• Here's a classic case of worthless listings

    by
    3Six
    Published on January 5th, 2010 08:42 AM
    8 Comments Comments
    Amnat registered for Flippa a couple of weeks ago and now has all of four auctions.

    All four are carefully chosen in niches that attract expensive ads:
    Horse Racing
    Forex
    Make Money Online
    Trading Futures

    He's spent maybe all of a day's time to set all four up and his total asking price is $1,580. Not bad money for four domains with worthless content.

    But to the inexperienced eye it doesn't look like worthless content. He's populated the sites and does all the usual stuff of talking up the "potential" and how massive the market is etc.

    He even shows in the Site Details that the sites are earning from Advertising Sales, Product Sales and Affiliate Income (yeah, right!). At least Flippa has stopped these people from posting income "potential" under the Revenue section of Site Details as existing revenue.

    What are the chances that he'll sell any of them? My call is zero. He's just wasted $19 x 4 and a lot of time. He'll discover it doesn't work and he'll move on. And another sucker will take his place.

    Where do these people get the idea that they can make money from this?
    This article was originally published in forum thread: Here's a classic case of worthless listings started by 3Six View original post
    Categories:
    1. CMS,
    2. Running Website Businesses,
    3. Buying A Website,
    4. Other Sites: About Flippa, SP, DP
    Comments 8 Comments
    1. WorldStage's Avatar
      WorldStage - April 2nd, 2010, 09:09 AM
      I looked up Amnat's profile on Flippa and in January he sold 5 sites for $930 for a success rate of 100%. I figure after the cost for the listings and domain registrations he netted about $650.

      So if he's a guy who comes home from work and does this in his spare time, an extra $650 a month can be pretty meaningful for some folks.

      Or if he's a kid living at home going to college, again, $650 a month is pretty good and beats working on campus or for a restaurant.

      So it looks like this practice isn't exactly for suckers.

      Megan
    1. Clinton's Avatar
      Clinton - April 2nd, 2010, 09:25 AM
      Nice investigative work there, Megan.

      I'm not a fan of selling these template sites. Not because they don't make money for the seller but because they don't make money for the buyer. Someone who relies on this model of selling template sites is relying on
      1. A continuing stream of wannabe webmasters most of whom are never actually going to make money from the site and
      2. Ramping up the hype to convince buyers they can make money with these sites.

      While it looks like he has sold 5 sites and made $930, looks can be deceptive. Notice that only two of those buyers left him positive feedback. My bet is that the others didn't go ahead with the transaction (and I'm not sure about the first two either). I didn't bother checking WHOIS but I suspect those domains haven't changed hands.

      Further, the prediction that he'd move on and another sucker would take his place seems to have been accurate. Amnat seems to have abandoned selling sites in Flippa - his last and fifth auction was listed on Jan 8, three days after the post about his first four. And he hasn't been back since. I suspect he didn't really make any money on this. But there are other suckers who've bought an ebook or joined one of the many courses talking up the potential of selling sites on Flippa... and, sadly, they'll take Amnat's place.
    1. WorldStage's Avatar
      WorldStage - April 2nd, 2010, 09:49 AM
      Hi Clinton,

      Thanks for "the rest of the story"! You're right he didn't sell anything in Feb and March. I guess these kinds of sites are valuable only if the buyer has done their niche research and has learned how to monetize a blog and is going to put the time in to take the property to the next level. You're probably right that the majority of these "roughed in" sites are bought by people who are rookies who are buying thinking that the site will be just making money right off the bat. Also I didn't know you don't have to complete the transaction if you buy a site on Flippa. It's a big deal if you don't pay for what you bought on eBay and as a former eBay auctioneer/store owner I can't remember anyone not paying for what they bought. Am I pitifully naive?

      However as I'm moving out of the "sucker" stage of my learning curve I wonder what the best way is for newbies to understand the monetized blogging model and get educated and start up their own online businesses via blogging and buying and selling websites/blogs. I've just been stumbling along learning from forums, courses, "Gurus", events, etc and invested a tidy sum into my education. I fully intend to see the first ROI on my educational investment starting now in April, but I've definitely been the newbie sucker more than once in the last 8 months!

      Megan
    1. Clinton's Avatar
      Clinton - April 2nd, 2010, 10:22 AM
      Megan, non-paying buyers are a common problem in Flippa. And, unlike with eBay, buyers can easily open a new account and even get phone verification

      I guess these kinds of sites are valuable only if the buyer has done their niche research and has learned how to monetize a blog and is going to put the time in to take the property to the next level.
      The problem is that most of these sales happen to people who've been talked into buying the templates rather than buyers who've indentified a niche they have some expertise in and then went looking for someone to save them the time and learning curve of putting the site together.

      start up their own online businesses via blogging and buying and selling websites/blogs
      To me, those are vastly different things. If you're looking at building something with the intention of selling I'd advise avoiding the blog model (unless you're structuring it to not be reliant on your personal knowledge/style e.g. using only paid posters).
    1. WorldStage's Avatar
      WorldStage - April 2nd, 2010, 10:50 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by Clinton View Post
      Megan, non-paying buyers are a common problem in Flippa. And, unlike with eBay, buyers can easily open a new account and even get phone verification
      Ah, good to know!!

      To me, those are vastly different things. If you're looking at building something with the intention of selling I'd advise avoiding the blog model (unless you're structuring it to not be reliant on your personal knowledge/style e.g. using only paid posters).
      Also good to know, so it is going to be more profitable to develop eCommerce sites to sell? I need to hurry up and read Michelle's book

      Megan
    1. WorldStage's Avatar
      WorldStage - April 2nd, 2010, 10:51 AM
      I also need to learn how to use the "Wrap Around the Quote" feature! Ha!

      Megan
    1. Michelle's Avatar
      Michelle - April 2nd, 2010, 12:25 PM
      For some reason the forum settings aren't allowing me to get to that link so I don't actually know what sort of sites this particular seller was listing at Flippa but I'm assuming start up blogs?

      Quote Originally Posted by WorldStage View Post
      I guess these kinds of sites are valuable only if the buyer has done their niche research and has learned how to monetize a blog ....
      Or...... these kinds of sites are only valuable (at the auction listing stage) if the seller has done their niche research and learned how to monetize a blog. You will see sellers stating that their sites are ranking for a particular keyword phrase but that's when it's searched for in quotes. Where does the site rank for that phrase without quotes (AKA how the target customer searches)? Is the title tag relevant to a search term, is the keyword density overdone, are the article titles SEO optimized etc....

      You're probably right that the majority of these "roughed in" sites are bought by people who are rookies who are buying thinking that the site will be just making money right off the bat.
      I've had both newbies and experienced marketers buy sites from me. Almost all the newbies have had some knowledge that meant they knew they had to drive targeted traffic and they had some sort of plan around that....having a plan doesn't mean they actually stuck to it though.

      Also I didn't know you don't have to complete the transaction if you buy a site on Flippa. It's a big deal if you don't pay for what you bought on eBay and as a former eBay auctioneer/store owner I can't remember anyone not paying for what they bought. Am I pitifully naive?
      I haven't had a non-payer but I know people who have.

      However as I'm moving out of the "sucker" stage of my learning curve I wonder what the best way is for newbies to understand the monetized blogging model and get educated and start up their own online businesses via blogging and buying and selling websites/blogs.
      I don't understand what you mean here? Do you mean niche blogging? The 30 Day Challenge can teach you that. If you mean becoming a blogger yourself then Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick's course is very good.

      In terms of buying and selling websites/blogs..do you mean to earn extra cash selling sites?

      I've just been stumbling along learning from forums, courses, "Gurus", events, etc and invested a tidy sum into my education. I fully intend to see the first ROI on my educational investment starting now in April, but I've definitely been the newbie sucker more than once in the last 8 months!

      Megan
      Who have you been learning from mostly over the last 8 months and what methods would you say you have the most experitse in now from the investment you've made in your education?

      Also good to know, so it is going to be more profitable to develop eCommerce sites to sell? I need to hurry up and read Michelle's book
      You can make a profit by selling junk or selling quality established web property and also selling everything that falls in between those two extremes.

      My teachings begin at building a site from the ground up and learning some basic on-site SEO in the process and then selling that site if you don't want to develop it further. Moving to the next stage of holding sites and establishing them and then selling them down the track is a logical next step and you can do that with any site model you like not just niche blogs or ecommerce. I can (and will) teach all of that but for now it's about core basics.
    1. Clinton's Avatar
      Clinton - April 2nd, 2010, 12:32 PM
      I've modified the first post in this thread to the post that was originally converted to an article. I've had a couple of PMs as well to say that the link is not working. I don't know what's happening there but if that link is not working for you, try this (that's the post that's being discussed) and I'll investigate later. I suppose it's something that happens when you convert forum posts to "articles" in the vB system.