It sure looks profitable and though it isn't BlackHat (Well I would say GreyHat), it seems to be VERY profitable.

Should I give it a try? I got $320 in my Paypal, I'm willing to invest $20 of it to start...

I mean seriously doesn't look too hard...
Do some niche research
Get a .info domain on niche (99cents)
Get a free nice looking template
add 25 articles minimum either hand written or spun
publish onto some free webhost like 000webhost
sell for about $100
Bam. Instant profit.
maybe 2hours work, 4 hours max.

If you can do it quickly and with little effort then yes it can be profitable. I got a buddy that made a living doing just that for over 3 years until he came up with the bright idea to make websites for small businesses locally.

Originally Posted by tk1075

If you can do it quickly and with little effort then yes it can be profitable. I got a buddy that made a living doing just that for over 3 years until he came up with the bright idea to make websites for small businesses locally.

Thanks,so should I give it a try? Is there a failure rate of a site not selling?

Originally Posted by Silencer

I mean seriously doesn't look too hard...
Do some niche research
Get a .info domain on niche (99cents)
Get a free nice looking template
add 25 articles minimum either hand written or spun
publish onto some free webhost like 000webhost
sell for about $100
Bam. Instant profit.
maybe 2hours work, 4 hours max.

don't expect a buyer with that. It sure is a profitable business but buyers r not dumb anymore...

u need to have well written articles, a decent SERP n good traffic..if u have revenue, it adds up...don't even think of faking the revenue screenshot if u don't know how exactly to play with the numbers...

I'm actually debating the same thing. I wanted to do it in mass quantities though, such as creating 10 unique templates, and cheap .info domains, but the money lies within established websites, not websites that look like they were rushed.

Just like everything you have to be able to sell, in this case your website. Honestly it depends on how much you want to make. Someone will buy everything if it is cheap enough, however if you want to make real good money then you need to make your sites stand out in some way. Or you can the grey way and sell them on ebay with a requirement that they host with you for like 6 months and make the money on the hosting ref.

If you are going to flip a site you have to make look like you put time into it, when flipping FUCK .info's know one wants to buy a .info. Try to stay with a .com, if you can't .org and .net work but a .com makes the value go way UP!

Ok I know articles have to be of quality.
I know that .com is better, but hey, if your site is selling cheap, maybe $50-100, anyone would buy it if it has good content, right?

i was going to flip a few sites on sitepoint i have not been there for a while now it goes through flippa and you have to pay quite a bit to post.

What's wrong with 000webhost? I know I have to use .com though...

With a good alexa rank, good traffic, some pagerank....

You cant clip it after those few hours of work though. You certainly used to be able to. But people arent dumb enough to buy "content" sites now. They want to see serp traffic and atleast a little bit of income.

Originally Posted by pyronaut

You cant clip it after those few hours of work though. You certainly used to be able to. But people arent dumb enough to buy "content" sites now. They want to see serp traffic and atleast a little bit of income.

How easy is it to fake adsense payments?

Originally Posted by Silencer

How easy is it to fake adsense payments?

Well ..... Prepare for your flipping career to end pretty quickly. You want to flip one site and then end it?

IMDO , I would suggest not to do it, there are reasons. We take domain, work on it, may be 2 hours, 4 hours. Does it fetch results that easy ? I don't think so. It is as good as working hard for our own website to increase serp and ranking. It is really difficult. I find it convenient to choosing a multi niche domain and trying hard for my own website to rank better on multi niche products. How do you think about it ?

when I did it all I did was make a wordpress site with a nice theme. NEVER used a .com and some good articles. Made a site in about a day and then held onto it for around a month to put it on the established websites section on sitepoint. With no revenue and little search traffic I made atleast $150 on each site. Average was $200 a site.

Competition made it harder to keep going so I moved on to better things. But, unless you know your site is going to sell fast them put it in the startup section. Look at what people are buying and try to replicate it. Study the market and you should be fine.

Ok how do I STEALTHLY add fake adsense screens?
And should I use wordpress for my sites?

Originally Posted by Silencer

Ok how do I STEALTHLY add fake adsense screens?
And should I use wordpress for my sites?

Site flipping can be very profitable but not with that attitude.

No matter how "STEALTHLY" you do it adding fake income screen shots will at the minimum ruin your reputation at at worst land you in jail for fraud.

Here's the scenario: You list a site showing it is doing $100/month in AdSense. You sell the site for $600 based on 6 months revenue. Then the site does only $5 the first week the new owner has it. At this point the site should have done at least $25 based on your numbers and screen shots. First thing the new owner is going to do is to give you a negative post in at least the forum you sold the site and probably 1 or 2 other forums as well. Then at the end of the month the site only mad $20. If the new owner really wants to he can push you to prove that the site made what you claimed and demand a full refund when you can't. At the same time if you are in the US you can be charged with Internet fraud. If it can be proven you have done this on more then 5 sites you can also be charged with racketeering and several other crimes punishable by long term jail time.

SL

I have never flipped but is it advisable to hold the sites for at least a month

Originally Posted by SilverLizard

Site flipping can be very profitable but not with that attitude.

No matter how "STEALTHLY" you do it adding fake income screen shots will at the minimum ruin your reputation at at worst land you in jail for fraud.

Here's the scenario: You list a site showing it is doing $100/month in AdSense. You sell the site for $600 based on 6 months revenue. Then the site does only $5 the first week the new owner has it. At this point the site should have done at least $25 based on your numbers and screen shots. First thing the new owner is going to do is to give you a negative post in at least the forum you sold the site and probably 1 or 2 other forums as well. Then at the end of the month the site only mad $20. If the new owner really wants to he can push you to prove that the site made what you claimed and demand a full refund when you can't. At the same time if you are in the US you can be charged with Internet fraud. If it can be proven you have done this on more then 5 sites you can also be charged with racketeering and several other crimes punishable by long term jail time.

SL

Ok, I guess screenshots aren't the way to go.
I live in Canada anyways, not US
So should I use wordpress?
Thanks for the response bro

Originally Posted by Silencer

It sure looks profitable and though it isn't BlackHat (Well I would say GreyHat), it seems to be VERY profitable.

Should I give it a try? I got $320 in my Paypal, I'm willing to invest $20 of it to start...

To make site flipping profitable you will need to invest allot more then $20!

Here is how I was doing it and many of your heavy hitters also do it.

1) Purchase a number of high quality domain names. .com names sell the best still but if it is a catchy .info, .us, .biz, or .tv even sell well.
about.biz
dog.info
racecar.tv

2) Buy a reseller hosting account.

3) set up each domain on it's own hosting account.

4) Set up a simple index page for each domain.

What I did was to just build a simple article page and a very basic template. This is so if anyone lands on your site they have something to see. I wouldn't monotize this page in any way.

5) Walk away from those domains for 6 months.

6) Outsource 10 400-600 word articles per site

7) Build myself (I am a graphic artist) or outsource a unique template for each site.

8) After 6 months I would put the new template up and 5 of the articles.

I would then list the site as a complete turnkey system. They would get the ready made site with 5 totally unique articles, the domain name, and 5 additional unique articles that they could add to the site over time to keep it "fresh".

I would then offer them hosting for the site at $5/month. If they wanted me to add the 5 additional article I would do that for an extra $10. And if they wanted me to provide maintenance to the site (had to host with me for this offer) I would for an extra $20/month. I also offered an SEO package for an extra $50-$100 depending on what was being done.

By flipping sites this way I did not have to prove income to the site as there was non because the site at the time I sold it was ad free. The site was also already indexed as it had been submitted to the SEs 6 months prior to being sold. It was also an aged domain which is a huge plus. Lastly 90% of the time it was not a one time sale as most would at the very least host through me.

Before any of you ask, I stopped doing it because I had some health problems and knew I would be offline for 6 months to a year so I had all my hosting clients transfer to a new host, which I set up and transferred there site to for free.

If you care about your clients and treat them well you can make good long term money doing this. If you just lie and cheat those you sell the sites to don't plan on being in the biz for long.

SL

The way I see it... if you can flip a site and make it profitable, why the hell don't you just do that over and over and have auto-pilot income.

Wow huge reply thanks for the reply I shall take note

Originally Posted by SilverLizard

To make site flipping profitable you will need to invest allot more then $20!

Here is how I was doing it and many of your heavy hitters also do it.

1) Purchase a number of high quality domain names. .com names sell the best still but if it is a catchy .info, .us, .biz, or .tv even sell well.
about.biz
dog.info
racecar.tv

2) Buy a reseller hosting account.

3) set up each domain on it's own hosting account.

4) Set up a simple index page for each domain.

What I did was to just build a simple article page and a very basic template. This is so if anyone lands on your site they have something to see. I wouldn't monotize this page in any way.

5) Walk away from those domains for 6 months.

6) Outsource 10 400-600 word articles per site

7) Build myself (I am a graphic artist) or outsource a unique template for each site.

8) After 6 months I would put the new template up and 5 of the articles.

I would then list the site as a complete turnkey system. They would get the ready made site with 5 totally unique articles, the domain name, and 5 additional unique articles that they could add to the site over time to keep it "fresh".

I would then offer them hosting for the site at $5/month. If they wanted me to add the 5 additional article I would do that for an extra $10. And if they wanted me to provide maintenance to the site (had to host with me for this offer) I would for an extra $20/month. I also offered an SEO package for an extra $50-$100 depending on what was being done.

By flipping sites this way I did not have to prove income to the site as there was non because the site at the time I sold it was ad free. The site was also already indexed as it had been submitted to the SEs 6 months prior to being sold. It was also an aged domain which is a huge plus. Lastly 90% of the time it was not a one time sale as most would at the very least host through me.

Before any of you ask, I stopped doing it because I had some health problems and knew I would be offline for 6 months to a year so I had all my hosting clients transfer to a new host, which I set up and transferred there site to for free.

If you care about your clients and treat them well you can make good long term money doing this. If you just lie and cheat those you sell the sites to don't plan on being in the biz for long.

SL

hmmmm maybe I should write a report and sell it on DP LOL.

Then after I sell a bunch of them I can write a sales letter, build a site, and sell it as a turnkey site on DP with the exclusive rights to the report

But seriously I hope it wasn't to long of a reply for you. If fallowed it WILL make whoever does it money.

SL

Dude that's actually a good idea, do it bro
No it wasn't too long I read it all. Thanks.
But I don't really have 6 months time (well I do but I'm impatient to be honest....)
I wanna do that for all of summer as in 2 months.
Is that possible?

Originally Posted by SilverLizard

hmmmm maybe I should write a report and sell it on DP LOL.

Then after I sell a bunch of them I can write a sales letter, build a site, and sell it as a turnkey site on DP with the exclusive rights to the report

But seriously I hope it wasn't to long of a reply for you. If fallowed it WILL make whoever does it money.

SL

Some good information in this post.

I've had some success myself with flipping sites...buying TERRIBLE sites with some room for improvement...spend some time/money optimizing the site and adding what I believe it needs, wait a couple months and it should make significant increases in pages indexed, organic traffic and...revenue. Show these revenue gains to prospective buyers as well as explain the little work you did to earn these gains...profit.

So u think I can make a simple site with no ads but unique content and in an uncompetitive niche so it goes on p1 google easy for $50 each?

Yes but you actually have to LEARN stuff for Pro Site Designing.

Originally Posted by Silencer

Yes but you actually have to LEARN stuff for Pro Site Designing.

Oh no! Learning? Dear lord, what has the world come to. Go learn. Get money.

Originally Posted by bOnEhEAd

All this work....jeez....might as well just become a pro web designer. You can get $500-$3000/site easily, if you hustle. In comparison to all the work you're talking about with this, pro web design is nothing.

Actually being a Pro Web Designer is allot more work and take allot more patience. I know I made a living as a professional web designer and webmaster from 1995 to 2001. I quiet all but a handful of clients (the guys who had been with me from the start) when I started flipping sites.

The most important difference to me was as a site flipper I was in charge. I got to build site on what I wanted to that looked the way I wanted them to. As a web designer I had to interpret my clients vision, not at all easy. Then build the site their way. Then rebuild the site cause the client changed his mind. IMost time I would have to do at least 5 to 7 rebuilds before the client would finally make up his mind.

SL

Firstly, thanks for everyone's input. I have been considering site flipping, but really don't know what the best way to go about selling the site. I have started on this site - http://www.tradeforexreview.com/trade-forex-blog and am busy with a review site for the main domain. Could anyone give any recommendations as to what I could get for this, there is no income as yet, as I have literally just started updating the site.

Andre

Create a few backlinks for your site by submitting articles and social bookmarking it. Then it will have better chance of selling at a high price.

Here's my first shot at website spinning.
Spin site #1 (I haven't uploaded yet):

I chose digital photography because it's not an INCREDIBLY competitive niche

Comments?

Originally Posted by Silencer

Ok I know articles have to be of quality.
I know that .com is better, but hey, if your site is selling cheap, maybe $50-100, anyone would buy it if it has good content, right?

People who look to buy domains look to buy from a very large pool of domains. The .infos are the shit on the bottom that no one really wants to touch.

No comment on my first flipped website?

i once ran across the site of a web master that aside from just selling templates, was selling domains attached with unique logo/full 5 page template, and included was setting up the store, for 1500 dollars. so she just brought the domain name or already had it, built a design around the domain name and and installation, no need to have a site built up with content. it was a baby store of some kind. she had screenshots up of what the store would look like. she didnt have to worry about showing revenue or traffic.
she sold the site and set it up for the customer, dont know if it was wordpress or zencart or whatever. i think the point is she understood "branding", i think if someone is really talented at graphics and understand how to build a brand, and can sell the branding concept to the customer, then that adds real value. i thinks thats why incspring(dotcom) changed its name to brandstack(dotcom)

No opinions on my flippEd site???

Originally Posted by Silencer

No opinions on my flippEd site???

That website looks considerably spam-like, I for one wouldn't even think about buying that. The design looks...like it was done in a speedy fashion, and the design is boring. A website about Photography, and you have a picture of a flower...

Your navigation consists of two links, I can tell you put a lot of deep thought into this. I'm not trying to be rude, but your only going to get as much as out, as you put in.

I believe Digital Photography is a HUGE niche, look at DeviantART, Flickr, iStockPhoto, etc

Yeah I guess I should change the template. It's only 2links because there's a sitemap which has all the links.

If you can buy a site at like 5-6 months income then you can sell it at 9-11 months income if you find the right buyer. Only downside is that you can get scammed, a lot, and it can take a while to get rid of one for a good price. By all means though, if you find a site from a desperate guy at a steal go for it.

Lol I don't want to buy sites, I want to site flip from SCRATCH

Originally Posted by Silencer

Lol I don't want to buy sites, I want to site flip from SCRATCH

Ahhhh... that would just be selling. Flipping kind of means to buy and turn around and 'flip' it over making a profit.

There's money if you put in the time. Many sites only take a few minutes of work daily after initial promotion. Hold on to it for 6+ months and you can get some cash plus keep earnings on the way.

I sold two blogs that I had laying around last month for $1075. You have to establish traffic and revenue of course.