Interested in this site....Any opinions?

[Casey101]

Greetings all!

I was not sure where to post this question so I decided to post it here because of the similar nature of questions asked in the past. I am sure this won't be my last post of this nature so, moderators, please let me know if I guessed wrong.

I have been lurking around Flippa sifting through junky sites that even a noob like me can spot, when I came across this site:

www.backlinkmembership.com

It's a new site, but the seller shows "proof" of subscribers who have already signed up. He says that he has not promoted this with Adwords or anything and I did a Spyfu search to try to verify this, however the site doesn't come up. Maybe it's too new to be cached. Currently he claims 65 paid subscribers (though obviously not all at full price) and is selling the site because he has to pay off a loan that is due by the end of October.

Google Analytics is not installed and, depending on the situation, I have heard it suggested here in this forum that it may not be such a bad thing as it may keep many sellers away, driving the demand/price down.

I really like the idea of a subscription service as I have subscribed to things before and just left them recurring as I would either forget, or just never remember to unsubscribe while I was at my computer. I know that Credit Card companies really push things like that really hard e.g. "Protect your account for only $2.99 per month!"

It is very easy when reading this site to say to oneself "Hell, it's only 10 bucks!" and just hit the "Subscribe Now" button not really thinking that it could cost you $50 before you remember to cancel if you are unhappy with the service.

Also, with the website market volume constantly moving up, this could really have some potential if marketed correctly and there will always be a constant influx of new, frustrated, webmasters that are willing to do whatever it takes for a "quick fix". The key, I think, is to intercept them early.


Please let me know what you think about possibly moving in this direction. I have taken Clinton's advice and am trying to approach this (or any other website purchase) with skepticism until I learn a little more.

Am I misguided with any of my thought processes here? Is there something important that I am missing?

Any thoughts on the way the backlinks are generated and can they REALLY help someone's site (even a little)?

I going to have an ethical dilemma on my hands if I find out the backlinks are a bunch of bull that doesn't really help anyone as my website claims they will. It REALLY would bother me if I felt like I was ripping someone off, even if it was for only 6 nickels a day.

I appreciate you reading my post and encourage ANY advice, no matter how elementary. I have read many of tutorials in the "Buying Websites" section but remember who you are talking to-- Casey=enthusiastic noob!

Thanks in advance!

[Casey101]

I started thinking.... Why couldn't I just replicate this? I know it's not buying like we have discussed, but it may be something to look into down the road. Sure, the domain name is nice, but the exact phrase gets a whopping 12 searches a month according to Google and I'm sure I could find something just as good if I just sat down with a beer and a thesaurus.

All I would need to do is figure out is how he gets his "product" and I'm pretty sure it can't be rocket science.

I have to see what you guys think about it before I put too much thought into buying/copying this site. I may be missing something that makes it moot anyway.

-Casey

[benitez17]

I have been looking at this listing myself, and after having a conversation with the owner yesterday via PM, I don't have a good feeling about the subscriber base because he wasn't able to show me proof of a single recurring payment or proof that anyone had signed up outside of the last 7 days, even after I explained to him how to run the report I wanted to see in aMember and told him that I was willing to make a bid in excess of the winning bid for his last auction if he provided the proof that I requested.

Also, as you said Casey, it is ridiculously easy to replicate. The idea is a good one, but it is simple, so all he is really selling is an established user base (which he is unable or unwilling to verify).

All I am really trying to say is proceed with caution.

[Casey101]

I was nosing around, checking out other sites that are in the same field, and ran across this site. You said it would be ridiculously easy to replicate and were spot on. It looks like the same site with a different color scheme. Our seller copied the thing almost verbatim in some places. How did something pass the "Possible copies found" section on Flippa? I had no idea that was such a farce!

[benitez17]

I was nosing around, checking out other sites that are in the same field, and ran across this site. You said it would be ridiculously easy to replicate and were spot on. It looks like the same site with a different color scheme. Our seller copied the thing almost verbatim in some places. How did something pass the "Possible copies found" section on Flippa? I had no idea that was such a farce!

Nice find! I didn't even get that far because I don't believe that the seller's revenue claims are legitimate. I asked the seller about this site, and we'll have to see what he says.

It's not the same niche because the seller in the listing is offering a service where they provide a list of good sites to obtain backlinks each month while simplybacklinks.com is selling backlink packages, but one site definitely ripped off the other. It's yet another strike against this seller in my opinion.

Also, Flippa's "due diligence" tools are worthless. They are built to support the inflated valuations that turnkey sellers place on their sites with little revenue or traffic, so they focus on things like PPC cost for search engine traffic to a site and ultimately meaningless third party rankings. The backlink counts and PageRank are the only things that I really pay attention to. Everything else I find on my own or get from the seller. That said, I'm somewhat surprised that the possible copies found tool didn't find the other site, since it is just a report from CopyScape and several copies were found when I queried for that URL at copyscape.com.

[Dreemer]

Wow i must say thats eyeopening. I have name privacy on some of my domains, but with these tools it can correctly identify other sites owned by me, and all it takes is for one of them to *not* have name privacy and boom, all my details, yikes