Learning the lay of the land

[gzed]

Hello experienced people. I'm relatively new to buying and selling domains and websites, but I like the thrill of finding diamonds in the rough. I still like to fish in places that other experienced domainers consider the sewer as far as domains go - Digital Point, Godaddy expiring, and (don't laugh) ebay. I've tried Flippa, but it's not too good for somebody on a limited budget (not uncommon to see sites sell on there for 30-40x monthly revenue). Browsing Flippa has been instructive as far as due diligence. I've seen everything from misleading paypal screenshots, to PR tricks (where the owner points another of his high PR domains at his 'for sale' site to temporarily boost the PR), to sites that have no chance of recapturing their glory days and are always marketed with the same spiel ("I've been busy with other projects ... Site just needs some seo and some tlc").

I have to find diamonds in the rough and polish them up because of my budget, but that's ok because I get to learn more about wordpress and how to adjust themes to improve a site. I currently administer my sites using the WPManage dashboard.

I look forward to learning more about domaining and website development from everybody here.

- George

[KenW3]

Welcome to Experienced-People.com. Are you doing well finding "diamonds in the rough"? The places you mentioned require a whole lot of time digging

For WordPress administration, you are using the WPManage dashboard? Is this the online service at ManageWP.com or something else? What do you think of them? Has this been working well for you?

I looked at ManageWP.com when they were first starting to offer services. It was set up as a subscription service, and preferred a local program that worked from my computer due to concerns over security. (My preference is to pay one time and own a program.) The feature of ManageWP.com liked the least was their use of a plug-in that bypassed the password and login, installing a back door. I considered that a potential security problem over which I would have no control.

The other online service looked at was WPManagerDX.com. They had a trial install available online, but this was also a monthly subscription that is used online only. The only WordPress manager program I found was WPDesktop.com. Although that has some management capabilities, it was lacking features. After reading the available manual, it seemed that the strength was more for installing rather than managing.

[Kay]

Hi George

Welcome to Experienced People and thanks for your interesting introduction. When you find your rough diamonds and polish them up, do you always sell them on or do you sometimes keep them?

We have a small marketplace here (BSTE forum) for established members. I've bought and sold a few websites on there - all small stuff, but it's a nice friendly place to do business. I've never yet dared to jump into any of the bigger marketplaces.

Are you doing your online business full-time or just in your spare time?

I'm looking forward to seeing more of your posts.

Kay

[gzed]

Hi Ken. I don't really aggressively pursue anything at this stage, so I'm happy with whatever I find. I add about 1-2 sites/ week and that's a pretty good pace for me.
I'm using ManageWP.com and I really like seeing all of my sites in one dashboard. You have to install a "worker" plugin on each site you want to control. If you want a pay once / run on your own server type of software, there's also xmarkpro.com. I think the reward outweighs the risk as far as security, but paying every month is a drawback.

Hi Kay. I'm doing this full-time but income-wise I'm not there yet. I'm still in the process of developing most of my sites, so I haven't sold any yet. I will be offering a backlinking service soon (probably at the Warrior Forum, maybe here in the BSTE forum once I get enough posts). It will offer blog network submissions along with a personalized backlink-finding service that analyzes your competitors for backlinks that you can also get in the same niche.

- George