) Escrow will check if the domain has been transferred to the new owner and will send to the seller the money.

If for some reason the domain hasn’t been transferred the buyer will get the money back.

Now for the seller here is a very improtant tip: Don’t ever transfer the domain before you get a confirmation that the buyer has paid. Otherwise you are risking loosing your site. The buyer can pull out and cancel the transaction, and you will lose your site.

Hope it makes it clear

Assaf

Hi all,

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

Hi all,It is not that I am lazy writing… it is just I am very busy lately. Many projects and deadlines etc…

And although I follow the market I didn’t get much involved.

I bought 3 sites:
www.streetbuzzmedia.com
www.thearttree.net
www.basb.org

I also bought www.uaud.com and sold it with a nice profit two weeks after. It was just bargain. PR5 directory for $250… It is not the real value I didn’t want to sell it, but I reaching a point where I have too many directories, so it is hard to follow and give them the right attention.

Now I am selling www.voice-msg.com here:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=358729

Again it is a case of no time. I built this website, and I love it, but it has to go. I just don’t have the time to promote it.

As you can see I am focusing on directories these days. If you know what you are doing they can be very profitable.

Ok, I am off for a short holiday, but I promise to write more!

Assaf

Yes I guess every blog will have this post. Long time since I was writing…

The  fact is that I was busy with other things and couldn’t find any website that I want to buy. So I was quiet for a while. Today I bought a new website, but I will give more details about it as soon as we will close the deal.

As you can see there are some changes on this website:

I have added a search engine that tracks auctions and websites for sale ads, so you can search and find easily what you need.

I do hope you like the design, and I will love to hear you comments.

Have a nice weekend!